Mark Drakeford: I thank Huw Irranca-Davies, Llywydd. The youth guarantee scheme is already up and running in Wales, with the Working Wales service providing a gateway to the extended opportunities available across education, training, apprenticeships, employment and self-employment for our young people.
Mark Drakeford: I thank Jane Dodds for the question and for her good wishes.
Mark Drakeford: I thank her for drawing attention to the Robin Hood tax—the Tobin tax, as it was sometimes called—to which I have always, myself, been attracted; a very small tax on a very large number of transactions, which would result in a very significant additional inflow of funds into the UK Treasury, which could be used in exactly the circumstances that the Member outlined. She's right to say that...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Peter Fox for that. I think the single advice fund does, in many ways, address some of the issues that Peter Fox has raised, because it is a single service and people get the advice they need across a whole range of different issues, whether it's fuel poverty or problems with paying council tax, and so on. So, I think that was a conscious effort to streamline the advice services that...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I can absolutely assure Joyce Watson that time after time after time, Welsh Ministers, together with their counterparts in Scotland and Northern Ireland, lobbied UK Ministers against their plans to take that £20 every week away from poorest families. There's a quadrilateral meeting of finance Ministers later this week. Rebecca Evans will once again be making these points to UK...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Joyce Watson for that, Llywydd. The Tory cost of living crisis is already a reality for thousands of Welsh families. As I said earlier, Llywydd, the UK Conservative Government has chosen to take £20 each week away from the poorest families in the land and to break its election promises to pensioners, just as fuel prices and inflation rocket.
Mark Drakeford: Well, I thank the Member for those important points, Llywydd. First of all, to say, of course, if anybody feels that their health is changing and that things may not be as they would want them to be, they shouldn't wait for screening, they should present themselves to their GP and make sure that their health needs are attended to immediately. So, where people, who know their own bodies best,...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I entirely share the frustration of Vikki Howells at the way that a success story was communicated in a way that caused such anxiety to so many people, because the screening system in Wales is a success story. We were the first part of the United Kingdom to change our screening system to a more sensitive test for cervical cancer in 2018. We've had vaccination for HPV amongst young...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Vikki Howells for that, Llywydd. Cervical Screening Wales has implemented the recommendation of the UK National Screening Committee and extended the routine screening interval of people aged between 25 and 49 from three to five years if HPV is not found in their cervical screening test. The screening interval is now aligned with that for 50 to 64-year-olds in Wales.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, the real risk here is not that we can bring the fuel poverty target forward, but that what is about to happen to families in April will plunge more families in Wales into fuel poverty rather than reduce that number. We know that people at the bottom end of the income spectrum spend a significantly higher proportion of their income on fuel bills than people who are better off,...
Mark Drakeford: I understand the points that Adam Price makes, Llywydd. He will know that housing associations rely on rental income to finance their development programmes, so if they are unable to obtain through rental income the amounts that they were anticipating, it will mean that they can build fewer houses for social rent in future. That's what the money gets used for. The case he makes for not...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I agree with the point that Adam Price started with. The Resolution Foundation, in a very detailed analysis published only a few days ago, said that April will mark a cost-of-living catastrophe for many, many families across the United Kingdom, with bills of over £1,000 coming their way just from the fuel price rises and the changes to national insurance contributions, and that...
Mark Drakeford: Well, we will do exactly what the leader of the Conservative Party said we should do at the start of that final question—we will follow the modelling. As I've said to him, the modelling currently shows that we are not yet at the peak of coronavirus in Wales. Now, nobody, I think, in a responsible position would argue that we should be lessening the levels of protection available here in...
Mark Drakeford: Well, of course, the leader of the opposition is right that we have the latest modelling. It shows that the peak of the omicron wave of coronavirus is yet to be reached in Wales, that we may be 10 days away from the peak, and numbers could continue to climb very rapidly. Now, as I've said a number of times, in a small piece of good news, the same modelling shows numbers then beginning to...
Mark Drakeford: Well, I reciprocate the good wishes from the leader of the opposition, of course, as we go into the new year, but I don't agree with quite a lot of what he just said. All the actions that the Welsh Government takes are those recommended to us and endorsed by our clinical and scientific advisers. This is a Government that follows the science, does not spend its time trying to pressurise...
Mark Drakeford: Well, I can help with a number of them, Llywydd, otherwise I would be here for the whole afternoon, I think. But the first point to make, as I know Russell George will recognise, is that those other parts of the system are also under significant pressure at the moment. I saw only earlier today the impact on the pharmacy profession, the number of community pharmacists who are ill at the moment...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I thank Heledd Fychan for that supplementary question. Of course, I am very pleased to hear that things turned out as they did in the case that she mentioned. The impact of omicron and coronavirus on the ambulance service is very great. There are more people unwell in the ambulance trust in Wales than in any other sector throughout the whole of the health service. So, we've done a...
Mark Drakeford: Thank you. Llywydd, the most significant recent steps to alleviate pressure on the health service this winter are the vaccination booster campaign and the preventative measures taken to mitigate the impact of the omicron wave of coronavirus.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I thank Rhianon Passmore for what she said at the start of her supplementary question. Here in Wales, we have a Government that is both capable and determined to take those difficult decisions that help to keep people safe and to keep our economy open. And we do so in the context of the latest omicron wave. I'd just caution Members about the most recent figures—they do show the...
Mark Drakeford: Well, first of all, Llywydd, I have to take issue with the last remark. Staffing levels in A&E departments in Wales, at their complement level, are not unsafe—of course they're not; they meet the different royal college requirements. Now, at the moment, because of the omicron variant, we have significant proportions of staff in the NHS, and other public services in Wales, unable to be in...
