Lee Waters: Cabinet Secretary, you said that the outset that this is a fast-changing environment that has been vulnerable to a degree of disruption in recent years. The report decides that the Welsh Books Council is the best body—best place—to lead up through this uncertain terrain, but it also says that the Welsh Books Council needs to develop different levels of risk appetite, it needs to develop...
Lee Waters: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I certainly welcome your statement about the future investment in coding. I think that’s very encouraging and I do hope, given the opportunities there are from coding, that the announcement is of a sufficient scale to be able to take advantage of those opportunities. I also acknowledge your remarks about the DCF and Hwb being hailed across the world and we...
Lee Waters: Cabinet Secretary, I'm genuinely excited about the potential of this strategy, not only as a health intervention, but as an economic intervention, too. Genomics is one of the fast-emerging industries of the much talked-about fourth industrial revolution. We’ve discussed some of the unparalleled health advantage—we're told we can expect cancer treatments, for example, 20 times more...
Lee Waters: Can I add my thanks to Paul Davies for bringing this legislation forward, and for the consensual way in which he’s engaged in developing the proposal to date? I think there is a consensus in this National Assembly that more needs to be done to help families with autism. And can I say that I agreed with much of what Leanne Wood said? I hope that we can all focus on what we can agree on and...
Lee Waters: You’re playing to the gallery now.
Lee Waters: But what about any other condition?
Lee Waters: Diolch, Llywydd, and I shan’t follow the example of my colleagues in heaping praise upon the work of our own committee—that’s for others to form an opinion. It’s worth reminding ourselves why we set about this piece of work and the rather dismal backdrop when we began our work. There’s been, over the last 10 years, a 22 per cent cut in the number of hours of English language...
Lee Waters: Will the Minister give way?
Lee Waters: Given the distinction that he makes between the role of us as parliamentarians and the Government in the inter-institutional arrangements, as he puts it, does he have any reflections on the recommendation in the report that, before he gives the go-ahead for the approval of a BBC Wales appointee to the board, the Assembly’s culture committee has an opportunity to question that nominee?
Lee Waters: 7. What assessment has the First Minister made of the ‘Innovation Wales’ strategy? OAQ(5)0660(FM)
Lee Waters: Thank you, First Minister. The market disruption that’s accompanying what’s widely called the fourth industrial revolution does give us an opportunity to reimagine the Welsh economy and make it more resilient to the challenges being unleashed by global forces. The current Innovation Wales strategy does need updating and it does need greater ambition in the face of this. Would the First...
Lee Waters: Minister, I think it’s significant that the 1,100 jobs that were taken from Cardiff resulted in just 250 jobs, according to reports, by the time they got to Dundee. So, no doubt there were a range of factors at work, but clearly automation is happening now; rather than being a future prospect, it is live and it’s impacting our communities. I was pleased to invite you along to a...
Lee Waters: Will the Member give way?
Lee Waters: Thank you very much. He started so well, and I just want to save him from himself, because, of course, it’s not an either/or, is it? There’s no need to get hung up on your usual tirade against renewables; we need both.
Lee Waters: I’m very pleased to join Simon Thomas in supporting the motion put forward in the name of Jeremy Miles and Huw Irranca-Davies. I should commend Huw Irranca-Davies for an excellent speech, in which I agreed with every word. We need to cut to the chase here. The Welsh Government have done much, but we need to do much, much, much more, and we must do it quickly. As the motion notes,...
Lee Waters: We’ve spent much time considering how our law-making powers can reshape our society and now we can consider how our fiscal powers can contribute too. This is exactly the kind of ambitious and open debate that this place was created for—an opportunity for us to challenge the status quo and truly set Wales apart. But, as well as considering what we could do with new taxes, we should also be...
Lee Waters: Cabinet Secretary, I’d just like to follow up the point on public engagement. We haven’t lacked expert analysis over the last decade or so on the challenges facing the NHS in Wales, but one of the things the system has found extremely challenging to do is engaging with communities. Llanelli is a famous case study in how not to do it, in the reshaping of services at Prince Philip Hospital,...
Lee Waters: Minister, can I commend you for today’s statement and the ambition behind the policy? We should be in no doubt that this is a radical cultural policy that goes against the grain of language use for a century or more, and this is not going to be an easy task, but I think it’s absolutely right that we’re aspiring to do this. I want to focus, if I might, on the education system. You set a...
Lee Waters: 8. What action will the First Minister take to counter-balance the UK Government’s job centralisation programme in relation to the Department for Work and Pensions? OAQ(5)0742(FM)
Lee Waters: Thank you, First Minister. I too met with Damian Hinds last Wednesday, along with the MP for Llanelli, Nia Griffith, and once again found him to be urbane but indifferent to the plight of the workers in Llanelli, where the 150 jobs will be relocated. An estimated 50 of them will not be able to take up that offer of relocation because it simply isn’t practical on part-time work to be able to...
