Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, in line with the co-operation agreement, our draft budget sets out increases in both capital and revenue funding for flood and coastal defences across Wales, as we respond to the challenges of climate change.
Mark Drakeford: Our national guidance focuses on enabling schools to secure the best outcomes for all learners by considering both their educational needs and wellbeing while managing ongoing risks of COVID-19. We continue to take action to minimise disruption to learners and ensure schools are safe places to learn and work.
Mark Drakeford: Staff absences, combined with winter pressures, have led to significant challenges for our dedicated NHS staff. Workforce support is at the heart of our COVID recovery and winter protection plans. Officials are in regular contact with NHS organisations to understand fully the regional complexities to ensure their staff are supported.
Mark Drakeford: I thank Jenny Rathbone for that, Llywydd. Because of the sort of lag in the way that statistics are produced, we will see the first update on progress towards the 125,000 target in February this year, when data for the fourth quarter of the 2020-21 academic year becomes available. Our confidence in being able to reach that number rests on the fact that we succeeded in reaching our 100,000...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Jenny Rathbone for that, Llywydd. We are committed to expanding apprenticeships in Wales against our programme for government commitment to create 125,000 over this Senedd term. We will focus on quality apprenticeships, supporting jobs growth, decarbonisation, investment in infrastructure projects, social mobility and to increase skills in technical occupational areas.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I am happy, of course, to look at the specific issue of self-catering accommodation. I'll write to the Member when I've had a chance to do that. Let me just repeat: it is not the Welsh Government that has caused the difficulties for businesses. It is the fact that we have been dealing with a wave of coronavirus that has swept across the country, causing thousands and thousands of...
Mark Drakeford: I thank the Member for that question. Llywydd, the Welsh Government has made unprecedented levels of funding available to Welsh businesses through the pandemic, including the most recent £120 million economic resilience fund and non-domestic rates packages. Registrations for the NDR support opened last week, and payments are already being received by businesses in Wales.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I'm sure that Delyth Jewell is right about the anger that is felt by people. We will all have read those really heartrending stories of people who, on the day that parties were being organised in Downing Street, when discos were being organised in the basement, were dealing with the most awful events in their own lives. And it isn't just as Delyth Jewell said, that it has an...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I meet regularly with UK Government Ministers and leaders of the other devolved Governments to discuss the response to COVID-19. When they take place, I attend heads of Government COBRA meetings, and I've written today to the Prime Minister, challenging his Government's approach to international travel and its impact on infection rates.
Mark Drakeford: Thank you very much to Jane Dodds, and I agree, of course. The things that we can do in the short term—and we have worked hard with local authorities in order to create the scheme that I referred to in my response to Carolyn Thomas—. It is important that that goes hand in hand with those other things that we can do in the longer term, and most of that is in the hands of the UK Government....
Mark Drakeford: I thank Carolyn Thomas for that evidence from the front line of the cost-of-living crisis. Last week, I remember we talked about the Resolution Foundation report on the cost-of-living catastrophe. Since then, we've seen the Institute for Fiscal Studies report on the cost-of-living crunch, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's report today on the way that rising energy bills will be...
Mark Drakeford: Such advice is available to all households in Wales through our Warm Homes programme Nest scheme. Additional advice and support is offered to vulnerable households in areas at greatest risk of fuel poverty through our energy advice services pilot. These areas include Gwynedd and Ynys Mȏn, both within the Member’s own region.
Mark Drakeford: I understand the urgency of the issue. It's why the Welsh Government will pay for the training of local authorities on the habitats regulation assessment process, including a specific component on phosphorous matters. But, the urgency is on two fronts: there is an urgency about the need for social housing, and we're very focused on that as a Government, because 20,000 low-carbon social homes...
Mark Drakeford: The programme for government sets out our commitment to building 20,000 new low-carbon homes for social rent in this Senedd term. A record £250 million was allocated to the social housing grant in this financial year, doubling the budget of 2020-21. The first statistical release demonstrating progress towards this target is expected to be published in October of this year.
Mark Drakeford: I thank Vikki Howells for that. I've had a chance myself to look at the report of the Association of Convenience Stores and it does, as Vikki Howells said, make really interesting reading. Wales has more shops per head of the population than any other UK nation, and you'll see in that report that 70 per cent of workers in those local stores are women. And that's why, in my original answer, I...
Mark Drakeford: I thank Vikki Howells for that question. Our priorities for the retail sector in Cynon Valley, as elsewhere, include a clear commitment to fair work policies and career progression in order to attract the workforce that will be needed in the future. We also focus on the importance of local retail services rooted in those local communities and the foundational economy.
Mark Drakeford: It's a very powerful charge list that the leader of Plaid Cymru sets out there, and anybody seeing them put together in that way will certainly see that what lies behind it is a Government that is utterly reckless about a rules-based approach to public services, but also to the future of our democracy. And nobody should be surprised at that, Llywydd, with the disgraceful revelations of the...
Mark Drakeford: Well, the absence of respect for Wales is clear within the UK Government. I'm sure, as Adam Price said, that Nadine Dorries hadn't given a moment's thought to the impact of her announcement on the Welsh language here in Wales. I saw what Professor Richard Wyn Jones said this morning about the future of the language in broadcasting and the importance of S4C, yes, of course, but also Radio...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I think that the rushed announcement by Twitter of the fate of the BBC is exactly motivated in the way that the leader of Plaid Cymru has said. It is part of a 'dead meat' strategy that this Government has embarked upon. If anybody thinks that there is serious thinking that lies behind what has been announced, then I'm afraid they're going to be very badly disappointed. What we...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I set out on Friday last week a timetable stretching to the middle of next month for decision making, provided that the public health situation in Wales would mean that it would be safe to lift further protections. That timetable is well known to people. It will result, on Friday of this week, I hope, in returning to alert level 0 for activities outdoors; on 28 January,...
