Julie James: Yes. The Cabinet Secretary is indicating that there are some serious complexities and he's indicating his willingness to write to Members and set out exactly what the position is as to powers to implement or not, and what effect that will have in Wales.FootnoteLink
Julie James: Jack Sargeant highlights a very important point. There is an ongoing piece of work to champion shortlisted Welsh sites for the Heathrow logistics hub, which will, of course, as he highlights, provide hundreds of jobs in Wales and inject millions of pounds into our economy—much needed in the light of the various decisions not to invest in Wales made by the current UK Government. Of course,...
Julie James: Llywydd, I would just like to extend my heartfelt sympathies to the families of the people who were killed, unfortunately, in the fatal crash on the M4 very recently. Heartbreaking stories—we all know how awful such a thing can be. The Cabinet Secretary is indicating to me that there's good progress, and he's happy to update Members by way of a letter.
Julie James: The Cabinet Secretary has indicated to me that he is very happy to write to Members and update them on the timescales.
Julie James: Yes, it was a truly moving experience, and actually, when I came to speak, Llywydd, I was actually a little bit choked because I followed on from the speech of one of the elders outlining their contribution. It was highly emotional, and I think we were all very touched by some of the personal stories. I'm very grateful to Joyce Watson—I think she's not in the Chamber at the moment—she...
Julie James: Well, in the time-honoured tradition, Llywydd, of tackling the issues in reverse, on the gambling one, the Cabinet Secretary for health and I also wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority about this. The fixed-odds betting terminals—I can never say that right—are absolutely a scourge, and, of course, attack some of the most vulnerable members of our society. The First Minister just...
Julie James: Yes, on the first one, the Cabinet Secretary's indicating that he's more than happy to update Members by way of a written statement on the situation there. And on the second, unfortunately, my meeting with the Permanent Secretary wasn't able to go ahead last week due to issues with my diary, but as soon as I do see her, which I hope will be this week, I will be bringing that to her attention.
Julie James: Diolch, Llywydd. There are several changes to this week's business. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport will make oral statements today on the Swansea bay tidal lagoon and the recent Airbus Group announcement. As a result, the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education on initial teacher education will issue as a written statement. And, finally, Llywydd, the Business...
Julie James: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm delighted that Mick Antoniw has given us this opportunity during Refugee Week to discuss the importance of working with all our communities in Wales, whether they belong to faith groups or non-faith groups—all faiths and none, as we say. The quote that he read out at the end pretty much sums up our attitude to where we should be, and as I...
Julie James: Yes, I agree entirely. Since October 2016, we've been delivering a regional level communications and marketing programme across Wales to encourage take-up of superfast broadband for all the reasons that Mike Hedges has just pointed out, but also for the reason that we're still getting a gain share, so the more money we get back from the gain share, because we're well over the 21 per cent...
Julie James: Yes. Although we don't hold information specifically for Swansea East, under the Superfast Cymru project we have provided access to fast fibre broadband to 25,115 premises across all parts of Swansea, equating to just over 93 per cent completion. The average download speed across Swansea is 83.16 Mbps.
Julie James: Well, I could not more fundamentally disagree with you if I tried. You were correct in your definition of the word 'refugee'; I was simply talking about the humanity of the situation. I, myself, was an economic migrant across the world, where I was accepted with a very good response in every community to which my family moved, and we moved there in order to have a better economic outcome for...
Julie James: Yes. There are very few asylum seekers in Mid and West Wales, but there are over 200 refugees who have been resettled under the Syrian resettlement scheme. In most cases, they are integrating well and are successfully building a new life for themselves here in Wales.
Julie James: Yes. It's a fundamental small-p political problem because this service is an infrastructure, but the UK Government persists in regarding it as a luxury product that you can buy if you want it, and that's the fundamental difficulty. So, it isn't treated as an infrastructure, or a public service that people require, it is treated as a sort of nice-to-have, which it clearly isn't. The head of...
Julie James: Yes, I absolutely agree with that. I chair the cross-Government group, which pulls together various bits of the Welsh Government, and I've been collaborating with my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for health on taking forward the health digitalisation agenda, which is a very important part of this. There are several aspects to it, as various Members highlight. There is the skills aspect,...
Julie James: Yes. New agreements are in place between connectivity providers and home builders that will enable a superfast and full fibre service to be deployed from the outset. We are monitoring progress and we will identify whether we need any further measures to be put in place.
Julie James: Yes, I welcome the suggestion. I'm taking a paper to Cabinet in the autumn on public sector digital service transformation, which will bring together the wide range of activities already under way and focus on the next steps. So, it's a perfect opportunity to get that kind of challenge into that process to make sure that we have the best information to skill up our people in order to make...
Julie James: I always welcome the Member’s help and support on the digital transformation agenda. We are reviewing progress on the use of digital and data in public service delivery to ensure we maximise these. I am very interested in the both the Reid review’s recommendations and your suggestion for the challenge board. I'd very much like to meet with you to discuss how we could take that forward.
Julie James: Yes, I absolutely agree—it absolutely should not have any place in the modern workplace. As I said in response to earlier questions, we're all appalled to see that it is still such a concern. As I said in my previous answer, there will be work with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport around making sure that the economic action plan picks up matters around discrimination of all...
Julie James: Yes, the Welsh Government is fully committed to supporting the LGBT community in Wales. Related action includes work on relationships and sexuality education, updated anti-bullying guidance and improvements to gender identity services. We also provide funding for Stonewall Cymru to support LGBTQ+ people and improve our understanding of issues that affect them.
