Suzy Davies: A number of councils in Wales at the moment place no requirement on the private companies with whom they contract to pay the so-called living wage, but then 15 of the 22 of those councils don't commit to pay their own employees the living wage either. Earlier this—. Well, actually, I suppose I can understand why—because of the local government settlement, they probably couldn't afford to,...
Suzy Davies: Will you take an intervention, Mike, on that?
Suzy Davies: You've heard repeatedly said that, for every £1 spent, in the end we get £1.20 here in Wales. How is that short-changing us?
Suzy Davies: In Swansea, where the council is a major player in the Swansea bay city region, the leader has also pointed to teachers’ pay, saying he's only had £606,000 of the £7 million he needs via Welsh Government. And, as he too announced that no services can be protected, he snapped that, and I quote: 'Sometimes it feels that we don’t have a Cabinet Secretary for Local Government. He should...
Suzy Davies: Of course, I share the same region as Dai Lloyd, South Wales West. It's home to three local authorities. They're all Labour-run, by some margin. What? No 'yay's? I was kind of expecting somebody to say 'woohoo' at that point. And, of course, this has been for many years as well, apart from a couple of short-lived experiments by the electorate in Bridgend and Swansea. Welsh Government may wish...
Suzy Davies: Well, I'm absolutely delighted to hear that, Nick, because, of course, this is one of the major steps forward for this democracy that this place has actually voted for. To think that we're actually bringing it in in its inaugural year for £100,000 with running costs after that of about £50,000, I think, from where I'm standing, that actually sounds more than value for money. Obviously,...
Suzy Davies: By all means.
Suzy Davies: Thank you very, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm pleased to hear, Llyr, that you appreciate the work that we have been doing to respond to the committee's concerns.
Suzy Davies: I'll just turn straight away to the Youth Parliament. Of course, this is the first time we've done it, and it's the first time anybody in an Assembly of this size has done quite what we're doing as well. If you remember, the way that we are constructing this is quite different from existing examples with the UK Parliament, and even what Scotland is attempting to do. So, I hope you will bear...
Suzy Davies: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I move the Commission's budget motion for 2019-20 and ask that it be incorporated into the annual budget motion. As you'll have seen from the draft budget, the Commission is seeking a total budget of £57.023 million, comprising £37.076 million for Commission services, £16.197 million for the remuneration board's determination and £3.75 million for non-cash items...
Suzy Davies: Thank you very much. I think we might be in a ha'porth of tar position, in that case, because I raised some time ago with Openreach directly, actually, its refusal to provide full roll-out to particular businesses in Bridgend, persuading them, if you like, to sign up for more expensive packages than otherwise they would have. But now I'm hearing from residents in Bridgend about inconsistency...
Suzy Davies: 5. Will the Leader of the House provide an update on access to broadband in South Wales West? OAQ52915
Suzy Davies: To conclude—the Welsh language. I would like to see more details in reports on how children’s rights to live through the medium of Welsh are being delivered, and, perhaps, some co-operation with the Welsh Language Commissioner on that issue. Thank you.
Suzy Davies: I offer my thanks to the children's commissioner, and her office as well. We will be supporting the Plaid Cymru amendment to the motion because it sums up pretty well, I think, some of the current concerns, which are, as Siân Gwenllian pointed out, still live red risks, as the audit risk and assurance committee of the commissioner's office has identified. And they're five policy areas that...
Suzy Davies: Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement today. We're very happy to support quite a lot of what you're saying on this, because we recognise, of course, that Donaldson will require some major reskilling of our teachers and other support staff, hopefully, as well, with the freedom to respond more directly to the different learning styles of pupils, rather than Estyn's more...
Suzy Davies: Well, of course, local authorities complain all the time that they're asked to make spending decisions based on decisions made here that aren't followed up by money. And if the Welsh Local Government Association is right on this one, we'll have far fewer teachers building up pensions rights anyway as a result of the cash cuts to both local government and the education budgets in the recent...
Suzy Davies: Thank you to the committee for this report. As a new member of the committee, I've found this a really interesting read and, with that very necessary focus on school budgets now, I think we all welcome this scrutiny of the effectiveness of particular activities and the stability of the income streams that underpin them. I'm interested, too, in whether school leaders make spending decisions on...
Suzy Davies: Well, not all employment issues are down to how the Welsh Government chooses to spend the £16 billion that it gets. Research earlier this year by Wales Online shows that, between them, the three local authorities in my region spent almost £2.3 million paying staff who were suspended for a variety of reasons. Now, of course, I don't expect you to comment on individual cases, but do you think...
Suzy Davies: A significant part of Gower within my region is made up of common land, as you know, and I have asked you before to have a look, maybe, at secondary legislation and the powers it might give you to curb irresponsible exercise of those rights. I know that my colleague Andrew R.T. Davies and, indeed, Hefin David have raised with you the opposite problem in the past, where some farmers have been...
Suzy Davies: 'The Welsh language is an inseparable part of the social fabric of parts of rural Wales. Cultural connections with farming across Wales are strong and agriculture plays an important role in sustaining the Welsh language.' That's it. That's the quote in 'Brexit and our land'. There was no more than that. Having said that, though, I think you would agree with me that young farmers' clubs in...
