Julie James: ...recognising that we need to remove all sorts of barriers that prevent disabled people from living the lives they want. This is increasingly being reflected across our policies, including transport, education, environment and health, as reflected in our new framework.
Julie James: We recognise that children from Gypsy and Traveller communities face many additional barriers, including in relation to education, health and public perceptions. Our 'Enabling Gypsies, Roma and Traveller' plan contains a comprehensive suite of actions to improve their life chances and well-being.
Julie James: ...new treatment fund that has delivered faster access to 137 new medicines for a range of life-threatening and life-limiting conditions. This year, we will complete the hundredth twenty-first century schools project, a real milestone in an ambitious programme that will see us invest more than £3.7 billion in rebuilding our children's schools to give them a better environment for their...
Julie James: Yes. The Cabinet Secretary is very, very firm that bullying is not to be tolerated, of any sort, in our schools, but we are particularly concerned about racist bullying, especially with the rise of hate crimes across the UK. Actually, we've got a group called EAST working very hard on a set of guidelines for schools, and we're currently looking at putting a new project into schools exactly on...
Julie James: I commend the Member for her constant passionate support for music services in Wales. She will know that we share the ambition to provide high-quality universal access to music education for learners in Wales. She said in her remarks that she knows that local government has a direct responsibility for this, not the Welsh Government. I know she's aware that the Culture, Welsh Language and...
Julie James: ...register, for example, and I'd like to pay tribute to Cardiff University, which has already done that, and we'd like to see that rolled out across the piece, and to have compulsory consent talks in schools for young people as they become sexually active as part of the new curriculum, and, as I said, I will be talking to Kirsty about the timing of that, and what we can do about it. But she...
Julie James: ..., and that's been very successful and I was very impressed with that. So, I think I can reassure the Member that we are very much aware that it's a framework and not an event. In terms of the schools issue that he raised with me in committee, with my conversation with the Cabinet Secretary for Education, we have that in the diary but we've not yet actually met. But, as I said to him, we...
Julie James: ...and sexual violence, or VAWDASV. It's an impossible acronym, Deputy Presiding Officer, but VAWDASV, as it's called. We want to improve the public sector response to these issues, and through education, empowerment and engagement, we are challenging attitudes and behaviours across society. We need to work together to protect those who are currently experiencing VAWDASV. Our national...
Julie James: ...Wales. We hope very much that that will mean that sport is far more integrated into the curriculum. The Member will be aware that we've been experimenting with the mile a day programme for primary schools, and so on. So he highlights a very important part of the roll-out of the new curriculum. It's very much part of our planning for the future for schools with a view to getting our...
Julie James: ...the contribution of our woodlands in particular to climate change and adaptation thereof. In terms of business rates, we've had several roundabouts on the subject of business rates for independent schools and I think that's much more likely to come up in terms of a debate from the opposition parties than it is likely to be the subject of a business statement from the Government.
Julie James: ...of activity is under way in Islwyn and throughout the wider borough of Caerphilly relating to digital. This includes Welsh Government’s significant investment in the new, state-of-the-art high school in Islwyn through our twenty-first century schools programme, and increasing broadband availability through the Superfast Cymru programme.
Julie James: ...actually understand what that digital exploitation might look like and how they might increase their business in that way. We also run a whole series of digital pioneer programmes in our primary schools and secondary schools. And, of course, our twenty-first century schools programme is a collaboration, which includes strategic capital investment for our education estate to ensure digital...
Julie James: ... Hate Crime Awareness Week in October and to raise awareness of hate crime throughout the year, and that includes in the digital space. I also work very closely with the Cabinet Secretary for Education in supporting our be safe on the internet week, which was only very recently, and in supporting our digital pioneers and young internet cadets right throughout Wales in both recognising...
Julie James: The Cabinet Secretary for Education and I have regular discussions about priority matters, including educational support for ethnic minority and Gypsy/Roma/Traveller learners.
Julie James: ...programme, we are funding training for local authority-based specialist teachers of learners with various sensory impairments, including BSL. We're very committed to creating an inclusive education system for all learners, regardless of their needs, and very much support the right of learners to access education through British Sign Language where required. It's a matter that Mike Hedges...
Julie James: Thank you. Yes, I'm very interested in what the Member said. I'm not aware of it, so I'd welcome a conversation between myself and the Cabinet Secretary for Education and her to explore that matter, because I think what she says is a matter of some interest.
Julie James: Yes, I am very aware of the research. In fact, the Welsh Government funds the Welsh contribution to the health behaviour in school-aged children study—one of the data sources that the research draws upon. We're very encouraged by the conclusion that country prohibition of corporal punishment is associated with less youth violence. It's very hard to say: less youth violence. [Laughter.] Of...
Julie James: ...impact on whether local authorities have had a decrease in funding this year—for example, if there are fewer people unemployed in the local authority than this time last year, or fewer secondary school pupils in an authority than this time last year, or fewer children claiming free school meals in its primary schools. There is absolutely nothing tribal or cronyistic about any one of...
Julie James: ...Wales by small groups of people with expertise and experience of a wide range of disabilities, through hundreds of e-mails, letters and phone calls and through conversations in homes, workplaces, schools and communities. Our new framework sets out how we are fulfilling our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It also highlights the...
Julie James: ...one is already the subject of a question for one of your Conservative colleagues at questions tomorrow, so I'm sure there'll be an opportunity to discuss it with the Cabinet Secretary there. On the school closure issue that you mentioned, the Cabinet Secretary is indicating that she's happy to write to you about it.
