Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 22 June 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:46, 22 June 2021

Well, I certainly agree with Andrew R.T. Davies, Llywydd, about the important work that the third sector has carried out in Wales during the pandemic. It's been strongly supported by a specific fund that the Welsh Government has made available and which has been put to very good use by the third sector in responding to a whole range of needs, the loneliness needs that we heard about earlier this afternoon, and in the work that it does in the hospice movement as well.

The comparison that the leader of the opposition draws is not a like-for-like one because it doesn't take into account the other forms of support that are available in Wales that are not necessarily available elsewhere. But we remain in a constant dialogue with the sector about both the quantum of money that we are able to provide to it and the way that it is dispersed. It's a fiercely and quite properly voluntary sector, isn't it? It absolutely wants to make sure that it goes on doing all the things that it does to raise its own funds, to draw on the generosity of people in Wales. Agreeing a way of making sure the money that we are able to provide arrives in the right place, arrives in a way that recognises the significant differences between the different sorts of services, the different types of hospice that charities provide in Wales, is quite a complex one. It's why we were reliant on the excellent work that Baroness Finlay carried out in her discussions with the sector, and we continue to try and move forward with the sector in partnership in that way.