Alun Davies: 4. What discussions has the Minister had with the UK Government regarding the shared prosperity fund? OQ56275
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to you for that, Minister. You will have seen the Welsh Affairs Select Committee's report from Westminster, published in the autumn, which was a devastating report and a devastating condemnation of a UK Government by a committee largely dominated by Conservative Members. They made two criticisms of the UK Government. First of all, there was the lack of engagement that you...
Alun Davies: Can I ask for two statements and a general debate, if I could, please? The first statement follows on from the previous question, in fact. In terms of our experience of Brexit so far, no matter where you stood on the question itself, I think it's fair to say that it's been pretty much a disaster for these last two months. We haven't just seen the fishing industry affected, we've seen most of...
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to the Minister for the statement he's made this afternoon. I specifically welcome the Government's commitment that the economic impact of the crisis will not result in people and communities being left behind. But what of those communities, Minister, who already feel that they have been left behind? As people in Blaenau Gwent and across the Valleys remember all too well, in the...
Alun Davies: Will the Minister make a statement on Welsh Government plans regarding a recovery strategy for NHS Wales following the coronavirus crisis?
Alun Davies: Will the First Minister make a statement on maximising the economic development potential of infrastructure projects in the Heads of the Valleys, as outlined in the recent Bevan Foundation report, 'More than a bypass: unleashing the potential of the A465'?
Alun Davies: Minister, we're coming to the end of this Senedd, and I think this is the last three-week period for which we'll have a statement to discuss. I would therefore be very grateful if you could either seek an oral statement or a written statement on the following subjects. First of all, access to primary care. We know, through the pandemic, that the whole of the national health service, primary...
Alun Davies: I think people across Blaenau Gwent and elsewhere join you in thanking the national health service and the work of Welsh Government in ensuring that the vaccine programme is progressing so quickly, so efficiently and so effectively, both in terms of first doses and second doses; that's certainly our experience here in Blaenau Gwent. There were two questions I had for you, Minister, first of...
Alun Davies: Many Members will appreciate that I've found the consideration of these amendments exceptionally difficult. I was lucky enough to learn many of these skills as a teenager in St John's Ambulance in Tredegar, and, of course, it was these skills that saved my life less than a year ago. I'm absolutely clear in my mind that the national health service, for all the different things it can do, it...
Alun Davies: But it is the passer-by that is critical. It is the person in the house, in the street, in the Parliament, who will save that life when a cardiac arrest takes place, and I too, like Suzy, saw the interviews yesterday and saw the reports of a real life-saving incident taking place in the centre of Cardiff. But, you know, I'm also reminded of Justin Edinburgh, who was the former manager of...
Alun Davies: 2. Will the Counsel General provide an update on the UK Government's shared prosperity fund? OQ56363
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to the Counsel General for that response. I understand from Twitter that the Secretary of State has announced today that there will be something like £4.8 billion of funding available, but he doesn't say whether that's for Wales; he implies it's for Wales, but doesn't say whether it is for Wales or the UK, and he doesn't give a timescale for that expenditure. People in Blaenau...
Alun Davies: The 'for Wales, see England' approach that the Conservatives seem to be adopting will actually lead to a reduction in business support, as we've seen over the last year or so. First Minister, in taking forward Wales out of the lockdown—we're able to do this because of the success, of course, of the approach taken by the Welsh Government—I'm particularly concerned about the support that...
Alun Davies: I'd like to welcome the Minister's statement this afternoon and this budget. It's probably the toughest budget around any of us in this place have seen, and certainly in the three Senedds I've sat in, this has been the most difficult year for any Government at any time. So, I think whatever our individual politics and whatever our individual views on the decisions that the Minister takes, I...
Alun Davies: I very much agree with other speakers in this debate this afternoon. We all owe a great deal to police officers and to all those who have been working on the front line in the emergency services, particularly over the last year with the additional pressures of COVID and the additional pressures that they have had to face. And in paying tribute to them, we shouldn't try to pretend that they're...
Alun Davies: If I was a Conservative spokesperson in this debate, I would probably do what Laura Jones actually did do, which is to choose a year—I think she chose 2017—when funding was at its lowest, and then demonstrate that the Conservative UK Government had been generous by replacing some of the funding that they themselves had already cut from the budget. Had she been completely honest in her...
Alun Davies: 8. Will the Minister make a statement on Welsh Government regulations to outlaw third-party puppy sales, otherwise known as Lucy's law? OQ56407
Alun Davies: 3. Will the Minister make a statement on the financial support provided by the Welsh Government to Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council? OQ56406
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to the Minister for that, and I think many of us in this Chamber will welcome seeing this on the order paper, albeit in our last week of this Senedd. In terms of taking forward the agenda that Lucy's law symbolises, there needs to be a holistic approach to policy, and we need to certainly put in place the regulations that are on the order paper, but we also need to ensure that we...
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to the Minister for that. We are aware that the current local government settlement is an extremely generous settlement, and it's one that builds upon considerable additional expenditure through the pandemic to support local authorities who haven't been able to exercise their usual funding sources in the usual way, and they've had to deal with significant additional pressures....
