Mark Isherwood: Diolch, Llywydd. As you’ll be aware, the Prime Minister announced at the beginning of the month that there would be an extra £10 billion for the Help to Buy scheme, both to stimulate new home building and to get 135,000 more people onto the housing ladder, with full plans to be detailed in the UK budget on 22 November. Given that the Welsh Government previously launched its own version of...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you. The September 2017 update on the report ‘The value to the Welsh economy of angling on inland fisheries in Wales’, collated by the Sustainable Access Campaign Cymru, found that under the current arrangement for access to Welsh rivers, around 1,500 Welsh jobs and £45 million in household income is supported by angling on inland fisheries each year. There are 1.7 million days...
Mark Isherwood: 4. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the benefits that access to waterways brings to Wales? (OAQ51188)
Mark Isherwood: 4. What role does the Welsh Government play in the rehabilitation of offenders in Wales? (OAQ51179)
Mark Isherwood: Diolch, Llywydd. In this National Hate Crime Awareness Week 2017, let us acknowledge that hate crime is defined as an offence perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic. This Welsh Government debate calls on us to note the progress made in relation to the Welsh Government’s 2014 tackling hate crime framework. The all-Wales hate...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you, and that’s why I chose the word ‘supporting’. Three weeks ago, I raised concern with you expressed by the four police and crime commissioners and four chief constables in Wales that their inability to access the £2 million paid to the apprenticeship levy could result in fewer police officers, and potential recruits choosing to sign up for English forces instead. In your...
Mark Isherwood: 4. How is the Welsh Government supporting the recruitment of police officers in Wales? (OAQ51187)
Mark Isherwood: On the IT, you will recall that, several months ago, Irish Ferries told us that they were, amongst others, in dialogue with HM Revenue and Customs over IT solutions. Would you not, like me, hope that, by now, the Welsh Government would have engaged with this to establish what IT solutions were being considered by HM Revenue and Customs, as the body that will ultimately decide on this?
Mark Isherwood: Well, I’ll try and stick to the report, which states that concerns over implications of Brexit for Welsh ports centre on three areas: that a soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will displace traffic from Welsh ports to those in England and Scotland via Northern Ireland; that any new customs arrangements will create technological and logistical challenges for our...
Mark Isherwood: This is Hospice Care Week 2017, celebrating both 50 years since Dame Cicely Saunders established the hospice movement in the UK and the many faces of hospice care, raising awareness of everyone involved, from nurses to volunteers, chefs to chaplains, fundraisers to carers. Hospices across Wales asked people to show their support by wearing yellow today, and Hospice UK launched the ‘Hospice...
Mark Isherwood: During my meeting—[Inaudible.]—with community transport providers in Flintshire, they told me that, after they resisted pressure to take on some commercial routes, the council had commissioned some pilot schemes from commercial providers that they felt would not be viable once the pilots ended. They also told me that the Welsh Government had set up transport for health groups in each...
Mark Isherwood: There’s been no increase in the full-time equivalent number of GPs in north Wales in a decade, despite increased population and trebling in GP contracts, and the number of GP training places in north Wales has been at a historic low now for a decade. The north Wales local medical committee, in the Assembly three years ago, called for contact to be re-established with Liverpool medical...
Mark Isherwood: Of course, in 2010, the UK budget deficit was the worst in the G20, behind only Ireland and Greece in the EU. Though, if we’d sought to increase the deficit faster, we’d have had greater cuts imposed upon us. If we’d sought to reduce the deficit more slowly—sorry, the other way around. If we’d increased the deficit by spending more, we would have had higher debt If we had borrowed,...
Mark Isherwood: Three weeks ago, I attended a meeting in Wrexham with the Polish ambassador from London, the consul general from Manchester, a council representative, various agencies in attendance, and, of course, representatives of the Polish and Portuguese communities, talking about how we could develop a contact centre. In this case, the Polish consul talked about the Polish community business clubs...
Mark Isherwood: Do you recognise that a number of not-for-profit mutual banks and building societies also crashed for the same reasons as some of the for-profit larger banks?
Mark Isherwood: As our report states, for the Welsh Government to be letting a franchise for the first time represents a big challenge, and as the Welsh Government response states, ‘Passengers expect a high quality and efficient service that is affordable and accessible to all.’ In this response, the Cabinet Secretary states that if the Welsh Government secured the repeal of section 25 of the Railway...
Mark Isherwood: All my questions have been raised with me by members of the Wales Neurological Alliance and the cross-party group on neurological conditions, which I chair. The revised neurological delivery plan acknowledges that national guidelines set out the Welsh Government’s expectation of effective care for people with a neurological condition, and the National Institute for Health and Care...
Mark Isherwood: Thanks very much for your statement. You refer to your establishment of a transport steering group to develop a work programme for the north-east Wales metro, referring to a range of partners in north Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire. Now, of course, there already is a working group, created via the Mersey Dee Alliance, the North Wales Economic Ambition Board and their partners. To what extent...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you for that. When, earlier this year, I raised in the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee concern expressed by the four Welsh police forces that they couldn’t access the apprenticeship levy and the £2 million that they were paying into it, the skills Minister replied that the Welsh Government would instead strike up a grant or contract arrangements, in dialogue with the...
Mark Isherwood: 5. How is the Welsh Government supporting apprenticeships in Wales? (OAQ51057)
