Jeremy Miles: Budgets are about choices. Although none of us would feel, in this Chamber, that we have the resources available to the Welsh Government that we would need to do what we want to do, this budget, I believe, shows—as Mike Hedges indicated—the shortcomings of austerity and the possibility, even within reduced resources, of making the right choices. The choice that the Welsh Government has...
Jeremy Miles: 1. What steps are the Welsh Government taking to enable pupils to have a fuller understanding of the opportunities open to them in the world of work? OAQ(5)0072(EDU)
Jeremy Miles: I thank the Minister for that answer. Before I was elected I was a lawyer and when I was a schoolchild I didn’t know any lawyers. No parents of friends or family friends were lawyers but somehow it happened. But in today’s changing economy people may not even know what sorts of jobs are available as they’re going through school, and in regions such as my own we hope to see significant...
Jeremy Miles: It’s maybe appropriate that we are here today standing a few 100 yards from the Norwegian church in Cardiff Bay, which was built in the nineteenth century when Norway had an enormous merchant fleet and had great a trading relationship with Wales. It was then a place of respite for Norwegian sailors in the second world war when they couldn’t return home to their country, which had been...
Jeremy Miles: A nation’s reach should exceed its grasp. Those are the words of Elystan Morgan, encouraging Westminster to adopt an ambitious approach to this Bill. Ond, wrth edrych ar y Mesur yma, rwy’n gweld diffyg uchelgais—diffyg y math o uchelgais a oedd ynghlwm wrth y sylw hwnnw. Mae ystod o bwerau yma sydd yn bwerau defnyddiol, ond nid rhestr eang o bwerau y byddwn i wedi hoffi ei gweld yna....
Jeremy Miles: 4. What representations has the Counsel General made in relation to the impact of recent court closures in Wales? OAQ(5)0017(CG)
Jeremy Miles: In my constituency of Neath, we’ve now lost the magistrates’ court and the county court. In the case of the magistrates’ court, that involves people travelling to Swansea. A population of 140,000, previously served by that court, which is about the size of the city of Cambridge, no longer has local provision. I have constituents who have missed court opportunities by trying to combine...
Jeremy Miles: I warmly welcome the Cabinet Secretary’s statement—indeed, restatement—of the Welsh Government’s commitment to the individual and collective rights of public sector employees in Wales. Let’s not forget that the restrictions that this Bill seeks to address were things that were too toxic even for that 1980s Conservative Government, which was uniquely hostile to trade unions, to...
Jeremy Miles: The UK Government, of course, were within their legal rights to lodge this appeal to the Supreme Court, but I do think it reflects very poorly on them that they wanted to take every step available to them to put this decision outside the consideration of a directly elected Parliament. I’m grateful for the statement that the Counsel General has made, and I’m pleased that he intervened in...
Jeremy Miles: What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the potential of the blue economy?
Jeremy Miles: Tidal lagoons are one manifestation of Wales’s blue economy, which, as well as energy, also encompasses fishing and aquaculture, and tourism and leisure. Wales has a strong advantage in this area against other countries that don’t have the same coast and high tidal reach. What priority will the Cabinet Secretary give to Wales’s blue economy in the new economic strategy, and what steps...
Jeremy Miles: In a report in January 2015 into NHS waiting times for elective care, the Auditor General for Wales spoke of the Pareto principle, which calculates the number of bed days taken up by individual patients, and discovered that 5 per cent of patients use 51 per cent of bed days, and also discovered that that calculation wasn’t widely used by health boards generally. I wonder what conclusion the...
Jeremy Miles: I welcome this debate. I think it’s a very timely debate, given the discussions we have ongoing in Wales about the role of cities and the role that cities can play in regenerating regions of Wales. I want to make the case for two approaches in this discussion today. The first is the case for looking at city regions, not just cities themselves. I obviously speak as a Member for a...
Jeremy Miles: As the leader of the house may know, today is the first day of the latest capacity market auction, by which the National Grid buys back-up capacity for the grid. In the latest auction, at the end of 2016, a proportion of that market was won by diesel farms, which was a smaller proportion than previous years, but still significant. Diesel farms are noisy, they are polluting and they can be in...
Jeremy Miles: Many of us in the Chamber, Cabinet Secretary, are concerned about ensuring shorter economic supply chains in Wales to shore up local economies, and local energy generation is one key sector for that work. What steps can the Welsh Government take to encourage municipal energy generation in Wales?
Jeremy Miles: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on local authority support for the third sector?
Jeremy Miles: 2. What is the Welsh Government doing to ensure an accessible and inclusive physical learning environment for children with autism? OAQ(5)0089(EDU)
Jeremy Miles: I thank the Minister for that question and commend him on his work on the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Bill, which I know we all hope will lead to improved outcomes and experiences for children with autism on the school journey. I know he shares my sense of priority about making sure that the physical environment in schools is also appropriate for children with...
Jeremy Miles: Just before Christmas, I convened a meeting in my constituency in Neath of players in the local economy. I had the further education college there. In fact, they hosted the event and it was hosted very beautifully and very effectively buy them, so I thank them for that. We also had universities, businesses in the local economy and unions to come together to discuss what we wanted from a...
Jeremy Miles: Yes, certainly.
