Huw Irranca-Davies: Diolch, Gadeirydd. We reported on this Bill on 7 July, and we made five recommendations to the Cabinet Secretary. In general, we were satisfied with the balance struck between what is on the face of the Bill and what is left to subordinate legislation, and also that human rights are engaged as set out in the explanatory memorandum and the Cabinet Secretary’s evidence to us. However, we did...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I’m delighted that the First Minister has seen that report, and he will note that the comments of Nick Brain, the executive head of the school, have been that they’ve flown out of special measures. I think it may even be unprecedented—the turnaround has been incredible. I remember shortly after the not-far-short-of-a-crisis that the school went into, the headteacher standing up in a...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 2. Will the First Minister make a statement on the recent Estyn monitoring report on Coleg Cymunedol y Dderwen? OAQ(5)0733(FM)
Huw Irranca-Davies: Indeed, and I extend my congratulations to all those in the schools who work with children, with significant advantages, because of the disadvantage that they might face, but also the teaching staff and support staff who work with them to produce those excellent results. And there’s no doubt that the pupil development grant is an invaluable resource to financially assist schools in...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 2. Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on the impact of pupil development grants in the Ogmore constituency? OAQ(5)0160(EDU)
Huw Irranca-Davies: I very much welcome the news today that we’ve had that the Secretary of State, Greg Clark, will actually meet with a cross-party delegation of Chairs of prominent committees here to advocate the case, once again, for the tidal lagoon. I thank him for the courtesy he’s extended to that cross-party delegation. The First Minister will know that we had a debate here before the general...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd, and thank you, David, for mentioning the Spirit of Llynfi woodland. It was a great visit and I’m pleased that you were delighted with what you saw there. I think it is one potential way forward on regeneration. I will be supporting amendment 1, despite protestations from Russell, as I think it does better reflect Labour sentiments on regeneration, and it’s...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank the Presiding Officer. I thank you, Elin, for that response there. I’m glad to see you haven’t shut the door on the idea. I think it is worth exploring. This year, the Speaker of the House of Commons has introduced this scheme, and it’s an attempt to actually overcome the social mobility problems with internships and placements. Far too often, as we know, placements tend to be...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 2. Will the Commission examine the merits of establishing a Presiding Officer placement scheme to improve the accessibility of paid internships with Assembly Members? OAQ(5)009(AC)
Huw Irranca-Davies: No, no. Innovation tax credits taking over from where we are with the research and development tax credits, to make good the shortfall we have in Wales in terms of innovation and R&D; a workforce development levy, which would, in effect, take over from the apprenticeship levy—and we know some of the difficulties with that, and we would take control; and the other ones laid out, but let’s...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Like many others, I thoroughly welcome this debate. I welcome the debate because it’s given us freedom, as an Assembly, to free-range a little bit and to say, ‘Well, we’re not afraid of throwing some of these things out into the open,’ in a way, I have to say, that presaged this with the tax for good. There’s the answer, Mark, that you were looking for. It isn’t a tax just for...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Will the Minister give way?
Huw Irranca-Davies: I wonder, as the Minister laid out that range of criteria that have to be run past both the House of Commons and the House of Lords—and quite right that they would want to scrutinise this, or as he put it, that we would want to test the machinery—the worry is that it sounds similar to the old legislative competence Order process in some ways, in that it’s enormously creaky, and our...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Will you give way, Mike?
Huw Irranca-Davies: Sorry. Thank you for giving way on that item. Indeed, it does give us the opportunity perhaps to do more, but, picking up on Simon’s point, when he raised this, I think, in his contribution, actually, we’ve already shown that there are other countries within the current EU framework that can do that. In fact, the Welsh Government led on the work on that, with Professor Dermot Cahill of...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Could I just begin by congratulating Mike Hedges on taking over the chairmanship of this committee, and also a very good first speech here in the Senedd introducing this report? Could I also thank our former Chair as well? Contrary to any rumours, he wasn’t booted off—we were doing a good old job there, and he presided over a good piece of work in this report, and over the previous work...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Diolch, Llywydd. I’m delighted to introduce this debate, and could I thank colleagues—Jeremy Miles, Simon Thomas, Lee Waters—who’ve also put their name to this debate today, and others who might be speaking? But could I also thank those hidden servants of the house in the research unit as well, because, in preparation for this debate, anything that I say that sounds good will be...
Huw Irranca-Davies: The first is the characteristics, that infrastructure is generally described as ‘capital’ or ‘involving physical structures’. But, secondly, the functions, and they referred to the two most recent definitions from the UK Treasury and the London School of Economics Growth Commission, which described infrastructure as an input to the production of goods and services and the requirement...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I’ve seen the worst of European fisheries negotiations, as the Cabinet Secretary has, but I have to say it’s complete codswallop—if that’s not the worst pun in the world—to say that it has not been a success. Because back in the mid 1970s the peak of cod in the North sea was landed at 270,000 tonnes. By 2006, it was 44,000 tonnes due to overcapacity and overfishing for a diminishing...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on the consideration of bids for the 'Building for the Future' fund?
