Julie James: Diolch, Llywydd. There are no changes to this week's business. Business for the next three weeks is as shown on the business statement and announcement found among the meeting papers available to Members electronically.
Julie James: Yes, that's £25 million over three years to look at digital innovation, particularly in the automotive field, and my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport is also very involved in this. We're also looking at the exploitation of the 5G possibilities, especially on fleet, and in Blaenau Gwent they've been successful in securing a UK Government grant for exploiting 5G...
Julie James: Yes, I'd be very delighted to do that. There have been a number a conversations already, but I'm more than happy to join you in them. We have looked at why the superfast connection wasn't possible in the first place and what current the connectivity is, and there are some technical issues. It will be well-worth coming to see for myself. So, I'd be very happy to take you up on that invitation.
Julie James: Yes. I announced a suite of measures in my oral statement on 30 January to further extend fast broadband coverage across Wales. And the mobile action plan I published last October set out how we will work with others to improve mobile connectivity as well.
Julie James: Yes. Discussions between Openreach and the station at St Davids are ongoing to identify suitable solutions for this essential connection. My officials continue to work closely with station representatives to explore the provision of a dedicated fibre optic line, which will ensure greater levels of security, network resilience and guaranteed speeds.
Julie James: As you know, John, without specific addresses, it's very difficult to comment. But we do know that many of the properties in the three communities that you mentioned can already access superfast broadband and, as I've said to you before, I encourage you to give me actual addresses and then we can address specific problems. Some of the premises that can't currently access superfast...
Julie James: My aim has always been to bring people together digitally by providing access to fast reliable broadband to all properties across Wales. We aim to continue to achieve this through the Superfast Cymru successor scheme, our voucher schemes and a new community-focused scheme.
Julie James: Yes, absolutely. We run several campaigns, which I've already mentioned, but I'm more than happy to highlight them again. We run the This is Me campaign, which is deliberately done to challenge gender stereotypes of the sort that you're describing, and to highlight gender inequality as a cause and consequence of violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, which I launched in...
Julie James: Yes, certainly. There are several domestic abuse services across Mid and West Wales, supporting both male and female victims. The region’s first joint strategy, 'Safer Lives, Healthier Families', will be published by the end of July this year.
Julie James: No, I couldn't agree more with that. This is about parents, not mothers, as we keep saying. I chair the board that implements the report, the women in STEM board, and there've been two meetings so far. At the last meeting we broadened the membership of the board, particularly with a view to bringing in more than academia and public services, and to include a range of other people as well. As...
Julie James: Yes. Work to implement recommendations from the report is under way across the Government, business, education and academia, and good progress is being made in a number of areas.
Julie James: Yes, I don't have the statistics to hand, so I'll write to you with the specific statistics. But there aren't enough of them, and that's why we've continued to develop the multi-agency service hubs, in order to bring together the data necessary to make the prosecutions much more likely to happen. There are a large number of reasons for why the prosecutions haven't happened, largely to do with...
Julie James: Yes, indeed, and we make very sure—. We've been running a number of publicity campaigns—the 'Don't be a bystander' one, which was launched last week, for example—highlighting to people what they should look for, both in domestic and sexual violence cases, but also in slavery cases, and putting studies out across network television and so on, so that if people recognise themselves,...
Julie James: Yes, indeed. We have the first anti-slavery co-ordinator in Wales, and he's been working very hard on a system, alongside all of our partners, to make sure that we have the multi-agency hubs working together to ensure that, when people do come forward, we're able to swiftly process them, take them to places of safety, and get the prosecutions in place as swiftly as possible. There have not...
Julie James: Right, well, I'll reiterate it, because I thought I had answered it very clearly. I have not seen any concrete evidence of why the business case is that they can't share masts, that they need to build their own separate infrastructure, and that that infrastructure is not viable without non-domestic rate relief. So, I have not yet seen that evidence, although we've asked for it many times. We...
Julie James: Yes. A large part of that is actually in the portfolio of my colleague, the Cabinet Secretary, who is also here to hear what you've got to say, but I think I did go through a lot of it yesterday. Just to be clear, one of the big problems we have in terms of giving you concrete things that I've done, is that it's not actually devolved. We have a fundamental disagreement with a Government of...
Julie James: I meet with mobile operators on a rolling programme of meeting the various different operators. I haven't had a group meeting with them for quite some time, since we launched the action plan, but I have a sort of series of meetings with them, if you like. We're also in regular correspondence with Ofcom. We've had many more discussions with Ofcom very recently around—it feels slightly like...
Julie James: This is one of the difficulties of having one of the cross-cutting portfolios. So, I'm not going to give you an answer that's satisfactory, simply because I'm not the Minister with the detail of the fund in question, so it's not for me to answer that. But, in general terms, I've had a number of conversations with the Minister around what we're doing to review the fund, what the overarching...
Julie James: I think it's a very complex area, and it's not in my portfolio, so, forgive me, I won't have the level of detail necessary to answer it with perhaps the detail that you'd like. It is actually Huw Irranca-Davies, my colleague, who has control of the actual funds, but I have very regular meetings with, as I said, him and a number of voluntary groups in the sector to see what we can do. I am...
Julie James: Yes, indeed. The Member, as always, raises a very important point. It's not actually directly in my portfolio. I have an overarching view of equalities that I work with all of the other Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries on. So, it's actually my colleague the Minister for children who actually deals with most of the funds available, but I have very regular meetings with him about the effect on...
