Welsh Labour

Speeches and questions

Speeches and questions in Plenary and in committees, newest first. The Llywydd's and deputies' chairing of Plenary is left out.

959 speeches and questions

18 January 2023Plenary
Point of Order
Diolch, Llywydd. I just think perhaps a fuller explanation of the circumstances would help the Senedd, and I'm not necessarily opposing Heledd Fychan's point of order in terms of getting some clarity around this and the way that the committee scrutiny takes…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Can I say, Chair, that if there are areas that you wanted to cover today that you felt that you haven't, I am more than happy to write to you with further information on any areas that you feel that you haven't been able to cover in committee this morning?
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Yes, absolutely. I'm happy to provide feedback once I've met with Swim Wales. I'm happy to do that.
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Yes.
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
I've got about five minutes. I can give you an extra five minutes.
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
We are working with the national library to get a handle on what all the issues are, but we have put additional support in—again, aware of the impact of increasing costs on the national library. We did put in an additional £650,000 in 2022-23, to help address…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Hefin will be aware of what's happening in Caerphilly. In terms of scrutiny, I think it's important just to say that Cadw and Creative Wales are both internal Welsh Government agencies, but they have independently appointed boards—boards that are independent…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Okay. On Cadw, then, I was just saying that they're not awash with money, Cadw. Certainly, through the pandemic, they had an extremely difficult time. Most of the Cadw sites were closed and they lost a considerable amount of income, so they are kind of…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Okay. You got everything I was saying there about the botanic garden—
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Yes. Okay, let me start with the national botanic garden. So, I'm quite clear that the national botanic garden has been able to absorb its reduction. They've had a 1.1 per cent reduction, which is the same as everybody else across my portfolio. That amounted…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Oh, yes, but what I'm saying, Tom, is that that process that I've just referred to is part of the ongoing assessment, because we have to produce the annual report every year on our progress in Government, and what we have achieved and what we've not achieved…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Well, we ensure that through Cabinet, because each of us has objectives in Government that we have to deliver. And we are accountable to the Cabinet, to the First Minister, for ensuring that our programme for government commitments are achieved. We all have…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Well, I started to answer this in response to a question from Heledd Fychan earlier on about the amount of cross-departmental work that is going on in this area—in health, through the transformation fund, through our school budgets, through the new…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Because it will continue to be very important that sport is the most effective preventative health tool. That won't happen in a year.
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
And I would expect it will be in next year's as well.
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
I don't accept that, Tom. I think the fact that it was in last year's and it's in this year's just means that it's still as important as it was last year. And I—
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
So, we've signed off the pay remit for all of our arm’s-length bodies, sponsored bodies. All of them have received additional funding from Welsh Government to meet their pay awards for this year. We ensured that they had additional funding from the original…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
It is not about the finances. So, any potential delays around the national contemporary art gallery are not linked to finances. They're linked to the production of the business case and to practical aspects.
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
No, it's not—
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
We are hopeful that we will be in a position to be making progress on the national contemporary art gallery by the end of this year—
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
I'm well aware of the issues around that. So, the budget for the contemporary art gallery has not been impacted on by any of the things that we've talked about previously, and the Minister—
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
So, the strategy and the development of the national contemporary art gallery goes right back to about 2018 in fact, so it's been knocking around for some considerable time, but it was a programme for government commitment and it is part of the co-operation…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
So, you've had a copy of the remit letter that I sent to Sport Wales, and that is very clear. I will be holding Sport Wales to account on their spend and how they allocate their funding to achieve those objectives, as you will hold me to account as…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Okay, so, the remit letter to Sport Wales talks about improving community facilities, improving health and well-being through physical activity in our most deprived areas. It also talks about equality, inclusion, diversity—all of the things that we know need…
18 January 2023Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session with the Minister for Economy and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip
Again, I think that is a very fair challenge, and it's something that we have sought to address through the programme for government, and through our remit letters to our cultural and sporting bodies that we're responsible for—