5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, the Conservative benches in the Senedd think that they can cover their shame by shouting, but it doesn't work, and it certainly doesn't work amongst the people whose lives are affected by the policies that they pursue. The Chancellor did not mention…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Well, Llywydd, the Chancellor—[Interruption.]
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, you need nerves of steel to stand up on the Conservative benches here and complain about child poverty. Does the Member not know—? Does she not know that in the last Labour Government, child poverty fell, in Wales and in the United Kingdom, year…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Well, Llywydd, the Member's own region vividly demonstrates that differential experience that children in Wales have. Blaenau Gwent has the highest proportion of children living in relative poverty in Wales and, right next door, Monmouthshire has the lowest…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, the most recent evidence suggests that 28 per cent of children in Wales are living in relative poverty. Child poverty has deepened as a result of decisions made by successive UK Conservative Governments. We in Wales use all the levers we have…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Well, Llywydd, I'm going to set to one side the assertions the Member made in the preamble to his question. But let me remind him that Wales has more people in work today than ever before; we have lower unemployment levels than other parts of the United…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, I agree completely with Joyce Watson. To find yourself homeless must be one of the very bleakest things that can possibly happen to somebody. The idea that people make themselves intentionally homeless, that it is, as the former Home Secretary said…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, the autumn statement contained no targeted support for people in Mid and West Wales, those people who are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and facing incredibly difficult decisions this winter. The statement was also a disaster for public…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Well, Llywydd, I'm quite certain that the 'no wrong door' approach is the right one. Young people with complex needs can break through the surface of services at almost any point, and what we don't want is for those young people then to simply be referred…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Well, Llywydd, I think there still is a cross-party commitment to improving services for people with neurodiverse conditions, and the neurodiverse improvement programme is just one example of work that has been put in place since those debates some time ago…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Thank you to Heledd Fychan for that further question, Llywydd. She points to an important matter, that these are neurodevelopmental conditions, and they can emerge at different points in people’s life course, and the focus and the state of knowledge that…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
I thank Heledd Fychan for the question. The Welsh Government is undertaking an evaluation of the autism code of practice. The latest report notes areas of good practice, but also suggests that we need to standardise information and improve access to that…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Well, Llywydd, this is a complex idea, and there are many downsides to it as well as advantages—and there are advantages to it, and I know that because I was involved in very detailed discussions alongside Scottish counterparts during the Brexit negotiations…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, there are some fundamental challenges for us in Wales. If you look at the last set of figures about the Welsh population, the only growth—the only growth—in the population of Wales comes from people who have moved to live in Wales. Our own population…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, I do. I think it is important to have a migration policy that is not mesmerised by numbers, but focuses on the needs that are here in this country that need to be met and the contribution that people who come here to help with those needs make to our…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Well, Llywydd, when Kirsty Williams came here to report on the last PISA results, she reported that Wales was the only part of the United Kingdom to have seen an improvement in every single domain of PISA. I want to make sure that young people in Wales do as…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Well, Llywydd, I am very grateful to those 2,500 young people in Wales who entered the PISA regime this year, and nothing in these results should be a reflection on them or, indeed, on their schools. There is much that we want to do and much that we will do…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, first of all, can I echo what the leader of the opposition said about events that are unfolding in Aberfan? I was grateful for the briefing I received earlier in the day from Dawn Bowden, the constituency Member. Events continue to unfold, and, I…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, I absolutely agree with Peter Fox that children who are caught up in these circumstances are themselves victims of those circumstances. And I recognise exactly what Peter Fox said, Llywydd, about the sense of shame the children feel at what has…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
I thank Peter Fox for that, Llywydd. The Welsh Government jointly chairs the Wales family contact group, together with HM Prison and Probation Service. That group brings together leads across the justice system around the same table, to improve the support…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
I thank the Member for those further points. Llywydd, there are Members of the Senedd who believe in principle that we should never allow a piece of legislation to be taken through the House of Commons on our behalf. That has never been the view of the Welsh…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Well, I thank Hefin David for those further points, Llywydd. He's right to say that the Bill is a significant advance not simply in relation to the rights of leaseholders, but the rights of freeholders in the circumstances that he set out. And I'm well aware…
5 December 2023 , Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
I thank Hefin David for that question. While housing responsibilities are devolved, property law is a reserved matter. Leasehold reform depends on both aspects, and the Welsh Government will lay a legislative consent recommendation that supports the Bill…
29 November 2023 , Plenary
Debate on the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee Report, 'Wales-Ireland relations: Exploring an old relationship in a new age'
That sense of history is not just the long and deep history, but it's the history of devolution as well. I was grateful to Heledd Fychan for what she said about the work that Eluned Morgan had done when she had the international relations portfolio to help…
29 November 2023 , Plenary
Debate on the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee Report, 'Wales-Ireland relations: Exploring an old relationship in a new age'
Llywydd, the Chair of the committee said, in opening the debate, that there is no more long-standing relationship than that between Wales and Ireland, and many Members have chosen their own examples of that in the debate this afternoon. Darren Millar was good…
