Julie James: Thank you for that very important question. We are determined to make all parts of Wales hostile to slavery. We are working with police and crime commissioners and with our multi-agency partners to protect vulnerable people and put an end to this heinous crime.
Julie James: That is not in my portfolio—the M4 relief road—so I'm not the Cabinet Secretary who should be asked, but, obviously, the point of the broadband programme is to enable people to work in better jobs, closer to their home and not to have to commute on polluting forms of transport to destinations far away. So, a very large part of the reason that we've put this investment in throughout Wales...
Julie James: Yes, I absolutely agree that it's absolutely essential. The entire programme has been done on the basis that we provide the base infrastructure and that the person who ends up providing that—so, BT Openreach in the case of the first superfast programme—provides that as an open-access network, and every ISP who wants to have access to that can have access to that. In some areas of...
Julie James: Thank you for that. A range of activity is under way in Islwyn and throughout the wider borough of Caerphilly relating to digital. This includes Welsh Government’s significant investment in the new, state-of-the-art high school in Islwyn through our twenty-first century schools programme, and increasing broadband availability through the Superfast Cymru programme.
Julie James: Yes. As I say, I completely agree with him. There is definitely an age divide here. Obviously, those people who grew up in the digital world, grow up with competencies that older people have to acquire later on in life, and that can be more difficult as the world changes around you. But Digital Communities Wales works with a wide range of organisations best placed to reach digitally excluded...
Julie James: Yes, I quite agree with him, and that's exactly why we've just looked at how we can change the way that we do the Digital Communities Wales programme. And when that programme comes to an end, at the end of this financial year, it will be re-procured on the basis of a doubled-sized programme to take in the people who are reliant on digital services, such as he outlines—people who have...
Julie James: Yes, we fund a number of programmes in this space: we fund Digital Communities Wales and, in fact, we are about to increase the size of that to £6 million to include health digital inclusion activities. We know from the national survey for Wales that about 60 per cent of people aged 75 or over and about 26 per cent of disabled people do have digital exclusion issues. So, the programme is...
Julie James: I did not know that my colleague was scheduled to speak there, and I will be more than happy to take that up with him.
Julie James: As you heard the First Minister say, in First Minister's questions yesterday, he's more than happy to look into the comments that were made about the possibility that that arms trade is being helped by any Welsh Government money and report back to the Chamber. And I'll make sure that I'll do the same thing in talking to colleagues who are supporting anything of that sort.
Julie James: Yes. I have a series of meetings, bilaterals, as we call them, one-on-one with each Cabinet Secretary and Minister of the Government on a rolling programme. I've just completed my first year in this portfolio. I've met all of them at least once, and with some of them I'm on the second round. And the purpose of that is to go through their portfolio responsibilities and to talk about how we...
Julie James: For what it's worth, I share your frustration. Many of your constituents write directly to me as well. So, I still have a very large postbag of people whose frustration I entirely share. And this is, without rehearsing the same old arguments, a function of the way that we are restricted in doing this. It's not regarded as infrastructure. It is regarded as a market intervention in an existing...
Julie James: I'm sorry about the written answers. You've actually had an answer today, which won't make you happy at all, saying that we just couldn't get the data together in the time available. So, I've asked officials to just tell you that. I was actually hoping to be able to give you the information in the answer, in the time period, but it hasn't been possible to do. So, I'm sure in your inbox, at...
Julie James: I'm not withholding any information that I'm aware of. As I said, we've let lots 1 and 3. We're still in negotiation with lot 2. I'm very frustrated about how long that's taking, but as soon as I am in a position to say what's happening with that, I will of course do so.
Julie James: The superfast website has the map outlined—I can send the link again to the Member; it shows exactly where the lots are, and what's included and not included. As I said, we're in the process of negotiating exactly which premises, because we very much want to learn from some of the experiences of the communications in the first superfast scheme, around giving people certainty about where...
Julie James: Yes, I'm very much looking forward to coming. I find it very useful to go around Wales talking specifically to individuals and their communities about why we are where we are now and what can be done to specifically address their individual and community issues. We know that it's frustrating when you're one of the people who've been left out of the previous programme. It did deliver 733,000...
Julie James: Yes, indeed. Although we do not hold information specifically relating to Arfon, I can confirm that the Superfast Cymru scheme provided access to fast fibre broadband to over 58,440 homes and businesses in Gwynedd, delivering average speeds of over 102 Mbps and investing over £16.2 million.
Julie James: Yes, it's a very important point that the Member raises. Obviously, social media is a growing part of our culture and language, and we ought to have the same standards of conduct and respect and tolerance and inclusion for each other in social media as we do everywhere else. It's particularly unfortunate that people feel that they can be anonymous there, and there's a piece of work for all of...
Julie James: Yes. On 17 October, the First Minister issued a written statement to confirm that in adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of anti-Semitism in May of last year, we included the 11 examples from the outset in full and without qualification. So, I am very happy to make it absolutely clear that anti-Semitism in any form will not be tolerated here in...
Julie James: I completely agree with Dawn Bowden when she raises this very important point. Yesterday, I had the privilege of addressing the multifaith forum meeting over in the Pierhead, and they were about to do a walk through of all of the various faith communities of Cardiff. Unfortunately, due to Plenary commitments, I couldn't join them, but that was all about stressing the need for individual...
Julie James: We are building on our tackling hate crime programme and expanding our community cohesion work across Wales to mitigate any rise in hate crime. Our hate crime criminal justice board is an effective forum, bringing together key partners to co-ordinate our work in this area.
