Mick Antoniw: ...In respect of 16 to 17-year-olds voting, I wonder if you could perhaps elaborate on your views as to how that legislation might be framed, particularly since it has a significant impact on how the education curriculum operates, and the issues that exist, for example, around schools within their curriculum talking about political issues, talking about trade unions and bodies such as that...
Mick Antoniw: Thank you for that answer, and, of course, I think, we all understand that schools feel how important it is to have their attendance figures as high as possible and how important good attendance is within schools and for the education of children. What I've had raised with me by a number of families, though, is that those children who have significant disabilities that will require them...
Mick Antoniw: 11. Cabinet Secretary, will you make a statement on the consideration given to absence due to disability when compiling school attendance figures? OAQ52396
Mick Antoniw: ...people to study a more representative sample of major world views that are common in Britain today. So, we can take pride in the moves in this direction in Wales. Humanism is now on the religious education curriculum in Wales. Following a legal challenge, the Cabinet Secretary for Education has recently written to all of Wales’s 22 local authorities to advise that representatives of...
Mick Antoniw: I welcome your reference to the Rhondda, and indeed to Rhondda Cynon Taf, but their twenty-first century schools programme will mean, by 2020, they will have invested £0.5 billion in new schools. It is the most phenomenal school building programme in generations. Surely, that's something you very much welcome as transformational to the education system, particularly in Rhondda Cynon Taf.
Mick Antoniw: ...they're to play a proper role and be prepared for joining society fully as adults—. I wonder what progress, therefore, is being made to develop and incorporate within the curriculum public legal education. Also, I'd ask you, as part of that, under the Legal Services Act 2007, there is an obligation under the legal services board to basically take steps to increase public understanding of...
Mick Antoniw: ...has developed links with Mbale in Uganda, and the considerable way in which that has developed to the benefit of the people in Uganda and Mbale. My particular, I think, praise is for the actual educational work that that charity is engaged in within schools in Taff Ely, so that in every school you go around there, you now see young students who are actually engaged in monitoring what's...
Mick Antoniw: ...properly. Because, in terms of dealing with the health implications, we know of the significant issue with regard to young gamblers, 11 to 15-year-olds, we have powers already in respect of education and planning, and what we really need is to develop a strategy to deal with the growing problem, recognised by the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, of problem gambling, online gambling, using...
Mick Antoniw: ...five Park Drive in the local shop, I'm ashamed to say. The paper straws—I mean, I don't remember what a plastic straw was. We had paper straws that doubled up as peashooters, went with the school milk—they came with the school milk, which, of course, Maggie Thatcher then abolished; that was another matter. It was an anathema, and still is an anathema to many of us, the idea of not...
Mick Antoniw: 5. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the role of education in combating problem gambling? OAQ52020
Mick Antoniw: ...in circuses. We also asked, 'Do you agree with the Welsh Government's proposals to introduce a licensing scheme for mobile animal exhibits such as travelling falconry and exotic pets taken into schools?' Over 95 per cent agreed. One other comment, though, that was made, was that people almost overwhelmingly expressed a view on animal welfare—the regret that fox hunting wasn't devolved...
Mick Antoniw: I will be succinct, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, I gave you earlier a copy of this document, 'Votes @ 16', which was really a summation of views from working groups in Y Pant School and Bryn Celynnog Comprehensive School in my constituency. Can I say how incredibly enthused they were, and I think are now, about this actual proposal? Let me just focus on a couple of points, and a question at...
Mick Antoniw: ...in Taff's Well, and the apprenticeship programme, as a result of Welsh Government investment in Coleg y Cymoedd, I think, is very significant and really exciting. Can I say also—? In terms of education and skills and training and aspiration, by 2020, with the twenty-first century schools project, Rhondda Cynon Taf will, over that 10-year period, have invested around £0.5 billion in...
Mick Antoniw: ...might have on some of the projects we want within the metro, such as the proposed new line to Llantrisant in my constituency. Can I make one further final point, and that is on twenty-first century schools, welcoming the £1.4 billion investment? But it's really to congratulate Rhondda Cynon Taf council, who've already invested under this programme £200 million, and have plans for a...
Mick Antoniw: ...for that supplementary question. Of course, you raise some of the points that were very much raised in the Justice report, which effectively said that the senior judiciary is dominated by privately educated white men and may need targets with teeth to improve diversity on the bench. There is, of course, a significant process of change under way at the moment, and the study by the reform...
Mick Antoniw: ...suffer from a marked lack of diversity and here I must admit the supreme court does not score at all well. We have one white woman and 10 white men, and, although two of the 11 were not privately educated, none of us come from disadvantaged backgrounds.’ I think there is a recognition and I think we are in the process of reform and change not just in terms of our own jurisdiction, but...
Mick Antoniw: ...and control, climate change, nature conservation, including the habitats directive, environmental assessment schemes, including environmental impact assessments, plant health, animal health, higher education, and public health. What I can say is that we are also exploring the possibility of legislating in the Assembly to make provision about how to deal with EU law in devolved areas...
Mick Antoniw: ...in the United Kingdom. The statute book is made up of nearly 5,000 Acts and more than 80,000 statutory instruments, many of which are decades or even centuries old. Taking as an example the law of education, there are nearly 30 Acts of Parliament and Measures and Acts of the Assembly, as well as several hundred statutory instruments that have effect in Wales on that subject alone. The law...
Mick Antoniw: ...them, 21 are women and three come from an ethnic minority background. In the Supreme Court, of 12, there is only one female, and that is Baroness Hale. They are predominantly white, male, privately educated and, in general, unrepresentative. Under way at the moment are considerations of appointments of a number of deputy High Court judges and High Court judges. There is one Supreme Court...
