Julie James: Sorry, Llyr, my translator thing is intermittent, I'm afraid.
Julie James: Sorry. We'll try again.
Julie James: Yes, it's clear that the current negotiating deal that the Prime Minister is attempting, by any means necessary, to garner up some very much-needed support for is ill-advised as a result of her red lines. She has learnt a little from our proposals, but much too little and much too late. I entirely agree with the Member that the recent forecasts from a number of sources simply underline the...
Julie James: Thank you for that question. I am very grateful for the report, which provides valuable evidence to support the efforts of all our public bodies to reduce inequality in Wales. I recently met with the Wales commissioner to discuss the challenges identified, and officials are now considering the recommendations in some detail.
Julie James: Officials are looking very carefully at the report in a lot of detail—laser-like focus, as John Griffiths says—with a view to having it be fed into the next iteration of our strategic equality plan, and, indeed, in the way that the previous strategic equality plan was based on the previous 'Is Wales Fairer?' report. We're very pleased that we've been able to work in conjunction with the...
Julie James: We've appointed an equality champion to work with our apprenticeship providers in order to do that, and the Minister has been working very hard to ensure that we get very good representation from all groups of protected characteristics in particular. There is a wider society issue at play in the gender segregation, so you see very many more women in social settings, very many more men in hard...
Julie James: No, of course I don't, and I don't know what he's referring to. But, no, in general, of course, the answer to that would be 'of course I don't'.
Julie James: I think that there is a new management regime at NRW. The Cabinet Secretary has answered questions on this, as has the First Minister, on a number of occasions. Changing the organisation now would be a massive organisational change, on top of some of the other challenges that the Member has mentioned. We've only just put—very recently in organisational terms—a new chief executive in, we...
Julie James: As I said, I think that would be entirely the wrong approach to organisational challenge. The Member is very keen on highlighting some of the negative aspects and, absolutely, the organisation has a number of things that it needs to address, and its new management arrangements are designed to address them. But I think there are two sides to every story. It is important to remember that during...
Julie James: Yes, we're absolutely committed to making sure that the national health service is based on its founding principles, so delivered by public sector staff where at all possible and free at the point of delivery.
Julie James: Well, I couldn't really disagree with the Member more. Clearly, we have to arrange for services to be delivered in the best possible fashion, but there is a clear, determined, publicly stated, open and transparent principle at stake, which is: where possible, we deliver it by public sector staff, free at the point of delivery. Clearly, there are some instances where we have to use private...
Julie James: Well, Llywydd, I can do no better than to repeat what I said: of course we are not doing that. The Welsh Government is utterly committed to delivering the NHS as a public service free at the point of use. Of course we sometimes have to use private contractors to fill off service difficulties and of course we are doing exactly as he suggested we should do, which is training the largest number...
Julie James: No. Of course, we are very sorry indeed, as many people have said in the Chamber over the last week or so, to find ourselves in the position where Transport for Wales has inherited a fleet of trains, very substandard and substantially not what we'd expect—frankly, from years and years and years of underinvestment by the private sector. So, we have a very firm recovery plan in place. The...
Julie James: Actually, Transport for Wales have done an absolutely fantastic job, and 10 per cent of the fleet is now back in action again. So, I think, actually, they're to be praised for the swiftness of their response. Clearly, there are real issues with keeping trains that are substandard in operation that I don't have to reiterate to the Member. We are working very hard to make sure that the fleet is...
Julie James: Very much part of the new franchise is to move to the ticketless system that you see—. If you go to Transport for London, for example, almost all of the services are ticketless, so we'll be moving to that. The investment is very much there. That's very much part of the plan—to move to ticketless operations as fast as possible.
Julie James: Yes. Work continues on the delivery of our mobile action plan. This includes the publication of our new 'Planning Policy Wales' document very shortly, which recognises the economic importance of mobile coverage and appropriate permitted development rights for mobile phone infrastructure.
Julie James: Yes. What I actually said, if you remember, was that it was very important that we make sure that what we recommend in Wales is fit for purpose in Wales, particularly in our very beautiful national parks. We wanted very much to ensure that the people of Wales are very happy with what we were proposing by way of infrastructure. Russell George, you and I have had these conversations very...
Julie James: Yes, planning policy is devolved to Wales, but that will not—. It's not a silver bullet. What would be a silver bullet is putting 100 per cent geographic coverage for the mobile phone operators across Wales, or, if that's not going to be done in the spectrum sales, then allowing roaming in rural areas. This is a matter of some discussion between us. If we don't do that, we will never get...
Julie James: Yes, and I have every sympathy with them. Unfortunately, the 4G spectrum was sold in such a way that you can hold it and never use it, and that's very much part of the discussion with the UK Government about the sale of future spectrum, because we think that just being able to buy it and then hold it and never do anything with it is not the way forward for obvious reasons. We are looking,...
Julie James: Yes. The law regarding medicinal cannabis in England, Wales and Scotland changed on 1 November 2018. Specialist doctors may now decide whether to prescribe cannabis-based products for medicinal use where clinically appropriate.
