Suzy Davies: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement and particularly for your emphasis on partnership, which I hope, of course, includes partnership with citizens themselves. Just a couple of questions—the first is: I wondered if there'd been any movement on an issue that I've raised before, which is about public services taking on a due regard for the United Nations Convention on the Rights...
Suzy Davies: Will the First Minister provide an update on the Welsh Government's financial contribution to road infrastructure in South Wales West?
Suzy Davies: Assembly Members finally managed to get a formal meeting with the chief executives and council leaders to discuss the Swansea bay city region before recess, and it’s clear that they see investment in transport—you mentioned infrastructure in your reply to David Rees—as a key driver for the economic prospects of the region. Do you think that Wales’s second city, at the heart of this...
Suzy Davies: First of all, can I just take the opportunity to thank the Government for listening, to some degree, anyway, to my constituents and those of other Assembly Members regarding the issue of business rates relief? It’s obviously not as far as we would’ve gone, but it is welcome, as far as it goes. However, we do need, I think, an urgent statement on how this additional £10 million is to be...
Suzy Davies: Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary, and thanks also to the Dementia Engagement and Empowerment Project and the Alzheimer’s Society, who have assisted you with this. I know their work in my own region is very valuable indeed. Three things: I was very pleased with the recognition of the need for Welsh language speakers, whose rights are, of course, already recognised in the...
Suzy Davies: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on his expectations regarding collaboration to provide connected public services within the Swansea Bay City Region?
Suzy Davies: Good afternoon. Gan gyfeirio’n ôl at gwestiwn Dai Lloyd, bydd Cadw, fel y gwyddoch mae’n debyg, yn defnyddio refeniw a godwyd ar wahanol safleoedd Cadw er mwyn cyfrannu at y gwariant cyfalaf ar rai o’n safleoedd mwyaf pwysig yma yng Nghymru. Rwy’n meddwl yn benodol am Abaty Nedd, y clustnodwyd £0.25 miliwn neu ychydig dros hynny ar ei gyfer eleni, ond nid yw’n glir iawn i mi faint...
Suzy Davies: ERW’s purpose is to deliver a single, consistent and integrated professional school improvement service. What evidence has ERW given you that it has improved teaching and learning of modern foreign languages? And, if you’re able to take this question, what evidence has it given to you that it’s improved Welsh teaching in English-medium schools in Swansea, helping build a more positive...
Suzy Davies: Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and thank you, everyone, for taking part in the debate today. I, too, like Oscar, am not exactly standing here in a position of strength, but I do want to contribute and sum up today’s debate. We had an individual Member debate just before the Christmas recess, if you all remember, and the scene was set for this debate then. Jenny Rathbone opened that debate with...
Suzy Davies: Of course, it’s not just households; it’s public services as well where this needs some attention. The Waste and Resources Action Programme, WRAP, which your Government funds, is now working with Abertawe Bro Morgannwg university health board to identify how to reduce food waste in hospitals. That’s one thing. But last week, ABMU confirmed that admissions to them from malnutrition were...
Suzy Davies: I think one of the things you can tell us about though, Minister, is the effect of this on partner organisations who’ve been working with NSA to deliver a range of programmes for some time now. This isn’t the first potential scandal that’s got through audit with a clean bill of health—we’ve had the All Wales Ethnic Minority Association. One of the big consequences of AWEMA was for...
Suzy Davies: Will you take an intervention?
Suzy Davies: Thank you very much for taking the intervention. You’ve welcomed quite a lot that’s in the Bill today, and I remember, at the end of last term, in response to challenges raised by Lee Waters in our debate on the autism Act, that you countered him by saying, ‘Don’t make the best the enemy of the good’. I’m wondering—devolution can’t stand still; that’s the reason why we have...
Suzy Davies: Just in the interest of transparency—although it’s not a registrable interest—I should explain that I’m a member of the Conservative Workers and Trade Unionists group. There’s been a lot of political passion in this today, but I just want to get to the heart, Cabinet Secretary, of why, out of the whole of the trade union Act—I know we’ve talked a lot about the thresholds...
Suzy Davies: Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. AEDs, or automated emergency defibrillators, are thankfully becoming more and more commonplace within Wales, and Members I’m sure will be as dismayed as I was to hear that two defibrillators provided by charities and local fundraisers in my region were vandalised recently. AEDs are designed to be easily used when help is needed, particularly when somebody has...
Suzy Davies: Will you take an intervention?
Suzy Davies: Will you take an intervention?
Suzy Davies: Thank you. Just on that last point, really, there’s been quite a lot of talk today about what the role of Government is in terms of opinion and advising. From what I hear, you’ve made it clear that anything that the First Minister might have said here, for example, is merely opinion and is not advising. Is there a point, or has there been a point during your negotiations in putting the...
Suzy Davies: Sorry to intervene, but, actually, that’s not true in Swansea—it’s fortnightly. [Interruption.] Apologies, I got that wrong. Ignore me.
Suzy Davies: At a recent meeting with Swansea council, officials suggested that their focus during this cycle of the WESPs would be on promoting the Welsh language. That is a step forward, but it doesn’t respond to demand. I got the impression from the cabinet member that she thought that the current vocalised demand for provision came from a specific section of Swansea society, and my belief that there...
