Julie James: Well, I don't think we have any plans at all to make St David's Day a national public holiday, but the First Minister, when he returns from his St David's Day travels, I'm sure will be updating the Assembly on what he's managed to achieve over this St David's Day week.
Julie James: Yes, taking those in reverse order—both very important points—I believe that the Chair of the Standards of Conduct Committee is going to be making a statement next week in the Assembly that will take us forward, and then we can see what needs to be done as a result of her statement, which will take us all up to where we are in terms of that agenda. I'm very much looking forward to hearing...
Julie James: Yes, the Minister's here listening to your very important point, and she's indicating that she's happy to make a statement updating us as to where we are with that important agenda.
Julie James: The Welsh Government has consistently stressed to the UK Government that one of the fundamental criteria driving digital radio switchover should be that the coverage in Wales is no less than that in the rest of the UK. We would not be in favour of digital switchover for radio until there is a guarantee of at least 97 per cent coverage for digital audio broadcasting throughout Wales.
Julie James: Well, the big issue always in Wales is the difficulty of where the population is, and this is a problem for all of these sorts of services, and it's why we have a constant argument with the UK Government about what the proportional coverage should be. And that's because, as I'm sure I've expressed in this Chamber very often, everybody in Wales is spread out into every nook and cranny of...
Julie James: Yes, I sympathise with that very much. Welsh Government officials have continued to raise this issue in meetings with the UK Government, the BBC, Ofcom, UK Digital Radio, and we continue to do so. In addition, our position in relation to DAB has been included in the Welsh Government's responses to various broadcasting consultations, including our recent response to the consultation on...
Julie James: The Welsh Government provides equality grant funding to Stonewall Cymru. Part of this funding supports a transgender engagement officer to lead on trans equality issues. They work within communities at a grass-roots level to hear trans voices and ensure they are fully engaged with the services designed to support them.
Julie James: Well, absolutely. I'm sure the Member knows that the Gender Recognition Act is not devolved to Wales, but we welcome the UK Government's plans to reform the Act, and we've been engaging, at an official level, with those plans. All our stakeholders tell us of the increasingly negative media and social media attacks our trans communities are facing. We don't like the damaging narrative at all,...
Julie James: I'm afraid I can't. As I said, it takes us somewhere between 12 and 16 weeks to go through the very vigorous tests and verification process for the claims put in by BT under the superfast contract, but I can assure the Member that as soon as I have that data, I will make it available to the house.
Julie James: Yes, I think there are some communications issues still. Some of those are very complicated now because they are to do with the availability of connections via particular internet service providers, and we have been working with a number of Assembly Members—you included—to make sure that people are getting the right information about the question to ask. Because we have had some examples...
Julie James: Well, of course, mobile services are not devolved, so it's—. We don't have some of the levers that I would very much like to have in order to move some of these things forward.
Julie James: But of course some of the levers are within our control. We undertook a piece of planning research to look at what attitudes across Wales were to just increasing mast sizes. And, as I said in my earlier answer about digital radio, the problem with Wales is the population is spread out into every nook and cranny. Just making the masts higher doesn't solve the problem—it's not a silver bullet...
Julie James: Thank you for that very important question actually. We've made it very plain that we're utterly opposed to the repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998, and all that that entails, and we're utterly opposed to any withdrawal from the European convention on human rights. We're also opposed to any lessening of human rights protections in the context of the UK's withdrawal from the EU. It's...
Julie James: Absolutely. And that's very much part of the idea of the continuity Bill, to protect our ability as a devolved Government to protect the transfer of current EU regulation into Welsh law, and to keep it embedded therein. And, actually, just to continue our cultural tradition of being extremely proud of being a culture in Wales that protects human rights and actually welcomes people from...
Julie James: Well, I think there's a possibility of that, but as I said, at the moment, the UK Government's plans to reform human rights are on hold—which I'm delighted to hear them say—until the UK's withdrawal from the EU is finalised. This was confirmed in the Conservative 2017 general election manifesto, one of the only bits of it that I greeted with any enthusiasm. It says: 'We will not repeal...
Julie James: Yes. We've spent a lot of money, as Members across the Chamber will have heard me say on a number of occasions, on extending superfast broadband right through Wales, and that has a number of effects, not least allowing telemedicine and so on to take effect, so that we take better care of our population as a whole, and specifically those who have any kind of mobility or distance issues....
Julie James: Well, we've had extensive conversations with the UK Government about this, particularly in light of the Digital Economy Act 2017. They've gone for a 10 Mbps universal service obligation; however, it's not yet at all clear what 'universal' means in this context. It's unlikely to mean 100 per cent as that's not likely to be within the budget associated with the Act. We think 10 Mbps isn't...
Julie James: Yes, cyber security is a real live issue for us obviously and I very recently met with Ciaran Martin, the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, and my officials maintain a good working relationship with his organisation. We're very pleased that the NCSC has just announced a dedicated devolved administrations relationships manager to work with us in Wales. Our officials held a...
Julie James: Certainly. Although not holding information specifically for Swansea East, under the Superfast Cymru project we have provided access to fast fibre broadband to 24,093 premises across all parts of Swansea, equating to just over 98 per cent completion. The average download speed across Swansea is currently 82.81 Mbps.
Julie James: There's a big issue with upload speeds depending on what kind of technology you use to connect it and they depend on a number of other factors. So, customers on a fibre-to-the-cabinet connection can expect download speeds of a maximum of about 80 Mbps and upload speeds of around 20 Mbps. But it's dependent on distance from the cabinet, the package the customer buys from their internet service...
