Alun Davies: I meet regularly with local authority leaders and the WLGA to discuss local government matters, including finance. The financing of local government services in Islwyn is a matter for the local authority.
Alun Davies: I have always been clear about the importance of Welsh Government and local government working in partnership for the benefit of communities across Wales.
Alun Davies: Local authorities will engage with a range of preventative service providers, in a range of ways, across their responsibilities.
Alun Davies: In my oral statement yesterday, I announced funding of £500,000 to support armed forces liaison officers for two years from 2019, to enable them to ensure covenant guidelines and services are embedded within local authorities' mainstream support in the future.
Alun Davies: Collectively, the local authorities in South Wales East will receive over £900 million of settlement funding in 2019-20 and will benefit from over £700,000 of floor funding, fully funded by the Welsh Government.
Alun Davies: I meet regularly with local authority leaders to discuss finance and other matters.
Alun Davies: And in doing so, I hope that we can work—and I do think that the Governments of the United Kingdom—. We will have our differences from time to time, but my experience is that the Governments of the United Kingdom work well together to deliver for this agenda. The conversations that we had yesterday were all positive conversations across the table in London, and I hope that it will...
Alun Davies: Yes, I do agree. I'm grateful to the Member for Clwyd West for making those points and grateful to him also for paying tribute to not just the work of officials and others and the expert group and the cross-party group, who all work together in order to deliver this, but also the work of my predecessor. I think this week is a difficult week for many of us in very many different ways. I knew,...
Alun Davies: Deputy Presiding Officer, the Member outlines the people who work so hard in Islwyn to ensure that this remembrance takes place in a way that values and appreciates and demonstrates the national value and appreciation that we all feel for those who have served. The speech that she made, describing those great people in Islwyn, could be made by each one of us, I think, describing those same...
Alun Davies: I'm grateful, again, for the words of the UKIP spokesperson in describing remembrance. Let me say this: he used the term 'our community will come together', and our community does come together and our community will come together and our community has been coming together to remember all those who served. The Member for Clwyd West spoke earlier about the Royal Welch Fusiliers and their...
Alun Davies: I’m grateful to the Plaid Cymru spokesperson for his comments today. I think he, like me, is of an age where we recall speaking to family members and members of our communities who had served in the first world war. I recall speaking to family members and seeing people who I believed at that time to be very old—in their 50sprobably; the same age as I am now—when I was a child in...
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to the Conservative spokesperson for his general welcome of the statement and for the points he made. I remember watching the Falklands conflict taking place, and it's the first time in my lifetime and my experience that we'd seen war in such a way. For many of us who were born in the shadow of world war two, we'd not seen a conflict of that sort, and then to see it taking place...
Alun Davies: We are aware that some veterans struggle to secure housing. So, to complement our housing referral pathway, we have developed advice cards and leaflets for ex-serving personnel who are unfortunately sleeping rough. These include the contact details of the veterans gateway, which provides an important point of contact in accessing housing, as well as a wide range of other services that are...
Alun Davies: We must also remember those who made sacrifices in conflicts that followed that war. During the world war two, the RAF played a significant part in turning the war in Europe—its most significant campaign being the battle of Britain. Approximately 70,000 RAF personnel lost their lives defending our country and our peoples. I am also sure that most of you will have seen the graphic pictures...
Alun Davies: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. This time of year serves as a poignant reminder of those who fought bravely in previous conflicts to preserve our freedoms and our way of life. Two thousand and eighteen is the year we commemorate the centenary of the end of the first world war. This war cost the lives of more than 700,000 British soldiers, including, of course, many from Wales....
Alun Davies: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm grateful to Members on all sides of the Chamber for their contributions to what has been, I think, a very good and thoughtful debate this afternoon. In terms of taking this forward, I also welcome the very broad consensus of view that we just heard expressed by Caroline Jones, but that we also heard powerfully expressed by Members on...
Alun Davies: Yes, of course.
Alun Davies: I wasn't going to mention that, but I'm glad that you have done so. It is important to look towards how we work creatively to ensure that we do have the structures in place to enable people who, upon their release from a secure estate, are then able to seek and find employment. The frameworks that we've published promote continued collaboration to further reduce the number of offenders...
Alun Davies: We welcome the fact that the United Kingdom Government has recognised the failures of the decision to privatise the probation service, separating the national probation service and the community rehabilitation companies here in Wales. We saw the report last year from the chief inspector of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation, Dame Glenys Stacey, which expressed deep concern over failures...
Alun Davies: Thank you very much, acting Presiding Officer. Shall I start by saying that Government will accept all three amendments to this motion this afternoon? In terms of approaching the reform of the probation service, there are some very significant, philosophical differences between ourselves and the United Kingdom Government on this matter. I start, and we start, from first principles that we...
