, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Particularly, Chair, the answer will lie in the bus Bill that we will bring in front of the Senedd. As I said, we invest £100 million and more in subsidising bus services across Wales. Do we believe that that buys us £100 million-worth of public interest?…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, Chair, the bus emergency support is coming to an end because the emergency is coming to an end, and the funding that we had available to us through emergency support in England, and then flowing through the Barnett formula, is coming to an end as the…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, of course, the figures demonstrate what Delyth Jewell has said. We know that people with disabilities, both physical disabilities and learning disabilities, do face greater problems than the population in general. There are a number of things that we do…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, I'm sure, like every member of the committee, when you visit a foodbank, the first thing you are told by the fantastic people who run them is that they wish they weren't there; they wish they weren't needed. And surely that is the aim that we should…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, rural households, of course, Chair, benefit from all those sorts of national schemes, and I want just to make that point again that, in Wales, what we have tried to do when we are able to offer help is we try to do it on a basis not of local discretion…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
I should say, Chair, I wish we didn't need a discretionary assistance fund, but I'm very proud of our record on it in Wales. You will remember that the reason we have a discretionary assistance fund is that the then Chancellor George Osborne broke up the…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, Chair, on the first point, people who've never previously needed help and who, when they do need help, have got no experience to fall back on as to how to get it, two examples. I think there are more, but two examples. The first is to pick up Mark…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
First of all, I think that Mark Isherwood very properly captured the distinction between Arbed and Nest. We are talking about a series of policy dilemmas this morning. If you were to say that the Nest programme should be recalibrated so that it focuses more…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Here's the policy dilemma, Mark, isn't it? You can run a scheme of the sort that we have had, which is not targeted in the way that you just described, but is targeted more geographically, or at particular types of tenants. The advantages of that are…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
I’m afraid I really don’t have—. I don’t want to guess an answer and then to mislead people. The note that I had for First Minister’s questions on this, as I remember, said that the idea was to procure it and to have it in place by the end of this year…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Chair, I thank Mark Isherwood for that. I welcome all the steps that the UK Government have taken in relation to prepayment meters. As I said in my first answer to Jack Sargeant, they may not go as far as we would like, but the fact that they have become part…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, if you're bleeding, Chair, sometimes even a sticking plaster is worth having, so I wouldn't want to dismiss the actions that the Welsh Government has taken over the last couple of years during this cost-of-living crisis quite in that way, because some…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, not that. I looked, when I was the finance Minister, at inducements that could be offered as part of land transaction tax. There was an experiment, where you paid less land transaction tax if you were transacting a home that had energy security measures…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, I probably agree with almost everything up until the very last phrase of the question, because I absolutely agree that reducing our energy needs, improving the quality of Welsh homes, making our contribution in that way to climate change, as well as to…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, first of all, Chair, the next iteration of the Warm Homes programme is due to be in place by the end of this year. It is delayed compared to where we had originally planned, and that is just the product of the number of different things that the Welsh…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, we definitely will be going through the letter and the spring statement and seeing where the gaps are. The gaps I've already identified—. We've specifically asked for action on discretionary housing payments and the local housing allowance. Again, when…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, Chair, we wrote to the UK Government, not directly to the Prime Minister. The way in which the system means we can influence a spring statement is through the work that Rebecca Evans does with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and there's a…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
I thank John Griffiths for that, Chair. Much of the work that is going on currently inside the Welsh Government on this issue is prompted by a report published in the last Senedd term by the committee that John then chaired. So, our officials are working with…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Well, Chair, thanks to Jack Sargeant for those further questions, and I want to congratulate him particularly on the work that he has done on the floor of the Senedd, and through the Petitions Committee, on this issue. If there's further work to be done by…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
The paradox, Chair, for families in Wales is that, while they will see the price of energy falling, their own bills will go up. I should have mentioned in my answer to Jack Sargeant's first question that another major omission in the spring statement was that…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Cost of Living
Chair, thank you very much. Maybe in order not to have to repeat this many times during the morning, I'll just address some very brief contextual matters. Because when we say that the budget provides less then the bare minimum, what we are referring to is the…
, Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister
Introductions, apologies and substitutions
Good morning, Chair; good morning to members of the committee too. On screen, I'm joined by Claire Germain, who works on poverty, and joining me in the room I have Des Clifford, who is head of my office—the First Minister's office.
, Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, I thank the Member for drawing attention to the work that is still going on in public consultation about the future of a new hospital for Hywel Dda University Health Board. There was a consultation meeting, I understand, in Haverfordwest last week…
, Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Llywydd, the rural nature of the Member's constituency makes it all the more important that the health board maximises the clinical opportunities provided by today's technology to avoid unnecessary journeys, improve efficiency and provide flexible access to…
, Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Thank you very much to Mabon ap Gwynfor for that question. I've heard about the issues that they face in Harlech, and, of course, we are open to any discussions that local individuals might want to have through the local council, and also through Sport Wales…
