National Assembly for Wales

Statistics on food bank usage are collected by the National Survey for Wales. These official statistics in development were most recently collected for April 2024 to March 2025. 4% of households in Wales used a foodbank in 2024-25.

Asylum and immigration law, including the regulation of and access to immigration legal advice, are reserved to the UK Government.

Due to the shortage of immigration legal advisors and legal aid providers in Wales, the Welsh Government provides funding to develop and improve the resilience of the legal sector in Wales.

The current funding commitment to the Wales and Africa programme was made by the previous government. Funding allocations to the workstream and the future policy direction of this Government will be considered moving forward.

This is not a matter for Welsh Government.

No discussion has taken place with the UK Cabinet Office on this matter.

Arrangements for how funding is delivered through grant or procurement methods is set out in either grant scheme guidance, including the grant award letter, or procurement contract specification and associated conditions.  A range of measures are used, as appropriate and proportionate, including:

• monitoring arrangements and delivery performance such as key performance indicators that can include quality, time, outputs and outcomes;
• financial performance, measuring whether the funded activity is delivered within budget and demonstrates value for money;
• socially responsible aspects and policy impact in terms of whether the funded activity/goods/services achieve intended benefits, including social, economic, environmental and cultural outcomes;
• capturing lessons learnt and using the evidence to shape future grant schemes or procurements.

As part of the Welsh Government’s funding management arrangements, these can vary significantly depending on the size, complexity and nature of the grant award / procurement contract, grant or contract managers can gain assurance of compliance with the conditions throughout the lifecycle of the chosen funding method.

Public sector contract awards in Wales are governed by the Procurement Act 2023 and the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act 2023. Together, these require greater openness across the procurement lifecycle, including publication of notices, pipelines, contract awards and, for higher value contracts, performance information. Sell2Wales provides a single platform for publishing this information, improving visibility for suppliers, citizens and oversight bodies. In addition, certain public bodies in Wales must publish contracts registers, procurement strategies, objectives and annual reports, helping to strengthen accountability for how public money is spent.

Details of what grant funding has been allocated to third sector organisations in each of the last 3 years is provided below:

As part of accepting grant funding from Welsh Government, organisations sign up to the standard grant funding award letter with legally binding terms and conditions. These include details of the purposes, monitoring arrangements, targets as well as the timescales associated with the delivery of the grant. These can vary depending on the value, complexity/size of the grant and the conditions would vary in accordance.  Grant managers are responsible for ensuring the appropriate conditions are in place and adhered to.

The Welsh Government has a wide range of different funding streams covering different aspects of community funding across Wales. It is difficult to provide any further information without specific detail of what grant schemes or funding streams are included under the broader term “community investment programmes”.

Whilst the Welsh Government does not hold a position on the political neutrality of individual media outlets in Wales, we fundamentally believe that an impartial media is critical to a functioning democracy. 

Concerns regarding a perceived bias of output by print and online newspapers are handled by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).

In ensuring impartiality, it is not for the Welsh Government to determine what constitutes deviation from political neutrality by a media organisation. 

However, as stated previously, we expect all media outlets in receipt of Welsh Government funds to operate without distinct political bias.

The Arts Council of Wales operates under the arm’s length principle but within the strategic framework provided by the Welsh Government, which is set out through a remit letter. Individual funding decisions are a matter for the Arts Council of Wales and the Welsh Government does not intervene in those decisions.

This Welsh Government brings a renewed focus on arts, culture and history. We are clear that arts, culture and heritage should reflect and be accessible to everyone in Wales.

Capital grants can vary in size, value and complexity, and are awarded across different Groups within Welsh Government. Most capital grant schemes are issued under Welsh Government’s standard grant award letter, which sets out legally binding terms and conditions the grant recipient must sign up to and agree e.g. purposes, target, monitoring arrangements.  Grant managers can tailor these conditions to the individual scheme, which enables regular monitoring to ensure compliance with the conditions of funding, including delivery timescales. Monitoring is an important part of grant management, helping to ensure projects deliver as intended, with arrangements that are specific and proportionate to each scheme.

