Mike Hedges: Thank you for that answer, First Minister. Every summer, children go hungry. many parents lose 10 free meals per child per week when schools are closed. I would commend the work of my colleague Carolyn Harris, who fed well over 5,000 children during the summer in Swansea East, but that certainly was not getting to all those who were losing out on the free food. Will the First Minister cost a...
Mike Hedges: I very much welcome this statement. Far too many children move home between once and twice a year. It's obviously disruptive to education that they move from school to school. High-quality housing, secure and affordable, will improve the health and life outcomes for very many of my constituents. There are two separate private rented markets: there's the high-quality and expensive market that...
Mike Hedges: You do realise the major expenditure by local education authorities centrally is on pre-school transport?
Mike Hedges: I believe education needs a greater proportion of the Welsh budget, and that a highly educated workforce is the best economic development tool we can have. On the additional money announced for the teachers' pay award, which you announced yesterday, is it going to be distributed via the funding formula to local authorities and then on to schools, which will produce winners and losers, or...
Mike Hedges: ...which are privately owned but unoccupied, such as Danbert House, which is turning into a ruin, St John's Church on Woodfield Street, which has vegetation growing out of it, and the former Manselton School, which is currently empty. These are causing grave concerns to my constituents and to me. I would also like to request a debate in Government time, sponsored by the Government, on...
Mike Hedges: ...amount of money. Second homes also reduce the number of properties available for local people. They make young people leave the area as prices are forced up and cause the closure of local schools as the number of children left to attend them decreases. We know that owners of second homes who fulfil the criteria for determining whether a property is non-domestic may be liable for...
Mike Hedges: ...: teachers in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot did not get their pay award at the end of September. I have chased this around lots of different places, including the councils, ERW and the Minister for Education. I am told that this is because the Welsh Government have not released the money for the award and not confirmed that the award, which has been made in England, is going to be paid in...
Mike Hedges: ...a finance meeting in Aberystwyth, meeting with members of the public. It was very helpful to me, because I met with people from the environment groups, from local government, and further and adult education, but I met with them outside what I would describe as my comfort zone of Swansea. It was interesting to have views from people in the same areas that I’ve taken an interest in and...
Mike Hedges: ...of Welsh local government, no matter which party runs the council, or none at all—does the Minister accept the need for additional money for local government services such as social care and education? And if we're having a real-terms increase, why can't we say now that no local authorities will have a real-terms decrease?
Mike Hedges: ...of the two months' to six months’ notice a landlord needs to give, and that a six months' tenancy must be completed—that’s certainly moving in the right direction—the effect on children’s education and family life of having to move after a year is serious. I still support the ending of no-fault evictions. I’m disappointed with the decision not to end it. I’ve heard what the...
Mike Hedges: As local government's budgets have reduced and increasing social care demand and education needs have had to be met, non-statutory services, or services with a minimum statutory duty, such as libraries, have been cut, and cut severely across Wales. Such cuts have seen library hours cut and libraries closed, which impacts on the poorest most; leisure facilities reduced, when increasing...
Mike Hedges: ...you are.' There's meant to be an independent appeals procedure, and I would hope that the Government would use that. Teachers' pension support is really necessary. Without it, there'd have been a school crisis. With it, there are school problems; without it, there would've been a school crisis. But remember, the school year and the financial year are different and that the school year...
Mike Hedges: ...the Senedd. Other projects include a memorial stone in the grounds of the King's Head public house where he wrote a number of hymns and poems, commemorative stained glass windows in the six local schools to Treboeth, poems and pints, which I'm sure best exemplifies him, and concerts to be held at Ysgol Gyfun Bryntawe and at capel Caersalem. I thank the Calon Lân Society for what they...
Mike Hedges: ...which will lead to economic growth. The growth theory primarily holds that the long-run growth rates of an economy depend on policy measures—for example, subsidies for research and development or education increase the growth rate, using the endogenous growth model, by increasing the incentive to innovate. And that's what we lack, really. We talk around it, but what we have not got is...
Mike Hedges: ...words in English. It's not that they can't speak English, but the technical words are words that are specific to the subjects—they only know the Welsh versions of them. Will you work with the education Minister and Welsh universities to produce a road map to increase the number of subjects available in Welsh universities through the medium of Welsh, especially in those very popular...
Mike Hedges: Well, I'll use the word 'many', in which case we may reach a point where we agree. Three questions I'll pose: what happens when the children are ill or on holiday from school? Then, parents have to find 10 extra meals per week, per child. Is it any wonder that school holidays are the busiest times for foodbanks? I always remember the mother who told me how much she hated school holidays,...
Mike Hedges: ...exceeds any importance of what you are being taught in the classroom. That is why I am supporting this debate today and why I believe it is incredibly important that children are adequately fed in school and fed healthy meals. The current situation is that the Healthy Eating in Schools (Nutritional Standards and Requirements) (Wales) Regulations 2013 outlines food and drinks that are...
Mike Hedges: To many children, including many in my constituency, their school is their major source of food during term time. The breakfast and midday meals provided in schools are the only meals they have, topped up only with snacks at home. Children will attend school in the morning having not eaten properly since their school midday meal the day before. This is not bad parenting, this is poverty, the...
Mike Hedges: Diolch. Attending Ti a Fi, Mudiad Meithrin or Welsh-medium Flying Start is, I believe, the best way to prepare children, especially those from non-Welsh-speaking families, for Welsh-medium education. What is the Minister doing to ensure that children are given equal access to Welsh-medium and English-medium Flying Start? That is, both are offered and there is no later start date for...
Mike Hedges: Not only do I think it should, I thought it did. I think that part of the formula was percentage of population above a certain age, percentage of population at school age, so I think it does. I think that, really, councils protect social services and education, and one of the saddest things about local government is that most local authorities are getting very much the same. Swansea used to...
