2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:42 pm on 7 May 2019.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:42, 7 May 2019

Thank you very much. On the first issue of the Welsh-medium resources to support WJEC qualifications, I am able to provide an update, which is that we are committed to ensuring that the relevant resources are available to Welsh-medium learners, and we invest over £2.7 million annually to ensure this provision. In 2018-19, a grant funding amount of £1.1 million was awarded to the WJEC to provide Welsh versions of textbooks, including revision materials that are published commercially by publishers in England, and we will be increasing this grant funding in 2019-20 to £1.25 million, and that will equate to a further 50 new titles. Positive steps were taken last year by the WJEC and the publishers to reduce the lead-in time between the production of English textbooks and the availability to schools of the Welsh-language versions, and under the new curriculum, Welsh Government is working with partners to establish a new infrastructure in Wales for the production of relevant resources in both languages at the same time in the future. 

On the issue of the homes that are moving from paying council tax to seeking to pay business rates, of course I did send quite a detailed letter to you in terms of the steps that Welsh Government is taking to address this issue, and I'm pleased that you're able to take up that offer to have a briefing with officials in terms of Welsh Government action in this area. We do recognise that there is potentially an issue and that there should be safeguards in place, in the sense that houses or homes have to be available to rent for a certain number of days a year. But if there are individuals who are working their way around those rules, then perhaps we are needing to look at ways in which to expand on tightening up those rules.