Carl Sargeant: I’m very grateful for the Member’s very aggressive tone that he has brought to the questioning. I also remember the times through the 1980s when the Member worked in the local building society, taking the redundancy cheques from the steelworkers that were made redundant by the UK Government at that very time—a very difficult time, and a community that was broken at that time. So, again,...
Carl Sargeant: I thank the Member for Islwyn for her question. We are committed to increasing the number of affordable homes across Wales. We continue to invest in social rented housing and Help to Buy, and are developing innovative new schemes, in order to meet our ambitious target of 20,000 homes.
Carl Sargeant: Of course, I’m grateful to the Member for reminding the Chamber of the success of the last term of Government. I’m very pleased to have entered, only in the last two weeks, into a new housing pact with Community Housing Cymru and the WLGA for this term of Government. It is an ambitious target of 20,000 homes, but my good friend and colleague the Cabinet Secretary for finance is helping us...
Carl Sargeant: Well, Ken Skates and I—I’m not familiar with the project the Member raises, but I’m always keen to make sure that we have a contribution of affordable homes across the length and breadth of Wales. Ken Skates and I are working on a land opportunity fund, where we can see how we can develop not only Welsh Government land, but also public sector land, and release that into the opportunity...
Carl Sargeant: Good afternoon. Thank you for the question. The Welsh Government directly and indirectly supports a number of organisations providing support to families. Within my portfolio, the children and families delivery grant, Families First and Flying Start give support to third sector groups that aim to meet the priorities of supporting well-being, reducing poverty and, indeed, tackling adverse...
Carl Sargeant: I’m very grateful for the Member’s question. I would point out to the Deputy Presiding Officer that the Family Fund budget rests within my colleague’s budget line, but will ask her to write to you. Rebecca Evans is the Minister who deals with this particular issue.
Carl Sargeant: I’m very grateful for the invitation and look forward to receiving that formally. I am familiar with Penparcau; indeed, I welcomed their tweet when they tweeted about the fact that there is potential life after Communities First. I think we have to have ambition about opportunities—[Inaudible.]—and that we learn from organisations like them. I’ve spoken to the previous Minister about...
Carl Sargeant: I thank the Member for her question. The Welsh Government has worked to improve outcomes for Gypsies and Travellers through the ‘Travelling to a Better Future’ framework for action and delivery plan. There has been real progress since 2014 and an update to the plan was published in March this year.
Carl Sargeant: We have cohesion co-ordinators to work with Gypsy and Traveller groups and I meet with representatives of the community regularly.
Carl Sargeant: Yes, we provide funding for the Save the Children’s Travelling Ahead project through the equality and inclusion grant to support awareness of rights and participation amongst young Gypsies and Travellers. You’re right: the family approach is an important one. Gypsy and Traveller families are probably one of the most disadvantaged families and have the shortest lifespan out of most of the...
Carl Sargeant: I’d be surprised if the authority haven’t engaged with their local communities, but I’ll take the Member’s word for that. It’s something that I would expect them to do in a transparent way. Sometimes when people don’t like the outcomes of decisions, there’s always a conspiracy behind it, but what we have to think about here is the process. There is a principle of operating under...
Carl Sargeant: We believe that children and young people who are in the youth justice system should be treated as children first and offenders second. This is reflected in our joint strategy with the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales.
Carl Sargeant: Well, there are two aspects to this. One is the prison side of things, which is a non-devolved function, but the fact is, for me, nothing hurts me more than to see young people incarcerated. It’s a failure of the system that we have. We must get beyond—. We must operate our services before we get into that space. That’s why we’re investing in the advanced case-management programme...
Carl Sargeant: Indeed, and I’m very familiar with that proposal and the Charlie Taylor review. I met with Dr Phillip Lee MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State only on Monday to talk about the Taylor review. We discussed there the issue around devolution. I think Charlie Taylor got it wrong in his observations. He talked about devolution in an English sense, not recognising that most of the services...
Carl Sargeant: Yes, thank you, and I’m sure the Member was listening to my response to Huw Irranca-Davies. We disagree with much of Charlie Taylor’s review. We will not be introducing secure schools here in Wales. I have visited the Hillside programme. I am looking at step-down facilities. From that, we do have Welsh solutions for these problems. I don’t think the secure school process is the right...
Carl Sargeant: I thank the Member for his question. The Welsh Government is committed to making our communities safe. I welcome initiatives such as the Cardiff violence prevention programme, which has had a positive impact on our communities, and we are working with our NHS colleagues to move this forward.
Carl Sargeant: Yes, I think Jonathan Shepherd has done a remarkable job. Indeed, from his work on this, he now features in my advisory group on domestic violence services. So, he’s bringing his intelligence around this to this programme too. The requirements through the NHS and emergency services departments is the challenge we face at the moment, about integrating it across the system. But it is...
Carl Sargeant: The Member’s right and, again, it’s an excellent programme where research came from not within the community safety sector but from the medical sector, which was really interesting. When we measured the impact in Cardiff, violence fell by 42 per cent, which is a huge, huge amount. We must continue to roll this programme out and, as I said to the previous question, we will update Members...
Carl Sargeant: I thank the Member for his question. The regeneration priorities for Pembrokeshire are to support town centres and to help sustain resilient communities. This is being delivered through support from the town-centre loan fund and the town-centre partnership initiative.
Carl Sargeant: Of course, I recognise the impact that bank closures can have on constituencies, and other Members have raised that too. It seems to have all gone downhill since the Member left, perhaps, in terms of his former role. Specifically in Pembrokeshire, we are supporting Pembrokeshire County Council with £1.25 million through the Vibrant and Viable Places town-centre loans scheme to reduce the...
