Mark Isherwood: Diolch. Well, I move amendments 1, 2, 4 and 5. The agility and flexibility of the universal credit system allowed a temporary uplift to be implemented at the start of the pandemic, in extraordinary times. In April 2020, as a one-year response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the universal credit standard allowance received a temporary uplift of £20 a week. In his March 2021 budget, the UK...
Mark Isherwood: —in addition to a 3p increase on fuel duty.
Mark Isherwood: Sorry, I missed that. Yes, certainly, Joyce.
Mark Isherwood: What I agree with is that it was a temporary uplift introduced in response to COVID-19 and extended beyond the original promised date. Today, welfare spending will still be £241 billion in 2021-22, with over £111 billion on working age welfare, or 4.9 per cent of GDP. Universal credit provides a safety net, but is not designed to trap people in welfare. Unfortunately, however, as our...
Mark Isherwood: Pardon?
Mark Isherwood: —a life dependent on welfare, whilst maintaining flexibility around the discretionary assistance fund. Diolch.
Mark Isherwood: The policy recommendations for the next Welsh Government, published by Colegau Cymru/Colleges Wales in March, included to build on the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill and the consequential impact on 14 to 19 learning pathways to provide a legal basis for learners aged 14 to 16 to progress to vocational and technical pathways provided independently by further education institutions, and...
Mark Isherwood: Diolch. In March, your predecessor as Counsel General issued a written statement in which he said that he wanted to ensure that more work to deliver more accessible law would be done in, quote, 'normal' times. He also referred to the passing of the Legislation (Wales) Act 2019 and said, quote, 'it will be for the next Government to bring forward the first formal programme of activity to make...
Mark Isherwood: Diolch, Llywydd. The Law Commission issued a consultation paper, as you'll know, on devolved tribunals in Wales last December to help shape the tribunal Bill for Wales, designed to regulate a single system for tribunals in Wales. This is now at policy development stage. Given your responsibility for tribunals, what's your initial response to the consultation paper's proposals to, in...
Mark Isherwood: Diolch. Of course, we'll be particularly interested to hear how you respond to the proposal for the Welsh Tribunals unit to become a non-ministerial department. At the time of the EU withdrawal Bill, the UK Government agreed that UK-wide frameworks—which are also within your area of responsibility—to replace the EU rule book would be freely negotiated between the four UK Governments in...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you. Finally, moving to another topical issue within your range of responsibilities, UK Government Ministers have repeatedly stated that the amount of money going to be spent in Wales when the shared prosperity fund comes in will be identical to or higher than the amount that was spent in Wales that came directly from the European Union, underpinned by the not-a-penny-less guarantee....
Mark Isherwood: Perfectly timed. Will the Counsel General therefore tell us what direct involvement—[Interruption.]—what direct involvement with this funding his officials are having in practice with the UK Government and other Governments within the UK?
Mark Isherwood: Thank you. I welcome your comments, but do you share the concern of the senior clinician who also works as a GP, who wrote to me saying: 'Waiting times at Wrexham Maelor A&E department have got to atrocious levels. I've been discussing this with one of our junior doctors who does locum in the department. He confirmed that waiting times are indeed extremely long and said the issue was that...
Mark Isherwood: I would like to call for an urgent Welsh Government statement on GP services in Wales. Although the COVID pandemic has shone a light on these, warnings to the Welsh Government of a GP crisis in Wales long predate this. In 2012, both BMA Cymru and the Royal College of General Practitioners relaunched campaigns warning that Wales faced a GP crisis, that 90 per cent of patient contacts were with...
Mark Isherwood: I'll do my best. Diolch. Wales only continued to be eligible for European structural funding because, despite billions in subsequent rounds, it failed to close the prosperity gap it was intended for, unlike other nations that entered the project at the same time, like Poland, which of course did and excluded themselves. You say Flintshire excluded itself from the priority funding list. Do you...
Mark Isherwood: Will you take an intervention?
Mark Isherwood: Thank you very much indeed. On Monday, Darren Millar and I visited the Carers Trust North Wales Crossroads Care Services at their new north Wales dementia centre in north Wales. We heard that this is unique in Wales, contracted and funded via Betsi Cadwaladr health board but run on a charitable basis. We heard about their plans to create a best-practice hub in central Wales, hopefully with...
Mark Isherwood: Four years after I first raised concerns with the Welsh Government, the 2013 Holden report, commissioned after patient deaths and complaints by 42 staff, warned that the Hergest psychiatric unit at Ysbyty Gwynedd was in serious trouble. I understand that Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board asked staff criticised in Holden for putting lives at risk to write the paper to the board. After...
Mark Isherwood: Flintshire's child and adolescent mental health service, CAMHS, is based in Alyn and Deeside. I continue to receive casework where children are denied autism diagnosis by Flintshire CAMHS because they've adopted effective masking and coping strategies in school, although they then melt down at home. In these cases, the council then blames poor parenting, with children even taken into care....
Mark Isherwood: Well, if Members aren't aware, I'm responding as Chair of the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee rather than in a party capacity. Well, as Chair of the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee, now abbreviated as PAPAC, I must remind Members that the role of this committee is to scrutinise the efficient and effective use and administration of public resources,...
