Mark Drakeford: The Welsh Government is keen to ensure there are many opportunities for people to access our great outdoors. Full consideration will be given to the range of issues raised by the recent review before making a decision on the way forward.
Mark Drakeford: We expect the Welsh ambulance service to work with partners to deliver sufficient emergency ambulance cover to ensure all patients who require an emergency response do so in a time commensurate to their clinical need.
Mark Drakeford: The vision for local museums in Wales was set out in the expert review published last year. We are working with the Welsh Local Government Association to take this forward and develop a robust museum network delivering for local communities. Swansea will be included in those discussions.
Mark Drakeford: Plans to repeal aspects of the Trade Union Act were included in the First Minister’s legislative programme statement made yesterday, and this will be brought forward during the first year of this Assembly term.
Mark Drakeford: Well, the Member is absolutely right in saying that the reason why we are opposed to these aspects of the Trade Union Act is because we think they will make things worse, in terms of industrial relations in Welsh public services, and not better. And the partnership approach that we have had in Wales means that, while strikes across our border have gone on in the fire service, amongst nurses,...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, we have to act within the boundaries of our devolved competence. As well as wishing to repeal aspects of the Trade Union Act because of its effect on industrial relationships and our partnership approach, as the First Minister said yesterday, our opposition to them is based on our belief that they trespass into the devolved responsibilities of this National Assembly, and...
Mark Drakeford: Well, the Member asks a very important question, which places our decision to repeal—to ask the National Assembly to repeal—aspects of the Trade Union Act in that very important context. The case for continuing EU membership was predicated on the social protections that membership of the European Union provided to working people. Without those protections, and with the UK Government in...
Mark Drakeford: I thank the Member for that question. The Welsh Government remains concerned that the impact of the pensions Acts of 1995 and 2011 will disproportionately affect a number of women who have had their state pension age raised significantly without effective or sufficient notification. We will continue to raise these concerns with UK Ministers, who remain responsible for these matters.
Mark Drakeford: I thank the Member for drawing attention to the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign, who have a major demonstration today and who’ve been so effective in drawing attention to this issue. Lesley Griffiths, who held equality responsibilities in the last Assembly term, wrote to Baroness Altmann, then Minister for State for Pensions, in February of this year, expressing the Welsh...
Mark Drakeford: Well, those who are campaigning on this issue, Llywydd, are not objecting to gradual equalisation on an incremental basis; what they are campaigning about is the directly discriminatory way in which a group of women born between 1950 and 1953 have been adversely affected by twice having their state pension rate raised and without adequate information and notice. That campaign is about trying...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, my understanding is that Baroness Altmann has agreed to meet with the WASPI campaign following the demonstration today. She’s on record as saying that she had been gagged by her previous Secretary of State, Iain Duncan Smith, on this issue and I know that the women who will meet her today will be looking forward to seeing her without that impediment. In the meantime, we will...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Nick Ramsay for his opening remarks and for agreeing to meet me to share some information about the challenges that we are currently facing. He’s absolutely right to say that those are shaped by the post-referendum landscape. I have had a discussion already with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. We agreed in that telephone conversation that we would meet before the summer recess,...
Mark Drakeford: It’s absolutely true to say that Scotland has already been around this track in agreeing a fiscal framework to surround the devolution of tax powers to the Scottish Parliament. In many ways, we are fortunate to be following them around that track, both because the Scottish Government has been generous in sharing their experience with us and providing us with some insights into their...
Mark Drakeford: Again, I thank Nick Ramsay for those two important points. Members here will know that my predecessor in this post, Jane Hutt, after a great deal of negotiation, succeeded in obtaining an agreement to a funding floor from the Treasury for the length of the current comprehensive spending review period. In the fiscal framework negotiations we will be arguing hard for making sure that that...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Adam Price for those questions. I think he makes an important point in opening about the way that patterns of voting in the referendum follow economic lines right across the United Kingdom. As far as estimating the impact on Wales of last week’s decision, there are two particular ways in which we have to assess that, one of which is easier than the other. There will be the direct...
Mark Drakeford: Well, people who listened to the claims made by the ‘leave’ campaign during the referendum will have gone away, I believe, not thinking simply that Wales would do as well as we had done under the previous regime, but that there would be a new flow of funds into public services, and into places where it is most needed as a result of that decision. And of course as a Welsh Government we...
Mark Drakeford: Well, we certainly don’t need to wait, because as the Member said in his question, we have already begun to do just this. There are three schemes already under development, and a range of other potential schemes that could follow down the same route. So, the non-profit distribution model is a means of trying to draw into the Welsh economy ways of financing capital investment in particular,...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Mr Bennett for his opening remarks and for reminding me of my own lengthy political history from 30 years ago. Local government reorganisation the last time happened while I was a councillor, just to show how far back that happened. The timetable that I’m hoping to pursue is as follows: there is a necessary period over this summer in which I want to spend my time listening and...
Mark Drakeford: I don’t think it would be right for me to reach conclusions this afternoon having just said that I wanted to spend a period of time listening and learning. I’ve met about half of local authorities in Wales, Llywydd, so far, so I’ve got half still to go. I’m meeting Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion tomorrow, and I want to make it clear to them that I’m just as open to...
Mark Drakeford: A draft Bill was put forward by my predecessor, which included a great deal more than simply changing boundaries on a map. It included proposals for altering local referenda. They would not have done it in the way that the Member proposed, and I don’t have any current intention to move in the direction that he advocated.
