Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, what Rhys ab Owen said remains true. I haven't heard anything from the new Prime Minister, I haven't had a phone call or an e-mail—nothing at all. We do have a new scheme, a scheme that we had agreed with the Scottish Government, the Northern Ireland Government and the Westminster Government. The last phone call that I had with Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister, during that...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I have had several conversations with the new Secretary of State for Wales on this and other matters.
Mark Drakeford: I thank Vikki Howells for that important point that she makes. There are over 200 childcare settings in Cynon Valley constituency alone. The good news is that, because we have extended the 100 per cent rate relief for registered childcare premises to the end of March 2025, we have a direct line of communication with those settings, because they benefit from that scheme as well. Therefore,...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I thank Vikki Howells for that. Boosting the most generous childcare offer in the United Kingdom, we announced last week almost £100 million to support the expansion of Flying Start childcare to support investments in improvements and maintenance of childcare buildings and funding to support improved Welsh language provision. Cynon Valley residents will benefit from every aspect of...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I agree that I would rather have people working directly as employees of the NHS, or in bank arrangements under the control of the NHS, than people working in agency arrangements. In the end, these are individuals making decisions in their own lives. You cannot direct people as to how they would themselves choose to organise their own employment arrangements. The way the Welsh...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I agree with a great deal of what Joel James has just said. As I've explained a number of times on the floor of the Chamber, the NHS continues to have to deal with the COVID impact, with just under 1,000 members of staff not in work today; around 600 to 700 of them are actually ill with COVID themselves and around 300 or so are not in work because they've been in contact with...
Mark Drakeford: Health boards plan, deploy and manage their workforce to meet population needs. E-rostering solutions have been implemented across NHS Wales to support the effective deployment of staff.
Mark Drakeford: First of all, I agree with the points about economic stability that Mike Hedges made. That's the way in which the long-term investment you'll need if you're building houses can be secured. But he makes a very important final point. In my own constituency of Cardiff West, a town the size of Carmarthen is being built in the north-west of Cardiff. That was opposed every single step of the way by...
Mark Drakeford: First of all, house prices in Wales are less expensive than in most other parts of the United Kingdom, not more expensive as Mr Giffard appeared to believe. There are a series of reasons why there are new obstacles in the path of building the number of houses that we need to see here in Wales, both houses for social renting and houses that are built for commercial sale. Brexit...
Mark Drakeford: We have committed to deliver 20,000 new low-carbon homes for rent in the social sector, providing record levels of funding to do so. The first statistical release demonstrating progress towards this target is expected later this year.
Mark Drakeford: Of course, I recognise exactly the position that Jane Dodds sets out. It's always been a challenge for the Warm Homes programme to find effective ways in which you can insulate properties that don't have the characteristics that most properties do where you can put insulation between cavity walls and so on. We are redesigning the Warm Homes programme, we will be soon looking for the next...
Mark Drakeford: That's something that is great to see and that will help the people living in Powys in the areas that the Member represents. We're willing to consider whether there is more that we can do, but we are trying to do many things already.
Mark Drakeford: There are a whole series of things that the Welsh Government has done over many years to invest in such schemes in all parts of Wales, including, of course, rural Wales. People who live in the Member's constituency will be worrying less about the things that he's raised with me today than whether they will have less to live on next year as a result of the decisions that his Government is...
Mark Drakeford: They'll provide £150 to all residents who live in homes that have off-grid fuel supply.
Mark Drakeford: To start, I do recognise everything that the Member has said about the situation in west Wales, and how much people rely on different ways to heat their homes and who aren’t having any support from the Westminster Government. We are doing many things already. We have extended the discretionary assistance fund to give more help to people who depend on that as way to buy their fuel or energy,...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Cefin Campbell for the question. The Welsh Government has invested more than £1.6 billion this year on targeted cost-of-living support and universal programmes to put money back in people's pockets and to help alleviate this crisis. This includes, for example, support to those living off the gas grid to purchase LPG or bulk oil.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, it must be nearly a decade now since I first discussed with UK Conservative Ministers their plans to implement the Dilnot review. That never happened. More years went by. We did appear to reach a point under the last Prime Minister where there was to be a specific levy in order to create, as the then Prime Minister claimed, a sustainable future for social care and to deal with...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, Shelter is not calling for a rent freeze in Wales, and the reason that they are not calling for a rent freeze is that they recognise, I believe, the potential unintended consequences for tenants when that happens. I think the leader of Plaid Cymru has just conceded that the Scottish Government's proposals don't amount to a blanket rent freeze in the way that it might be being...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, we will look carefully at the proposals in Scotland, of course. I've had an opportunity to look at them briefly this morning. Let's be clear about what the proposals actually are. There is a rent freeze for social renting tenants in Scotland. That already exists here in Wales. All those rents are fixed and will not rise before the end of this financial year, so there is no...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, there is the impotence of opposition. The leader of the opposition can of course go on making his case for as long and as loudly as he likes. In the meantime, the world has moved on. There is an inquiry, a fully constituted inquiry, set up by a Conservative Government at Westminster in which there will be full participation by patients and families in Wales, in which all the...
