Mark Drakeford: Population screening is a core public health responsibility. Public Health Wales provide cancer screening services. It oversees improvements to programmes, including the recent extension in the age cohort eligible for bowel screening in Wales.
Mark Drakeford: I can confirm that the Welsh Government accepted the recommendations of the DDRB, and that all people who work in the Welsh NHS covered by those recommendations will know that they will receive the uplifts that the board proposed. I'm not in a position to know the precise pay arrangements for every health board and for every person who works for them, but I'm sure that if the Member were to...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I think Hefin David makes an important point—that trying to tackle the pressures in the system by focusing only on one aspect of it will not produce the improvements that we need to see. Many of the pressures on the ambulance service do indeed come because other parts of the system itself are under strain. I’ve tried to explain in my earlier answers that one of the reasons why...
Mark Drakeford: Thank you very much for that question. The Welsh Government sets the policy framework and provides funding for GP services out of hours. Health boards are responsible for delivery of the service in their areas.
Mark Drakeford: I agree with what the Member said about the importance of sustainable energy being available. Through creating a system for the future that depends on renewable and sustainable energy, we could see a future where energy costs can be affordable for businesses and for local people too. We have an ambition as a Government to increase the percentage of sustainable energy held by local people. We...
Mark Drakeford: 'Pie in the sky' would be the kindest way to describe it. You can use those levers, and they bring in very, very modest amounts of money. And that assumes—which is quite heroic, really—that the people who are now being asked to pay more tax in Wales than they would be asked to pay across the border don't organise their affairs in a way that immunises them from that effect. Let's just...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I have already agreed with the leader of Plaid Cymru that progressive taxation is the way in which we should fund public services. What I can't possibly agree with him on is that raising taxes in the way that he suggested in his first question—. Because he asked me in his first question, you'll remember, whether we should raise the two additional rates of taxation that we are able...
Mark Drakeford: The Welsh Government has a series of programmes to support businesses in Meirionnydd. The extraordinary rise in energy costs needs a long-term set of solutions, which only the UK Government can provide.
Mark Drakeford: I agree with the principle, Llywydd, of course, that those who have the most should contribute the most. We will do, as I explained last week—. Last week, the Member was urging me to raise income tax rates here in Wales, and we'd be looking very foolish today if we'd followed his advice then, because, as I explained to him, we will make our decisions when we have the full facts available to...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, the next Labour Government will inherit the difficulties that have been created in the last three weeks. The last three weeks have changed the context in which decisions have to be made. I heard the shadow Chancellor explain that very cogently on the radio this morning. Something that was right three weeks ago can no longer be sustained, given the turmoil and the billions and...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, the prescription of the Welsh Government is to invest more money in the ambulance service, to have more staff working in the ambulance service, to have a wider range of people able to provide those services and for ambulances to know that, when they arrive at hospitals, the hospital will be in a position to receive that patient so that the ambulance can get back on the road again and...
Mark Drakeford: Yes, he supported Liz Truss. We know that. He is partly responsible for the mess we're in. Just shouting at me about the difficulties that are there in the ambulance service, which I acknowledge, and we are working very hard with people who work in the ambulance service to get that service where it needs to be. There's no solution to that by shouting at me as though all the right in this...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I understand the pressure that the Conservative Party is under. I understand how difficult it must be for the leader of the opposition to come here and ask questions today. But don't let him believe that by shouting at me he will persuade anybody outside this Chamber that his responsibility—I've not heard ever a single word from him assuming responsibility for the actions of his...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I agree that the Welsh ambulance service is under enormous pressure. It’ll be under far greater pressure when his party has finished cutting the budget of the health service, as Jeremy Hunt has said he intends to do. Yes, you can groan and you can moan, but the responsibility lies where it lies, and people out there understand that too. Yes, the system is under huge pressure; we...
Mark Drakeford: It's an important point that the Member makes, and I want to repeat it again this afternoon, as I did last week, because these are absolutely serious times in the lives of citizens in Wales. The Welsh Government's budget is already worth, in purchasing power, £600 million less than it was in November of last year at the time of the comprehensive spending review, and the Chancellor has said...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, the Member deserved better from more senior Members of his group who ought to have advised him, before he stood up, not to offer a contribution of that sort on the floor of the Senedd. 'It's all the fault of Gordon Brown and the United States of America.' Well, even in a week in which the most extraordinary explanations have been offered, I don't think anybody has attempted to...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, of course, it's not fair that we have all been subjected to the failed experiment—a failed experiment that took less than a month to collapse in front of us. And the reason it's particularly unfair is that the experiment was doomed to failure from the outset. It didn't need to come in contact with the reality of the markets for people to have understood that. An economic...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I thank Ken Skates for that question. The recent turmoil in UK financial markets, for which the UK Government’s fiscal statement was the catalyst, has increased the cost of borrowing for Government, businesses and ordinary citizens. It will damage growth, worsen the public finances and make life harder for borrowers, including homebuyers.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, it is important, as I explained, to keep the two issues separate. When we're talking about legislation, we're not talking about what we are doing for people in the current situation; that is responded to through the funding that we have allocated and put on the table and the system that is currently ongoing. That doesn't depend on a change to the law. We are changing the legislation...
Mark Drakeford: I thank the Member for that question. She will know that the Building Safety Act 2020 does already contain several provisions to add to the protection of leaseholders here in Wales. So, we were able to secure those additional protections through the 2022 Act. The UK Government brought forward a whole series of very late amendments to the Act—to the Bill, as it was then—which we were not...
