Mark Drakeford: We have regularly expressed concern about significant job losses across Trinity Wales publications in Wales. We will continue to make representations to Trinity about the developing situation with staff in north Wales. We recognise the importance of a healthy media sector as an essential component of a modern democratic society.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, the funding formula is reviewed every year. A group of people with expertise in this field, including representation from local government look, every single year, at the formula. They look at all the component parts of it: demography, geography, economy and social factors and, every year, they bring forward proposals, and governments, in my experience, accept the advice that they...
Mark Drakeford: ...reached agreement with the UK Government on a funding mechanism that will reflect the relative needs of our population. The reform of the Barnett formula represents the culmination of many years of representations by successive Welsh Governments. I pay particular tribute to the work of my predecessor, Jane Hutt, who achieved a major breakthrough in securing the first ever agreement to a...
Mark Drakeford: ...of voting. He asked me about the provisions in our Bill. Let me just give him one example of why we are so determined to act. The UK Government’s Bill places new barriers in the path of workplace representation. Now, why do we think that having proper access to time in order to represent your members is so important? It’s because you cannot have a social partnership model unless all...
Mark Drakeford: ...? Well, I don’t see why not, but let’s make sure that they can participate through the actions that we can take here. There is a significant section in the White Paper about diversification of representation, and that is a real ambition, I think, that we ought to grasp here in Wales. There is a new generation of leaders emerging in local authorities, and that’s much to be welcomed,...
Mark Drakeford: ...a UK research and innovation body, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, the Minister for Skills and Science and the chief scientific adviser met the UK Minister responsible and sought proper Welsh representation on UK research and innovation’s board. They made the same point to interim UKRI chair, Sir John Kingman. Discussions with universities on UKRI engagement started only recently.
Mark Drakeford: ...strengthen the White Paper. That is what I’m looking for from the respondents to the White Paper. If people ask questions, that does help, but it’s better still if they offer solutions and make representations on how we can strengthen our proposals in the White Paper, and to assist us in answering questions such as those raised by Sian Gwenllian this afternoon.
Mark Drakeford: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. At Stage 2 in front of the Finance Committee, there was a discussion of an amendment tabled by Steffan Lewis that would have enabled local authorities to make representations about the higher rate of tax. I’m grateful for subsequent opportunities to discuss this matter with the Member, because I have no difficulty with the general principle that we need to engage...
Mark Drakeford: I thank the Member for that question and for pointing to the important issue of disability and representation at local authority level. I congratulate all those people who stood for election and those who were successful, and particularly people who, in taking that quite brave step, sometimes, to put yourself in front of the public, will know that there will be some additional challenges that...
Mark Drakeford: ...to RCT and to the women who stood successfully there, and as I said in my original answer to Dawn Bowden, we are still some way from where we would wish to be in terms of diversity of representation across Wales. But there is some good news in that the number of women elected for the first time to local authorities in Wales in May of this year rose right across Wales, and there are some...
Mark Drakeford: ...at the JMC on European negotiations, and is normally represented at the JMC on Europe. That does provide us with an opportunity to discuss directly with UK Ministers the way in which diplomatic representation will be organised the other side of Brexit. We take every opportunity we have to impress on those representatives the need for a UK presence to be genuinely representative of the...
Mark Drakeford: ...job. It is time to move on. That is why, in line with the enhanced procedures set out in the LDEU Act, the draft regulations to repeal the Act were laid for 60 days, providing an opportunity for representations to be made. That 60-day period has expired, and Members will have seen from my written statement that only one representation was received during that time. I thank the...
Mark Drakeford: ...of Wales in the Brexit context. I know that he has seen 'Brexit and our land', and very many people have responded to that policy. The Minister Lesley Griffiths at this point is reviewing all the representations made and she will publish a report on people's comments on 'Brexit and our land' in the spring. For the first time this afternoon, Llywydd, I will have to say that I am not...
Mark Drakeford: ...out on behalf of people here in Wales, and that the case made in the McAllister review for an increase in Assembly Members was well made and doesn’t depend, I believe, on reducing other forms of representation in Wales in order to achieve that.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I share the Member's concern, and I know that the education Minister does as well, at the over-representation amongst school exclusions of pupils with additional learning needs. It's partly why we are investing £20 million to prepare the system and staff for the new regime that flows from the Act that was put on the statute book in this Chamber, and, in doing so, we certainly look...
Mark Drakeford: ...if a UK Government decided to try to legislate in an area devolved to us, against the will of the National Assembly, we would have, or the National Assembly would have, rather, the ability to make representations to the House of Commons and the House of Lords to put the alternative point of view. That, I think, is a way of reforming the status quo, but we go beyond that in the paper and...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, we work with our local authority colleagues, of course, to make sure that the contribution they can make through their representation at further education, and in the schools that they themselves run, to make sure that the skills agenda is understood and implemented there. It's one of the key things that Government does, Llywydd, to invest in people and to provide them with the...
Mark Drakeford: ...Wales. The report will be a useful contribution to the consultation that Qualifications Wales is carrying out, but in the end, it will be Qualifications Wales that will be responsible for making representations to the Welsh Government as to how we have a qualifications system that stands alongside our new curriculum, and that all of that underpins our ambition. And we are as ambitious as...
Mark Drakeford: ...comes to be done, I think what we will see is that those communities who find themselves at the sharpest end of deprivation in Wales have one key characteristic in common—that they have an over-representation, compared to other parts of Wales, of families with children. And the reason that they end up in the position they are in is because of the cuts in benefits that those families have...
Mark Drakeford: ...95 million we've had in consequentials from the UK Government for the same purposes in England. We are working with the WLGA who, together with the Local Government Association, are jointly making representations to the UK Government for further funding to take account of the lost income issue—a very serious issue for local authorities—and we as a Welsh Government are playing our part...
