Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, the UK Government will not lead the inquiry. That will be the responsibility of its independent chair, Baroness Heather Hallett. Baroness Hallett is a highly respected former senior judge. She has extensive experience of dealing with high-profile, sensitive and complex inquiries, including within a devolved context.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I thank Peter Fox for those supplementary questions. There is no dispute that dentistry has been even more significantly affected by COVID conditions than other parts of the health service, because of the nature of aerosol-generating procedures, as he will know, that are inherent in the way that dentists have to go about their profession. Now, I was able to speak yesterday with the...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, additional investment, contract reform and new COVID-related guidance are amongst the measures being taken this month to increase safe access to NHS dental services.
Mark Drakeford: Well, I very much thank Jayne Bryant for that question, and I strongly welcome the Project Perthyn initiative taking place in Newport. It is an absolute public policy priority for this Government to see more children looked after closer to their homes and the communities where they grew up. Too many children in Wales are looked after outside Wales; too many children in Wales are looked after...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, such care is best provided as a public service and as close to home as possible. To that end, we have provided £3.5 million in revenue funding to regional partnership boards to develop specialist residential services for children with complex needs, and we've complemented that revenue funding by over £14 million in capital funding as well.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, thank you very much to Cefin Campbell for those supplementary questions. May I say this to him? When I speak to the Government in Westminster, I am not content just to have a voice in the decisions that they're going to be making. That doesn't reflect devolution here in Wales, the powers of the Senedd, or the fact that it is the Government here in Wales that is responsible for...
Mark Drakeford: Thank you very much to Cefin Campbell for the question. Llywydd, the UK Government has failed to honour the commitment to replace EU funding in full. Neither has it honoured its commitment that no devolved power would be lost to Wales. Communities in Mid and West Wales will have less of a say and there will be less funding available. Those places that are most in need will not receive...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I do definitely agree with what the Member said about the importance of local authorities. I'm glad that we were able to secure, in our discussions with the UK Government, belated as they were, a recognition that this reduced amount of money is best spent in Wales where local authorities co-operate on a regional basis and on the footprints that we have previously agreed with...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I promised earlier that I'd assist Paul Davies further with figures that demonstrate the extent to which Wales has lost out as a result of the decisions made by his Government. I'll give him a preview of it now. Last year, the shortfall between what we would have received had we remained in the European Union and what we got from the UK Government was £328 million. It's £286...
Mark Drakeford: Well, it's pretty desperate stuff, Llywydd, isn't it? I look forward to seeing the Member back on her feet in two weeks' time, when she can comment on the audacity of people in Wales who will be going to the ballot paper to cast their verdict on her Government. Let's see what she has to say about it then.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, the shared prosperity fund was announced in 2017, but meaningful discussions with the UK Government opened only at the start of this month. It remains the Welsh Government's position that we cannot endorse an approach that removes both funding and decision making from Wales.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I thank John Griffiths for that. I think it was the Institute for Fiscal Studies that concluded that the package of help that the UK Government is providing in England contains little direct targeting of resources on the poorest or those most in need. And John Griffiths is right, Llywydd, that the package of help provided here in Wales, which is the most extensive package of...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, Newport East families will be supported by the Welsh Government's £380 million package designed to help families across Wales with rising household bills. We will continue to do all we can within our powers to protect the most vulnerable, and we need a UK Government willing to do likewise.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, my view of the way in which we make those deaths preventable is not by taking up more time in further strategising. We have all of that in place. Where I want the energy of the system to be focused is on delivering the treatments that the existing strategy already tells us need to be there. I don't think it's sensible to suggest that people in Wales are in large numbers having...
Mark Drakeford: Well, I think that is absolutely the case, Llywydd. It was the point I was trying to make when I said that one of the reasons why we have survival rates of the sort we do is because people present with their cancer late. And people who end up having their cancer diagnosed because they come into an emergency department—and as The Lancet article demonstrates, they're not presenting at the...
Mark Drakeford: Well, one-year survival rates and five-year survival rates from cancer in Wales have improved consistently in recent years. They may still not be where other countries are able to achieve things through their health system, but the system in Wales has been gaining ground in survival rates over a number of years. There are many reasons why survival rates are not where we would wish them to be...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, sustainable food production has always been a fundamental pillar of the future that we see for agriculture here in Wales, and there are many, many advantages that Welsh farmers have in that sustainable food production area. There are many headwinds that the agriculture sector faces in Wales. We've rehearsed the impact of the war in Ukraine, but it also faces the headwinds created by...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, can I first of all be clear with the leader of the opposition—there is no crisis in food supply in Wales? There are pressures in global food markets because of the war in Ukraine, and we see some temporary measures that supermarkets are having to take in order to protect certain—and it's a small number—goods, so that there can be a fair distribution of them. But there is no...
Mark Drakeford: The Bill will be introduced in the autumn, Llywydd, and as early in the autumn as we can make that happen. Part of the reason why the Bill is delayed is because of some of the reasons that the Member has himself alluded to on the floor of the Senedd, and quite properly. I remember him asking me a question not that many weeks ago about the way in which we have to rethink some of our ambitions...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, it was a great pleasure to be out on the streets of Caerphilly County Borough Council with Hefin David yesterday. It's a cruel thrust that he makes at Plaid Cymru Members. But what I would say to him, from the conversations that I was having and I could hear him having with people on the doorstep yesterday, is that the thing that matters most to people in Caerphilly are those...
