24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Particularly, Chair, the answer will lie in the bus Bill that we will bring in front of the Senedd. As I said, we invest £100 million and more in subsidising bus services across Wales. Do we believe that that buys us £100 million-worth of public interest?…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, Chair, the bus emergency support is coming to an end because the emergency is coming to an end, and the funding that we had available to us through emergency support in England, and then flowing through the Barnett formula, is coming to an end as the…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Wel, wrth gwrs, mae'r ffigurau yn dangos beth mae Delyth Jewell wedi ei ddweud. Rydyn ni'n gwybod bod pobl sydd ag anabledd corfforol ac anabledd dysgu yn wynebu mwy o broblemau na phobl yng Nghymru yn gyffredinol. Mae lot o'r pethau rydyn ni'n eu gwneud yn…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, I'm sure, like every member of the committee, when you visit a foodbank, the first thing you are told by the fantastic people who run them is that they wish they weren't there; they wish they weren't needed. And surely that is the aim that we should…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, rural households, of course, Chair, benefit from all those sorts of national schemes, and I want just to make that point again that, in Wales, what we have tried to do when we are able to offer help is we try to do it on a basis not of local discretion…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
I should say, Chair, I wish we didn't need a discretionary assistance fund, but I'm very proud of our record on it in Wales. You will remember that the reason we have a discretionary assistance fund is that the then Chancellor George Osborne broke up the…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, Chair, on the first point, people who've never previously needed help and who, when they do need help, have got no experience to fall back on as to how to get it, two examples. I think there are more, but two examples. The first is to pick up Mark…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
First of all, I think that Mark Isherwood very properly captured the distinction between Arbed and Nest. We are talking about a series of policy dilemmas this morning. If you were to say that the Nest programme should be recalibrated so that it focuses more…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Here's the policy dilemma, Mark, isn't it? You can run a scheme of the sort that we have had, which is not targeted in the way that you just described, but is targeted more geographically, or at particular types of tenants. The advantages of that are…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
I’m afraid I really don’t have—. I don’t want to guess an answer and then to mislead people. The note that I had for First Minister’s questions on this, as I remember, said that the idea was to procure it and to have it in place by the end of this year…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Chair, I thank Mark Isherwood for that. I welcome all the steps that the UK Government have taken in relation to prepayment meters. As I said in my first answer to Jack Sargeant, they may not go as far as we would like, but the fact that they have become part…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, if you're bleeding, Chair, sometimes even a sticking plaster is worth having, so I wouldn't want to dismiss the actions that the Welsh Government has taken over the last couple of years during this cost-of-living crisis quite in that way, because some…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, not that. I looked, when I was the finance Minister, at inducements that could be offered as part of land transaction tax. There was an experiment, where you paid less land transaction tax if you were transacting a home that had energy security measures…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, I probably agree with almost everything up until the very last phrase of the question, because I absolutely agree that reducing our energy needs, improving the quality of Welsh homes, making our contribution in that way to climate change, as well as to…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, first of all, Chair, the next iteration of the Warm Homes programme is due to be in place by the end of this year. It is delayed compared to where we had originally planned, and that is just the product of the number of different things that the Welsh…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, we definitely will be going through the letter and the spring statement and seeing where the gaps are. The gaps I've already identified—. We've specifically asked for action on discretionary housing payments and the local housing allowance. Again, when…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, Chair, we wrote to the UK Government, not directly to the Prime Minister. The way in which the system means we can influence a spring statement is through the work that Rebecca Evans does with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and there's a…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
I thank John Griffiths for that, Chair. Much of the work that is going on currently inside the Welsh Government on this issue is prompted by a report published in the last Senedd term by the committee that John then chaired. So, our officials are working with…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Well, Chair, thanks to Jack Sargeant for those further questions, and I want to congratulate him particularly on the work that he has done on the floor of the Senedd, and through the Petitions Committee, on this issue. If there's further work to be done by…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
The paradox, Chair, for families in Wales is that, while they will see the price of energy falling, their own bills will go up. I should have mentioned in my answer to Jack Sargeant's first question that another major omission in the spring statement was that…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Costau byw
Chair, thank you very much. Maybe in order not to have to repeat this many times during the morning, I'll just address some very brief contextual matters. Because when we say that the budget provides less then the bare minimum, what we are referring to is the…
24 Mawrth 2023 , Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cyflwyniad, ymddiheuriadau a dirprwyon
Gadeirydd, bore da; bore da i aelodau'r pwyllgor hefyd. Gyda fi y bore yma ar y sgrin mae Claire Germain, sy'n gweithio ym maes tlodi, a gyda fi yn yr ystafell mae Des Clifford, sy'n bennaeth ar fy swyddfa i—swyddfa'r Prif Weinidog.
21 Mawrth 2023 , Cyfarfod Llawn
Cwestiynau i'r Prif Weinidog
Llywydd, diolch i'r Aelod am dynnu sylw at y gwaith sy'n dal i ddigwydd wrth ymgynghori â'r cyhoedd ynglŷn â dyfodol ysbyty newydd i Fwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Hywel Dda. Roedd yna gyfarfod ymgynghori, rwy'n deall, yn Hwlffordd yr wythnos diwethaf, ac mae un…
21 Mawrth 2023 , Cyfarfod Llawn
Cwestiynau i'r Prif Weinidog
Llywydd, mae natur wledig etholaeth yr Aelod yn ei gwneud yn bwysicach fyth i'r bwrdd iechyd wneud y mwyaf o'r cyfleoedd clinigol a ddarperir gan dechnoleg heddiw i osgoi teithiau diangen, gwella effeithlonrwydd a darparu mynediad hyblyg at ofal iechyd yng…
21 Mawrth 2023 , Cyfarfod Llawn
Cwestiynau i'r Prif Weinidog
Diolch i Mabon ap Gwynfor am y cwestiwn. Dwi wedi clywed am y problemau maen nhw'n wynebu yn Harlech, ac, wrth gwrs, rŷm ni'n agored i unrhyw drafodaethau fydd pobl leol eisiau eu cael trwy'r cyngor lleol, ac hefyd trwy Sport Wales. I ddechrau, rhywbeth lleol…
