Joyce Watson: Will you take an intervention?
Joyce Watson: Thank you very much for taking the intervention. I share some of the things that you were talking about, and I hope that you will join me in welcoming the statutory footing that the Minister has talked about and the additional funding. I just want to put on the record that I will be supporting this today; I think that Paul has had the right approach in his conciliatory manner, which he always...
Joyce Watson: Thank you, Jeremy, for giving me time to speak in your short debate today. As regional chair of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians association, I am acutely aware of the value of international partnerships and the benefits that they can and do deliver for all of us. The excellent partnership of the CWPA and the agreed programme of action has helped to deliver progress and change in a...
Joyce Watson: Will the First Minister make a statement on EU nurses working in Wales?
Joyce Watson: The first thing I’d like to do is offer my condolences to all those who have been affected by this, but also my thanks, alongside everybody else, to those who helped in the rescue of those individuals and the support thereafter. I don’t want to repeat some of the comments that have been said, but I do think that there is one very obvious statement that has to be made here today, and that...
Joyce Watson: I thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary, and I do welcome some elements and I will be raising concerns about others. The intensive action area—the IAA—does lie within the region that I’ve represented for 10 years now, so I know only too well what a blight bovine TB is, and the disease has been a chronic and malign affliction for many farmers for many, many years. I am...
Joyce Watson: 2. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the Development Bank of Wales? OAQ(5)0178(EI)
Joyce Watson: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. We all know that the clock is now ticking on our exit from the European Union. Therefore, building business confidence is more crucial now than ever it was perhaps before. Therefore, Cabinet Secretary, can I ask whether you have any further details on what the practical set-up will be, and how micro and medium businesses throughout Wales will be able to access...
Joyce Watson: I want to actually disassociate myself, as I’m sure everybody else here of a reasonable mind would do, from the comments of the previous speaker. But, however, as is set out in the report’s introduction, this was the committee’s first major inquiry, and it was undertaken at a time when we’re experiencing the worst global refugee crisis since the second world war. And politically, it...
Joyce Watson: Will the First Minister make a statement on NHS recruitment in Wales?
Joyce Watson: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I want to talk specifically to the minimum unit price for alcohol. Some of you may know that I’m a former licensee, and I have witnessed people who have thought, very often, that they were in control of what they drank. After all, they only came in for one, maybe two, pints on a regular basis, after work. But, the next week, they might have three pints, and so it...
Joyce Watson: I’ve sat in this Chamber now for over 10 years and like others, during that time, I’ve listened to the Tories plead for money—money to be spent on all public services without exception. And I dare say that we will hear those pleas again. I think the best thing that the Tory group, or the Conservative group, over there can do now is actually take that begging bowl to Westminster and ask...
Joyce Watson: We all know, First Minister, that the only way that you can deliver any public service is through the staff. And there’s evidence come out this week that the public sector pay cut and freeze over the past decade is such that, now, teachers’ pay has fallen by £3 an hour, police officers’ by £2 an hour, and nurses’ wages have absolutely stagnated. And the result of that at the moment,...
Joyce Watson: Finally, Dawn Bowden.
Joyce Watson: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.
Joyce Watson: We will move on now to the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure: historic environment policy and legislation. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure to make the statement—Ken Skates.
Joyce Watson: At the end of this week, Cabinet Secretary, I will be travelling to the north of my constituency. In fact, I will be traveling to Harlech. When it comes to arranging meetings or any other events in Harlech, there is a natural place where we settle upon that is mutually convenient and extremely important to the area, and of course I’m talking about Harlech castle. I know that the community,...
Joyce Watson: What discussions has the Welsh Government had with local authorities regarding discretionary housing payments?
Joyce Watson: Leader of the house, I’d like a statement on discretionary housing payments, please. Figures from Shelter Cymru have clearly shown that £100,000 of this money, which was there specifically to help people whose housing benefit didn’t cover the cost of their rent, was sent back by local authorities to Westminster last year. Five councils, three of those in my constituency, did account for...
Joyce Watson: One reason that strike action in the public sector in Wales is comparatively rare—and I will make a very rare comparison with England here, because I don’t usually do that. But we have seen in the last few years high-profile disputes in England within the public sector, like the one the junior doctors staged, and it was bitter and it was vitriolic. We haven’t had that here in Wales, and...
