Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: What I hope will happen now is that the commissioner will speak to these services and see what is ideal in those areas, and to push them in those areas where we can push people further. In terms of primary care, of course, care provided directly by health boards will be captured under the standards, but that's an issue of practicalities in terms of how we actually require independent primary...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: But the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol is doing a great deal of work in this area already. So, a great deal of work is already being done. So, we can't discount the other things that are happening. We are dealing just with the standards today, and in my opening remarks, I did say that we must look at these standards in a far broader context. But, I do now hope that we can make progress in this...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am pleased to launch my employability plan today, and I start by thanking my fellow Members for their contributions to the development of this plan, because it is a cross-governmental scheme. It is one of the prime responsibilities of Government to educate, train and prepare people for the world of work. A larger, more inclusive workforce is good for our...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Our vision is to make Wales a full-employment, high-tech, high-wage economy. We want more people joining or returning to the world of work. We want a more inclusive workforce, with greater numbers of disabled people in work, and a decrease in the gender pay gap, as well as the disability, and black, Asian, minority ethnic pay gaps. We need to prepare people for a changing world of work,...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Building on the economic action plan, we are identifying and promoting career progression and development opportunities within the foundational economy sectors. As part of our goal of reaching 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050, we are encouraging employers to recognise the skills and contribution of Welsh-speaking workers. Acknowledging Welsh as a skill is something that we have to underline.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Our goal is to provide opportunities to create resilient individuals who have the skills, enthusiasm, drive and creativity to fulfil their potential, irrespective of ability, background, gender or ethnicity. This plan is a longer term view of how we can deliver this vision, and we'll be taking action in four key areas. First, we'll provide individualised support for those who need it. We'll...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: This plan provides the long-term vision and national framework that Wales needs to support people into work today, while preparing for the radical changes of the future. I look forward to working in partnership with organisations across Wales to deliver the actions outlined in this plan.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you, Mohammad. I think some of the targets have been set out in the document, so you can be assured of the direction of travel there. I will be looking at producing more granularity; I think it's important that we look at the regional impact, and what it looks like regionally, so we will be really monitoring this in a very coherent way, but we'll be doing it systematically over a long...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. First of all, I’m pleased that you acknowledge that it’s ambitious, but I do think that we should be ambitious. We should be clear about where we want to reach. We’re not going to do this overnight, but what was really important to me was that we were entirely clear where we wanted to reach and that we put steps in place in order to reach that point. So, how are we...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: On targets, I am very well aware that what we've got here are headline targets and I'll be working with officials to make sure that we get much more focused targets and that we break them down, so that we're not just kind of crashing into it 10 years from now. We do need to make sure that we have steps of progress. I think it is worth noting that, actually, we can't deliver all of this by...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Just to be clear, the employment advice gateway is targeted at unemployed, economically inactive people and NEETs, but Careers Wales is available for all, and it's the same organisation. So, the advice, and the possibility of going to Careers Wales for advice exists and is available for individuals currently. I think what's really important is that we really look at in-work poverty. That's...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I think it's worth emphasising that this programme is a cross-Government programme, so this has been negotiated and discussed across the whole of Government, so that's why there are so many different factors in it, and that issue with transport has been underlined more than once as being a key feature of actually blocking people from getting to the workplace. I know this is something that the...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch, Mohammad. Our adult learning in Wales policy statement was published in July and set out our priorities for adult learning. I will shortly be consulting on proposals to restructure the delivery and funding of adult learning, with the aim of providing a sustainable and secure future for this important provision.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: There's no doubt that in terms of what we'd like to do, we'd like to have put a lot more money into adult community learning, but that's been really difficult when we've seen a £1.4 billion cut from the UK Tory Government. So, that's been the problem for us. But let me be clear that, in deciding then what our priorities should be, we have concentrated on the importance of training people up...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you. I think this is quite an exciting opportunity for us, and one of the first things I did when I was appointed as Minister was to go and listen to what a lot of the think tanks had to say. And this was an area where they said, 'Actually, there's a real opportunity.' Now, it's true in the past that the individual learning accounts had a bad name. In Wales, there wasn't a problem, but...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I do understand that there’s been quite a lot of response to what happened in Denbigh. What is important, I think, is that we respect the independence of the colleges—they make the decisions. But, of course, we have to ensure that we enable people in every community to have access now to further education. So, we will have to look, I think, at ensuring that we find ways of ensuring that...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. I do think it’s important that we condemn any attack on people who speak any language that is a minority language. I do think that the kerfuffle that’s been created hasn’t helped things particularly. The question is: how should we respond? I do think it’s important that we underline how complex it would be to do something in legislative terms in this area. But, I...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: No. May I just say that it was important for me that I was in the House of Lords on Monday, protecting the charter of fundamental rights for languages? I do think and believe that that will be carried over and that that will provide some safeguards for us—legal safeguards that may otherwise have been removed. In terms of your question on standards, you will be aware that the negotiations on...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Fair enough, but I think what’s important—. You have received a response from me. You'll be aware that staffing issues are issues for the Permanent Secretary, and I will push her to respond to you on your question. I do think it’s important that we now focus. If our target is to reach a million Welsh speakers, then I do think it’s crucially important that we emphasise the importance...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much and thank you for the debate this afternoon. May I give particular thanks to Russell and the committee for their recommendations? You will be aware that we have accepted the vast majority of those recommendations, and I'd like to discuss a few of them now.
