, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: UK Government Budget
There is absolutely no doubt at all, Dirprwy Lywydd, that the £22 billion black hole is the irresponsible result of a decision to reduce taxation with no plan at all of how to deal with the consequences. And £19 billion—£19 billion—of that £22 billion goes on…
, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: UK Government Budget
There we are. Well, Llywydd, I'm afraid I think that the leader of the opposition draws attention to the wisdom of what Sir Winston Churchill had to say. Look, what I'm going to do next is I'm going to set out briefly four key ways in which a Labour…
, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: UK Government Budget
Well, of course, I completely reject that. I'll come, in a few moments, to the things that we have already said to the UK Government. It's there in the letter that I wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the first week that I became the Cabinet…
, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: UK Government Budget
Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. Well, I listened carefully to the debate. The Government will oppose the motion and the Conservative Party amendment. There are aspects in the original motion with which we would agree, and I'll try and return to those later…
, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: UK Government Budget
Formally.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Great. Thank you.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Of course.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Informal settings.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
There was one point from Mike Hedges that we were going to write on—youth services. We'll do that.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes, definite.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, immersion is a relatively new part of the landscape and a very successful one, and, as a result, has grown significantly in recent times. The Bill assumes that everything that we are currently investing in late immersion centres will continue to be…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Part 11 of the RIA sets out the plan for monitoring the Bill and how we can go about trying to have more information in the future. It shares that work out over the whole period of the Bill. It starts in year 1. In the middle, we will do research to see if…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, Chair, we are confident about the estimates that we use in the Bill. This is not one of those areas we discussed this morning where there's a wide range of costs involved. We have a clear idea of the staffing levels we would expect the athrofa to have…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Chair, first of all, I agree of course with the commissioner that there's no point in setting up a new organisation and it having no money to do what you've asked it to do. What the RIA, however, covers is the costs of the body, not the costs of its…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I thank Rhianon Passmore for that, Chair. So, in a way to just restate what Rhianon said, this is not one organisation becoming another. The current organisation, the national centre, will end, and a new organisation will begin. So, the transition…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
So, again, Chair, just to go over what I said in an answer to Peter Fox, that figure is designed to cover two sorts of activities by Estyn. One is a rapid review, where something is thought to be going wrong and Estyn needs to go in and do a rapid review of…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I think we think it's more likely to be adding to the role of somebody you already have, but, as I said earlier, I think there are parts of the Bill where a shared resource might be best in some parts of Wales. It might not be everywhere, but, in some parts…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, the figure, Chair, is an estimate that a 0.2 full-time equivalent, the equivalent of a day a week, would be needed in a local authority in order to carry out that work. We assume that that is needed continuously, so, it isn't like when you're looking at…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Thank you, Chair. So, the basis of that cost is the same basis as costs that we've already discussed, because it is derived from the grants that the Welsh Government currently provides to support local authorities to develop WESPs. So, that's the money that's…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
That's Bethan, because it's more the policy side of it.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I'm going to ask Joanna, if you don't mind.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
It's the same answer, Chair, indeed, in relation to the range issue. On the issue of effective use of existing resources, like I said earlier, Chair, primarily English-medium schools have had an obligation to teach Welsh since the Kenneth Baker Act. These are…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I think the answer to the final part of the question, Chair, is 'yes'. There are pieces of secondary legislation that flow from the Bill. I don't want to be too tedious for Mr Hedges, who had to hear all of this on Monday from me as well, but all the…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, the costs are not so much estimates, they're actuals. This is what we spend now, and that £4.37 million is made up of a number of elements. The biggest one is the sabbatical scheme at £3.8 million, but it also includes things, for example, like the…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes. There may be a whole other range of actions you would need to take if scenario 3 were to materialise. We don't believe it will. We believe that scenario 2 and the Bill itself and other things will give us that pathway to 2050.
