National Assembly for Wales

Welsh Government engages internationally across the breadth of Government, in education, health, business, environment, trade and investment, tourism and marketing to name a few. Part of my new role will be to focus this engagement by creating a new strategy which will articulate our international agenda.

International priorities will be shaped through a new international strategy. We are at the start of that process, the focus will be on economic benefit and influence for Wales.

Constructive discussions are ongoing between Welsh Government officials, the National Library of Wales, and BBC Cymru Wales regarding the national broadcast archive to ensure the viability and long term sustainability of the archive from 2024, when it will no longer be supported by external grant funding.

Sport Wales, our delivery agent, has allocated £20,000 this year to Welsh Cycling to support a range of community cycling projects in the Powys area. In addition, Sport Wales also invest just over £1 million annually into Welsh Cycling to support both their elite and participation programmes.

Governments’ decisions on where to locate consulates are a decision for them, but we are very keen to encourage other nations to follow the lead of Ireland and to establish consulates here in Wales. We will, of course. continue to work closely with embassies and high commissions irrespective of whether they have a consulate in Wales.

The themed years to date have delivered many positive results including £350 million additional spend through marketing. We will measure the Year of Discovery’s impact by continually monitoring our own marketing, evaluating the impact of partner-funded activity, and through ongoing industry feedback and surveys.

In 2018-19, the Welsh Government provide £4.2 million via the grant scheme to promote and facilitate the use of the Welsh language to core delivery partners. We will be reviewing the scheme in 2019-20.

Wales has a long history of close relationships with Catalonia and we want this to continue. However, this particular matter is one for Spain and the Spanish courts to resolve.

The Welsh Language Commissioner provides Working Welsh—Iaith Gwaith resources to help bodies advertise when Welsh services are available, and produces guidance documents. The National Centre for Learning Welsh provides tailored courses for bodies to improve their Welsh language provisions, and the mentrau iaith assist bodies to promote and mainstream the Welsh language.    

It remains too early to draw any conclusions about the potential effects of land transaction tax on commercial property transactions and revenue. We will continue to monitor the situation.

In November, over 2 million people received a letter from HMRC and a Welsh Government leaflet setting out how Welsh rates of income tax will work. Social media campaign activity is ongoing, and we are working with HMRC and external stakeholders to cascade key information and increase awareness.

The setting of budgets and council tax is a matter for democratically elected local authorities. They are answerable to their residents for the decisions they make. The Welsh Government has set out how it is reviewing council tax more broadly to improve fairness.

Our council tax reduction scheme for 2019-20 maintains entitlement to support for vulnerable and low‑income households in Wales. 

In 2018-19, the Welsh Government is providing around £210 million of rates relief to support businesses in Wales, including those in Mid and West Wales. For 2019-20, we are providing an extra £23.6 million of support through our enhanced high street and retail rates relief scheme.

In 2018-19, the Welsh Government is providing a grant which gives 100 per cent non-domestic rates relief to all community hydropower projects with a rateable value of £50,000 or below.