Julie James: Diolch, Llywydd. Apologies for spilling water there. Llywydd, I'm very pleased to introduce the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill to the Assembly. This Bill consists of provisions that have been subject to extensive consultation, both with the public and local government. It will deliver a major package of reforms to the way in which devolved elections are run and the governance...
Julie James: Thank you, Mark Isherwood, for that series of questions and comments. In terms of the public participation strategy, we are not copying the Localism Act, because our legislation already allows for a number of things that are not current in England, and, anyway, we're not in a position where we want to copy England. What we're doing here is, in conjunction with the WLGA, developing a system...
Julie James: As Dai Lloyd says very eloquently, the current multimember ward system with first-past-the-post in place produces some strange and wonderful results, and he won't be surprised to find that I think the current result is quite halcyon whereas the previous result was not quite so halcyon from our point of view. But he makes a very good and effective point. Clearly, not 100 per cent of people...
Julie James: Certainly, John. In terms of the prisoners' franchise, as I said in my statement, we simply haven't had the time to work through since the accepting of the committee's recommendation. We intend to bring forward, or work with the committee to bring forward, amendments at Stage 2 to enable the committee's report to be brought into effect. And by then—well in advance of Stage 2—the officials...
Julie James: I won't rehearse the voting issues either. In terms of the issue around when a local authority, a principal council, decides that the voting system should be changed, and that STV would better suit the need of the local people, they need to agree the change by a two-thirds majority of council seats, and the new system has to stay in place for at least two electoral cycles, for the reasons...
Julie James: Well, on the right to adequate housing, I hear what David Melding says, and I largely agree with him. But what we're doing here is ensuring that local authorities give regard to the right to adequate housing. He will know that the Conservatives refused point blank to put that into the Housing Act 2004 at the UK level. Had they done so, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So, I'm not...
Julie James: Well, I'm not sure how to follow that last remark. Mike Hedges made a series of points that reflect his life-long interest in local government, and I largely agree with the points that he made. Just to pick out some of the things, the three protected officer issue, we are currently conducting a review into the arrangements for protection for senior officers with particular roles in the...
Julie James: Yes. We continue to work with all high-rise residential building owners and managing agents, our partners in the fire and rescue services and local authorities, to ensure necessary building checks are carried out. The fire in Bolton highlights the importance of joint working and robust risk assessment of all buildings.
Julie James: We've written out to all higher education institutions in Wales. I've written to all local authorities, so Kirsty Williams has written to all HEIs. I was pleased to see the response from Cardiff, but we have asked all of the vice-chancellors across Wales to provide us with similar information. We have been doing quite a lot of work before the Bolton fire, you will be reassured to know, where...
Julie James: Dealing with that last point first, I'm very keen to find a mechanism that doesn't penalise the actual people living in the flats, where it is clearly the fault of the construction company or some other obvious causation. Bethan Sayed will know that that's not always as simple as it sounds to establish, and we have an example in Swansea, which all of us from Swansea are aware of, where it's...
Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This morning, I laid a copy of the Welsh Government’s progress report on tackling child poverty. The results make difficult reading. The headline figure—and the one I'm sure that Members today will all want to focus on—shows that child poverty in Wales has risen. This inescapable fact is something that should concern each and every one of us. In a...
Julie James: Mark Isherwood asked me how I respond to a whole series of statistics that he read out. I respond in this way: the people who should be apologising for these appalling figures are the Conservative Government, who have implemented the most heartless, pitiless, merciless regime of universal credit that the world has ever known—[Interruption.] Let me quote you some statistics. [Interruption.]...
Julie James: On the administrative control, we have a report that we're awaiting from the Wales Centre for Public Policy. We have had the interim report, but we are expecting the final report shortly. So, once we've got that report, we are, of course, looking to see what that report tells us in terms of taking administrative control. I share her wish to administer welfare benefits in a more humane...
Julie James: Yes, I'm very happy to assure Dawn Bowden that we're looking very carefully at that. That's one of the reasons that the former First Minister commissioned the gender review, of course, and we're taking forward phase 2 of the gender review. One of the primary findings of that gender review, which is no surprise to any of us, is that income inequality drives gender inequality, which drives...
Julie James: Thank you for those points, Mike. It's well worth pointing out that the level of child poverty across the UK has risen. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's 2018 report on child poverty, child poverty has been rising since 2011-12, which is an interesting correlation with the inception of a Government, and a total of 4.1 million children now live in relative income poverty—a rise...
Julie James: Yes. It was a real pleasure to come up to your constituency and listen to a group of very committed people to discuss how we can get together and make sure that all of our policies hit the right people at the right time and how we can access them, and, actually, as a result of that meeting, we've initiated a number of actions across the Government to ensure that our policies line up nicely...
Julie James: This Government will continue to deliver against our commitment to tackle and prevent all forms of homelessness. Our recently published strategy sets out our prevention and public service focus. This involves supporting those currently homeless into accommodation, whilst ensuring that we invest in earlier interventions to prevent people falling into homelessness.
Julie James: Yes, I completely agree with you. The vagrancy Act isn't devolved to Wales—it's the Tory Government in Westminster who should have repealed it. [Interruption.] It's the Tory Government in Westminster's duty, Janet Finch-Saunders. They need to repeal it. If I could, I would. We can't.
Julie James: Yes, I agree with her entirely that domestic abuse is one of the drivers of these kinds of—well, of the need for refuges in the first place, and also of housing instability. There are a whole range of issues that we need to look at to ensure that people are able, for example, to keep hold of their tenancy, so if they are obliged to leave a house in which they would ordinarily have the right...
Julie James: Well, it's not my understanding of the definition of Marxist, I must say. I do entirely agree with the Member that we need to build the right combination of housing of the right type in the right place that is affordable for people. And that's obviously got to be coupled with support to ensure people can sustain a tenancy. So, it's not only about building the affordable homes; we're also...
