Huw Irranca-Davies: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. It's a pleasure to follow the balanced and constructive comments of the Counsel General, but can I also thank every Member who's contributed today, regardless of the different views and different opinions? It has been a lively—argumentative at times and passionate at all times—debate, and I think that's what this place is for. I think the reforms we're talking...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Therefore, in looking forward to Members' contributions today, let me conclude by saying that this report is far from the end of the journey to delivering Senedd reform. The Welsh Government Bill to make change happen will need to be addressed without delay. We will then have further opportunities to scrutinise that legislation, but today we must take the first step. Today, we can provide a...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Our committee's report sets out an integrated package of proposals for a strengthened Parliament to better represent the people of Wales, and a route-map for getting us there. We believe that our proposals can command the support of at least the 40 Members necessary for a supermajority here in this Senedd. As we state in the report, we firmly believe that these reforms are essential and they...
Huw Irranca-Davies: If I do not take interventions on this occasion, Dirprwy Lywydd, it's out of courtesy to what I suspect will be many speakers who want to contribute today, not out of disrespect to those who want to intervene on me. We began our work last autumn, and we've now fulfilled our task, which you, the Senedd, gave us, to bring forward recommendations for policy instructions for a Welsh Government...
Huw Irranca-Davies: First of all, I would like to say how much of a privilege it was to be invited to chair the Special Purpose Committee on Senedd Reform. It has also been a great pleasure to chair a committee where the individual members—Jane Dodds representing the Liberal Democrats; Jayne Bryant on behalf of Labour; Siân Gwenllian on behalf of Plaid Cymru; and, until we lost him in the last few weeks,...
Huw Irranca-Davies: And that funding has indeed helped but, even before the pandemic, we'd had a decade of austerity that had impacted on local authorities and had impacted on cuts in services, including subsidised bus services. We're looking forward to the reforms that will give control back to people, I have to say—local communities and regions—to take control of co-ordinated bus services and wider public...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 6. What support does the Welsh Government provide to deliver integrated public and community transport in the Ogmore constituency which meets the needs of transport-poor constituents? OQ58117
Huw Irranca-Davies: Thank you, Carolyn, for introducing this debate—a great contribution there. I just want to say a few words, and it's picking up on the themes that you said. We can all play a role within this. This morning before I came in, I just happened to be flicking through a book that I've got on my bedside cabinet. It was Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin's Back to Nature: How to love life—and save...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I have hardly started—[Laughter.]—hardly started. So, I want to touch on a couple of the challenges that have already been flagged on the forum. One is the additional burden that it adds to local authorities, because they have to manage the competitive bid process. Secondly, the tight timescale, they have between now and August to bring forward and to negotiate between different local...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Look, I'd hate to say it is going to be that way, but it is indeed a danger, and the fact that we can't scrutinise—so it's already been flagged by the forum members that they have concerns that some of the proposals being brought forward will actually duplicate existing Welsh Government programmes. Now, that would be not just a waste of resource and time, which are scarce anyway, but they...
Huw Irranca-Davies: That's actually part of the lessons that we took through in the framework that we put forward and that the OECD worked with us directly on over those three years. The OECD, by the way, is still working with Welsh Government on these matters, and I think that question of learning the lessons of pulling out some of the bureaucracy, but actually within the proposals here, Darren, what we have...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I'm going to try today not to make any political points whatsoever. The only thing I will do, when I intervened on you earlier, Paul—. It is interesting the approach that has been taken, in that the only people excluded to a high degree from this are the Members of this Senedd, because MPs are specifically mentioned within the need to actually take this forward. So, not Members of this...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Thank you for giving way, Paul. I appreciate what you're saying about getting some of these decisions down to a local area. In fact, that's what the strategic group looking at regional funding within Wales was looking at, based on the very best OECD models. I had the privilege of chairing it for a while. But, what they didn't suggest was, in any way, bypassing the policy framework in Wales at...
Huw Irranca-Davies: It was fascinating at the weekend to see a little evidence of blue water appearing in the leader of the Conservatives' speech—it wasn't so much an ocean or even a river, nor a stream; it was more a rivulet, or perhaps a rill, a tiny little trickle—in terms of HS2 funding. But, of course, we've also seen the announcements on Crossrail in recent years, and the Victoria line this weekend,...
Huw Irranca-Davies: First of all, can I welcome both the statement and also the accompanying 160-odd pages? I haven't done any word counts in there, but we are looking forward, as a committee, to getting our teeth into this as well. I welcome the focus that both you and the Minister for Social Justice are bringing to this now; it's really welcome indeed. Just to touch on a couple of issues. During the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. Minister, I hope that you enjoyed the visit to Llanhari school today and I very much hope that you enjoyed the singing as much as the children and the teachers enjoyed your dancing in the playground. [Laughter.] Indeed, during today's visit, you met two young teachers who were starting their careers in the field of education. So, what message do you have...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Could we have a statement on measures that Welsh Government Ministers will take to urge the UK Government to raise the value of Healthy Start vouchers to meet the runaway cost of inflation? The UK Government last raised the value of the Healthy Start vouchers before the cost-of-living crisis hit, and it was only after, I have to say, an incredible amount of pressure from Marcus Rashford with...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Lay off the salmon.
Huw Irranca-Davies: Thank you for giving way. Really, really quickly—it's a proper debate here—just two things: one is, in taking stakeholders with you, don't be afraid of actually being radical as well. The Lyme Bay issue is quite an instructive one. It was totally contested, but it led to massive replenishment of nature, and the fishermen now like it because of what it's done. So, please don't be afraid of...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Could I genuinely on a note of optimism say we are a world away from where we were 12 or 15 years ago? We actually have in place now all the things that are referred to in this report that the Welsh Government is working on—the marine planning, the ambition to deliver marine conservation zones, to have that balance rightly done to develop the evidence et cetera. So, there's a note of...
