Mark Isherwood: You make a welcome reference to post offices. Of course, I remember the introduction of the fund you referred to, but we didn't then have the post office banking framework agreement between the post office and 28 banks, providing access to services on the high street where they have a branch. Do you agree that we should also be encouraging, where practical, the Welsh Government to be working...
Mark Isherwood: Yes, because you don't seem to understand basic economics, but there we are—
Mark Isherwood: That's not what my question is about—
Mark Isherwood: My question is about how the budget, whatever size it is, is sliced. It's about the formula, not about the size. We're all waiting in anticipation to hear what the next size of the budget will be—
Mark Isherwood: So, their request to you, a letter replying from you, signed 4 November, they have requested a private discussion.
Mark Isherwood: So, I'd be grateful if you could look at that. Similarly, I received correspondence from—I won't name them—an executive member of Flintshire this summer about the unfunded legislative impacts on local government. They said that local government has contested that the regulatory impact assessments that Welsh Government produces alongside draft legislation do not always fully estimate or...
Mark Isherwood: Well, I'm not going to re-rehearse the economics lesson I tried to give you yesterday on that point—
Mark Isherwood: In fact, the very week that you made that comment to me, a letter was sent to the First Minister and to yourself and to the Finance Minister and Trefnydd from Flintshire County Council, signed by its leader and the leader of all groups. It said, 'Flintshire has engaged with Welsh Government to make our case over a series of budget setting years. We still contend that as a low-funded council...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you. Well, in fact, the—.
Mark Isherwood: Diolch, Llywydd. Under the Welsh Government's local government funding formula, nine out of 22 Welsh authorities received an increase in the current financial year: Cardiff up 0.9 per cent, Swansea up 0.5 per cent, Wrexham 0.1 per cent cut, Flintshire 0.3 per cent cut, despite all having equivalent population increases. Alongside Flintshire, the councils with the largest cuts of 0.3 per cent...
Mark Isherwood: The draft national development framework says, in the context of Anglesey: 'The potential Wylfa Newydd nuclear power station development could provide significant employment, training and other associated economic benefits across the whole region if a decision is made to proceed with the scheme.' Well, when I met Horizon Nuclear Power—in my latest meeting with them—this summer, they told...
Mark Isherwood: You refer to the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee report about the future of welfare benefits in Wales. As a party to that report, I won't comment. I look forward, however, to hearing how the Welsh Government responds. You refer to austerity cuts, well, my dictionary describes 'austerity cuts' as not having enough money, and, as such, that was an inheritance, not a choice....
Mark Isherwood: The fact that child poverty in Wales has risen should, as the Minister says, concern each and every one of us. But I wonder if she could tell me why she states that the employment rate in Wales is now higher than the UK as a whole, when the latest figures published by the Senedd Research Service show that the employment rate in Wales is lower than in Scotland, England and the UK as a whole,...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you. Well, last week, nearly four years after the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016 received Royal Assent, your health Minister issued a short statement stating only that the all-Wales nurse staffing programme is driving the exploratory work of extending the 2016 Act. At the end of last month, the Royal College of Nursing in Wales launched its progress and challenge report on the...
Mark Isherwood: 4. How is the Welsh Government supporting staff in the Welsh NHS? OAQ54812
Mark Isherwood: Only because I was invited. I quoted exactly what this section of the manifesto states. Have you read it?
Mark Isherwood: By all means.
Mark Isherwood: I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said.
Mark Isherwood: That is more scaremongering. Last week Labour's Barry Gardiner, in fact, was unable to point to any evidence that the NHS would be on the table in trade talks. Jeremy Corbyn has claimed that under a free trade deal with America, the cost of medicines in the UK would increase by £500 million a week. That's £27 billion a year. However, the entire annual UK drugs bill is only £18 billion....
Mark Isherwood: Once again, the nationalists are in Brexit denial. On 23 June 2016 the UK voted to leave the European Union. Wales voted to leave. Ynys Môn, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham voted to leave. Carmarthenshire voted to leave. The Rhondda voted to leave, as did the rest of the south Wales Valleys. They repeated that pattern in the European elections this year, and even replicated it in...
