, Plenary
Debate: The Welsh Language Commissioner’s Annual Report 2023-24
I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate, and I thank you all for the constructive spirit that has been part of the contributions in their entirety. I thank Tom Giffard for what he said about the international work that he has seen going on. The…
, Plenary
Debate: The Welsh Language Commissioner’s Annual Report 2023-24
I’m sure that Members here will be interested in the international work of the commissioner. We, quite appropriately, focus on the steps that are needed to support the Welsh language in order to secure its future, but we sometimes forget that it is considered…
, Plenary
Debate: The Welsh Language Commissioner’s Annual Report 2023-24
Llywydd, the commissioner has reviewed her ways of working in order to ensure that the regulatory work undertaken has the biggest possible impact. I welcome the fact that she has introduced a more proactive approach of joint regulation during 2024. This…
, Plenary
Debate: The Welsh Language Commissioner’s Annual Report 2023-24
Increasing the use of the Welsh language is a priority for the Welsh Government and, therefore, ensuring that there are opportunities for people to use the Welsh language in their daily lives is important to us. The annual report records the success of the…
, Plenary
Debate: The Welsh Language Commissioner’s Annual Report 2023-24
Thank you very much, Llywydd. It's a pleasure to open this debate today and to ask you to note the annual report of the Welsh Language Commissioner for the financial year 2023-24. This is the second annual report for Efa Gruffudd Jones as commissioner, and I…
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Welsh Government response to UK Government budget
Let me conclude, in that case, Dirprwy Lywydd. This was a budget that was never going to solve every problem, fill every hole, right every wrong. But what it has done, it has set the United Kingdom's economy and prospects here in Wales on a different pathway…
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Welsh Government response to UK Government budget
I think the OBR said yesterday in front of a House of Commons select committee that the Conservative Government may have broken the law in concealing—[Interruption.] The OBR—it was the OBR giving evidence yesterday in front of a House of Commons select…
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Welsh Government response to UK Government budget
Of course.
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Welsh Government response to UK Government budget
Well, this is a fairly heroic attempt, Dirprwy Lywydd, at the rewriting of history. I’m afraid George Osborne himself wouldn’t agree with what the Member has said, because he set out, as he said at the time, to reduce the scope of the state, and in three…
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Welsh Government response to UK Government budget
Don't tell your friends. [Laughter.]
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Welsh Government response to UK Government budget
No, of course I will not. Alistair Darling responded to the economic circumstances he found himself in. George Osborne—[Interruption.]. No, no, no—[Interruption.] Calm down. Calm down. Calm down. George Osborne embarked on a policy of austerity as a matter of…
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Welsh Government response to UK Government budget
Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. It was Prime Minister Disraeli who said that the Conservative Party was an organised hypocrisy, and the motion in front of the Senedd today digs deep into that rich tradition. A series of colleagues here have exposed the basis…
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Welsh Government response to UK Government budget
I move.
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
Joyce Watson is absolutely right that there is a great deal to celebrate in this budget, and there's a great deal to celebrate in the budget for the area that she represents, not simply the hydrogen investment at Milford Haven, but the fact that the Celtic…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
The childcare policies pursued in Wales are the policies agreed between Plaid Cymru and the Labour Government. They are there in the co-operation agreement, and that is what we have been implementing. I think that those policies have been a considerable…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, the long-term vision is one in which a partnership between the Welsh Government and the UK Government invests in the conditions that create economic growth. What the Conservative Party, and I hear comments from those benches, has always…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
Let me deal with the issue of coal tip safety, as that is the one point I heard a question on in what Janet Finch-Saunders had to say. The figure of £600 million is what is required over a period of 10 to 15 years. The Welsh Government has already invested…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, I don't know where to begin. Of course, we certainly did not inherit the fastest growing economy; we inherited an economy that was on its knees as a result of starvation as a result of 14 years of austerity. Let me simply deal with the…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
Well, I thank Alun Davies for both of those points, Dirprwy Lywydd. I agree with him about the financial framework. It's there in Labour's manifesto, it doesn't actually cost the Treasury anything, it just means that we are better able to use the money we…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
I think I did try to answer it when Peter Fox asked that question, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'll try again. The Treasury has said today that there will be additional funding for public sector workers to cover the costs of employer national insurance contributions. It…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm very happy to confirm that the £25 million is outside Barnett. The Welsh Government made a case to the Treasury for three-year funding for coal tip safety. I failed to answer the point that Heledd Fychan made on this, so I'll answer it…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
I thank James Evans for those important points. They are important points. I give you an assurance that they will be discussed within the Cabinet as we come to deploy the resources available to us, and I've heard very clearly the points he's made this…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
Dirprwy Lywydd, I thank Hannah Blythyn for that. I said in opening that I'm not dealing with the way in which the Welsh Government will deploy the resources that come our way this afternoon, but I hear very much what she said about social care. I heard very…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
On the broader issues that the Member raised, I don’t think I could have said it more clearly near the start of the statement that it was never our expectation that every accumulated difficulty of 14 years was going to be solved in only 14 weeks. That is how…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: The UK Budget
Can I start by thanking Heledd Fychan for her comments on coal tips, and a few other things that I didn’t have an opportunity to mention, such as Horizon, and contaminated blood, and so on?
