Julie James: Well, that's not how I would put it. As I said, we've got the target for 690,000 premises to have been included in the first project. As I said, in response to an earlier question, I'm not yet in a position to be able to say categorically that that target was met. I hope to be able to do that within the next few months. We obviously monitor this very carefully. BT Openreach don't get paid...
Julie James: I don't hold that information in that way, I'm afraid.
Julie James: I share the Member's frustration, as he well knows. I've been doing my tour of Wales and I've heard a lot from members of the public who are very frustrated by the scheduling letters that they get. I don't want to indulge in semantics, because it just irritates people, but obviously we don't promise it. We're talking about scheduled works and there are a number of complex engineering reasons...
Julie James: No, I can't, because until I know what the engineering difficulty or other difficulty was that prevented them from being included, I'm not able to give you a cast iron guarantee that we will be able to overcome those difficulties. I can tell you that they're absolutely the top priority for us—people who've been in that situation—and we're working very hard to make sure that we can...
Julie James: As I said in response to a number of other Members, there are a number of initiatives that are really interesting across Wales. They're all tied up with a number of complex initiatives around data sharing and protocols, but I did visit the multi-agency safeguarding hub in Cardiff central police station very recently, and was very impressed by how the agencies there had come together to...
Julie James: Yes, of course, all the statistics on domestic violence are troubling, and it's a scourge in our society, and we have to have a range of options for preventing this and for tackling both the victims and their perpetrators and their various issues. For the first time in Wales, we've got standards for relevant authorities set on training related to violence against women, domestic abuse and...
Julie James: And I couldn't agree more. What we've done is we've looked to see how we can manage our own decreasing budget in this area—as a result of the austerity policies of the current UK Government—in order to best make use of that. We're doing that by increasing the flexibility of our local service partners to use their grant in more imaginative ways and to collaborate better on a regional...
Julie James: I'm having a series of bilaterals across all colleagues in the Government, which began when I took up this post only a few weeks ago, though it seems a bit longer. That's the purpose of the bilaterals: to make sure that the equality agenda, which clearly touches every part of Welsh Government—both Welsh Government as an employer, Welsh Government as an organisation and Welsh Government as...
Julie James: That's a very important point that the Member makes. As I said, the Cabinet Secretary and I are due to have our bilateral on these issues. I will say—and I'm going to steal my own thunder a little bit here—that next week I'll be launching the This is Me campaign, which is designed entirely to talk about gender stereotyping and treating individuals as individuals. It's a very hard-hitting...
Julie James: So, the very simple answer to that last question is 'yes'. In fact, I've just commissioned a piece of work jointly with my officials in Chwarae Teg to see how we can make sure there is good gender representation—half and half, not 40 per cent—on all public boards sponsored by the Welsh Government in this Assembly term. I'm hoping to be able to report back when they've done that small...
Julie James: We continue to implement our national strategy, which sets out our action to tackle domestic violence. Survivors’ voices are absolutely at the forefront of our work. In recognition of this, a national survivor engagement framework is currently being developed.
Julie James: I very much join Julie Morgan in warmly welcoming the recent appointment of our new national advisers, Yasmin Khan and Nazir Afzal. I really think we've done very well in securing the services of two such excellent people. They are, between them, full-time, not two part-time people, so it's a job share, which I'm very happy about as well. In fact, the previous adviser, Rhian—her contract...
Julie James: Andrew R.T. Davies raises an extremely important point. I have not yet had any extensive discussions on that. I've had a lot of discussions about English for speakers of other languages courses, and making sure that people who come to live here in Wales have access to English as a second language tuition. It is on my agenda to have that conversation. I'm very aware, as well, because I...
Julie James: Our priority in Aberavon, as in the rest of Wales, is to ensure that people gain maximum benefit from the life-changing opportunities that digital technologies can offer, thereby securing improved economic, learning and health outcomes across all our communities.
Julie James: I think the Member makes an extremely important point. We are very aware of the problems of closing community facilities, and so on. As a result, we've been working with Digital Communities Wales to support organisations that specifically work with excluded groups to engage with specific sets of clients. I'm sure the Member is very well aware of the Get NPT Online partnership, for example,...
Julie James: Yes. We are determined to do all we can to make Wales hostile to slavery. We are working with our multi-agency partners to raise awareness of slavery, providing multi-agency training, supporting victims and assisting in bringing perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.
Julie James: Well, we're the first and only country in the UK to appoint an anti-slavery co-ordinator, and we've established the Wales anti-slavery leadership group to provide strategic leadership and guidance on how we tackle slavery in Wales. The Member will be very well aware that slavery is a very complex ground to investigate and prosecute, which is why we've worked with our partners to develop a...
Julie James: Yes. As I said earlier, I'm very delighted that Yasmin Khan and Nazir Afzal have been appointed as the national advisers, and I'm very much looking forward to working with them. They bring an enormous amount of experience and they'll be advising Ministers and working with victims, survivors and other stakeholders to improve our services and to report on our progress.
Julie James: I very much join Jane Hutt in acknowledging the history, impact and value of the sector in Wales and, indeed, her own long history in this sector. I'm very grateful for organisations such as Welsh Women’s Aid and all the others who've made a stand to eradicate this sort of abuse in our society. They absolutely offer vital support to victims and survivors. I'm very pleased to say that I'm...
Julie James: Yes. Under the Superfast Cymru project we've provided access to fast fibre broadband to 27,206 premises in Caerphilly. At the last time of data checking, the average download speed for premises deployed under Superfast Cymru is 64.4 Mbps in Caerphilly.
