£1.8bn for green schemes in three-year Welsh budget
FREE SCHOOL MEALS PART OF LABOUR DEAL WITH PLAID CYMRU
THE Welsh Government is to pledge £1.8 billion for green investment as part of their new budget.
The three-year draft budget, announced by finance minister Rebecca Evans MS sets out the Government’s future priorities.
They include areas such as adult health and social care, local government, the climate crisis and post-lockdown economic recovery.
Green investment of more than £160 million in revenue and £1.8bn capital will be committed over the period, and spent on growing a national forest, creating biodiversity, active travel, the circular economy, renewable energy, flooding, and decarbonising housing.
In April 2019, Wales was the first country in the world to officially declare a climate emergency and in October this year the Welsh Government
published Net Zero Wales – setting out its intention to make Wales net zero by 2050.
Ms Evans said the budget would “shape the Wales we want to hand over to future generations” by funding ways to “cut emissions and be a greener nation”.
“This budget will leave Wales in a better place to manage the effects of the climate and nature emergency that are already affecting so many communities in Wales, and will only affect more in the future.
“We can never lose sight of the importance of protecting our planet,” she said.
Significant attention will be paid to the funding set aside for policies in the Labour-Plaid co-operation agreement, which includes free school meals.
Officials have said constructing the budget has been challenging in the wake of the UK Government’s spending review in October, which ministers have said gave Wales a “lower-than-expected” settlement.
The UK Government said the £18 billion settlement is the largest annual funding package given to Wales since devolution.
There has also been criticism from the Senedd of Westminster’s refusal to help pay to remediate the country’s coal tips, which has an estimated price tag of between £500 million and £600 million, nor to fund new rail infrastructure.
Arrangements for replacing EU Structural Funds have been said to fall well below the £375 million a year the country was receiving.
Wales has more than 2,500 coal tips pre-dating devolution which, due to the growing impact of climate change, are now at increased risk of slippage.
The Welsh Government will be providing an additional £4.5 million in the budget, a total capital investment of £44.4 million, to carry out essential maintenance works and develop a future reclamation programme.
Plaid Cymru have said the budget will “change people’s lives for the better” by paying for schemes such as free school meals for all primary pupils and free childcare for all twoyear-olds.
However, Llyr Gruffydd MS said: “In reality of course, far more could be done if the size and scale of the Welsh budget wasn’t dictated by a Tory UK Government in Westminster that is out of sight and so out of touch with our nation’s needs.
“Had the Budget increased in line with the size of the UK economy since 2010, Wales would be better off to the tune of £3 billion.”