4. Will the Leader of the House make a statement on community cohesion in Mid and West Wales? OAQ51422

Yes. There is a strong sense of respect and tolerance in Mid and West Wales, with low levels of hate crime, and a very good community response to the Syrian resettlement programme. Where tensions do exist, we are working closely with partners, including the police, local authorities and communities, to reduce them as much as possible.

I'm grateful to the leader of the house for that reply, and as this is the first opportunity I've had to do so, I congratulate her on her promotion, which I think, for what it's worth, was well deserved. 

Thank you very much.

I thought her zeal and her courtesy in her previous incarnation was much appreciated, and I wish her well in her new position.

She may remember that I raised recently with the First Minister the case of Amazon in Jersey Marine advertising for workers through the Central European Recruitment and Contract Services Ltd. The company had contacted one of my constituents to say that they wanted to rent rooms so that these workers could occupy those rooms on an eight-hour shift basis, so three workers in one day. Would the leader of the house agree with me that this does nothing for promoting social cohesion because it creates resentment, certainly amongst low-paid people, because these are not well-paid jobs that are being advertised? The Swansea travel-to-work area, of course, extends well into Carmarthenshire. And as Amazon, which is, I'm sure, a perfectly good employer, received grants from the Welsh Government to persuade them to come to Jersey Marine five or six years ago, the Welsh Government ought to discourage Amazon from using companies of this kind, because that does breed resentment amongst ordinary people, and we all want to discourage that kind of resentment and promote community cohesion. 

If the Member would like to provide me with any specific evidence he has, I would be more than happy to receive it. I have a large number of my own constituents who work at Amazon and I've had a number of correspondence occasions with them over the past about some of their employment practices. I'd be more than happy to write to them with my new hat on if the Member can provide me with the evidence on which I could base such a letter. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Leader of the house, one way to develop community cohesion is to tackle loneliness in rural communities. You'll no doubt be aware of the Campaign to End Loneliness, which sadly shows that nine in 10 people in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire believe loneliness in older age is now more likely than ever. In light of this very serious statistic, what specific funding has the Welsh Government made available to communities to specifically combat loneliness and develop community cohesion? Will you commit to publishing a breakdown of where that funding has been allocated? 

Well, we've a whole series of regional community cohesion co-ordinators, who have a range of duties amongst them, and one of their main duties is actually to make sure that all of the other agencies collaborate properly and come together with this agenda.

So, one of the things that I'll be doing is looking to see how those co-ordinators have worked in the past, to make sure that all of the funding that's available for a number of issues around community cohesion—loneliness is certainly one of them, isolation of older women, for example, in communities is a huge issue—to make sure that we make the very best of the combined set of programmes that we have across a range of portfolios in the Government, to make sure that we tackle some of those.

In terms of some of my own responsibilities, some of the issues that the Member has raised with me over the years have been around broadband and so on. Actually there is a big role to play in getting older people to be included digitally to make sure that they have things such as the ability to Skype grandchildren and so on, which although not any substitute for personal interaction, nevertheless, can assist greatly in terms of isolation from family. Inclusion in day-to-day activity can make a real difference to the way that somebody interacts with their family even if they're further away. So, we have taken that into account very much in designing some of those programmes. But I will be working with the co-ordinators to make sure that they are across all of those areas of cohesion.

In terms of the budget, I am not in a position to make any promises around the budget at this point, because I've yet to review all of the aspects of my portfolio that impacts on that, but I'm more than happy to report back once I've done so.