Suzy Davies: Talking of Swansea, you may recall a few years ago that the council failed to apply for a second tranche of Government funding for discretionary housing payments, and that was not long after they'd had to return almost £1 million to Government as they could not find a way of using it to reduce poverty. This is a council which has a history of spending money on things that perhaps we...
Suzy Davies: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on capital investment in South Wales West?
Suzy Davies: I wonder whether I could ask for one or possibly two statements as this covers two portfolio areas, please. I hope you'll join me in congratulating Glasgow, which has just become the first city in the UK to make emergency life-saving skills compulsory on the secondary school curriculum there, something their director of public health has been applauded for leading the way on there. As it's...
Suzy Davies: In your interim annual report on grants management 2016-17, it states that the Permanent Secretary was to chair the improving efficiency board with the aim 'to reduce bureaucracy by identifying administrative work which is of low value, or which could be undertaken less frequently or in a different way or not at all.' The work started in May last year and was to complete in 2018 by being...
Suzy Davies: Very quickly, thank you for that information. Of course, what we didn't get from that report was a clear understanding of what 'assessment' meant, so I was encouraged to hear your following remarks.
Suzy Davies: Will you take an intervention on that, if you've got time? Thank you. The carers champions that you're talking about within schools—do you foresee that part of their role will be to ensure that they actually get the formal assessment by local authorities or whoever the work is outsourced to and that those carers' needs are then met? And then do you also, as a backbencher of the governing...
Suzy Davies: Thank you. I completely recognise what you're saying. Young carers and young adult carers will find themselves in this position. And my question for the Minister is: why on earth are they in that position? Maybe there's a way around it that way.
Suzy Davies: Silence is never golden, as other Government colleagues have found out this week. It gives rise to suspicion, and I suspect that failure to guide councils to consistency on what constitutes assessment and what constitutes meeting needs has meant confusion about what those statutory requirements actually mean. How can you be sure that councils are acting lawfully if carers don't know the legal...
Suzy Davies: Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I move the motion. Members, I suppose the easiest way to start this is to just say that it's Carers Week, and let's have a debate about carers. This awareness raising is very valuable, and it's useful to have a point, I think, at which to mark our appreciation. But I suspect that what most of the 370,000 unpaid carers would like us to do is show that...
Suzy Davies: Thank you for that brief answer. The Help Point in Swansea has been a positive addition to Swansea's night-time economy. It's a project, actually, supported by South Wales Police, and by Swansea council and St John Cymru as well, and their work has helped retain the city's purple flag status. But there are still a number of challenges as violent crime, as recorded, has gone up on Wind Street,...
Suzy Davies: Well, obviously, I share everyone's frustration about the speed of news coming out on the tidal lagoon. But I think we still need to keep our eye on the ball when it comes to other renewable sources of energy as well. The Stuttgart university of applied sciences recently advised that a combination of renewable energy sources is probably the best approach to reducing emissions in urban areas,...
Suzy Davies: 3. Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on improving community safety in South Wales West? OAQ52300
Suzy Davies: Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. Before we move on to the Stage 3 debate on the Public Health (Minimum Price for Alcohol) (Wales) Bill, I will suspend proceedings for 10 minutes. The bell will be rung five minutes before we reconvene, and I would encourage Members to return to the Chamber in a timely fashion. Thank you.
Suzy Davies: Thank you. Finally, and quickly—Julie Morgan.
Suzy Davies: The competition is open for the quickest question here. Vikki Howells.
Suzy Davies: We have heard from one person from all parties by now, so may I ask for the next speakers to be concise, and also for the Cabinet Secretary to be concise in his responses? Thank you. John Griffiths.
Suzy Davies: They say that only certain things will survive a nuclear holocaust in this country: one being E. coli, the second being cockroaches, and the third—the certainty that this question will keep coming up on the order paper in this place. You may have heard recently that there have been some ideas that perhaps we should eat more of this Japanese knotweed as it's full of vitamins and minerals. We...
Suzy Davies: I think there's plenty to like in this strategy, but what's particularly attractive is how immediately relevant it is to my own, primarily urban, region of South Wales West, and so I'm going to start, rather bravely, I think, with one proposal that I think could be improved upon, if I don't incur the wrath of David here. One point three billion pounds is lined up for the Swansea bay city...
Suzy Davies: Of course, the universities are key partners in the city deal, but there's more to the city region and the city deal, and all of us here, I hope, recognise it as a great visitor destination—we're all familiar with Gower and some of the more popular attractions, including the Afan valley. But the heritage and landscapes of the Neath and Dulais valleys are very under-celebrated, and their...
Suzy Davies: What assessment has the Welsh Government made of businesses' responses to the calls to action in the Welsh Government’s economic action plan?
