Julie James: It's worth looking at a cluster of people even if they're quite geographically spread. It's surprising what can be done with some of the technologies, and precision agriculture is one of the really big uses of this, so we have a number of examples of communities across Wales where one farmer has been connected and has been able to broadcast the signal, for example, to a number of other...
Julie James: Yes, we know that a lot of domestic abuse is hidden. We do know that people don't come forward and that there are inconsistencies of evidence across the piece. So, we work very hard with the police and crime commissioners, and actually with the lead police and crime commissioner, who is an ex-colleague that you'll all be familiar with, Jeff Cuthbert, who's taken the lead in this regard...
Julie James: So, what happens with our Act—the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015—is that that drives a statement by local authorities as to a needs assessment in their area, and the needs assessment is then how we plan the services, and that's in its infancy. We've only just had the first iteration of that. The whole propose of that Act is to overcome some of...
Julie James: So, that's very much part of the same piece that I was just talking about in terms of the assessment of need. And what we're looking to do is exactly that, to make sure that we have a proper assessment of need across all of Wales, and that we provide services based on that needs assessment and not just—. These services, generally, grew up because got together back in the 1970s and 1980s...
Julie James: We very much followed the superfast roll-out programme with a business exploitation programme and the domestic exploitation programme—some of you may have seen there's a big yellow cartoon lightning bolt that arrives on your village green with a big sign—and then we run programmes for people to come and understand how to get the best out of the service that's arrived and how to assess...
Julie James: Yes, that's a huge matter of frustration to me, I have to say, because that's to do with the way that the UK Government sold the spectrum and the geographical coverage they either did or didn't put on it. So, it's clearly inadequate. I've mentioned many times in this Chamber my frustration at not being able to get them to see that having a single provider across 98 per cent of the land mass...
Julie James: We've been making representations to that effect, and that's a very good example of one of the benefits that the European Union brings—the other one, of course, is roaming right across Europe, which doesn't necessarily happen after Brexit. So, very much as part of our preparedness for it, we are lobbying the UK Government and actually having negotiations with Europe itself about how best to...
Julie James: Yes, 5G is very interesting, because, really, you need 4G in order to be able to advance to it. So, what we've been doing is working to make sure that people don't have to start with nothing and then climb up the ladder, so that they can leapfrog it. There are lots of issues there, so we have a number of test beds around Wales—Cardiff is actually part of the national test-bed programme....
Julie James: We've been very much part of the UK Government's competition, where business-led consortia, including local authorities and academia, can apply to get a slice of £25 million-worth of funding, as I said, from DCMS. And that's looking to support the development of all of the technology; it's not just the connectivity—it's all the widgets, if you like, that go with it. So, 5G doesn't go very...
Julie James: Yes, indeed, and we belong to the national cyber security network, and we are committed to the national cyber security strategy. I've had a number of very good meetings with the National Cyber Security Centre, and they've visited us twice to make sure that our cyber resilience plans are in order. The Cabinet Office has made funding available to Wales for cyber resilience, and we've allocated...
Julie James: Our new framework, 'Action on Disability: the Right to Independent Living', currently out for consultation, sets out priority actions under way across Welsh Government to tackle key barriers to equality of opportunity identified by disabled people themselves. This includes transport, employment, education, health, housing and accessibility.
Julie James: Yes, I'm very aware of that as an issue; it's been raised with me by a number of constituents as well. We are having ongoing discussions with various public service travel operators to see what can be done about that; often on a bus, for example, there's one wheelchair space, not two, and, if you are travelling with two people together, they often have to catch subsequent buses, and so on....
Julie James: Yes, we share him out.
Julie James: Yes. So, on the second one, I'm very keen on doing that. I've had several conversations with the Permanent Secretary around the civil service, and I know that the Commission has also had a couple of conversations about it in terms of becoming Disability Confident. We're very keen to do that. The difficulty with this is that you need to get a standard in place. So, you can declare that you're...
Julie James: Yes, I'm actually very happy to commit to that. There's certainly no intention whatsoever that any person, any individual, will be any worse off as a result of the transition. Most people should be better off, and people should be at the very least the same, so I'm very happy to undertake that. I know that, in our final budget proposals, we are looking to guarantee that. My experience in my...
Julie James: We've been very consistent in the communications regarding the importance of gender equality, and I'm pleased to note that the draft blueprints for youth justice and female offending that have been developed will contribute to ensuring greater equality for those within or at risk of entering the criminal justice system in Wales. This is particularly the case in the draft female offending...
Julie James: Indeed, and the Cabinet Secretary and I have had a very good working relationship over this and we've been working very hard on it over the last couple of years, actually, haven't we? And I think that the statement is very reflective of that. We're very keen that women are deflected from prison or the criminal justice system where at all possible, that we work hard with the judiciary,...
Julie James: The Cabinet Secretary will be covering this, but I will just say, briefly, that I do not agree that we should have a women's prison in Wales, because having men's prisons in Wales has not stopped Welsh men being sent all over the UK. What we want is for women to be deflected from the criminal justice system, except in the most extreme cases of violence. So, we do not need a bigger prison that...
Julie James: We have had many discussions on exactly this point. I completely agree with the Howard League for Penal Reform. I've been a fellow traveller of theirs for many, many years. And that's exactly on the point of the discussion that we've been having. We are very keen to have the criminal justice system devolved as fast as possible, including the probation services. Probation services are...
Julie James: Yes. I very much welcome the recent industry announcement declaring the planned 5G investment in Cardiff.
