Darren Millar: I’m very pleased to hear, Cabinet Secretary, that we’re knocking at an open door in terms of wanting to commemorate this very celebrated Welsh hymn writer. Can I make a suggestion to you that one fitting tribute might be a statue here in Cardiff Bay to celebrate this national hero, and, alongside it, perhaps, a statue of Ann Griffiths, who was the famous female Welsh hymn writer, who also...
Darren Millar: Cabinet Secretary, will you agree with me that one low-level support service is the Veterans Shed movement, which, of course, was established in north Wales in terms of the first one, is now being a model that is being copied in other parts of the country, not just in Wales, but across the UK as well, and that that is something that the Welsh Government would do well to support? I know that...
Darren Millar: Diolch, Llywydd. Can I thank everybody who has taken part in what, for the best part, has been a very good and decent debate on all sides of the Chamber? We’re bringing these proposals forward today because we believe that they offer an exciting opportunity to do something different in Wales that’s not been done in any other part of the UK, and that is to offer our 16 to 24-year-olds the...
Darren Millar: I will explain where I’m at with costings in a second, if you’ll sit down please, because I think it’s really important that the one significant objection that some Members seem to have is around the funding. So, let me go into a little bit of detail on our funding and how we’ve costed these proposals. First of all, can I just say that your suggestion, Rhianon Passmore, about the fact...
Darren Millar: I’m grateful for the Cabinet Secretary for clarifying why his scheme is so expensive, because what he will also know is that the other scheme that is operated by the Welsh Government, the concessionary fare scheme, is much less expensive—much, much less expensive indeed. In fact, it’s less than £100 per beneficiary for older people who get their free bus passes. And I understand the...
Darren Millar: I will take an intervention from you.
Darren Millar: Well, I thought I’d spelled that out, but just to repeat myself, because you clearly weren’t listening: the education maintenance allowance does not achieve its stated aims. The education maintenance allowance was scrapped in England and they have lower levels of those not in education, employment or training—in fact, record low levels of NEETs—in England, whereas Wales’s rate is...
Darren Millar: Will the First Minister provide an update on economic opportunities in north Wales?
Darren Millar: Can I raise a concern with the Minister and ask for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for rural affairs on the impact of income for zoos in Wales as a result of a potential tourism tax? One of the things that was discussed at the recent British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly was the great value that zoos across the United Kingdom, and in the Republic of Ireland, have to the local economy....
Darren Millar: Can I welcome the statement? We absolutely do share the aim of the Welsh Government to ensure that teaching can be promoted as a rewarding, valued and high-status profession, and it is a career that we want to encourage more people to take up. It’s especially important, this statement, given the statements that we’ve heard from the National Union of Teachers and others this year that have...
Darren Millar: One of the big barriers, as you will know, is to the opportunities for supply teachers to engage in professional development. You’ve said that you want to see that addressed. You haven’t said how you expect that to be addressed, but clearly we need to ensure that regional education consortia and local education authorities are inviting supply teachers and allowing them to engage in...
Darren Millar: Last night, Cabinet Secretary, I attended a cross-party group meeting on tourism, and there were many tourism operators there who were extremely concerned about your suggestion that a tourism tax should be seriously considered for implementation here in Wales. The genie, of course, has been let out of the bottle, and, even if you rule this out early on, which I very much hope that you will,...
Darren Millar: Will the Cabinet Secretary respond to data which shows that Welsh students accounted for just 2 per cent of last year’s Oxbridge intake? (TAQ0057)
Darren Millar: Thank you for responding to this question today, Minister, in the absence of the Cabinet Secretary. I hope you’re getting a proportion of her pay. The number of Welsh students studying at the UK’s top universities fell by almost 10 per cent in the three years to 2016. On top of that, we’ve had figures published just very recently showing that just 2 per cent of last year’s Oxbridge...
Darren Millar: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Next Tuesday, 31 October, marks the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Protestant reformation, a day when Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, nailed his now famous 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Though primarily a protest against some of the beliefs and excesses of the then Catholic Church, the theses became a...
Darren Millar: Will you take an intervention?
Darren Millar: I’m grateful for you taking the intervention. Can I just ask: how many tourism businesses in your own constituency have you discussed this with? Because, at the end of the day, your economy will suffer a great deal as a result of a tourism tax, and I cannot understand why you think it’s a positive thing that we’re even discussing the possibility of a tax on tourism here in Wales, when...
Darren Millar: [Continues.]—going on over the border in England, and we would face a lot of disadvantage as a result.
Darren Millar: Last week was a very devastating week, I think, for Welsh politics. In the most tragic of circumstances, a family lost a dedicated husband and father, Alyn and Deeside, and north Wales, lost a very hard-working and effective Assembly Member, and I, along with many others in this Chamber, lost a very kind and gentle friend. I can remember arriving in the Senedd for the first time, after my...
Darren Millar: Many of my own constituents have faced receiving letters through the post regarding their own local surgeries, particularly in the Colwyn Bay area, being vulnerable to changes. Indeed, some of the GPs have handed back their contracts to the local health board. Now, I know that the Welsh Government is working with health boards to try to overcome some of these challenges in the shorter term,...
