Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, the Welsh Government supports the promotion of good physical and mental health for men through a range of existing public health strategies and programmes. These include, for example, our suicide prevention strategy and actions to promote early awareness of prostate cancer and heart disease.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I agree with what Darren Millar said, that we have many faith communities here in Wales who have important links with communities elsewhere in the world, and that brings with those connections opportunities to enrich people's understanding and to develop those connections between people that are to the benefit of us all. The international strategy, though, I think does have a...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Heledd Fychan. The point that she raises is an important one, and I agree with what she said when she quoted what was in the Western Mail. We've been doing things already, of course, with the FAW to prepare for Wales's visit to Qatar. I had an opportunity to meet with the ambassador from Qatar, who came to Wales last week, and I am meeting with the UK ambassador to Qatar next week...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Heledd Fychan for the question. Llywydd, progress was set out in the annual report on our overseas network, which was published last month. The report recorded outcomes against the international strategy in terms of raising the international profile of Wales, supporting international trade and establishing Wales as a globally responsible nation.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, Ken Skates makes a very important point in that contribution and, as a former Minister responsible for the economy here, I can see why he has wanted to highlight the fact that, while this Government struggles and fails to provide the sorts of help for people faced with a cost-of-living crisis, at the same time they are losing money hand over fist in some other schemes that they...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, over 12,000 households have benefited from the £200 winter fuel support payments in the local authorities covered by the Member's constituency. In April alone, over 2,200 payments were made from the discretionary assistance fund in those same local authorities and, of those payments, more than 90 per cent were cash help for emergency food and fuel.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I continue to believe that, if Wales and the United Kingdom were inside the single market, all those barriers to trade that we see doing such harm to the Welsh manufacturing industry and to Welsh agriculture, those will be removed. It's an inescapable fact that our nearest and biggest trading partners are still in the European Union. Now, trade with them—. Uniquely, as you...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I don't think there's any doubt at all—how could there be—that the availability of being within the single market is having that additional positive impact on the economy in Northern Ireland. Here in this Chamber, many of us advocated a form of Brexit recognising and respecting the result of the referendum but wanting a different form of Brexit, a Brexit that would not have been...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, Adam Price is right, of course. Those were very concerning figures published yesterday, and for the first time since the pandemic began we've had two consecutive months in which GDP has fallen, and, for the first time, we see those falls across all three major sectors of the economy: the service sector shrunk, industrial production shrunk, manufacturing shrunk. These are not solely...
Mark Drakeford: Three points in reply to those questions, Llywydd. I don't have the figure in front of me and I don't just want to guess it from memory. Money is being spent from the £375 million, and I'll make sure that the Member has the accurate figure of what has been spent so far on the survey work and is due to be spent on the remedial and repair work during the rest of this calendar year. On the...
Mark Drakeford: Well, I absolutely agree with that final point: we want the money to leave the Welsh Government and to be doing the good that it's intended to do as fast as possible; it's for spending over three years. Can I make just one specific point to the leader of the opposition? This money is not just for cladding, and this is a big difference between the approach we are taking in Wales and the...
Mark Drakeford: I thank the leader of the opposition for those questions, and of course share what he said in opening his questions this afternoon. This is the fortieth anniversary of the Falklands war. It is right that we use this opportunity to think both of those people who served directly in that conflict, but also the families of those people who never returned from the Falklands. I will be at Llandaff...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I'm glad for any help that goes to those people who are in the most difficult sets of circumstances. But let's be clear with the Member that the money going to people who rely on universal credit just about makes up for the cut of over £1,000 that was put into those households in September of last year. They're no better off now than they were then. The Chancellor simply...
Mark Drakeford: We see them smirk.
Mark Drakeford: We see them smirking.
Mark Drakeford: Well, I thank Alun Davies for that question, Llywydd. It was a pleasure to visit with him, back in April, the Star Centre at the old Sirhowy infants school in Tredegar and to see the fantastic work that was being done as a distribution centre for food in the pandemic generally and now to focus upon those whose needs are the greatest. But the Member is right, Llywydd, that it was a visit to...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I thank Alun Davies for that question. Sustained investment in community food projects, including foodbanks, together with schemes to alleviate holiday hunger, are amongst the actions being taken in Blaenau Gwent. As an area with high levels of in-work poverty, it will be at the forefront of our commitment to free school meals for all primary-aged pupils.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I understand exactly the point the Member is making about the nature of construction of houses in parts of Wales; it's not confined to the part of Wales that the Member represents. And we have local authorities who have put forward plans to us that allow us to help them to invest in novel and innovative technologies, that, even where the basic construction of a home doesn't...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I very much agree with the final point the Member made. The construction industry, unfortunately, continues to attract people from only part of Welsh society. And for women looking to work in it, too often it does not look like the sort of place that you would feel comfortable in working. Now, I do know that, through our colleges, real efforts are being made to attract young women...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, there are a series of measures the Welsh Government is taking to assist households with the escalating price of energy. But there are a series of barriers, I'm afraid, to instituting an emergency programme of household insulation. To begin with, we simply don't have the capital available to the Welsh Government to mount such a programme. Astonishingly, Llywydd, the capital available...
