, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
I don't think I could use the word 'regular', in one sense. This is the fourth meeting since Wednesday of last week. We met on Wednesday, we met on Friday, we met on Sunday, and we met again yesterday. So, in that sense, there's been intensive engagement over…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
I'll answer the first question mostly, then, Chair. Mental health services were not paused through the whole pandemic; many services were, but mental health services were not. As a result, we don't have the same scale of backlog for mental health services…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Yes, great. Thank you very much.
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
No, not at all. There are a number of considerations for the Minister for finance with regard to housing, for example, or with regard to culture. So, there are many considerations for the Minister. The intention was that she was going to confirm that there…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Well, you'll know that the Minister is considering that particular issue every week, and we don't have a great deal of time. I know when I speak to children—I can't remember who asked me whether we speak to the young people themselves in our schools—one thing…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Well—
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Well, the first part of the question, I think, takes us to the role of local authorities, in particular, in the way that they design school meal menus and how they are able use produce that is produced here in Wales as part of those menus. Caerphilly council…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Well, it's a very important point because we know that some of the concentrations of fuel poverty are to be found in the private rented sector, where standards of insulation and basic provision are not what they need to be. There are actions that we will be…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Yes. So, we will accelerate the programme by further investment in it. The challenge in real acceleration is one I know that the Member has rehearsed herself in the past, which is that no two houses are the same. It's not possible to have a sort of industry…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Well, the greatest barrier, Chair, will be the nature of the money, because the money is money available to us only in this financial year. So, we had to find a way in which that money can be out of our hands and in the hands of people who can use it before…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Chair, certainly, I absolutely do remember the question, and very recently, within the last two weeks, I've had some further correspondence that I have seen, raising concerns about the impact on the River Wye, for example, from—what the correspondence…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Ministerial scrutiny session—Topical matters
Cadeirydd, I thank Mr Evans for those questions. I’m aware, of course, of the issue of phosphates and the NRW guidance and the impact that that is having on house building. I’m very grateful to those organisations who have, as Mr Evans said, put forward some…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Well, that is certainly true, Chair. I was being advised earlier today that the nature of the omicron wave will be, if the modelling is true, very intense over a relatively short period of time, that that gap that we’ve got used to—that two to three-week gap…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Well, in very broad terms, Chair, I think what we’d need to do is we would need to look at that basket of indicators that we use in the coronavirus control plan, and see where those indicators were in the period before COVID passes were necessary. So, the…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Well, it will do in the sense that we need to find a path for the cultural sector beyond coronavirus. That is not an easy path to plot because coronavirus is still very much with us and having a very direct impact on the sector. But the cultural sector in…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Well, in the short run, Chair, I have seen advice that has gone to the Deputy Minister responsible for culture that looks to mobilise fresh support for the sector in the immediate future. That advice will have gone to the finance Minister as well. So…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Llyr is quite right to point to some of the complexities here. The sorts of measures that we have used in the past, which were designed to improve fuel efficiency and to release money into the household budgets of people who were otherwise using inefficient…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
I definitely agree about the importance of the work that NRW does in flood risk management. The money that has been provided to NRW has, to a significant extent, been used to augment their staffing capability in the flooding field. They've been able to…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Every carriage that Transport for Wales has available to it is out there on the tracks. As I know the Member knows, you cannot expand the number of carriages available quickly, although there are more carriages and more services available on trains in Wales…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Most of the concerns that I've seen about trains in recent times are about them being overcrowded. So, far from it being that there are no people on the train because they're all in their cars. There are often concerns, and very often expressed from north…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
That's not a question that I can answer, really; I'm not responsible for the coverage, so I have no idea when coverage of that sort will end.
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
I thank Jenny Rathbone for that, because I think it has been one of the most difficult areas during the whole of the crisis that those day centres and other facilities that unpaid carers relied on and that the people they looked after looked forward to…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Well, as I said in an earlier answer, Chair, half of the £80 million has gone into the Welsh-medium sector, so we are prioritising it because of the growth that we see there, and want to see there, in order to arrive at our 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Well, the community-focused schools programme I think is really key here. I vowed earlier this year that I would never again write a sentence in a manifesto about the need to promote community-based schools, because I've written it too many times during the…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
COVID-19 recovery and winter pressures on public services
Well, Chair, childcare is a market, isn't it? It is not a public service. It is not directly provided, in the main, by public authorities. It is a market, and the Welsh Government's ability to intervene in the market is constrained to the sorts of measures…
