Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children – in the Senedd at 2:27 pm on 14 December 2016.
Thank you very much. On a different matter entirely, I know that you will be aware that we’ve had some extremely cold weather recently, but, of course, it’s been a bit milder—not that I’m a weatherwoman all of a sudden. There was—[Interruption.] Oh, it’s the last day of term.
On a serious level, there were news reports recently of a man freezing to death in Birmingham, and now my office has learned that one local authority in south-east Wales has not provided any emergency accommodation for rough sleepers in its direct area. Although the severe weather emergency protocol isn’t compulsory for local authorities here, your Government’s code of practice does state that all councils should have a written cold weather plan that includes their arrangements to help rough sleepers during periods of cold and severe weather.
We’ve looked into, as an office, more of the plans across Wales. Some local authorities have good plans, but others told us there were still discussions ongoing now about what those plans should be. Do you think it’s acceptable that some local authorities still haven’t had those discussions with partners? What will you be doing to make sure that all of those local authorities have plans in place so that we don’t face situations where people are dying on our streets this winter?