, Plenary
Motion of condolence and tributes to Her Majesty The Queen
We offer our sincerest sympathies to the new King and his family. Our thoughts are with the new Prince and Princess of Wales. We wish them every success in this new chapter in their lives of service. In Welsh, there is a proverb: colli tad, colli cyngor…
, Plenary
Motion of condolence and tributes to Her Majesty The Queen
Llywydd, in a remarkable life, the last 24 hours of the Queen's reign were amongst the most extraordinary. No-one who watched it unfolding will forget the sight of someone so determined to fulfil her constitutional obligation, confirming a new Prime Minister…
, Plenary
Motion of condolence and tributes to Her Majesty The Queen
Thank you very much, Llywydd. For 70 years, we have always known that this time would come. But, ultimately, it came swiftly and unexpectedly. It's difficult to believe now that we were gathered here in the Senedd just a short few months ago to celebrate the…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Chair, as you know, Vaughan Gething and I met the managing director of Tata here in this building on a Saturday a few weeks ago when he was here from India, and there was a series of messages he was keen to convey to us and to ask for some help in making sure…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
I think so. It's not a party issue, I don't think. There are people in every party here who will have ideas and experiences of the way the Senedd works, and how that might be improved or amended to take account of the new circumstances.
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
In the finance space particularly, I'm sure Rebecca Evans will have ideas and I don't want to say anything that trespasses into thinking she may be having. As to how the Senedd as a Parliament grapples with those issues, it really isn't for the Government to…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
One of your predecessors, Peredur, as Chair of the Finance Committee, did quite a bit of work on what a finance Bill procedure for Wales would look like. I think the feeling at the time was that fiscal devolution—. It was too soon, because we'd only just…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Well, as to the future of those IGR arrangements, they've never really got fully off the ground. They were signed in March of this year; the Northern Ireland elections were triggered within a week or so of that, so there was a period when Northern Ireland…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Well, that was exactly the point that I was going to make. We have invested quite a lot, as the Welsh Government, in supporting health boards to build up inside the NHS bank arrangements, where people do have that flexibility and can make choices about when…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Well, I think there are a number of different questions there. Look, when I was the health Minister, I remember the King's Fund produced a paper that said that there are only three problems with reforming the health service: the public, the patients and the…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Well, first of all, Chair, I wouldn't accept the characterisation of the north Wales plan as disastrous. There have undoubtedly been some implementation challenges in it. But the plan itself, and the plan in south-east Wales, is the right plan. It is…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Yes, of course.
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Well, there's a series of strands in that, Chair, and Gian Marco will maybe give you some of the detail of the current investment. It is important to just put a bit of perspective into it. I think we protect over 400 km of the Welsh coast by the…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Yes, very much so.
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
We do plan to produce such a strategy, Chair. It's a very difficult moment, I think, to do that because the Brexit impact on that part of Welsh industry is still so unsettled. It's one of the tragedies of Brexit that our seafood industry, or the mussel…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
The coastal communities fund is not a happy story, Chair. As you know, it was financed by revenues generated from the Crown Estate marine activities; it's another argument for devolution of the Crown Estate. The UK Government decided not to fund the coastal…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Of course.
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
The map was published on 7 July, Chair. I'm sure we would be able to share the map with members of the committee, if that was of interest; I don't think it's a map shared just with us. And, of course, our officials will be studying it at the moment. The…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Well, Chair, the National Grid is one of those topics that I occasionally think I've understood, then I look away from the person who has explained it to me and found that I've forgotten it all. And on a Friday afternoon at the end of term, if you don't mind…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Well, Chair, you're right—the co-operation agreement commits us to pursuing devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales. We think that is the right thing to do. It is devolved in Scotland. It would give us a greater flexibility if we were to have it devolved here…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Chair, I think, on the big things that concerned us, we got an agreement. Now, when it comes to weighing up bids, it is possible that there will be some aspects that will be of greater significance to us than they would be to the UK Government, and no doubt…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Well, one of the things that we achieved positively in our negotiations with the UK Government is that, unlike in England or in Scotland, our free port prospectus will allow for a joint bid to come forward by more than one port. That wasn't possible in…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Well, our aim, and it was the agreed aim of both Governments, was to put together the prospectus against which bids would come in and to be in a position to publish that early in the autumn. Now, I have a feeling—I've not seen anything, there's been no formal…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
Chair, this is one of the more successful aspects of the Welsh Government's relationship with the UK Government in recent months—a relatively rare positive spot on the landscape. The history of it is that free ports are a UK Government idea. I continue myself…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Economic strategy for coastal and rural communities
It's right on the edge of my memory there, but Prosper from Pasture is one of the schemes that Farming Connect runs in the dairy sector, again to make sure that more can be done to turn the raw milk that is produced into things that can be sold that you can…
