Huw Irranca-Davies: This is the first year pupils have taken the new Welsh second language GCSE following the removal of the short-course option. It's more challenging, but the rise in entry numbers has resulted in a 12.5 per cent increase of learners attaining A* to C in the full-course qualification. This year, an additional 1,500 learners sat GCSE science exams, building on last year's significant uptake as...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 3. What discussions has the First Minister had with the UK Prime Minister regarding the Shared Prosperity Fund? OAQ54889
Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank the First Minister for that answer, and he's rightly stood very firmly on the principle of 'not a penny less, not a power lost' in respect of the shared prosperity fund. Yet, over the last year, there has been little if any real engagement by the UK Government with the Welsh Government, and little detail beyond that headline. Meanwhile, quietly but assiduously in the background, the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Regardless of the historic development of the union of the United Kingdom, the modern union is a union of consent, and that consent requires respect among the national and regional governments and the Parliaments of the United Kingdom. But this union is also fluid and full of stresses, which can hold it together but equally can threaten to pull it apart, in response to social and economic and...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Could I ask just for one debate today? It's great to see the Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism in his place as well, because the debate I want to ask for is on the incredible musical cultural heritage of the south Wales Valleys. I was delighted some years ago to unveil—it must have been about 13 years ago—a plaque commemorating the first ever public performance of 'Hen Wlad fy...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Can I just, in opening my comments, thank Welsh Government, even with the difficulties of not being able to do a long-term multi-annual settlement, even with the difficulties of having to wait till March, after we've actually done our final budget, and then bring forward a supplementary budget to accommodate what the UK Government is doing—even with all that, this is the first time I've...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Well, once again—. Llywydd, I can see I'm over time. Once again, I'm really genuinely disappointed, because the failure to move forward—[Interruption.]
Huw Irranca-Davies: Because the failure of successive Governments, but including the current Conservative Government, to be able to deliver a consensus in Westminster means that we are going to have to take imaginative, creative and difficult decisions about how we fund not just health, but health and social care together. One of the decisions, Darren, we will have to make as responsible grown-up statespeople is...
Huw Irranca-Davies: So, it's a shame that the politics of running up to a next election—[Interruption.] You are doing exactly the same as successive Conservative Governments have done—
Huw Irranca-Davies: Indeed. My apologies, Llywydd. It was an interesting digression. My apologies.
Huw Irranca-Davies: Diolch yn fawr iawn.
Huw Irranca-Davies: Would the Minister give way? Could I just say on that, when you actually humanise that story—I speak to constituents in very low-paid working families who, regardless of the criticism of how much further we could go with the childcare offer, tell me that they're £200 or £250 a week better off because they're not now paying for childcare and they've been able to expand their shifts in work...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Where I would agree with Darren is that all Governments—this Government, the UK Government, the European Union, all Governments—should, as appropriate, make sure that they are raising issues of human rights with any nation—any and all nations. But it's as appropriate, and part of that, I have to say, has to be to do with developing links where you can have those conversations as well....
Huw Irranca-Davies: Could I welcome the statement by the Chair today, and in so doing, thank her and my fellow committee members for what has been a very collegiate, very open and very frank and engaged way in which we've all, together, approached the work of the committee? Whilst we may all come forward with our own ideas, and, sometimes, our preconceptions, we've all made the undertaking to be open and to...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Now, as the Chair said in her opening remarks, any recommendations we make will be most effective if they're rooted in broad-based political and public support. So, the public engagement at this stage and throughout is crucial, but so, I have to say, is the political engagement. So, my second question to our Chair is to ask whether and how she'll continue to engage with all political parties...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank the Conservatives for actually bringing this debate under the title of 'community regeneration', and for reasons I'll expand upon in a moment, I won't be supporting the motion in their name; I will be supporting the Government's motion. But, actually, some of the characteristics that you've talked about that some coastal towns—not all, but some coastal towns—are affected by are...
Huw Irranca-Davies: And in fact, it's an argument that former colleagues of mine in Westminster who represented those seaside areas put forward quite strongly, and repeatedly. And some of those are thematic funding areas, not coastal resort specific. So things like what once existed—the Future Jobs Fund, and things like that, with the UK Government—those were things that disappeared subsequently, but were...
Huw Irranca-Davies: You may indeed be right, and I welcome the comprehensive way in which you've gone through some of the policies there that lie with Westminster. You may well be right that they will not change, but it is interesting that some of those MPs elected in former Labour areas are now going to have constituents washing up into their surgeries who will confront them with the realities of this. So, I...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Just briefly. I wonder if he's had time to reflect on one of the more radical proposals or discussions that came up, which was: if the union continues as the union is, then it seems that this swimming upstream against what the UK Government does is just not a parity of esteem, a respect of what's going on, isn't a fit with our policies. So, it would be interesting to see if, on the joint...
Huw Irranca-Davies: What are the Welsh Government’s spending priorities in Ogmore?
