National Assembly for Wales

The Welsh Government has consistently advocated for reform of the Sewel Convention, as reflected in section 107(6) of the Government of Wales Act. In its manifesto, the Labour Party pledged to strengthen the Sewel Convention by establishing a new memorandum of understanding.

Since his appointment on 5 July 2024, I have had positive conversations with the Prime Minister, both in person and over the phone. We have discussed working together to build a new partnership between the Welsh and UK Governments, including how to develop and strengthen the Sewel Convention.

We welcome the publication of the first report from the Covid-19 Public Inquiry, which examines the UK’s state of preparedness for the pandemic. The report is comprehensive, with many recommendations relevant to the Welsh Government and its key partners. We look forward to working together in equal partnership with the UK and other Devolved Governments in responding to the report’s recommendations.

Since his appointment on 5 July 2024, I have had positive conversations with the Prime Minister, both in person and over the phone. We have discussed working together to build a new partnership between the Welsh and UK Governments, including how to develop and strengthen devolution.

Data on applications to higher education for the 2024 cycle as of 30 June was released by UCAS on 18 July 2024.

The proportion of Welsh 18-year-olds applying to university by the 30 June deadline has decreased slightly. 33.8% of 18-year-olds applied in 2024, down 0.4 percentage points from 34.2% at the same point in 2023. This is not a 15-year low – it is higher than the application rate at this point in 2020 (33.6%).

We are aware of the decrease in the number of applications and I am focused on understanding what we can do to further increase participation, drawing on independent expertise and a wide body of evidence.

On 19 July, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama confirmed the outcome of its consultation in a statement. This is a decision taken by the College, not by the Welsh Government.

I am grateful to the Children, