15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I'm in the stage of engaging with officials on bringing this forward in fairly short order. I’m trying not to say a specific date here, because I genuinely don't know the specific data. But it won't be long before we bring that forward.
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I don't like long strategies anyway.
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Yes. It will not be long.
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I think the answer is 'yes', because we're coming at it in a number of ways, but I think it's fair to anticipate that this will need to be reviewed and ramped up as we build those networks, as we build the capacity of the growers. Those could be agricultural…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Yes. And we're starting to see farmers innovating with this, including, fair play, the deputy president of NFU Cymru, who herself now has an enclosed horticultural area, which, in addition to her long tradition in more conventional arable, uncropped farming…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Yes. Jenny, first of all, you're right. We've got a job of work to continue to produce these circular, more local, regional food networks. There are a range of policy instruments in that, including what we can now do with our strengthened approach to…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
For that purpose.
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
So, the touchstone for the brokerage event is whether we can achieve at least that and possibly go further.
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
So, I think it's the—. We assess it very closely in a number of ways: the outputs of the Welsh economy; the creation of those wider economic opportunities. So, things such as job creation, sales growth, innovation of the sort we were just talking about…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Thanks very much, Jenny. The brokerage event is very, very important, but it is of a piece; it's not the only thing we're doing. So, the brokerage event is essentially bringing together international visitors to grow both our exports, but also domestically as…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
But you're absolutely right, that what we are in here is working with a one-year budget, with the intention to actually move ahead then. And I think the UK counterparts are very seized with this as well, that we give that stability, not just in the farming…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
So, I think your analysis is right. Look, we'll have—. Sorry, I probably misspoke, saying the spring budget. We'll have a review of spending during the spring. We'll also see what other financial events, fiscal events, there are in the year ahead. I don't…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
They do, and I'm happy to give an answer on that. Part of this—and I'll ask Gian Marco to come in, in a moment—is because we still have legacy schemes. We're actually finishing off some schemes that ran over a defined period, and those run up to a certain…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Do you know, I'm really tempted to draw a direct comparison, but one of the challenges with the traditional European schemes, and one of the advantages of them, is that they were long term—they were multi-annual and seven-year duration. So, to try and draw…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Well, it's inevitable, it's like clockwork, isn't it? These things come around. I don't know for certain, I'm anticipating. Look, what I can say is that our ask this year has been very clear, as it was last year. What we committed to doing this year was at…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Well, yes, indeed.
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I know, I know.
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Sam, you tempt me into messing up other colleagues and cross-Cabinet discussions—
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I'd just urge caution a little bit because we've still got—. It's good that we've secured this and I think it's landed well, by and large, even though there would be always demand from the farming community for more. By and large, it's given some stability…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Well, I do note that both the Farmers Union of Wales and the National Farmers Union and others have been calling for additional support, reflecting, actually, a retrospective element of inflation over several years there, not just this year's inflation. Our…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I think the genuine answer to that is that we are developing capacity within the food and drink sector, we're developing demand within the food and drink sector to do more and to add that value down the chain. We are certainly capitalising on that, because…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I think that's so important, and I've got to acknowledge we need to do more, and also, of course, there are market forces here that influence. But I think Welsh Government has a role, alongside other organisations out there that work with the agricultural…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I think there are some key overriding objectives, Chair, that we've tried to adhere to in setting this budget, and it's probably fair to say that, even though it hasn't been an easy budget, it's been easier than recent years' experience, where we've had…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs and the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning
Well, there's a small but very important part that falls within our portfolios on this—the work that we do together on food and drink. It is a rip-roaring success, in terms of Welsh food and drink. Based on the high standards we have, based on the credibility…
15 January 2025 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs and the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning
I think the hard reality is we would have liked to have resolved this by now, if there wasn’t a series of year-by-year changes and adjustments. I was there, as a backbencher, with the interparliamentary group out in Brussels, when there was a really good…
