, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
No, it isn't a midpoint in a range. It is taking the specific costs and giving you the actual figures that we think best reflect the current state of play. Now, to give you just one example, we provide a cost that we say a local authority will incur in…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, essentially Ministers do rely on the advice that you're given, because we have an analytical knowledge services unit in the Welsh Government who do this all the time, and whose job is to make an assessment of the best method that can be used to give the…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Wrth gwrs.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
So, there are many instances when those costs are known and can be quantified and we can be confident about them. And the advice that Ministers have—and I certainly myself endorse it—is that the way in which figures have been assembled for this RIA is the…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
A precise figure, rather than figures that don't illustrate the fact that things are more varied on the ground.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Ministers are advised by our experts in knowledge and analytical services on the best methodology to deploy when providing an RIA. In this case, the advice was clear that had ranges been the preferred method for describing and capturing the costs involved in…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
The starting point is that the Bill does assume that the investments that are currently being made will be sustained into the future. So, that's the foundational principle of the Bill: that the significant resources that are there now will continue to be…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Chair, on the question ‘Why now?’, this Bill has been long in preparation. You can date its origins as far back as 2017. So, the Bill is not something that could have taken anybody by surprise. It’s been in the Government’s legislative programme from the…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Good morning, Chair. Thank you very much. I’m Mark Drakeford, the Cabinet Secretary responsible for the Bill. With me this morning is Bethan Webb, who has led on the Government side on policy, and Joanne Corke, who has helped us through the analytical…
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
So, I thank Members for all their contributions. This is, at the end of the day, an exercise that just regularises decisions already made. Importantly this year, it means that committees who will be scrutinising the draft budget that we will lay in December…
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
I thank Heledd Fychan for her contribution. As I explained to the Chair of the Finance Committee, it was difficult to assess the risk at the end of the period when we were preparing our final budget, and, in terms of the £5 million that we found subsequent to…
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
Well, I’m grateful to the leader of the opposition for clarifying again that his party is opposed to the pay award that was made to junior doctors here in Wales. He’d rather have seen them on strike like they were in England, no doubt. I did welcome what…
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
Yes, of course.
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
Llywydd, Peter Fox asked for more money for the NHS, more money for social care, more money for rate relief, more money for local authorities, more money for education, and then said that it was wrong to raise taxes in order to pay for any of those things. I…
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
But I do agree on the points that the Chair of the Finance Committee made, and which Mike Hedges referred to, in terms of flexibility. The Welsh Government’s policy is to have greater flexibility in order to deal with the money that's in our hands, and we…
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
Can I thank the Chair of the Finance Committee for their report? I share his ambition and that of Mike Hedges that we report as plainly as possible on the changes that are recorded in what Mike Hedges correctly described as this minor financial event. I can…
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
Thank you, Llywydd, and thank you to all Members who have contributed to the debate, particularly those who have focused on the supplementary budget.
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
Llywydd, there will be a second supplementary budget later on in the financial year. The second supplementary budget will identify any other funding that is allocated from reserves this year. That too will include the details of any consequential funding for…
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
Llywydd, the supplementary budget includes both spending and financing plans for the Welsh Government and the bodies directly funded from the Welsh consolidated fund. It has been the usual practice for the first supplementary budget to take place before the…
, Plenary
Debate: The First Supplementary Budget 2024-25
Thank you, Llywydd. The first supplementary budget for 2024-25 is the first opportunity to update the plans for this financial year. It follows changes that have been made since the Senedd passed the final budget in March. The supplementary budget also makes…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Thank you very much.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Chair, the term 'correlation' is used, I think, three times in the Bill, and it is there simply to make sure that different strands across the Bill are drawn together when they have a cumulative impact on the policy intention that the Government is pursuing…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
I can confirm that, Chair. It was something that struck me on receipt of the letter: of course, this Bill was drafted in Welsh, and it was translated to English, and that doesn't always happen. Usually, people raise issues where the Welsh doesn't do quite the…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Well, Chair, I agree that Alun Davies has made fair points there. Of course, in the context of these specific powers, we have placed 10 per cent on the face of the Bill, so that's where we are starting from. In the future, if that is amended, I don't think…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Well, I didn't come here this afternoon to be controversial, Chair—that was never part of my ambition—but I do remember a previous conversation in front of this committee, and I'll make the point again. The procedures that the Senedd has to have overnight of…
