Mike Hedges: Can I also thank the Minister for her statement? Can I start off by saying that I have serious concerns about how climate change is affecting the weather? Anyone who went to school in the 1970s will remember almost continual drizzle. Now, when it rains, we have torrential rain and flooding. There have been more British floods this year than the first 50 years of the last century, putting it...
Mike Hedges: ...of national organisations that, if they'd done equally as well, we'd be in a much better position. On the detail of the budget, I have serious concerns about the reductions to both the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and NRW, as both cover areas that face significant challenges in the short and medium term. While the work streams that would have been covered have disappeared,...
Mike Hedges: ...than a spending list. I challenged them on the budget, and they didn't. In fact, I was the only one to produce a suggestion for how the budget could be changed. I wanted to put more money into education and less money into the economy. I support the idea of a citizens' assembly, but we need to discuss its size, its make-up, and how and when it meets. It cannot be a new name for the active,...
Mike Hedges: ...1936, and a more recent one has been installed in Caersalem Newydd in Treboeth. The Calon Lân Society in Swansea have held several events and will be installing stained glass windows in the local school to commemorate the life of Daniel James, an ordinary working man with exceptional talent whose hymn, Calon Lân is the best-loved Welsh hymn.
Mike Hedges: I can give you an alternative budget, because I'd put more money into education, more money into housing. I would not be supporting Help to Buy—all it does is inflate house prices—and I would not be spending so much money on the economy portfolio. I'd be spending it on education, which would help the economy. So, whilst I support the budget and will vote for it, I would actually have an...
Mike Hedges: ...of quickly increasing affordable housing supply. As the Minister is aware, the new methods of construction in the 1960s did not turn out well: steel houses in Swansea; high alumina cement in Olchfa school; Ronan Point; non-traditional houses in Swansea being demolished in Blaen-y-Maes and Clase and replaced by traditionally built houses by a registered social landlord; and also the...
Mike Hedges: ...unstable home. Sometimes, we talk about care, about this number of young people who have left what has been a very unstable home where they've moved around continually, where—. And I deal with a school in my constituency where, at one time, there was a pupil there who would go home and sit on a step outside a house to wonder who was going to pick her up and which home she was going to...
Mike Hedges: ...to attract branch factories, or we can produce a highly skilled workforce, creating our own industrial sectors and having employers coming because of our skills mix not our financial inducement. Education is key to producing a workforce that can transform the Welsh economy. Money spent on education in schools, colleges and universities is an investment in the Welsh economy and economic...
Mike Hedges: ...soft services and capital equipment charges, such as £20 to change a light bulb—will not occur, it's still a long-term commitment that will have an effect on revenue budgets for decades. For schools it would be cheaper for the Welsh Government to fund local authority borrowing to pay via the aggregate of external finance for the building of the schools, and let them borrow from the...
Mike Hedges: Can I thank the First Minister for that response? There are certain life skills that all children should have when they leave school—skills that will be more useful than a lot that is in the formal curriculum. Basic first aid, including things such as stopping heavy bleeding, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the Heimlich manoeuvre, are basic life skills and they help someone save a life. Does...
Mike Hedges: 2. Will the First Minister make a statement on the teaching of basic first aid in schools? OAQ54893
Mike Hedges: ...bringing it forward? I want to concentrate on GCSE options. Without a GCSE in a foreign language, pupils are unlikely to go on to an A-level or a degree in that foreign language. In a Welsh-medium school a pupil will study Welsh language and literature, English language and literature, mathematics, double science and the Welsh baccalaureate. They will be left with three or four other...
Mike Hedges: ...income, and many are going through serious problems this month as they were getting 30 and 40 hours last month and are now down to their guaranteed seven and 10 hours this month; general low educational attainment; few books in the home; with many a sense that things cannot get any better. Where you have an area that is heterogeneously disadvantaged, then, to quote Welsh Local Government...
Mike Hedges: I've got a quick intervention. Of course, you know the money that local authorities hold, some of that is for some of these major repairs. If I talk about Plasmarl school in your region and my constituency, they've had a new roof, and they've had full electrical rewiring. So, that's what the money held centrally is partly used for, and it is what you've just asked for.
Mike Hedges: ...incentives better than anywhere else—they don't want to come here, and they will leave when they get a better offer from countries like Hungary. The best expenditure to grow the economy is educational expenditure. Companies come in because of the quality of their employees, and education is the way of growing it. How much do you think California is offering companies to go to California...
Mike Hedges: I could give you an alternative. I'll give you an alternative: I'd take money out of the economy budget and I'd put it into the environment budget and I'd put it into the education budget. I'm only asking you to do top-line changes. But, I think, where you would take money off—. Because you have to take money off somewhere to put it in somewhere else. Can I start off with a request that's...
Mike Hedges: ...in poor households. Tonight in Swansea some children will go to bed hungry. Even more mothers will go to bed hungry. Some will go to bed in a cold and damp house. Some children will change their school sometimes as often as every year as their parents move from one short-term privately rented house to another. There are now more children living in poverty in working households than in...
Mike Hedges: ...increased in line with long-term public spending growth. Putting money into the demand side of the economy leads to economic growth. We know that. I, of course, support more money for health and education. Education excellence, providing high-level educational attainment, is our best way of achieving economic growth. It is our best and should be seen as our most important economic...
Mike Hedges: I would like to ask for two Government statements—firstly, on the use of supply agencies to provide supply teachers to schools. This, to me, is a very serious social justice issue. I believe supply teachers are being exploited. I believe that we need to have a public sector solution rather than supply teachers being at the mercy of private supply agencies. The second statement I'm...
Mike Hedges: ...been estimated at between 30 and 44, and they were built across mid and south Wales, between Llanidloes, Pentre Rhondda and Carmarthenshire, whilst most were built in Swansea. He also designed four schools, including Terrace Road school in Swansea, which is still open. What made John Humphrey's success astounding was he had no architectural qualifications or training. He was a carpenter by...
