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.

836 speeches and questions

18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Thank you, Buffy. I'm glad you managed to get to us. The funding for Flying Start expansion is ring-fenced within the children and communities grant, so it is actually ring-fenced. The remainder of the funding within the children and communities grant is not…
18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Well, to answer those last two questions first, the rates will apply to both local authority and independent foster carers. I am expecting to issue this letter in the coming weeks, and it will say what the new rates are for the next financial year. This is…
18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Well, support for Foster Wales to recruit, retain and attract foster carers, obviously, that is adding on to what we're already doing. This is additional money for the National Adoption Service, doing a whole range of things, obviously, some of which we are…
18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Yes, and thank you very much. I think this is a very positive development that the invest-to-save fund has now been dedicated to children, and I think it does show our commitment to children and young people that we are doing this. So, what we call it now is…
18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Yes, it's how. So, Albert, perhaps you'd want to come in on that.
18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
I think that is, you know—. The points you make are very important, but I do say, obviously, we do sometimes need agency staff as well. So, I think that is important to remember—that when there are crises, you do need agency staff. But the Association of…
18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Yes, thank you very much. We are committed to radical reform of children’s services and I’m really pleased that you’re doing the report, in the inquiry that you’re doing. I think that’s going to be very, very valuable, the findings from that inquiry. The…
18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Thank you very much, Ken, for that question. We do know that the social care workforce is under stress, and I think it's been well tabulated about the difficulties there are in recruitment and retention. But if I run through what finance we actually give to…
18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
I think it's a bit confusing because money has been moved out of the budget and other money has come in. So, if I go through it, in 2023-23, the children and communities grant consists of the following six programmes: childcare and play, Families First…
18 January 2023Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24—evidence session 2
Thank you very much, Sioned, for that question. I'm aware that this committee has consistently put this question forward. We continue to believe that we need an integrated approach to impact assessments that enables us to better understand the impact of…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
No, I'm happy to carry on.
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Yes.
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
I think one of the areas that is not health in the traditional way is the huge investment that we're putting into childcare and Flying Start, the development of Flying Start, which is absolutely crucial in terms of developing a healthy lifestyle right from…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Well, I think, longer term, obviously, that discrepancy in the pay is very damaging, really, that there is that gap, and, yes, I've had people come to me about that. So, in the longer term, when we have a system that is probably integrated, yes, we will…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
This is something we agonised over, the Minister and I, when it was stopped—in August that ended. We certainly didn't want to stop it, but we didn't have the financial means to keep it going because it was actually paid from a grant that had been given from…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Thank you very much, Sarah. As you know, we've got the social care fair work forum that is working on these ideas, which is independent, made up of employers, unions and other relevant bodies, and they've been addressing all these issues. They advised us on…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
As I said in response to Rhun, we have got this £9 million specifically set aside to develop respite, and that's done via the Carers Trust. I think it's important to say that the local authorities have a duty to assess the needs of carers and that this £9…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Well, what I think we have found is that unpaid carers are very keen to get their loved ones home, but they're also very keen that it's done in a way that supports the person they're looking after, and supports them in looking after that person. And a lot of…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
No. That is one thing that we're doing—yes. But I mean, it is recognising how important it is that they interface. But actually, since January 2022, overall, £42 million has been announced to support unpaid carers over the next three years, and I think we…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Yes, I'll answer that. [Laughter.] Obviously, we have put in money, recognising the huge job that unpaid carers do, and I think during the pandemic, everybody recognised, finally, what unpaid carers do. So, I do think that they are recognised for the…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
—to help train social workers in child protection and of course in adult abuse, because another area that is a matter of great concern is adult abuse. We are preparing an action plan to try to prevent adult abuse.
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Yes. I think I responded to an earlier question about safeguarding, and children safeguarding referrals, actually, in the month from November to December, did decrease; but adult safeguarding referrals increased and children under child protection have…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
We will be using the existing budget to set up these—. Well, I mean it's at a very early stage really, so we can't talk about them in too great a detail. We are meeting and discussing it now, but we intend to use some of the existing budget to create ways of…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
No, that is something we are working on at the moment to produce multidisciplinary teams who can work together in a way that can tackle all the issues that there are in the community. The work we want to develop is in the community to prevent hospital…
11 January 2023Health and Social Care Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Deputy Minister for Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Yes, we do have plans to create—