Substantive response

I expect health boards to have effective arrangements in place to ensure patients receive safe, timely and coordinated care. Health boards are responsible for ensuring that appropriate clinical pathways, referral arrangements and professional collaboration support the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of patients, particularly where care may involve more than one specialty or service. This includes ensuring effective communication between clinical teams and clear processes for accessing specialist advice when required.

There are no current programmes where the Welsh NHS is funding health services in Africa.

NHS Wales provides Interpretation and translation services based on need, where a person is unable to communicate effectively in English or Welsh and this would impact their safety, understanding, or quality of care.

This reflects our legal duties under the Equality Act 2010 and the Duty of Quality within the Health and Social Care (Quality and Engagement) (Wales) Act 2020, to ensure services are safe, equitable and person-centred.

The Welsh Government does not hold a single national budget for the provision of interpretation and translation services. This is embedded within NHS Wales core funding.  Health Boards and Trusts in Wales would hold information on services they have commissioned locally.

Health boards are expected to meet patients’ communication needs as part of their day‑to‑day service delivery and patient safety responsibilities, to ensure everyone can access care on a safe and equal basis.

NHS Wales provides Interpretation and translation services based on need, where a person is unable to communicate effectively in English or Welsh and this would impact their safety, understanding, or quality of care.

This reflects our legal duties under the Equality Act 2010 and the Duty of Quality within the Health and Social Care (Quality and Engagement) (Wales) Act 2020, to ensure services are safe, equitable and person-centred.

The Welsh Government does not hold a single national budget for the provision of interpretation and translation services. This is embedded within NHS Wales core funding.  Health Boards and Trusts in Wales would hold information on services they have commissioned locally.

Health boards are expected to meet patients’ communication needs as part of their day‑to‑day service delivery and patient safety responsibilities, to ensure everyone can access care on a safe and equal basis.

Information on the specific individual care publicly funded care or support packages and placements is not held centrally by the Welsh Government.

Local authorities and NHS Wales are responsible for assessing individual care needs and commissioning services accordingly. The cost of care packages varies significantly depending on the complexity of a person’s needs, including in a small number of cases where individuals require highly specialised or intensive support to meet significant and often life‑long needs.

Care provision spans a wide range of settings including domiciliary care, foster care, residential care, supported living arrangements and continuing healthcare. Costs are influenced by factors such as the type of care required, workforce inputs and local provider markets. These differences mean there is no single, comparable national dataset.

Welsh Government does collect and publish aggregate data on social care activity and expenditure. However, local authorities and health boards are not required to report individual care packages and so the information requested is not available in the format described.

Information on the specific individual care publicly funded care or support packages and placements is not held centrally by the Welsh Government.

Local authorities and NHS Wales are responsible for assessing individual care needs and commissioning services accordingly. The cost of care packages varies significantly depending on the complexity of a person’s needs, including in a small number of cases where individuals require highly specialised or intensive support to meet significant and often life‑long needs.

Care provision spans a wide range of settings including domiciliary care, foster care, residential care, supported living arrangements and continuing healthcare. Costs are influenced by factors such as the type of care required, workforce inputs and local provider markets. These differences mean there is no single, comparable national dataset.

Welsh Government does collect and publish aggregate data on social care activity and expenditure. However, local authorities and health boards are not required to report individual care packages and so the information requested is not available in the format described.

The Welsh Government has issued robust guidance that sets clear expectations to ensure the effective prevention and control of infection across all health and social care settings in Wales. This applies to all wards in all hospitals.

This includes the ‘Infection Prevention and Control Quality Statement’, published in early 2026, which sets national expectations for health boards, NHS trusts and commissioned services. It requires our NHS organisations to prevent avoidable healthcare-associated infections, deliver care in clean and safe environments, and implement infection prevention and control practices, supported by robust governance and continuous improvement arrangements.

