Helen Mary Jones: ...mentioned in his response the ongoing appeal—to look and see whether there is any way that he and the Welsh Government, given the impact of that loss of income to Wales from those women who are not receiving those pensions, could look again to see if there's any way that he can provide any support to the appeal, or perhaps produce some evidence—and that would be another part of the...
Jeremy Miles: ...that I have reviewed and kept under review powers that I may have to intervene in legal proceedings to deal with the sorts of issues that she has raised in her question, and, unfortunately, I've not been able to persuade myself that those powers of intervention exist. But we have, as a Government, made reasoned representations on a number of occasions to the UK Government with very, very...
David Lloyd: ...the general direction of travel? Can I also thank the Minister for arranging the briefing by officers earlier today? I found that very valuable. Obviously, it's a very extensive Bill, and I'm not going to indulge in a long list of quotes and discussion points, but I was going to concentrate on the voting systems, specifically the single transferable vote versus first-past-the-post. And,...
Vaughan Gething: ...that we take every opportunity to learn and improve. There has, of course, been significant interest in the proposals relating to the new citizen voice body, with a number of recommendations, most notably on providing the body with the right of access to health and social care services premises; ensuring the body is not a remote national body that is inaccessible and unable to represent...
David Lloyd: ...duty to require Welsh Ministers and NHS bodies to exercise their functions in relation to health with a view to securing improvement in the quality of health services. Quality includes, but is not limited to, the effectiveness of health services; the safety of health services; and the experience of individuals to whom health services are provided. Many respondents told us that, while they...
Angela Burns: ...think this is a really interesting step forward by you, Minister. I mean, let's be honest, you'd think our NHS would be candid enough, but as most of us have casework that demonstrates that that is not so, we absolutely need a duty of candour because it's about trust and honesty with patients, particularly if a service user has suffered unexpected or unintended harm and where the provision...
Caroline Jones: ...are long overdue. These duties will instil an honest culture of openness and transparency in health and social care in Wales. Whistleblowers must have the confidence to come forward when things are not as they should be—how else are we able to improve or correct mistakes? I've spoken many times about the need for a no-blame culture in health, a culture in which we accept that mistakes...
Vaughan Gething: ...think that reinforces two points. The first is that I still don't think it's helpful to try and say there is a good community health council and that others aren't. I think that's problematic. It's not a view that the national board of community health councils themselves take. And the second is, of course, that, in talking about wanting to have different ways of working, there's a point...
Elin Jones: ...Deputy Presiding Officer are likely to exercise that right this afternoon. Today, we will be voting on extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds for the Senedd elections in 2021. It was the Representation of the People Act 1969 that lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, and, so, the provision to extend the franchise to 16-year-olds is long overdue for some. In May 2013, a clear...
Mark Drakeford: ...Wales. The report will be a useful contribution to the consultation that Qualifications Wales is carrying out, but in the end, it will be Qualifications Wales that will be responsible for making representations to the Welsh Government as to how we have a qualifications system that stands alongside our new curriculum, and that all of that underpins our ambition. And we are as ambitious as...
Mark Drakeford: ...comes to be done, I think what we will see is that those communities who find themselves at the sharpest end of deprivation in Wales have one key characteristic in common—that they have an over-representation, compared to other parts of Wales, of families with children. And the reason that they end up in the position they are in is because of the cuts in benefits that those families have...
Jeremy Miles: ...the two strands of work that we've discussed in this Chamber on a number of occasions. One is the work, again, which is the work of the steering group that Huw Irranca-Davies is chairing, which has representations from across all sectors in Wales. And the second piece of work that is germane to this is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's review that the First...
Leanne Wood: ...the prison education system, for both those people serving terror-related offences within Welsh prisons and for those Welsh prisoners serving their sentences in England? I'd also like to know what representations are being made to your counterparts in Westminster about the cuts to the National Probation Service and the failures in assessment and monitoring of former inmates released on...
Jane Hutt: ...the education Minister, but also recognising the important report that was recently published about prison education and recognising the recommendations that we've got to now follow through. Making representations to Westminster in terms of the cuts to our services, the impact of austerity, and, of course, that's very clear in terms of the damage to Wales, including the justice system—....
Hannah Blythyn: Yes, absolutely. As I referred to earlier, I think local intelligence—it's not just local intelligence that's often an underrated and underused resource, but, actually, if we're going to make these solutions work for the communities in which they're based, then the community does need to be properly a part of that. So, in taking this action forward, we'll be supporting authorities to become...
Russell George: ...that this is possibly one of the most challenging tasks facing our economy. We didn't pretend at all, I should say, that our report will solve this problem, but we also thought that doing nothing will certainly not either. I think also I should say that I thank my colleagues Bethan Sayed and David Rowlands for expanding on some of the points that I raised in my opening comments and...
Jeremy Miles: ...would deliver Brexit by 31 October come what may. Let me absolutely clear: the NHS in Wales is run in Wales, for Wales, and, under this Welsh Government, it will remain in public hands. Our NHS is not for sale. And the UK Government has been making all the same mistakes in its preparations for trade negotiations with the USA that it made when starting out on negotiating the withdrawal...
Mark Isherwood: .... As a party to that report, I won't comment. I look forward, however, to hearing how the Welsh Government responds. You refer to austerity cuts, well, my dictionary describes 'austerity cuts' as not having enough money, and, as such, that was an inheritance, not a choice. We know that, because of the actions taken since 2010, public spending can now begin to increase significantly again....
Suzy Davies: ...key issues raised by WEN members across Wales. Those issues raised concerns about the lack of black and minority ethnic women in this Chamber, for example; the suggestion of targets for 50:50 representation in politics; the setting up of a door to democracy or access to elected office fund to ensure that we get more disabled, LGBT and BME women into politics at all levels; and, of course,...
Vikki Howells: ...as well as the Chair and the clerking team for their excellent work on this vitally important topic. The list of stakeholders who contributed is lengthy and extremely diverse and I think that's not surprising, really, because we all know how important access to banking is, and how strongly people feel about the withdrawal of major banks from our high streets up and down Wales. As a...
