Mark Isherwood: Diolch. Last December’s report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, ‘State of the Nation 2015: Social Mobility and Child Poverty in Great Britain’, chaired by Alan Milburn, a greatly respected politician, found that absolute child poverty in Wales—children living in Wales are more likely to live in persistent poverty, and the number of children in workless households...
Mark Isherwood: Of course, UK Government policy applies across the UK, but this report identified that Wales had the highest worklessness, the highest child poverty, and the lowest prosperity amongst the UK nations. That can only be because of the matters delivered at a devolved level in Wales over the last 17 years. So, how do you respond to recommendation 2? ‘Improve the quality of the workforce in...
Mark Isherwood: The budgetary environment set by the UK Government applies in England and Scotland too, but Wales is trailing in these areas. The third and final recommendation the commission set for Welsh Government was to involve business in its drive to reduce child poverty and increase social mobility. They said you should increase efforts to work with companies, including significant employers in Wales,...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you for that. The ‘Improving Life Chances’ report by the Centre for Social Justice urged the UK Government to take into account the five main pathways to poverty—family breakdown, worklessness, drug and alcohol addiction, serious personal debt and educational failure—subsequent to which the UK Government launched its life chances strategy. This starts with the fundamental belief...
Mark Isherwood: The Welsh Government policy on community health services and health budget cuts described by the Wales Audit Office as ‘unprecedented in UK history’ increased pressure on our general hospitals. The 2016 Welsh Conservative manifesto included proposals to drive greater integration between health, social services and communities. We also said we’d create a community hospital development...
Mark Isherwood: Thanks, everybody, for your contributions, and I very much welcome the Minister’s closing comments. Janet Finch-Saunders began by reminding us that the Williams commission’s recommendations to take public service delivery forward have largely been ignored, there has been little progress on the integration of health and social care, that roughshod has been ridden over our community...
Mark Isherwood: How is the Welsh Government promoting the use of British Sign Language?
Mark Isherwood: With turnout almost 60 per cent higher than in May’s Assembly election, Welsh voters have spoken and we must all respect the results. This was about the democratic right of the people of this nation to settle their own destiny. Labour’s leader in Westminster is facing a vote of no confidence from his own MPs, despite a large majority voting for remain in his own constituency. Here in...
Mark Isherwood: No, I don’t. Our security, as I say, has always depended on NATO. Outside the EU, we regain the freedom to forge trade deals while continuing to trade with our partners in Europe. The UK is responsible for approximately 5.5 million jobs across Europe. The EU will not want a trade war; they’ll want free trade. Markus Kerber, head of the BDI—Germany’s Confederation of British...
Mark Isherwood: I think Bethan raised a key point about autism transition and it’s a long-standing problem—something I’ve had a lot of casework on, but also it’s been raised successively with cross-party autism groups over a number of Assemblies. On that theme, I call for a statement on the Welsh Government’s refreshed autism spectrum disorder strategic action plan and the proposals for a national...
Mark Isherwood: Of course, both the Minister and I, alongside both the Deputy Presiding Officer and the Member for Clwyd West, attended the north Wales Armed Forces Day a week ago on Saturday, where we heard moving references to the battles of Jutland and the Somme, and it’s particularly pertinent—and I know the Minister will have timed this statement accordingly—that Friday of this week will be the...
Mark Isherwood: I nominate Janet Finch-Saunders.
Mark Isherwood: Whether we refer to looked-after children, or children looked after, we’re talking about the individual lives of those who depend on us to give them life chances. As we heard, at 5,617, the number of looked-after children in Wales in 2015 was up 200 on 2011, and 1,000 on 2008. And, as I stated when we debated this in 2011, looked-after children have much poorer psychological and social...
Mark Isherwood: After the loss of dozens of community beds in north Wales despite bed occupancy levels of 95 per cent or above, NHS staff in north Wales told me that new community beds would take pressure off general hospitals and enable the health board to use its resources more efficiently. How, therefore, do you respond to the statement by GPs at the Royal College of General Practitioners’ event in the...
Mark Isherwood: I endorse Nick Ramsay’s comments about modern foreign languages, where we heard that those most likely to be adversely affected were pupils in the more disadvantaged areas. I call for two statements, the first on bullying. Today is Stand up to Bullying Day as part of the Stand up to Bullying campaign, aiming for individuals, local communities, schools and businesses to stand up to bullying...
Mark Isherwood: Do you share my concern, the concern expressed to me by the charity Mind Cymru, that the Welsh Government action plan has been created on the back of insufficient evidence because mental health data such as waiting times for talking therapies are not being collected sufficiently?
Mark Isherwood: When the UK coalition Government came into office in 2010, the need to rescue the economy was urgent. Britain had suffered the deepest recession since the second world war and had the second biggest structural deficit of any advanced economy. Unemployment had increased by nearly half a million. Keynesian economics advocates deficit spending when an economy is suffering, but it also advocates...
Mark Isherwood: Last November the UK Government Minister asked Brussels to convene a meeting to discuss the tariffs. They agreed to that, but the time delays after that led to the outgoing economy Minister here, Edwina Hart, saying two months ago the rules were ‘rather inflexible’ and had driven her mad. When I raised this with the First Minister and what discussions he had had with the European...
Mark Isherwood: I’m sure you will join me in congratulating Professor Maria Hinfelaar on being installed as the vice-chancellor of Wrexham Glyndŵr University last Thursday, and on their achieving above the UK average for full-time first degree leavers achieving graduate-level employment. If call for two statements—first, on educational provision for young adults with autistic spectrum conditions and...
Mark Isherwood: Diolch, Lywydd. Of the number of priorities for government in here that I can’t see specifically referred to, you have made some reference to the high costs of energy for the steel industry. Of course, negotiations with the EU that were begun by the UK coalition Government have only recently been concluded with agreement to help with those costs coming into force. Are you able to expand on...
