Suzy Davies: Dirprwy Lywydd, of course I accept that you received legal advice permitting the Stage 2 amendments that now prompt these Stage 3 amendments. I'm not challenging that, but I do think it's worth reinforcing the points why the Commission, representing the four largest parties in this Chamber, of course, agreed that this particular extension to the franchise should not be included in the Bill as...
Suzy Davies: Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. Diolch yn fawr, Llyr. Thank you for your comments. I mean, these are rehearsals of what we went through in Finance Committee, really. You started off by talking about this almost like a separation of powers between the remuneration board and the operational budget of the Commission, which is a step that the Commission took very much on the basis of suggestions...
Suzy Davies: Diolch, Llywydd, and I move the Commission's budget for 2021, so that's from April next year, and I ask that it be incorporated into the annual budget motion. As you will have seen in the budget document, the Commission is seeking a total budget of £61.411 million, and that comprises £36.274 million for Commission services—that's our operational budget—£16.172 million for the...
Suzy Davies: Minister, it's about a year since Hefin David—in fact, Andrew R.T. Davies raised the issue with you of commoners' rights being restricted on their patches. But, at that time, I raised the opposite problem with you, relating to residents in Pennard in Gower within my region, where common rights are being exercised with some irresponsibility, if I can put it that way, meaning that residents...
Suzy Davies: In your response to Helen Mary's earlier question, First Minister, you mentioned the ethical employment Welsh Government code of practice. I'm assuming that's the same code that we're talking about here. So, I was pleased to hear the number of both public and private organisations that had signed up to it. I hear your response to Dawn Bowden's question, which was very full, to be fair, but...
Suzy Davies: No. 9, yes?
Suzy Davies: Okay. Thank you very much for that. Sorry.
Suzy Davies: You mentioned the Swansea bay city deal, Deputy Minister, and, of course, we're waiting for the first £18 million of that to come through. I understand the delay is down to Welsh Government not telling the city deal lead, Rob Stewart, a Labour colleague of yours, the terms and conditions of the £18 million that they've been waiting for. He's complained that it's taken 16 weeks, which is far...
Suzy Davies: May I also start by expressing my personal thanks to Meri Huws? She prepared the ground, after all, and that wasn't always easy: the overreaction of the previous Minister to the establishment of the standards, the erosion of her budget and her freedom in delivering her responsibilities in promoting the Welsh language weren't easy things for her to deal with. And for me, coming to this...
Suzy Davies: I wonder if I could invite Members to join with me in congratulating Bad Wolf on the first episode of their excellent production of His Dark Materials, which was aired on Sunday. Having said that though, I think there is still space, now that they're in occupation of Pinewood studios, for Welsh Government to bring forward a statement to explain what has actually happened now with Pinewood,...
Suzy Davies: Well, it's not just ambulance waiting times, it's ambulance discharge times as well. Your Government recently passed its climate emergency statement, yet we have patients and visitors driving round and round in circles in parking spaces at Morriston, Singleton and Princess of Wales hospitals, contributing unnecessarily to local pollution. It's also literally preventing access to healthcare...
Suzy Davies: If I'm given time, yes, thank you.
Suzy Davies: Okay, well, I'll come on to that in a little bit, but as you remember—I think you heard from my colleague Angela Burns not so very long ago about some of the views we hold on universal credit, the timing of it and some concerns regarding the five-week delay at the beginning of it. But, of course, this is not devolved and there's only a certain amount of work that we can do on that directly...
Suzy Davies: I genuinely think it was interesting to hear from Leanne about the experiences of individuals who are being refused successful applications on the basis of minor amendments. These are the sorts of things that really affect policy more widely, and where we try and distinguish between the difference between good ideas— hopefully across party—and the delivery of good ideas badly. I was...
Suzy Davies: Thank you very much, Lynne. It was just a point of clarification, as much as anything, about the review. Our recommendation was about school funding—the sufficiency of school funding—not education in the round. And bearing in mind this split between local government and the education pot centrally, I think that's an important distinction that needs to be just placed on the record.
Suzy Davies: Will you take an intervention?
Suzy Davies: Thank you very much. Of course, one of the things that we discovered in the course of our committee work is that while there is an education budget that is under the oversight of the education Minister, it's the local government end of things that has been causing the problem, and I suspect you may have something to say about that.
Suzy Davies: Let me carry on, because, of course, as Lynne Neagle mentioned in her opening remarks, Westminster was mentioned in this, and I think it is worth us noting that Westminster has now responded to concerns that have only been made apparent to them in the last four or five years. Welsh Government has not responded to the per-pupil funding gap that's been presented to them since I've been here and...
Suzy Davies: Very quickly. I might move on to answer your question, actually.
Suzy Davies: Can I thank you, Lynne? I don't think Welsh Government should have been particularly surprised at the content of this report. Per-pupil funding for schools has been historically poor compared to the rest of the UK, and the chickens have finally come home to roost. Teachers, school leaders, unions like the NAHT and council leaders have been genuinely fearful about the vulnerability of schools...
