Michelle Brown: Thank you, Presiding Officer, and good afternoon, Cabinet Secretary. In August, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Sally Holland, said she believes change is not happening quickly enough to safeguard children who are educated at home. This comes after two cases in as many years of children having been neglected, one of whom sadly died as a result. Can you tell me what you've been doing...
Michelle Brown: 3. Pa asesiad y mae Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet wedi'i wneud o'r cynnydd a wnaed dros y chwe mis diwethaf i ddatrys problemau ym Mwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Betsi Cadwaladr? OAQ52607
Michelle Brown: Providing state-subsidised childcare in appropriate circumstances may be a good idea in principle, provided it's targeted in the correct way. It may support parents in employment and may go some way to helping many working parents into work, especially women. But it remains to be seen how this particular childcare scheme will work and how successful it'll be. I think what the people of...
Michelle Brown: Thank you for your statement, Minister. I note the content of your statement, but I must say it's rather lacking in detail. So, consequently, I've got quite a number of questions for you. For instance, you claim that you're making progress delivering a radical review of the funding formula for further education—I think that's a good idea, brilliant—but, you've not said anything about what...
Michelle Brown: Thank you for that answer, Cabinet Secretary. I'd remind you that you and the other remainers spent the entirety of the EU referendum campaign telling voters about the doom that would supposedly hit us if they voted to leave, and if we severed control of the EU over our affairs, yet they still voted to leave. They either didn't believe you or they considered that independence would be worth...
Michelle Brown: Thank you for that answer, Cabinet Secretary, and I agree with you that those decisions are best made here rather than elsewhere. Obviously, the Welsh Government and we in Wales have a much clearer idea of what Wales needs and what the Welsh people want, rather than a distant EU and the committees on which we only have three out of 350 members, such as the Committee of the Regions, yet your...
Michelle Brown: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Good afternoon, Cabinet Secretary. Does the Cabinet Secretary agree that if the Westminster Government delivers on the Welsh Government's justifiable demand that Wales should not lose a single penny following Brexit, it should be the Welsh Government that decides which projects receive that support rather than the EU?
Michelle Brown: Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary, but I'm not particularly encouraged by it. I note that, in the first paragraph of your statement, you say that the Ockenden report is another difficult report for the board and that the findings shouldn't be a surprise to them. I agree with you on that point, but Betsi has been in special measures since 2015 and your Government have had control...
Michelle Brown: First Minister, what lessons have you learned over the years since the creation of the Betsi Cadwaladr university health board?
Michelle Brown: First Minister, the UK has three universities in the global top 10. The rest of the EU has none; they're not even in the top 30. Has the First Minister made any assessment of the impact on EU students, Government and non-governmental agencies and organisations, such as the European Space Agency, were they to lose access to our world-leading academics in educational institutions?
Michelle Brown: Of the key recommendations in this report, the only ones the Government accepts are the ones that either require no action or are not measurable. They accept the recommendation to state the emotional and mental well-being and resilience of our children and young people as a national priority, but when it comes to the recommendations that mean they have to take action, the Government start...
Michelle Brown: Sorry. No.
Michelle Brown: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you also for your statement, Minister. I'd also like to thank the Paul Ridd Foundation for their valuable work in helping to produce the report. As you say in your statement, the report's three immediate priorities are health inequalities, community integration, and improving planning and funding systems. The report's first priority, or at least...
Michelle Brown: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Hydrogen energy is an exciting and very interesting technology that can be used to create energy to power cars, HGVs, shipping, and also to heat homes. So, I'm very, very pleased to be able to support Plaid's motion today. Provided this hydrogen itself is sourced from renewable energies, it provides a solution to the pollution that damages health and...
Michelle Brown: Well, actually, Cabinet Secretary, my question was about whether you personally, as Cabinet Secretary for Education, have considered reviewing the way transport is arranged, at a high level, but I'll go on to my final question. Parents are reporting to me that cuts in local authority funding are resulting in children and young people with disabilities who were previously taken to school by...
Michelle Brown: Thank you for that answer, Cabinet Secretary. I totally empathise with the principle that provision should be decided locally and that, given the geography in Wales, planning transport routes can be a challenge, but there's a distinct lack of consistency and it's all a bit of a hodgepodge. Depending on what school you go to, you might travel by school bus or public transport. You might travel...
Michelle Brown: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Cabinet Secretary, I realise that you'll be reluctant to speak about a specific case, so I'm just using this as an illustration. I have a constituent who was told by the local council that her 11-year-old daughter would be expected to get on a school bus, then change onto a connecting public bus. to go to school some 15 to 20 miles away. It's probably not an...
Michelle Brown: Thank you for your statement, leader of the house, and for the announcement of your new plan. I must say at the outset that I've always had a great deal of sympathy for the Traveller, Gypsy, Roma and other such communities—I think they've been treated very badly over the years. Successive Governments have made their way of life all but impossible, removing traditional sites, stripping away...
Michelle Brown: In light of a recent BBC report about sexual harassment and bullying, what discussions has the First Minister had with the Assembly Commission about protecting staff in the Assembly from inappropriate behaviour?
Michelle Brown: Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move our amendment in the name of Caroline Jones. UKIP believe that it's the people in the education system at all levels who have a better idea of where the waste is and where any incorrect spending priorities are. They're the people who know what changes are needed to release more money for front-line teaching. One of the things that has gone wrong in the...
