Julie Morgan: Thank you very much, Rhun. Your last statement does not sound dissimilar to what we are proposing. There are a lot of issues there. If I start off on the workforce, I am absolutely committed to recognising the value of the social care workforce. Certainly, this pandemic has absolutely highlighted the importance of the workforce. The public do, I think—maybe some for the first...
Julie Morgan: Thank you very much, Janet, for all those points. First of all, I want to emphasise that this is only one bit of a jigsaw, and I explained at the beginning of the statement that the Minister for Health and Social Services will be coming to the Senedd to discuss the results of the inter-ministerial group. A lot of work has been done on that group to establish what the cost would be of taking...
Julie Morgan: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. We remain committed to our vision of securing well-being for people who need care and support, and carers who need support. Significant progress has been made in the nearly 10 years since our first White Paper on social care, 'Sustainable Social Services: A Framework for Action', which marked the beginning of this journey. The Social Services and...
Julie Morgan: Thank you very much. I'd like to extend my thanks to the Chair and to all the members of the Children, Young People and Education Committee for this very comprehensive report on children's rights in Wales. The full Government response to the recommendations can be found on the committee's web pages. In addition to the responses to the Children, Young People and Education Committee, I've also...
Julie Morgan: Those that are living in assisted living places will be receiving the vaccine during the overall first tranche, which we hope to get completed by the middle of February. But I do accept that they are in a very vulnerable position and, as the Member will know, domiciliary care workers are now being tested, as well, which provides for increasing support. But I do understand that relatives are...
Julie Morgan: Well, as David Melding will know, the vast majority of domiciliary care providers are in the independent sector, and so, obviously, their employers are responsible for ensuring that they have the right working conditions and the right support. But, of course, if they are obliged to isolate, they will receive the same benefits as the people in the public sector, who will have their pay topped...
Julie Morgan: I thank Mike Hedges for that response, and I'd like to echo his words about how vitally important homecare is. We're very aware of the challenges within that sector. Only 6 per cent, at the last reckoning, of domiciliary care services were managed by local authorities, which is obviously a very small amount. As the Member will be aware, we're looking at this balance of local authority and...
Julie Morgan: All those working in domiciliary care are making tremendous efforts to provide this vital service safely. There is a huge range of pressures, and we are working closely with local authorities, health boards and other stakeholders to help manage these pressures.
Julie Morgan: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I move the motion. The instrument makes further amendments to and additional transitional modifications to the application of the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016 to take account of the agreements made between the United Kingdom and the Swiss confederation and the EEA-EFTA countries on citizens' rights, following the UK's...
Julie Morgan: Thank you, acting Deputy Presiding Officer and thank you very much for the contributions to the debate today and the support that has been shown for children's rights. As we know, children's rights are entitlements—entitlements that each and every child and young person in Wales should know about and should be supported in realising. Thank you to Laura Anne Jones and to Siân Gwenllian for...
Julie Morgan: Before I turn to the recommendations, it's important to remind ourselves that the commissioner has corporate sole status, and is an independent human rights institution, who holds the Welsh Government to account through a number of routes. She has powers to review the effect on children of the exercise—or the proposed exercise—of any function of Welsh Ministers, the First Minister for...
Julie Morgan: Diolch, Llywydd. As a Government, we want all children in Wales to have the best start in life, to fulfil their potential and to realise their rights. And it's so important in the current context, in the situation that we've been just debating, that we keep that ambition fixed in our sights. It's also crucial that we have this meaningful debate each year to focus on our achievements so far in...
Julie Morgan: Thank you, Angela, for that question. Certainly, we're very well aware of this very important issue about how we enable older people in care homes to have access to their loved ones. It's really treading a very difficult line between the protection of the health of the older people in the care homes and the staff and their mental health in terms of having the contact with their loved ones...
Julie Morgan: I thank Mike Hedges very much for that question. I know that many people, including older people, are lonely. There are also many people not confident digitally, don't use the internet and don't have access to the appropriate devices, and that is why we did fund Age Cymru to establish a telephone befriending service, and as I said, we've given them £400,000 for the fund. We feel that the...
Julie Morgan: We have provided £400,000 to Age Cymru to establish a national telephone befriending service to provide emotional support to older people. We've also worked with local government and the third sector to ensure that wider practical and emotional support is in place, such as digital inclusion and buddy schemes.
Julie Morgan: I thank Jenny Rathbone for that question and for her contribution. And, of course, she's absolutely right, it's crucial for women in particular that we offer the opportunities so that they are able to work and fulfil their potential, as well as the children's potential. I think that Flying Start has been one of our flagship programmes, and it has been, from the evidence that we've seen so...
Julie Morgan: I thank Mark Reckless for that question. And yes, we did deliver the childcare offer a year ahead of time and I know it has been very warmly welcomed. I think he does make a very important point about the interaction between before and after-school care in the schools because, certainly, many of the schools have not yet introduced the breakfast clubs and the after-school clubs. There is an...
Julie Morgan: I'd like to thank Siân Gwenllian for those questions. I'm pleased that she recognised the huge contribution that the childcare sector makes and that she thanked the sector for providing the opportunity for care workers to be able to continue to work in this pandemic. The childcare sector played an absolutely vital part. At this time of the year, applications for the childcare offer are...
Julie Morgan: Thank you very much for those very pertinent questions. Certainly, I have no—. I'm not trying to say, in any way, that the sector didn't suffer during this period, and I think, by the figures that I gave in my statement, I made clear the numbers that had closed. But also it is very encouraging, the numbers that have actually reopened. And although they have smaller numbers actually going at...
Julie Morgan: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, for the opportunity to update the Senedd on the position of the Welsh childcare and play sector and our childcare offer for Wales. I want to start this statement by saying a big 'thank you' and to acknowledge the exceptional way in which childcare and play providers across Wales have responded to the events of recent months. I'm sure Members would agree...
