Julie James: Well, Deputy Presiding Officer, I’m now at risk of reading out the written statement made by the Cabinet Secretary this morning, which contains all of the information. The written statement this morning simply sets out the latest position on the review of data that was announced by the Cabinet Secretary earlier. The statement simply states the date of the commencement of the public inquiry,...
Julie James: In the spirit of openness and transparency, full technical economic and environmental reporting that informed the review of the data is published on the Welsh Government website, allowing everyone to consider it. The public inquiry will take into account the views of everybody concerned. It will take as long as it takes. I’m well aware that there is a range of views towards this project...
Julie James: The Minister’s statement this morning simply states the date of the public inquiry and it says that: ‘The project shall proceed to be considered by independent inspectors at an inquiry determined by the planning inspectorate to commence on 28 February 2017, with a pre-inquiry meeting…on 27 January.’
Julie James: We don’t have the information on individual businesses in that way, because the way that we let the contract is that it is on an all-Wales basis to premises passed. So, each individual premise that gets more than 30 Mbps is accepted onto the Superfast Cymru programme. We don’t have any way of differentiating whether they’re residential or business, I’m afraid. But we do have a £12...
Julie James: We continue to make solid progress on Superfast Cymru. We have provided access to superfast broadband to over 620,000 premises that would not have been able to receive fibre fast broadband without our intervention.
Julie James: Diolch, Lywydd. The apprenticeship levy is very much in my portfolio, and so I thought it would be helpful, if—
Julie James: I thought it would be helpful, if this question did come up, if I was in a position to say what the latest position is. The Treasury have announced a further £13.7 million, having recalculated the settlement slightly differently from the basis of the original settlement, which was included in the Barnett formula. They imply that this is all extra money, but that in fact is not the position....
Julie James: Well, on the first point, this is welcome because, as the Member will know, we’ve worked very hard to make sure that youth workers in particular—this obviously extends to work-based learning practitioners as well—but youth workers in particular gain the recognition that they so richly deserve, and registration does give them access of course to the continuous professional development...
Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I move the motion. Wales is at the forefront of ensuring greater coherence and recognising the contribution that the whole education workforce makes to learners in Wales. I’m sure Members will agree that the registration of the wider educational workforce is good news as it provides the reassurances that the workforce is deemed suitable for registration....
Julie James: The Member makes a very good point indeed. We’d expect that to work all the way through the policy. I would very much expect the employment advice service to be able to pick out somebody who has Welsh language skills and assist them to train so that they can do something with the Welsh language that helps their employability, and we very much will be pushing that. But we’ll also be...
Julie James: Amongst some of the policy drivers that we’ve been looking at in putting together the plan, as I was mentioning to Llyr, is looking to see what we can drive by way of other Government investment. So, one of the things we’re only exploring at the moment, but it’s been well received by those I’ve spoken to so far, is that where we support a company, for example, in the engineering or...
Julie James: Thank you very much for those questions, David Rees. I think, on the point of transportation, it’s true I didn’t mention it in the statement itself, but that’s only because you end up with a big, long shopping list if you put everything in—that’s not to denigrate its importance. Clearly, what we’re looking at is looking to see what barriers each individual faces, and, if there’s...
Julie James: At the risk of appearing like groundhog day, there isn’t any extra money. The Member will be familiar with how the Barnett formula works. So, what the Treasury has done is announce a consequential of one part without showing you what the disconsequential of another part is. So, for example, there’s a 17 per cent cut in the base funding, which is matched against the apprenticeship funding....
Julie James: Thank you for those questions, Llyr. I’ll start with the apprenticeship levy, just to be clear. I do feel, deputy Llywydd, that I have made these remarks several times in this Chamber but I’ll just make them again. The figures that have been released by the Treasury do not mean that significant new money is coming to Wales, because they don’t take into account reductions made to...
Julie James: Diolch, Lywydd. Supporting people to enter, remain and progress within sustained employment is a vital part of ensuring a prosperous and secure future for Wales. ‘Taking Wales Forward’ commits the Welsh Government to reshaping ‘employability support for job‑ready individuals, and those furthest from the labour market, to acquire the skills and experience to gain and maintain...
Julie James: I outlined in July the Welsh Government’s early thinking on the development of a single all-age employability programme, bringing together the activities from our current employability programmes to better meet the needs of those requiring support to enter, remain and progress in the workplace. As I said then, this programme will enable us to better respond to the labour market challenges...
Julie James: The Member eventually got around to a very good point, I think, which is we are very frustrated by the information that has been available. I hope the Member thinks that the website has improved very recently. If he doesn’t, then I’m happy to look at individual issues and so on. I make the same offer to Rhun ap Iorwerth as I’ve made to many other Members: I’m happy to come to your...
Julie James: In terms of FibreSpeed, I think it would be best if the Member and I have an e-mail correspondence. If you want to write to me and set out the exact questions you want answered—we’ve had this conversation in the fourth Assembly as well—I’m more than happy to set it out again for the Member. In terms of whether we’re taking the innovation research into account, the answer is ‘Yes,...
Julie James: Exactly. One of the things that we’ll be looking to do in the next stage of the project is to futureproof it, and, as I said, make sure that we can spend any gainshare money on making sure that that futureproofing exists. So, one of the things we’re very keen on doing is making sure that we use all of the available new technologies and that we set up the new procurement with a view to...
Julie James: What we’re going to do in the next stage is that we’re working on the specifications right now, in terms of whether we’re going to have priority areas, whether there are going to be geographical priorities and so on. As I said, I anticipate that we will probably let a series of batched contracts really—although please accept that I’m not in a position to say so categorically at this...
