Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Thank you very much for that very helpful prompt. I can now give you a trail for an oral statement, which I hope to make during the month of October to this Chamber, on our tourism strategy. My ambition has been to produce priorities for each of the main areas of my responsibilities as a Deputy Minister. I have tried to indicate priorities already in the area of heritage, and tourism, I'm...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: I am most grateful for that specific information. I’m familiar with Pembrokeshire—in fact, I was there this week. It’s always a pleasure to see how major international companies, such as Valero, invest back into the community. I will look in greater detail at that. I’m certainly most willing to draw local government and local communities’ attention towards the possibility of...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: I think we all have experience in our regions and constituencies in this place of the success of community asset transfers. It is a way of taking on the activity of public authorities in a way that links with the community needs. So, we will certainly continue to assess the effectiveness of both community asset transfer and trust models, and, in our work with Sport Wales and others of the...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Thank you very much, Joyce. Encouraging our communities to become more active is a Welsh Government priority. In the year 2018-19, our delivery partner, Sport Wales, provided around £16 million to local authorities, national governing bodies of sport and other partners specifically for community sport development and to support them in delivering sport and physical activity opportunities...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: There are a range of projects benefiting communities in Islwyn, including 15 schools delivering the daily mile, four healthy and active fund projects working within communities, investment into active travel and safe routes to schools, sport development funding and four sites gaining the Green Flag Award scheme.
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Following the comprehensive review of free swimming, I have now written to all Assembly Members with a full explanation of the revised initiative and its more targeted approach. Local authorities and delivery partners will be expected to focus on supporting young people and older citizens from more disadvantaged areas of Wales.
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Yes, I think it's a good place to draw my remarks to a close, by celebrating commercial success in a place where some Members insisted it could never happen.
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: The process of creating an arm’s-length body within Welsh Government is one that we have to do very carefully. I did that with Cadw, and we are following the same process in establishing Creative Wales. There will, therefore—and I’m not going to give dates, but there will be an advertisement for the role of director for Creative Wales at the very highest appropriate level within Welsh...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Thank you very much, acting Deputy Presiding Officer, and I thank the committee for its work and the Members who've contributed to this debate here today. This report makes a number of considered and constructive recommendations on how we can better support creative industries as a Government, particularly high-end television and film production. That is why we have accepted, or accepted in...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: I have visited the Neath abbey site and have seen the work done there to safeguard the building, and I applaud that work, but I do accept that there are some difficulties in terms of accessibility to the abbey. We consider abbeys to be at least as important as our castles in our monuments strategy, and I am more than willing to work with the local authority and, indeed, any other stakeholders...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Thank you very much for that question. I’m pleased to say that our research shows that south-west Wales had a very strong response too in the period between Easter and Whitsun—over the Easter period, I should say—and therefore we continue to market the south-west robustly as a place to spend holiday time. As I have advertised one hotel in mid Wales, I should mention Twr y Felin in...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Tourism businesses of all sizes in mid Wales make a distinctive contribution to the local economy, and it is key that we should be able to support them. In relation to the growth deal, we do expect, clearly, that there will be a strong tourism element within the growth deal. Tourism is a foundational economic activity in the policy of the Government, and the importance of that is that we see...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Thank you for the question. Mid Wales—canolbarth Cymru—had a successful Easter period, with 40 per cent of businesses reporting more visitors than the same period last year. The Member will also be aware that we have retained, for the purposes of tourism, mid Wales as a tourism region. And I look forward to my contribution personally: I shall be staying at the Caer Beris hotel in...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Thank you for making those remarks. I have not yet seen a detailed report of those discussions, but I can confirm that they have taken place. The issue that we face, and I’ve been to the site, of course—to Caerleon and other historic sites—. The difficulty with these sites is, if you fence them in, then that doesn’t make them attractive for people to visit. It’s a balance, always,...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Thank you for the way you've pursued this issue. I can confirm that everything that you say factually is correct. The activity of Cadw in controlling feral pigeons is permitted under a general licence derived from the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which, as you say, is issued by Natural Resources Wales. Cadw have trialled a number of ways to control feral pigeons in the past, including...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Thank you for that question. Cadw manages historic properties that are in the ownership or guardianship of Welsh Ministers in accordance with its published conservation principles. Cadw’s management also reflects its statutory duties in areas such as public health and safety and Welsh Government policy agendas, including sustainability.
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: The Welsh Government recognises that participation in sport has many benefits, including improving health, building confidence, strengthening communities and teaching people new life skills. Through Sport Wales, our delivery agent, a number of programmes and support services are in place to help people of all ages to engage in sport at all levels.
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Well, what we've moved away from as Government now is the concept that a national curriculum should be imposed on schools, rather that the educational experience that is enjoyed within schools should develop within those schools, and we are seeking to place all of this in the context of the policies that have been developed across Government. For example, the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: If I could also mention the criticism made on the recommendations rejected, and to make it entirely clear that the reason that we have rejected these recommendations is because we believe that the way that we operate at the moment deals with what's covered within those recommendations? For example, I believe that there is a misunderstanding here about the nature of the changes to the...
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas: Yes.
