Llyr Gruffydd: You’ll know—and I’m sure you’ll sigh when I raise this again—my concerns about the lack of a workforce strategy for childcare workers. We know it was in draft form three years ago, and despite promises to the contrary, we still haven’t seen a strategy in place, and I’ve registered my concerns now that that’s been rolled into the new employability programme, which doesn’t go...
Llyr Gruffydd: The twenty-second of September 1934 was a Saturday. Some miners at the Gresford Colliery had swapped shifts so that they’d be able to go and watch Wrexham play football that afternoon. But, of course, they were never to make the match as an explosion 2,000 ft underground ripped open the Dennis shaft in the early hours of that morning. The disaster claimed 266 lives, all local colliers,...
Llyr Gruffydd: May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement and welcome, for the most part, the content of the statement and indeed the action plan? I don’t think anyone would disagree with the long-term ambition of the Government here—quite simply, ensuring that all children achieve their potential. I’m sure that’s something everyone would want to see. But what we have in this action plan is...
Llyr Gruffydd: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the financial settlement given to local authorities?
Llyr Gruffydd: You told us last week about the best ever GCSE grades, but, of course, with respect to the results from this summer, the overall pass rates were at their lowest level for a decade.
Llyr Gruffydd: 7. Will the First Minister make a statement on nurse recruitment in north Wales? (OAQ51115)[W]
Llyr Gruffydd: At the last count, 92 nurse posts at Wrexham Maelor Hospital were vacant, with a number of nurses approaching retirement age also. Now, the shortage of nurses means that specialist nurses regularly now have to work on general wards and it’s a daily crisis in the hospital, which is the largest in north Wales. The expensive foreign recruitment of the health board in India and Barcelona,...
Llyr Gruffydd: I also want to endorse the comments that have already been made, if truth be told, and to put on record my dissatisfaction with the way in which this regulatory impact assessment came into being. We accept now that it’s reached a point where we can support it, but these changes and the fact that we needed to go back to the figures and work on them again has had an impact on the scrutiny...
Llyr Gruffydd: 5. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the new professional standards for teaching and leadership? (OAQ51118)[W]
Llyr Gruffydd: Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, you’ve acknowledged to me in this Chamber—and the First Minister, in fairness, has said very much the same—that the Government isn’t where it would like to be in terms of supply teaching here in Wales. The Children, Young People and Education committee, of course, published its report, suggesting actions in the last Assembly. The ministerial supply...
Llyr Gruffydd: Well, I’ve been approached by a constituent—and you mentioned pay and conditions—who was earning £115 a day as a supply teacher. She’s now had a letter from her local authority to say that all schools must work through the private supply teaching agency, New Directions, with very few exceptions. And she tells me that will mean her pay will be cut to £85 a day, because New Directions...
Llyr Gruffydd: Well, you haven’t addressed the question about whether they get a fair deal out of this. Because another supply teacher tells me he’s considering giving up the job that he’s done for 18 years because of this drastic reduction that he’s facing in pay. And, in the meantime, of course, he tells me that he sees New Directions paying its directors a dividend of £100,000 a piece, and a...
Llyr Gruffydd: Thank you for that response. What I want to ask is who do you now believe should take ownership of those standards? Who do you think should be driving them forward to ensure that they are used better than the previous standards? Will the Education Workforce Council, for example, have a role in that regard, because in every other country the corresponding body does deliver that role?
Llyr Gruffydd: Thank you, Llywydd. I just want to spend a few moments talking about one important aspect of this debate, one that Rhun made reference to earlier: the availability of services through the medium of Welsh, because if we think there is a problem—and there is a problem in terms of the numbers of doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals—then you can just imagine how much greater...
Llyr Gruffydd: Will the First Minister make a statement on the availability of beds in community hospitals in North Wales?
Llyr Gruffydd: Following the mess that your Government made of the issue of the iron ring at Flint castle, can I ask you what arrangements are in place now to ensure that any interpretation of heritage happens from a Welsh perspective and context and not from someone else’s perspective?
Llyr Gruffydd: May I ask for a statement from the health Secretary in response to the figures that have been revealed that a quarter of all beds in community hospitals in north Wales now have dementia patients in them—almost half of the beds in Eryri, in Caernarfon, 14 in Holywell, and 18 in Llandudno? Delayed transfers of care have led to patients waiting, in some cases, for up to 145 days—almost five...
Llyr Gruffydd: May I thank the Minister for his statement and also endorse the thanks on the record—and I’m sure that we have done in the past—to Aled Roberts for his work on these WESPs? You start your statement by saying that the WESPs have set a firm foundation for the planning of Welsh-medium education. I don’t want to disagree with you on the very first sentence, but, clearly, some people have...
Llyr Gruffydd: What steps is the Government taking to ensure that the funding available within the twenty-first century schools budget is used to enhance Welsh-medium education? Because we know, for example, that there is a higher rate of support for faith schools—it’s 85 per cent, as I understand it, rather than 50 per cent for schools more generally. Would you be prepared to consider a similar method...
Llyr Gruffydd: May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement this afternoon? May I also endorse the thanks to Qualifications Wales for their research, and for sharing the information with us beforehand? It’s important that we don’t forget, in this debate, why this is happening, and we have to remind ourselves that this is happening because what the teachers want is the best for the pupils and the...
