Julie James: Certainly. Although not holding information specifically for Swansea East, under the Superfast Cymru project we have provided access to fast fibre broadband to 24,093 premises across all parts of Swansea, equating to just over 98 per cent completion. The average download speed across Swansea is currently 82.81 Mbps.
Julie James: There's a big issue with upload speeds depending on what kind of technology you use to connect it and they depend on a number of other factors. So, customers on a fibre-to-the-cabinet connection can expect download speeds of a maximum of about 80 Mbps and upload speeds of around 20 Mbps. But it's dependent on distance from the cabinet, the package the customer buys from their internet service...
Julie James: Indeed, and his officials attend my ministerial data and digital group, which as I said, met only this morning. One of the topics of conversation was that we're putting in place a new transport data arrangement, as part of the way the officials work, to consider how we might best improve some of the connectivity issues. So, you will know that Arriva Trains Wales has just put Wi-Fi on all of...
Julie James: Yes, we've just increased the amount of money that we currently spend on advertising the availability of broadband. We've just procured an advertising agency to go out on a two-county basis at a time—a rolling programme of advertising the availability of superfast in order to increase take-up. I will say, though, that this is an enormous cultural change. We've all forgotten how fast...
Julie James: We continue to work closely with our partners on the hate crime criminal justice board, including the police and Crown Prosecution Service, to tackle homophobic hate crime. We also provide funding to Victim Support Cymru and Stonewall Cymru, through our equality and inclusion programme, which supports work in this area.
Julie James: Yes indeed, we're very proud of the This is Me campaign, which I launched in Gower College a few weeks ago now. It's been widely taken up on social media, and, as the Member will know, it's based very much on promoting what the research shows us, which is that increased gender equality and transgender equality decreases violence as people are able to just express themselves as they wish to...
Julie James: Certainly. Under the Superfast Cymru project, we have provided access to fast-fibre broadband to 17,767 premises across all parts of Monmouthshire, equating to just over 76.2 per cent completion, and they have an average download speed of 83.84 Mbps.
Julie James: Yes, I'm very happy to say that we're considering all forms of availability for broadband. The programme has never been technology reliant. In fact, we let the programme to BT and they used their two big technologies for it. But we've always, through the ABC programme around the ultrafast programme, supported all technologies in Wales of whatever sort, as long as it gets the speed to above...
Julie James: We have 32,081 premises that have been provided with access to fast broadband on Anglesey under the Superfast Cymru project, which equates to 91 per cent of eligible premises.
Julie James: I'm not too sure what the specific issue there is, but I'm more than happy to have a good look to see what it is. We are aware that there are some fibre-to-the-premises connection problems in Anglesey and some parts of the north-west of Wales. It may be that you're caught in one of those, but I'm afraid I don't have that information to hand, so I'm very happy to, perhaps, exchange...
Julie James: What we're trying to do is we're trying to test the market to see—. This is always a balance between numbers and getting to communities that have a specific recorded need. I've said this a number of times before: it's a real balance for us to know whether we should just get past as many premises as possible, regardless of whether those people have contacted us to say that they want it, or...
Julie James: Yes, we continue to implement our national strategy that sets out our action to protect and support victims and survivors of domestic abuse. We will publish draft commissioning guidance shortly that will support a more collaborative regional approach to providing services.
Julie James: We're very aware that benefit changes are causing some difficulties in some of the refuges in Wales, and we've been working very closely with providers to make sure that we can understand exactly what the issues are. We have provided £5.4 million in 2017-18 in the violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence services grant to local authorities and to third sector organisations...
Julie James: I completely agree with that. Our strategy is based on three purposes: prevention, protection and support, and that's very much part of it. So, we've been rolling out our 'ask and act' guidance right across all of the responders and all of our partners on this agenda with a view to doing exactly that, actually—to make sure that people recognise the signs of behaviours and pick them up early...
Julie James: Although we don't hold information specifically for Islwyn, under the Superfast Cymru project we have provided access to fast fibre broadband to 27,206 premises across all parts of Caerphilly county borough, which equates to just over 92 per cent completion.
Julie James: We've got, as I said, a 92 per cent completion rate at the moment. I'm not too sure if that's actually Islwyn, because it's across Caerphilly; we don't hold them in constituency boundaries in that way. But, as I said earlier, we plan to introduce an additional novel scheme that supports communities that demonstrate tangible demand, particularly targeting communities that are not currently...
Julie James: We are aware that there's an issue with competitor broadband schemes in Caerphilly. We do encourage as much competition as possible in the market in order to get the best possible prices, so we are aware of the issue in Caerphilly over cabinet siting and some of the planning issues, and my officials are in discussion with Caerphilly about that matter.
Julie James: Yes. Much has been achieved since the Act was passed and we continue to implement the legislation through our national strategy. Following input from our new national advisors, our delivery framework and national indicators will be published this year, with further roll-out of our 'ask and act' programme.
Julie James: Yes, indeed. Our national strategy on violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence was published in November 2016. That sets out the key objectives based on the three purposes of the Act: prevention, protection and support. We'll publish a cross-Government delivery framework to complement the strategy, drawing on the new national adviser's expertise, before publishing the...
Julie James: Diolch, Llywydd. This Government completely agrees that there is a purpose in being both open and transparent in these matters. But the general framework of the law for approaching this question is very clear. Where the publication of information is likely to prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs generally, or any investigative process, then there is a public interest assessment...
