Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:49 pm on 14 March 2018.
Look, as you well know, the UK Government is fully supportive of the British steel industry, and just this last week has been speaking out against the tariffs that are being imposed in the United States. And I think it's important that you should listen more carefully to the UK Government and the important job that it has done in championing the Welsh steel industry and the wider steel industry across the UK.
But, of course, the industrial strategy does point to the need for more opportunities for people to undertake vocational training and qualifications, including many more apprenticeships. I think we need to be very concerned, actually, that, for all the lip service that's paid to vocational qualifications in this Chamber on all sides of the house, we're not yet in a position where vocational training and qualifications have parity of esteem with academic qualifications. We know that the practical experience that young people get when they have access to good, high-quality vocational training can set them up in careers and give them an advantage, actually, over those individuals who have undertaken purely academic routes into their chosen career subjects.
In addition to that as well, we are expressing this concern about the fact that many Welsh graduates earn less here than in other parts of the UK. I think it's an absolute tragedy that only 68 per cent of graduates from Welsh universities earned over £21,000 in full-time employment, the lowest of any of the UK nations and regions, and that only 55 per cent of people who studied at Welsh universities were working in Wales three and a half years later. We've got to create more opportunities to keep that talent here in Wales. And I think that what we see in other parts of the UK is individuals who are going from Wales to study elsewhere and end up settling over there because they've got better economic opportunities. That cannot be right, and we need to address it.
In addition to that, we've identified one thing that we think would help to make Wales more attractive for young people, and that is our green card proposal, which we laid out before the National Assembly some time ago—late last year. We have suggested that we help our young people with support in accessing public transport in order to get them around. We know that Wales is a rural nation. It's very costly to travel long distances to work, and I think that the least that we can do is to give them free bus travel and reduced fares on our rail services. Our proposals have been welcomed by the Confederation of Passenger Transport here in Wales, Arriva Bus have spoken very positively about our proposals, and, of course, they could help to sustain bus services where they are currently threatened because of a lack of investment from local transport grants, which have not been made available by local authorities. Young people face the highest insurance costs out of everybody when they go to insure their cars. So, these transport costs are a barrier to young people staying in Wales. We need to address them, and so I hope that you will recognise that our amendment seeks to bring some solutions to the table, and that's why I'm happy to move it.