The Welsh Government’s ‘Code of Practice for the Prevention and Control of Healthcare Associated Infections’ established the statutory standards that all NHS organisations must meet. The Code emphasises that infection prevention and control is the responsibility of all staff and requires organisations to embed effective systems, policies and procedures to minimise infection risk.

These overarching requirements are supported by a range of national standards and guidance, including the ‘NHS Wales National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness’, which set out approaches to environmental cleaning and decontamination.

Wales has adopted the ‘National Infection Prevention and Control Manual’, which provides standardised, evidence-based procedures for healthcare settings, including standard infection control precautions and transmission-based precautions. This ensures consistent practice across NHS Wales.

Further supporting guidance, such as ‘Welsh Health Technical Memoranda’ and related estate and facilities guidance, ensures that healthcare environments are designed and maintained to minimise infection risks, including through appropriate ventilation, isolation facilities and decontamination processes.

Together, these measures provide a clear national framework to support safe, high-quality care and to reduce the risk of infection for patients, staff and the public.

All standards and guidance are subject to continuous review, in accordance with best practice.

Substantive response

The Welsh Government continually monitors business confidence in Wales, drawing on a range of quantitative and qualitative sources, including the ICAEW Business Confidence Monitor for Wales, ONS Business Insights and Conditions Survey, intelligence from Business Wales, the Development Bank of Wales (including its Economic Intelligence Wales publication), local authorities, and regular engagement with business representative bodies.

Taken together, these sources suggest that global economic conditions are weighing on business confidence in Wales, and across the UK - particularly among smaller firms. These businesses tend to have less capacity to absorb higher financing and energy costs. However, the evidence also points to areas of resilience, including continued trading activity, improved sales growth, positive expectations among a proportion of Welsh businesses, and ongoing demand for external finance.

The Welsh Government will continue to monitor these indicators closely and use them, alongside direct engagement with SMEs, to inform our approach to supporting a resilient and competitive economy in Wales.

Substantive response

The Welsh Government does not set a minimum target or recommendation for school sizes.

The responsibility for the planning of school places rests with local authorities. Local authorities must ensure there are sufficient schools providing primary and secondary education for their area. Schools are regarded as sufficient if they are sufficient in number, character and equipment to provide for all pupils the opportunity of appropriate education.

The School Organisation Code requires proposers to consider a range of factors when making school organisation proposals. These include educational standards, financial sustainability, demand for places and surplus capacity, and accessibility and community impact.

The Welsh Government does not hold information regarding the number of complaints made to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales. The Ombudsman’s legal functions are set out in the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019. The Ombudsman is independent of all government and not answerable to a government minister. The Ombudsman reports annually to the Welsh Parliament on the work done during the year, the complaints service and the use of public money.

There is more information on the Ombudsman’s website here.

The Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) Code recognises biological sex. Learning is legally required to be developmentally appropriate. It must also be pluralistic, meaning that schools must provide learning on RSE which includes a range of views on any subject and which does not seek to promote one view over another.

Subject to the requirements above, the accompanying guidance notes that in society, gender is “often used to refer to whether someone identifies as female, male or non-binary”. The guidance does not refer to any other gender.

No. Our youngest learners are taught about friendships, families and kindness, they are not taught about sex and reproduction. The law is clear, the teaching of Relationships and Sexuality Education must be developmentally appropriate for children and young people.

733 primary schools have closed since devolution, with 495 of these being part of an amalgamation with another school.

From proposals notified to the Welsh Ministers, our records indicate that there are currently 19 planned closures of primary schools across Wales. Of these, 14 schools are proposed to amalgamate resulting in the establishment of 7 new primary schools.

In addition, our records show that a further 11 primary schools are subject to proposals progressing through the statutory process and are yet to be determined. One of these proposals involves the closure of a voluntary school to establish a new community school.

Officials regularly discuss matters such as development of the Sustainable Farming Scheme, and wider ambitions for rural resilience and sustainability with representatives of the farming sector, including the farming unions. This may be through bilateral discussions or stakeholder groups.