Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:32 pm on 20 September 2022.
Llywydd, they are really important points that Jenny Rathbone makes. The only way that we will be able to succeed in creating banks that people can use is by using facilities that are already there and operating. And community-focused schools is one of those, but there are many, many others—rugby clubs that are open and are the focus of many communities; maybe they can do more if there is a bit of help for them. Voluntary and faith group-run centres that could extend their opening hours if they had a bit of extra help.
We can't start this from scratch; we're talking about this coming October. We have to build on what is already available and get that to do more. And then, we have to bend the budgets of other organisations to support them in that work. I absolutely expect the arts council and the sports council, for example, to be looking at their budgets and asking whether there are things that they could do, so if people are coming together in new facilities of that sort, there are things for them to do. The idea that people just come there and sit there all day and do nothing is not going to be attractive to anybody. So, we have to see that all the budgets that are there, in every part of the public sector, are being interrogated again through the lens that we've been discussing this afternoon. And then, as Jenny Rathbone says, opportunities for sport, opportunities for learning, opportunities for creativity—all those things that will make people's time, if they come to such centres, productive and worthwhile, we need to see all that being part of this rapidly needed new set of arrangements.