Hannah Blythyn: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I thank all the Members who've contributed today, with a wide range of different and many thoughtful contributions to this wide-ranging debate and discussion? We talked quite a bit today about supporting both our people and our places and the importance of supporting and enabling that sense of pride in place in our communities, and that actually...
Hannah Blythyn: Formally.
Hannah Blythyn: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to this debate today in place of the Minister for Housing and Local Government. We know that analysis undertaken for the Equality and Human Rights Commission estimates that relative child poverty in Wales will increase substantially over the coming years, potentially pushing an extra 50,000 children into poverty...
Hannah Blythyn: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I am pleased today to be able to bring forward a motion to approve the Representation of the People (Annual Canvass) (Amendment) (Wales) Regulations 2020. The current annual canvass for electors is outdated and cumbersome, is expensive and complex for electoral registration officers to administer and can lead to confusion for our citizens. In light of this, we have...
Hannah Blythyn: Happy to move forward.
Hannah Blythyn: Thank you, Llywydd. I'm very pleased to speak to you today about Welsh town centres and to speak about providing more support for our towns. I do want to transform Welsh towns.
Hannah Blythyn: Llywydd, I'm happy to announce a further package of support for town centres worth nearly £90 million as part of our transforming towns agenda. This builds on the projected £800 million investment in our towns as a result of our regeneration programmes since 2014. The transforming towns package includes support for enforcement around empty and derelict properties in our town centres, a new...
Hannah Blythyn: If I first take the question around the package of the £90 million funding and the timescales of that, well, it has to be broken down, because the £90 million encapsulates quite a few different strands, the bulk of which is the targeted regeneration investment fund, an extension until 2022 of £57.6 million, which will be for local authorities to identify projects in priority towns. It...
Hannah Blythyn: Thank you. I thank the Member for her contribution. First and foremost, I join you in congratulating Treorchy on its fantastic win and the recognition it well deserves. I wasn't aware of that point you made about 60 per cent of the independent shops being run by women, which is fantastic. Actually, when I think about the towns in my own community, that is very much the case as we move forward...
Hannah Blythyn: Just to start where you finished, the way I'm approaching this and the way Welsh Government is approaching this is: it's not just about the projects, it's about the places and the people who make up those places. As we say, you talked about boosting the economy of the individual place, it's actually about the feel of it as well, and that sense that people feel their home town has gone...
Hannah Blythyn: I think the Member won brownie points with Jack Sargeant when the mention of Connah's Quay got into your speech then. Just in terms of the points about the challenges that face our high streets, there are many similar challenges, not just in Wales, but right across the UK. You're absolutely right that we need to work across Government with the Minister for finance and the Minister for...
Hannah Blythyn: I thank Jack Sargeant for his contribution and questions. Buckley is a town that I'm familiar with, not because I spent many of my younger years going to the Tivoli nightclub there, but because it's actually on the border of my own constituency and I have many friends and family who live there as well. Like many towns across Wales, Buckley has changed over the years, the way we shop has...
Hannah Blythyn: Thank you for the question.
Hannah Blythyn: Yes, I think, to make a decision on funding or—[Inaudible.]—if I don't make a decision that's perhaps potentially above my pay grade to make anyway. But, the point you make about actually how we make use of those sites—. As the nature of our town centres has changed and those big retailers are not there; they don't have the presence that they used to, it's how we make use of those sites...
Hannah Blythyn: I thank the Member for his contribution. Working on the assumption—on your last point in terms of the difficulty in identifying owners—that you're referring perhaps to buildings or premises that perhaps have been left empty, or have not been rented out for some time, this is what we hope that this enforcement fighting fund, coupled with the industry expert that will be with us, going out...
Hannah Blythyn: Thank you, Vikki, for your contributions and questions. The town-centre-first principle—you are right, actually; you can see that, in principle, the sentiment behind it is common sense, really. You can see the difference it makes, including on the site in Colwyn Bay too—the difference that they've seen there. When they created the council buildings, one of the conscious decisions they had...
Hannah Blythyn: I recognise the valuable services that local post offices provide to the communities they serve across Wales. Welsh Government has regular contact with Post Office Ltd to ensure we are kept aware of and raise any issues that affect Welsh communities.
Hannah Blythyn: Diolch. As we both—. I think everybody here will be in agreement on the role that post offices play in our communities and in the heart of our towns across the country as well, performing not just a function and a practical role, but also a social function as well. Although post office matters are not devolved to Welsh Ministers, clearly we have a role to play in how those issues impact or...
Hannah Blythyn: I recently launched our circular economy strategy, 'Beyond Recycling', which includes the headline action to phase out single-use plastic. Alongside this, we are working on game-changing reforms such as extended producer responsibility for packaging, a deposit-return scheme and a ban on certain single-use plastics.
Hannah Blythyn: I think the short answer is 'absolutely yes'. I'm incredibly proud of our role and our record as a global leader and the recognition we've received of that previously from places as far afield as Australia. But we've outlined our ambition that we actually want to step up that and take that further, and to actually drive the change in the future. And you mentioned some of the individuals and...
