Siân Gwenllian: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. As a nation, we celebrate literature and music in our national anthem by talking about 'gwlad beirdd a chantorion'. We have a lengthy tradition in terms of music and live music specifically. And the Government, therefore, must ensure that it does everything within its ability to support and promote the live music industry in Wales. And, as with...
Siân Gwenllian: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Given the good news that a new funding package worth £6.2 million will be available for the National Library of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru for the next two years, I do hope that our motion will be passed unanimously by the Senedd today. The Government statement says that the funding for the national library includes funding to support the work of...
Siân Gwenllian: Thank you very much, Llywydd. It's a pleasure to contribute to this important debate on behalf of the Finance Committee. It is of course the debate on the draft budget for 2021-22, and, of course, this will be the final draft budget of this Senedd, and, for the third consecutive year, it's been produced and scrutinised under exceptional circumstances. This year, the pandemic has led to...
Siân Gwenllian: This certainly is very much a draft budget. A lack of forward funding figures, with only a one-year revenue funding settlement, has made budget-setting work even more challenging. Additionally, the Welsh Government is holding significant unallocated reserves of around £800 million. The UK Government’s budget is set for 3 March 2021, meaning that the Welsh Government’s final budget will...
Siân Gwenllian: We heard that there were significant workforce capacity issues before the pandemic and that the pandemic had exacerbated those problems. We are also concerned about the long-term impacts of the pandemic on non-COVID care. Whilst we expect that there will be an increase in non-COVID care over the next year, there will be sustained pressure on the NHS and healthcare workers because of the need...
Siân Gwenllian: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. In three weeks' time, the full Senedd will be discussing the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill. If passed the legislation will set the educational direction for our nation for many years to come. Learning about relationships and sexuality is included on the face of the Bill as a mandatory element to be included in the curriculum of all...
Siân Gwenllian: I agree entirely with you that including these two elements could contribute significantly towards transforming our society in a positive way: helping to eradicate the abuse of women and creating an equal society; helping to deal with prejudice against the LGBT community; and in terms of preventing mental health problems. Education is the key in creating the transformation that we need. But...
Siân Gwenllian: Your Bill is defective, because it's illogical.
Siân Gwenllian: Including the two elements that we're discussing in order to ensure that they are taught consistently across our schools, because they can be complex and difficult issues to teach, and because we believe that learning about them could create a better society in Wales—. Now, you've included them for those reasons, but, again, it's exactly the same argument and exactly the same valid argument...
Siân Gwenllian: But your arguments are flawed, because that isn't logical. What you've just explained now demonstrates that you don't intend to promote Welsh history, in all its diversity, to the face of the Bill in the way that you have chosen to—and I agree with that choice—include two other specific elements on the face of the Bill. Welsh history in all its diversity must be on the face of the Bill if...
Siân Gwenllian: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As a matter of principle, every child should receive free school meals. To get to that point, we need planning and to do so in a phased way. The first step is to start to include the 70,000 children living below the poverty line in Wales, and that is what our motion puts forward today. They are missing out at the moment, mainly because their parents are in...
Siân Gwenllian: The reality is that Wales provides fewer cooked free school meals to its children at the moment than any other nation within the UK. In Scotland and England, every child of school age, in the first three years of their education, is in receipt of free school meals, whatever the family income. In Northern Ireland, the earnings threshold for those in receipt of universal credit is set far...
Siân Gwenllian: Plaid Cymru is also fully supportive of making relationships and sexuality education statutory. We support the Government fully on this issue, and I too would wish to praise the Minister for her commitment to this area. And here we are today, seeing the Welsh Parliament at its best, being progressive, working together, being robust on a crucially important issue. We also support adding...
Siân Gwenllian: Thank you very much, Llywydd, and thank you for the opportunity to open the debate on group 4. Supporting amendment 43 would add the sentence 'The History of Wales in all of its diversity, including Black and People of Colour History' to the list of mandatory elements within the areas of learning and experience. It would be in addition to what we've just been discussing, namely relationship...
Siân Gwenllian: Thank you very much, Llywydd. Amendment 44 does what you claim it does not do. Amendment 44 reads like this: 'The What Matters Code must set out how an understanding of the key historical events of Wales and the world, including— '(a) Black and People of Colour History, '(b) Black, Asian and minority ethnic experiences and contributions, and '(c) the histories of racism and diversity, 'will...
Siân Gwenllian: Our amendments in group 5 relate to the teaching of Welsh in our schools, and passing them would provide far more detail, and would provide consistency and an assurance that every child will have an equal opportunity to acquire our nation's language. The Welsh Government is committed to establishing a single continuum for the teaching of Welsh and to scrapping Welsh as a second language, and...
Siân Gwenllian: It is.
Siân Gwenllian: It is. Move.
Siân Gwenllian: Move.
Siân Gwenllian: We as a group agree with the Government that religion, values and ethics should be on the face of the Bill as a mandatory element in order to help to create an inclusive society that respects all views, cultures and religions. We will therefore not be supporting Darren Millar's amendments, which would undermine that, and neither will we be supporting Suzy Davies's group 8 amendments. This is...
