Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, strong partnership arrangements exist between the Welsh Government and all Welsh police forces. Reductions in budgets on both sides inevitably place even greater pressure on our combined ability to provide essential services.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, the Prime Minister's disastrous record as Home Secretary is increasingly coming home to roost. Her decision—let's remember that it was her decision—year after year after year to reduce funding for the police—[Interruption.] You forget the times that she turned up at Police Federation conferences lecturing them on the way that they should conduct themselves, while she was, at...
Mark Drakeford: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to start by thanking the very industrious members of the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee. I want to thank them firstly for their report and secondly for the opportunity that was given to me and the First Minister to give evidence as part of the inquiry by the committee into how the Welsh Government is preparing for...
Mark Drakeford: Dirprwy Lywydd, the position, as I see it, is this: where matters lie in our own hands, I think we can show that the Welsh Government has acted promptly and persistently to assemble the evidence and to set out key priorities for Wales as we move to Brexit. Where preparation depends critically on decisions that are made by others, then our ability to prepare is inevitably less certain—as...
Mark Drakeford: The response made by the Government to the seven recommendations of the report were set out by the First Minister on 12 April, and they're shaped by this context. The Chair of the committee stole part of my speech by going through all seven recommendations, but it's been a wide-ranging debate, Dirprwy Lywydd, touching on a series of really important issues. I completely agree with what Mick...
Mark Drakeford: I recognise the vital importance of technology and digital skills for our children. It is part of our National Mission to ensure all learners have the skills they require to become digitally and technically competent as well as develop as enterprising, creative and critical thinkers.
Mark Drakeford: Our vision is for a prosperous, resilient poultry industry promoting Wales's present and future well-being, which will only be achieved by ensuring highest standards of health and welfare, minimising the use of antibiotics and reducing the impact on the environment.
Mark Drakeford: Our innovative procurement policies and approaches, including community benefits, Better Jobs Closer to Home and the National Procurement Service, are resulting in job creation and economic growth in Wales.
Mark Drakeford: The Institute for Fiscal Studies projects that universal credit will reduce poverty, due to an expected increase in take-up. However, such effects are uncertain, and are more than outweighed by projected increases in poverty from other UK Government welfare reforms. The south Wales Valleys are hard hit by these reforms.
Mark Drakeford: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Thank you for the chance to confirm that the Government will offer an oral statement tomorrow on the agreement reached today between the Welsh Government and the UK Government on amendments to the UK European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. Those amendments will be published by the UK Government tomorrow, together with the text of an inter-governmental agreement. I hope that...
Mark Drakeford: Thank you very much, Llywydd, and thank you for agreeing to the making of this statement about developments in respect of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. As Members will be aware, over recent weeks and months, intensive discussions have taken place aimed at resolving the disagreements between ourselves and the Scottish Government on the one hand and the UK Government on the other about...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, UK Government Ministers are today laying amendments to the EU withdrawal Bill in the House of Lords that reflect an inter-governmental agreement that has also been published this morning. Taken together, these are sufficient to enable Welsh Ministers to recommend that the National Assembly gives its legislative consent to the Bill in a motion that we will debate next month. This...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, the second way in which today's agreement represents a significant advance is that it recognises that the Sewel convention will apply to secondary regulation-making powers—the powers that will be used to put in place these new temporary restrictions on competence. The UK Government will not normally put such regulations to Parliament for approval unless the devolved legislatures...
Mark Drakeford: I thank the Member for those detailed questions. I'll do my best to answer as many as I can. Mr Isherwood referred to a duty on UK Ministers to report regularly to the UK Parliament on progress in relation to frameworks. I believe that is likely to be on a three-monthly basis. We were keen on that because it puts real pressure into the system to reach agreements quickly on those matters. That...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, thank you very much for those questions.
Mark Drakeford: I continue to regret some of the language that has been used by the leader of Plaid Cymru. The progress that she describes as capitulation and as a stitch-up was described by the First Minister of Scotland, in her letter to the Prime Minister today, as 'substantial progress having been made'. That is what Michael Russell said to the Scottish Parliament yesterday, when he described the...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, thank you very much for those questions.
Mark Drakeford: I'm just going to reply to a small of number of them. What would happen, the Member asked, if the UK Government were to resile from the inter-governmental agreement that we have reached with them? Well, he is right: it would then be a genuine constitutional crisis. I don't think that will happen, because I think I have to proceed on the basis that if a Minister in another Government, after...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, thank you. First of all, can I provide the Member with an assurance that an LCM will be brought forward between Report and Third Reading Stages in the House of Lords? He's right to say that the 'not normally' obligation on the UK Government is balanced by the 'not unreasonably withheld' obligation on the devolved administrations. Let me deal with what he said on the sunset clause....
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, can I thank the Member for what he has said and for the very careful attention that he has paid to all of this and for the opportunity along the way to discuss developments with him, as I have with other parties here? He is absolutely right to say that this agreement delivers a strengthened role for the Welsh Government and for the National Assembly for Wales across a whole swathe...
