Julie James: Yes, I accept the frustration of that. The letters do also say, of course, that dates are always subject to change, depending on engineering works and so on. We do try to give the most accurate information, and I absolutely acknowledge the frustration for those caught in a situation that changes in that way. So, we work very hard to make sure that information is accurate and the number of...
Julie James: I just wanted to share a few short anecdotes from our family about Rhodri and Julie as well. One cherished story in our family is: long before Rhodri had ever become a public figure, in their early relationship, Julie took Rhodri up to meet my grandparents in a little cottage on a hill above Swansea. My grandmother was a very sociable Welsh mam and would have been full of tea and Welsh cakes,...
Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today, I want to provide you with an update on our Superfast Cymru project and progress towards a successor project. The current Superfast Cymru project continues to make good progress. To the end of March 2017, BT has told us that more than 645,000 premises have been given access to fast-fibre broadband by the Superfast Cymru project. BT has confirmed...
Julie James: Well, that was quite a comprehensive list of things. We sent a consultation document out, which I hope all Members have received, and that has a web link in it to an interactive map. If you go on to that map, which I hope at least some Members will have had the opportunity to do already, you’ll be able to see that you can go down to individual premises level. And there’s an icon on the...
Julie James: We will be working with BT as part of this process—they’re going to be bidding for it like anybody else, I’m sure—about the best way to enable some extra capacity, and we continue to have the difficulty of people at the end of a long copper wire on an FTTC connection, and we’ll need to look carefully at how we can enable those to get broadband connections and come up with a solution...
Julie James: Apologies.
Julie James: In terms of the average speeds across Wales, I think the report you’re referring to is a year or so old now, but I absolutely accept that those premises that haven’t got broadband through Superfast Cymru or through the commercial roll-out are obviously still in whatever position they were in before. That’s what this successor scheme is about: it’s to address exactly that problem....
Julie James: The Member makes an excellent point with the last point there. The issue around universal service obligation has been one that’s exercised us for some time. We put a lot of pressure on the UK Government to acknowledge that this is a utility and not a luxury. I say this a lot to everyone. When we started this process, we used to market Wales as, ‘Come to Wales and get offline’, and now...
Julie James: I completely accept the point the Member is making about how essential the services are. If the Member has specific instances with BT where they are making excuses, as he puts it, which have been proven not to be the case, I would be most interested to know the details. I am aware of specific instances of landowners being very difficult, actually, but it is always interesting to understand...
Julie James: Yes, and I'm very grateful to John Griffiths for raising the detail that he has raised with me over this. It's very frustrating. My information at the moment is that all of the services that AB were providing have now been restored, albeit with temporary fixes, and that the administrators have sent out information packs to prospective purchasers and are obviously hopeful that they'll be able...
Julie James: Well, just to say that the issues are very much the same. This is a rural programme, as everyone will know. We’re very reliant on being told the local information. Many Members have been assiduous in writing to me about their problems. It would be really great if you could interrogate the interactive map and make sure that the data on it are as accurate as it is possible for them to be. You...
Julie James: Formally.
Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I begin my contribution today by thanking both the Welsh Conservatives for bringing this very important debate forward and all the people who have spoken? I think it’s been clear from the debate that, actually, we broadly agree the principles, which are that lifelong learning is extremely important to people from all backgrounds and all ages, and...
Julie James: Certainly.
Julie James: I absolutely acknowledge that point. There are several cohorts of people whom we need to be able to address here. So, I was just simply making the point that, for those people in work and, perhaps, in a firm where they have some commitment but would like to advance in, and particularly in firms that want to grow themselves, that’s a very important point. I think the quote that was given...
Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today I want to set out my agenda for employability. I’m delighted that this follows our discussion on the ministerial taskforce for the south Wales Valleys as supporting people into work will be a key feature of the taskforce’s work over the coming years. Engagement with communities, which the Valleys taskforce has started, will continue. We also...
Julie James: Well, thank you for that series of questions. In terms of developing skills appropriate for business and business delivery, the Member will be aware that we've established the three regional skills partnerships across Wales. They’re in their third year now. This year, they will produce their annual reports detailing labour market information and intelligence in their area, and outlining the...
Julie James: Thank you very much for that, Llyr. In terms of the governance issues, I’ll just address that first. I appreciate that I did mention a large number of boards and so on, but we’ll be providing Members with a sort of pictogram of what we’re talking about, and you’ll see that actually it’s a lot simpler. Because what we’re really talking about is a single board across Government for...
Julie James: In terms of the fair work and progression programme, the First Minister has asked me to chair stage 1 of the fair work piece and that is around how we make sure that we use leverage from Welsh Government funding to its best advantage. So, what we’re looking to do is establish an agreed definition of ‘fair work’, including the progression elements of that, and then make sure that we...
Julie James: Thank you for that series of questions. I think I have actually addressed almost all of them already, but I’ll just reiterate. The Valleys taskforce is just mentioned as being the pilot test bed for some of the pieces of work that we’re doing. As I already indicated to other Members, it’s not the only place that we’ll be doing it and we have to start somewhere. Obviously, the...
