Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:40 pm on 3 July 2018.
As I'm sure you know, emergency teams are working in my area, working extremely hard to extinguish fires that have been caused by the very dry weather. Carmel, Bethesda and Bangor Mountain have been affected, with at least 45 families having to leave their homes. I am extremely grateful to the firefighters and the other emergency services, as well as the communities themselves who have come together to support those who have been affected by these fires. So, can I ask what connection has there been between the Government and local services, and are you confident that they have sufficient resources in order to deal with this crisis in Arfon and elsewhere in Wales?
Turning to local government reform, a few months ago we learned through a blog from the Cabinet Secretary for local government that he was going to proceed with new proposals for the reorganisation of local government, putting aside the proposals in the predecessor Minister's Green Paper on regional collaboration. On Friday, I learned from a tweet from a journalist at the WLGA conference in Llandudno that the Cabinet Secretary for local government was now happy to give up on his reorganisation map, which will come as no surprise to any of us. But with such important statements affecting the way public services are run and delivered for the future, do you not think that we need to think carefully as to whether these announcements should be made on social media? Is that the appropriate means of conveying major policy changes such as these, without a formal written statement to Assembly Members? To me, that undermines the credibility of the Welsh Government, and also the credibility of the Assembly as a whole. So, I would like two statements: one noting the way forward—what next for local government, and what next for the reorganisation—but also I'd like to know what directives there are for Ministers as they present information that is of national significance to the National Assembly.