10. What consideration has the Cabinet Secretary given to increasing funding for culture in the Welsh Government's supplementary budget? OQ61475

I have recently agreed to allocate an additional £5 million revenue funding to the culture and social justice main expenditure group for this financial year.

You will be aware that the cultural sector has taken various blows as a result of both the difficult funding for the higher education sector, which has impacted on the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama's need to look at whether or not they will close the junior department, but, equally, I know that the Welsh National Opera has also been hammered by the fact that Arts Council England has refused to allow it to perform in places like Birmingham, where they managed to get a serious amount of income. So, I appreciate that we had to make really difficult decisions in this year's budget, but I feel that the balance has not been set quite right, and I wondered what opportunity there might be to rectify that in your preparations for the supplementary budget. 

Any choices in that space would need to be taken within the particular MEG, but I can say that Welsh Government officials have met with the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama to discuss its proposals, with my colleague Lynne Neagle, the Cabinet Secretary for Education. I think that that meeting actually took place earlier this week, so I'll ask for my colleague to provide an update on those discussions to Jenny Rathbone.