Agenda: Federal bills and budgetary allocations
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Good afternoon, colleagues.
Yesterday, we visited the Oryol Region and two local enterprises. One of them manufactures modern LED tools for major Russian organisations and also exports them. This is a very good example of production diversification. And we will facilitate the development of such companies in our country.
The other enterprise provides the domestic market with sunflower oil. Both production facilities get state support and operate to maximum capacity. They have created favourable conditions for their employees. We certainly need to extend this experience to small and medium-sized businesses.
But there is another and not very good example in Oryol. We inspected a local unfinished and rundown construction project that was launched many years ago. I am talking about one of the buildings of the regional clinical hospital, which has been in a rundown state for many years. So, people are unable to get treatment at the new medical centre.
I would like to ask the Minister of Healthcare and the Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities to take an active part in resolving this matter. And I ask the governor to personally oversee the entire range of measures on which we have agreed. It is necessary to monitor all stages, including expert reviews of design documents, records and cost estimates, up to the completion of all works and the installation of advanced equipment at the hospital. This work must be systemic.
It is necessary to open the facility. We should also think about this hospital’s functions in the context of the current situation, including the situation with COVID-19.
Turning to the agenda of today’s meeting, the Government will review several social matters.
This year, we are marking 80 years since the opening of the Road of Life. It crossed Lake Ladoga, and provided a route for supplying Leningrad under siege and evacuating people from there. This date reminds us of the unparalleled feat by the people who defended Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War.
In execution of the presidential executive order, we need to take a decision on supporting holders of the medal For the Defence of Leningrad or the badge Resident of Besieged Leningrad. They will receive a one-time benefit. We will earmark 4 billion roubles to this end. More than 75,000 people will receive 50,000 roubles each.
I am asking the Ministry of Labour to pay out these benefits as soon as possible, so that people receive this money by the end of November, when we mark the anniversary of the Road of Life, a transport route on ice. After all, they have done so much for our Victory.
The Government also continues to work on creating an integrated system for supporting families with children. During his meeting with members of the eighth State Duma, the President talked about the need to back every step in this direction with the required funding.
Today, we will allocate over 28 billion roubles for paying out benefits to families with children between three and seven years old. We have 2.5 million children in this age group across the country. We have already allocated more than 270 billion roubles to this effect from the federal budget since the beginning of the year. The monthly allocation varies depending on household income and can be equal to 50 percent, 75 percent or 100 percent of the regional subsistence level per child.
Of course, we will keep paying special attention to families with three or more children. It is clear that mothers, who in most cases are the ones who stay home with children, cannot work for some time. These families with small children need additional support. With the birth of the third and consecutive children, parents are entitled to a monthly benefit until the child reaches the age of three.
More than 59 billion roubles have been earmarked in the federal budget to this end. Over 620,000 families with three children and more currently receive this benefit.
However, as more and more children are born in Russia, regions need more funds. It is for this reason that we will allocate an additional 6 billion roubles to pay out these benefits for more than 48,000 children from large families. Supporting families with children will remain among the Government’s priorities moving forward.
Now let us move on to other matters on the agenda.
During our journeys round the country, we saw what damage abandoned, hazardous chemical plants could inflict on the economy of regions. Some glaring cases in point are the Usolyekhimprom production sites and the Baikal pulp and paper plant. And these are not isolated cases, not by far, where abandoned facilities prevent people from leading a normal life and destroy nature. After making a profit, former owners would often abandon their old property, leaving it to the Government to eliminate the damage.
On the President’s instructions, we have drafted a bill, which will make it possible to prevent the emergence of these sorts of problems. Today, we will introduce a number of amendments to the law On Environmental Protection and to some other regulatory acts. These amendments will make it incumbent on owners of dangerous class one and two industrial facilities using toxic substances to clean up all the damage done to nature during their operations.
Five years ahead of the end of lifecycle of a hazardous facility, its owner shall draw up a plan to eliminate pollution.
To rule out the avoidance of obligations via bankruptcy procedure or sale to a short-lived company, we will create a mechanism to survey deals with dangerous facilities of this kind. These will only be transferred to companies capable of confirming their financial stability.
The amendments also envisage various responsibilities for owners. They will make it pointless to evade environmental remediation. Owners will have to reimburse the cost of operations from other sources or lose dividends until the settlement of liabilities. To be sure, the latter is the last-resort measure necessitating a court decision.
The ecological payments will only be used to eliminate accumulated environmental damage and for other environmental undertakings.
I would like to mention yet another important theme. The Government’s earlier measures to contain food prices have proved rather effective. Nevertheless, there are quite a few questions concerning food prices arising all over the world. The prices are growing. An additional set of measures is needed to stabilise food prices in the long term. The Ministry of Agriculture has drafted proposals on this matter.
