Commenting on the publication of the Senedd committee’s report HCC Chief Executive, José Peralta, said:
“We welcome the Senedd committee’s timely recommendations and conclusions, which come at an opportune time for the industry as we look to finalise with levy payers a future delivery plan for 2026 and beyond (Vision 2030).
To increase relevance and delivery, several recommendations highlight the need to look further at HCC’s broad remit and how it can be funded over and above the existing red meat levy. As noted in the recommendations, levy income alone is not sufficient to cover the current remit and workload of the organisation along with highlighting that it is evident that for HCC to fulfil its extensive mandate, additional funding will be necessary.
HCC not only recognises but has been advocating for increased funding to effectively deliver for levy payers on its broad remit and continues to discuss funding options with Welsh Government.
We also agree with the report’s recommendation to increase our joint work with other government funded bodies as well as levy-board organisations.
As a wholly owned Welsh Government organisation, the recommendation around governance arrangements is a question for the Welsh Government directly.
With respect to the recommendation to increase engagement with levy payers, HCC will continue to have a proactive and broad approach to engaging with levy payers.
HCC has significantly increased its engagement in 2025 and recognises that more can always be done, whilst appreciating this should be balanced against the cost of resourcing engagement activity against a finite budget which HCC has from its levy payers. As part of our current Vision 2030 engagement work we have asked levy payers for their views on how they would like to receive further engagement in an effective manner.”
