Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Can I just make a couple of points on—?
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Well, just to thank—. I just want to thank the committee for their interest in this, because it is a really important area for us and I'd like to ask you to keep us on our toes in this regard. Diolch yn fawr.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Absolutely.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Just a few words on the Welsh language: may I say that it is possible to take any apprenticeship through the medium of Welsh where there is demand? I want to make it clear that apprentices can study in the language of their choice, but the fact is that very few people choose to undertake their apprenticeship solely through the medium of Welsh. There are quite a few now who are doing it...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: On disability, I think it's fair to say that the participation of disabled people in apprenticeships needs an improvement, and I'm glad that Mark Isherwood has drawn attention to the work we're doing with Remploy. We've also facilitated workshops between apprenticeship providers and regional Remploy offices, and we've ensured that there's a dedicated equality and diversity champion who is...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: every careers officer is trained in equality. So, we are doing our best to ensure that people are aware, when they are giving young people an idea of what’s available—that they are aware that they have to try and attract women to those apprenticeships.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Yes, if you'd like.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Well, we've got a whole suite of measures where we are promoting, trying to get women into these areas. This is not an easy task—this is not easy. If anyone's got any good ideas, then let us know, because it is a very, very difficult task. What we have introduced is these 'have a go' days. Sometimes, these are specifically targeted at women to try and make sure that they have a go at...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Mark, yes.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: There's a whole host of reasons why we are not going to follow the English example. A 40 per cent drop is one of the reasons, but also we're absolutely focused on quality so I'm not going to take any lessons from England on this. I think that one of the biggest challenges facing us in Wales today is in-work poverty, and the fact is that 40 per cent of the people who use food banks in...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much and thank you for the debate this afternoon. May I give particular thanks to Russell and the committee for their recommendations? You will be aware that we have accepted the vast majority of those recommendations, and I'd like to discuss a few of them now.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Our work in Wales and apprenticeship programmes, you will be aware I'm sure, are trying to reshape the skills landscape in order, as Mohammad Asghar set out, to change the fact that we need to meet the challenges of the new economy. Members will be aware that it is one of our flagship programmes in the Welsh Government. We've got a target of 100,000 high-quality new apprenticeships, and...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Fair enough, but I think what’s important—. You have received a response from me. You'll be aware that staffing issues are issues for the Permanent Secretary, and I will push her to respond to you on your question. I do think it’s important that we now focus. If our target is to reach a million Welsh speakers, then I do think it’s crucially important that we emphasise the importance...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: No. May I just say that it was important for me that I was in the House of Lords on Monday, protecting the charter of fundamental rights for languages? I do think and believe that that will be carried over and that that will provide some safeguards for us—legal safeguards that may otherwise have been removed. In terms of your question on standards, you will be aware that the negotiations on...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you very much. I do think it’s important that we condemn any attack on people who speak any language that is a minority language. I do think that the kerfuffle that’s been created hasn’t helped things particularly. The question is: how should we respond? I do think it’s important that we underline how complex it would be to do something in legislative terms in this area. But, I...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I do understand that there’s been quite a lot of response to what happened in Denbigh. What is important, I think, is that we respect the independence of the colleges—they make the decisions. But, of course, we have to ensure that we enable people in every community to have access now to further education. So, we will have to look, I think, at ensuring that we find ways of ensuring that...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Thank you. I think this is quite an exciting opportunity for us, and one of the first things I did when I was appointed as Minister was to go and listen to what a lot of the think tanks had to say. And this was an area where they said, 'Actually, there's a real opportunity.' Now, it's true in the past that the individual learning accounts had a bad name. In Wales, there wasn't a problem, but...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: There's no doubt that in terms of what we'd like to do, we'd like to have put a lot more money into adult community learning, but that's been really difficult when we've seen a £1.4 billion cut from the UK Tory Government. So, that's been the problem for us. But let me be clear that, in deciding then what our priorities should be, we have concentrated on the importance of training people up...
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: Diolch, Mohammad. Our adult learning in Wales policy statement was published in July and set out our priorities for adult learning. I will shortly be consulting on proposals to restructure the delivery and funding of adult learning, with the aim of providing a sustainable and secure future for this important provision.
Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan: I think it's worth emphasising that this programme is a cross-Government programme, so this has been negotiated and discussed across the whole of Government, so that's why there are so many different factors in it, and that issue with transport has been underlined more than once as being a key feature of actually blocking people from getting to the workplace. I know this is something that the...
