Rhun ap Iorwerth: There is quite rightly a lot of weight of expectation on what the commissioner can do for Wales. Surely, in this first major test case of the influence that the commissioner has, Government should be showing that they are taking her role extremely seriously. She raises some serious and fundamental questions about value for money and what that means for finances available for future...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much. Cabinet Secretary, what import or value should be placed on the views and comments of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales when the Government comes to major decisions on expenditure policies?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I’m sure you will have guessed that I’m going to be referring my questions to the M4. The commissioner has made some very strong comments over some time now about your proposals for the M4 black route. She mentioned last year that the M4 scheme could put in place a dangerous precedent for the future. More recently, she has made her view expressly clear that she doesn’t believe this...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the Isle of Anglesey County Council's budget in 2019-20?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 'It needs to be embedded in the priorities and embedded in the focus.'
Rhun ap Iorwerth: It isn’t, according to her. Further education—a fortnight ago, the Senedd voted in favour of increasing the funding available to further education. The Government needs to respect the views of the Senedd in this decision. That was my message to the Cabinet Secretary in a letter following that vote. I’ve received a response yesterday noting that additional funding for salaries is...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: It’s not just Plaid Cymru Members who have been expressing concerns about the Government’s failure to recognise the pressures on local government. We heard Barbara Jones, the deputy leader of Caerphilly council, saying recently that we can’t now place all of the blame on the Conservative Government in London. It hurts her to say, as a staunch socialist, that the Welsh Government...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: This is an austerity budget. Twice over, all of us can see the impact of the Tory UK Government's austerity agenda, which has depleted the overall spending power of Welsh Government significantly, and no Darren Millar smoke and mirrors will hide the reality of that callous Tory Government at Westminster. But the double whammy in this budget, of course, is the fact that Labour has made...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: As a journalist, I once accompanied a former First Minister on a trade mission to China, because Welsh businesses are already doing business with countries the length and breadth of the world, as well as being part of a single totally open and transparent market of over 0.5 billion people.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Holyhead is closer to Dublin than it is to Liverpool. There's only half a mile or so in it, but in terms of trade, it's far more important, of course, and when I grew up, I felt that I grew up in a European frontier. I remember popping over to Dún Laoghaire for a curry on a Saturday night, and many weekends spent in Dublin. That was so much fun but, of course, the advantages of having that...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: You're not missing much.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Will you take an intervention?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Will you take an intervention?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Didn't think you would.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Given the fact that you feel that the Government doesn't have a role in making any comment on the delay, can you make any comment on the work that your officials can do behind the scenes, as it were, whilst there is this delay, in order to look at alternative solutions?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much for all of the contributions to this short debate this afternoon. I think it's been a very useful debate. It's been about timing. I think it was inevitable that we would move on to areas of the pros and cons of the black route, and some very strong points were made by Jenny Rathbone and Lee Waters and others that I would agree with—that we are barking up the wrong tree...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Will you just take an intervention—
Rhun ap Iorwerth: —just to make that point? I think it's not a matter of seeking to build in additional delays into a process that's already taken a long time, whichever side of the debate you're on; we're talking about weeks here before a decision will be taken.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Yes, I will take an intervention.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: You're absolutely right, that is the process that is followed and, in a way, what we are saying is that we want that decision on whether to sign those statutory Orders to be taken by an incoming First Minister, because that's what instigates and kicks off that process, which then leads to a vote here on whether we think it's something that should be prioritised to release that money that is...
