Mark Drakeford: I thank the Member for that question, Llywydd. Significant and sustained funding by the Welsh Government supports mental health services in South Wales West, from the expansion of direct access tier 0 and tier 1 interventions to specialist services, for example in eating disorders and psychosis.
Mark Drakeford: As far as the first question is concerned, we continue to review the views of the coroner and to take advice from those who provide the Welsh Government with advice on those matters. As to long COVID, I think the evidence is still emerging. I think it's too early to come to a determination of the sort that the trade unions have so far suggested. Not all the evidence that is emerging actually...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I think that Judge Hallett herself has repeatedly said that the reason that she wishes to conduct her inquiry in the way that she does—of which the leader of Plaid Cymru was critical in his first question—is precisely because she wants to make sure that lessons from the COVID experience are made available as rapidly as possible, because a further pandemic could happen and...
Mark Drakeford: I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question in what the leader of Plaid Cymru asked me, but I have many times set out the reasons why I believe that the answers that families here in Wales quite rightly wish to receive are best pursued through an inquiry that is able to look at the interconnection between decisions made here in Wales and decisions made elsewhere. I think it's very early days in the...
Mark Drakeford: Well, the leader of the opposition can sloganise as much as he likes. I've given him the facts; the facts that here in Wales, we have a far more generous childcare offer and a plan to be even more generous, which we will deliver, because we have already found the money. We are already making the investment. And when the leader of the opposition sloganises at me about business rate relief,...
Mark Drakeford: Here's a simple answer for the leader of the opposition: we will invest £70 million in capital investment in this sector, so that it can grow and take more children into childcare. There is not a penny piece, not a single penny piece, in the Chancellor's announcement of capital investment in the childcare sector in England. We will provide 100 per cent rate relief for the sector here in...
Mark Drakeford: I'm quite sure that in those conversations, the leader of the opposition has been able to explain to those people that what we see is an attempt in England to catch up with services that are already available here in Wales. It's quite certainly not the other way around. The promises—the aspirations, we might say—that the Chancellor set out, all of them carefully calibrated to make sure...
Mark Drakeford: Well, I thank Russell George for those further questions. I was able to discuss recruitment in Powys with the chief executive of the Powys university health board yesterday. She said to me that Powys has only one managed practice and that there is a realistic hope that new contractors will be found, happy to come and take over that practice as well, and, while recruitment is challenging, as...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, we work with partners to retain existing workers, recruit locally and bring new clinicians to the area. While challenges remain, and are real, mid Wales continues to be an attractive place to work, live and train. The workforce of the Powys local health board has increased by over 700 full-time posts over the last decade.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, the record of the Welsh Government speaks for itself: over £800 million already invested in metro developments across Wales, a further £800 million invested in new train fleets across Wales—trains made here, now, in Wales. What a contrast with the figures I gave you on electrification. What we need, Llywydd, is we need the devolution of rail infrastructure here in Wales,...
Mark Drakeford: Wel, Llywydd, first of all, the Member points to what is the fundamental difficulty at the root of what we have seen with HS2, and now, indeed, maybe with the Northern Powerhouse as well: it is the arbitrary ability of the UK Treasury to make classifications of the sorts to which Jane Dodds referred, and which ends up with the Northern Powerhouse being an England-and-Wales form of investment....
Mark Drakeford: Wow. You couldn't make it up, Llywydd, but no doubt somebody did for the Member, because she read it out for us. Look, what we've heard, even with the thinnest of material, wasn't worth the time of the Senedd. The notion that the UK Government is serious about public transport, the idea that HS2 has been slightly pushed back, where it now disappears well on the other side of the general...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I thank Rhys ab Owen for what he has said. And he will understand that I have to take care not to confuse the responsibilities I have as the Senedd Member for Cardiff West. In that capacity, I'm very familiar with all the arguments Rhys ab Owen has set out, and, in that capacity, I write on behalf of Cardiff residents in the way that he has suggested. As First Minister, I...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, the decision to delay aspects of the HS2 line was taken without reference of any sort to the Welsh Government or Transport for Wales. This further explodes the myth that this is an England-and-Wales project.
Mark Drakeford: The loss of EU funding is now resulting in the closure of vital economic programmes across Wales as well as significant job losses in a range of sectors. These are the consequences of a botched UK Government replacement scheme that short-changes Wales by £1.1 billion
Mark Drakeford: There is nothing specifically for mid or west Wales in the Chancellor's budget. The Chancellor deliberately chose to prioritise small spending measures instead of using the headroom he had to address the very real challenges people and businesses are facing now.
Mark Drakeford: NHS 111 Wales is a national service. Welsh Government officials hold 111 executive leads to account for delivery of timely and quality services to patients across Wales through bimonthly integrated quality planning and delivery meetings. Officials also closely monitor key experience, performance and quality indicators on a daily basis.
Mark Drakeford: I am aware of proposals for a new surgery in Waunfawr. There are ongoing discussions between Welsh Government officials and the health board.
Mark Drakeford: One of the ways in which constituents in the Member's constituency will get that service is when dentists in a thoroughgoing way deliver NICE guidance. The NICE requirement since 2004 is that people should never be called back twice a year for a check-up when there's no clinical reason for doing so. NICE guidelines said all the way back then that a two-year call-back was sufficient for very...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Darren Millar for that, Llywydd. Contract reform, financial incentives, additional investment and diversification of the profession are amongst the actions being taken to improve access for the Member's constituents.
