Ken Skates: ...Welsh Football Trust, and I’d like to put on record my thanks to them for doing a sterling job, not just in promoting the game but in engaging many young people who might otherwise disengage from education. And, in doing so, they keep them in education and make sure that they get a good schooling. Now, going forward, the Welsh Football Trust plan to use qualification for Euro 2016 as a...
Ken Skates: ...status under UEFA’s grass-roots charter in recognition of the scale and standard of the programmes delivered. And it’s interesting for Members to note that Wales is the first nation to provide education online attracting world-class coaches to our courses, including Thierry Henry.
Ken Skates: .... This year, they used the European championships as a catalyst to get more people to play football, holding 100 community football recruitment days across Wales and continuing to engage with schools through their Play More Football programme. The success of Welsh athletes in the Olympics is something that we can all take pride in. Although the Welsh contingent made up just 7 per cent of...
Ken Skates: ...part, to the investment of the Welsh Government of course, as well as UK Sport and, indeed, Sport Wales. But it’s because of the Welsh Government’s relentless focus on raising standards in school sport, through 5x60 and Dragon Sport—again, both delivered in partnership with Sport Wales—that we’ve been able to achieve an increase in participation amongst young people in sport and...
Ken Skates: ...for the games, then money would have had to have been identified from existing major expenditure groups. So, essentially, a cap would have had to have gone around Government, every department—education, health, transport; it would have gone to rural affairs, to communities—and contributions would have had to have been made. So, it’s not a saving as such that can be reinvested. But,...
Ken Skates: ...opportunities for people to take up sport and physical activity. Another great contribution that sport makes to life is that it often helps young people who are at risk of disengaging from formal education, or who have disengaged from education, to rediscover learning through the discipline of sport. For young people who have disengaged, it’s often difficult for them to see the woods for...
Ken Skates: ...further. Why? Because it’s good for the economy, it’s good for skills training, it’s good for volunteering, it brings communities together. It’s also good for the heritage sector and for education. I do not believe that royal charters should act as a preventative measure when you have willing partners within those institutions that want to come together to bring expertise and...
Ken Skates: ...one glaring, obvious error in it is that he’s not been able to identify where, within the Government’s revenue budget, £700 million will be able to be found. Where will that come from? Health? Education? That’s one glaringly obvious mistake. You say, ‘Be ambitious’—there’s a difference between being realistic and delusional. Being able to just magic out of the air £700...
Ken Skates: ...is an expectation from the Welsh Government that the contractor will not use steel dumped from overseas markets on any project. Grant funding and investment in projects such as twenty-first century schools, as I outlined at last week’s all-party group meeting, are all now used as levers to require recipients of Welsh Government funding to evidence just how supply chain contracts are...
Ken Skates: ...significant benefits to mid and north Wales as part of an integrated rail network across the UK. And this position is shared entirely by the ‘Growth Track 360’ participants, including further education, local authorities, councils from England and, of course, the private sector. I want to make sure that it is properly integrated, though, into the economy of north Wales. The huge...
Ken Skates: ...bypass, in addition to the next phases of superfast broadband connectivity, and which also captures social programmes, such as new health centres and hospitals, and, of course, twenty-first century schools, higher education and further education. The Member is absolutely right in asserting that capital programmes can dramatically increase the degree of economic growth in a country, and,...
Ken Skates: ...working for these companies, but the impact on the people living in the communities served by them. The loss of these vital services, enabling people to get to work, to hospital appointments and to education, brings into stark focus the reality of the fragility of our bus network. Under the five-point plan I announced last month, I’ll be offering all bus companies in Wales dedicated...
Ken Skates: ...the number of passenger journeys on the bus network. But I would not be averse to considering any opportunities that need to be presented for carers to be able to access employment opportunities, education, or indeed to travel to and from the places of care.
Ken Skates: ...are engaging with, how many you are attracting. I’m sure that we would agree on that. So, if we look at the National Museum Wales, it’s done a good job in attracting people to the sites and in educating people, but not good enough. I want more. I want the people of Wales to be more active culturally and in terms of physical activity. I want more people to be more active in the arts,...
Ken Skates: ...I’m going to say it anyway—to support an application worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds for skills training within the heritage sector, which I know my colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills as well are very pleased with. It will see opportunities created for young people from disadvantaged communities to take part in heritage projects to gain the skills...
Ken Skates: ...behaviour. But the key, the long-term key, to improving our built environment is in ensuring that people change their behaviours, and we are trying to do just that. Indeed, right from primary school upwards, with the introduction of the new curriculum, we hope that people will become more responsible and respectful adults and stop littering. I find it particularly frustrating in my...
Ken Skates: ...pleased that north Wales is the fourth greatest region on the planet? This week, I’m pleased to be able tell the Member that Wales won another award. We won the best in UK for youth, student and educational travellers, and that was at the British Youth Travel Awards. North Wales, without a doubt, has a unique offer, and I am keen to make sure that it becomes more accessible to travellers...
Ken Skates: ...will be published together, and through all four I think Members will be able to see that themes and interventions can be woven right across not just the economy, but the public sector, through education and through health. We live in a society, and we live in an environment, where economic priorities often align perfectly with the priorities of other areas of Government, and it’s...
Ken Skates: ...is in changing people’s behaviour and cultures. For that reason, I’m particularly pleased that we are investing in the Active Journeys initiative, which is operating in primary and secondary schools across Wales. It’s my understanding that, to date, somewhere in the region of 232 schools across the country have been involved in that particular scheme and more than 30 are in Cardiff....
Ken Skates: .... Let me also be clear on the aim of this work and the goals I’m seeking to achieve. Firstly, I want to increase the number of people of all ages using buses for their daily commute to work, for education, access to health services and for leisure activities. Secondly, I want to improve the availability of good-quality and accessible local bus services for passengers right across Wales....
