Carwyn Jones: Real leaders build bridges, not walls—that’s the one thing we have to remember. Humanity does not prosper when countries try to cut themselves off from each other. That leads to conflict, and we see from history where that leads. The President-elect will have a huge task on his hands to unite his very divided country—there’s no question about that. We’ve seen in the past week that...
Carwyn Jones: Yes, the message has been that Wales is open for business, and we carried that message to America. The US is a hugely important investor in the Welsh economy. There are two questions that are still posed by US investors: firstly, will they be able to access the large European market if they are based in the UK on the same terms as now? That’s not yet been answered. Secondly, will the...
Carwyn Jones: Well, I remain to be convinced. And the reason why I say that is that Donald Trump was elected on the basis of putting America first. On that basis, I don’t see that free trade agreements are going to be high up in his agenda. He has said that he wants to unravel global trading arrangements. So, we will have to wait and see. I mean, clearly, there’s work to be done in order to make sure...
Carwyn Jones: Well, if somebody receives a prescription, of course, then the approach can be different. But we want to make sure that there is a fair balance between what an individual is expected to contribute and what is available to that individual. And we see that there are good results. For example, there’s been a decline in the overall rate of people dying from a respiratory health condition by 10...
Carwyn Jones: None as yet.
Carwyn Jones: Well, we do recognise that there are areas where access is difficult, and it’s why we’re improving access to validated exercise programmes as part of the respiratory disease implementation group’s priority areas. The group is creating an all-Wales data set, to better understand provision and uptake, in order to make sure that the reach is as deep as possible, in order for the programmes...
Carwyn Jones: Our approach to respiratory health is set out in the national delivery plan, and is being led by the respiratory health implementation group.
Carwyn Jones: Our unemployment rate is 4.1 per cent. We continue to provide jobs for our people. I regret the Member’s tone because I don’t believe that’s his true view. His view, I believe, is that there was a time in this country when there was a contract between people and the state, where the state would do what it could to provide housing, education, to provide good healthcare and also to...
Carwyn Jones: We’ve got the fact that the UK Government has withdrawn benefits to those in work. There was a time that we said to people that if they worked, their circumstances would improve and their incomes would improve, and they have been hammered as a result of actions taken by the UK Government. The bedroom tax is another example of that. I certainly deplore the actions over the last few years,...
Carwyn Jones: I don’t know where he gets that figure from. What I can say to him is that the unemployment rate is—[Interruption.]
Carwyn Jones: Clearly, we want to keep the best practice that has been established over the last few years, The Cabinet Secretary has, of course, said that he’s minded to phase out the Communities First programme, but also, of course, to develop a new approach to building resilient communities, which is why the engagement process is so important for us, to hear examples that the Member has referred to in...
Carwyn Jones: They clearly are, because, as I say, 70 per cent are having a tax cut as a result of a scheme that has been temporary, but renewed every year for some years. There is no permanence to the current scheme. We are introducing a permanent scheme next year in order to make sure that we have a scheme that is durable, because businesses cannot exist on a system where the rates relief scheme is...
Carwyn Jones: The estimate is that around 200 households in Torfaen will be affected by the UK Government’s lowering of the benefit cap in 2016-17, with an average loss of £60 per week if they don’t respond by moving into work or increasing their hours.
Carwyn Jones: I would argue that what we have in place is more generous now than is the case in England. Why? Because it reaches more businesses. Seventy per cent of businesses will receive some form of support through the business rates relief scheme, over half of eligible businesses will pay no rates at all—that is far in excess as a percentage of businesses than is the case under the system in...
Carwyn Jones: We’re committed to supporting small businesses through our small business rates relief scheme and transitional relief.
Carwyn Jones: Two points: first of all, the Wales Bill itself will not be a comprehensive solution to Wales’s constitution. We’ll still have anomalies where this Assembly will make the law in terms of most public order, but the agencies that enforce public order law will not be answerable to the Assembly or the Government. It would be possible, under the current arrangements, for somebody to be...
Carwyn Jones: Good progress is being made in discussions between the Cabinet Secretary and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. We are hopeful that there will be a settlement that will be acceptable to all and is good for Wales. There are other areas, of course, that remain outstanding and we hope to see a positive response from the UK Government in those areas.
Carwyn Jones: I sympathise with what the Member says, of course. It’s unfortunate that this Bill won’t be a comprehensive Bill to settle Wales’s constitution for decades. That’s not what this Bill does. There are some positive things in the Bill, and we want to see more positive things added to it. I’ve been discussing this with Lord Bourne, too, in the House of Lords, and as a former Member of...
Carwyn Jones: I have discussed the Wales Bill with the Secretary of State on a number of occasions—the last time over the phone last Friday. It’s very important that the UK Government responds positively to the reports that have been published recently.
Carwyn Jones: Paul Davies is, of course, talking about what I mentioned earlier about the work of the commissioner, which is something I welcome. As someone who lives in a town where there are huge problems with some streets because of the fact that the names of the streets have been Welsh for decades, then they’ve been translated very poorly into English and nobody now knows where they live. There are...
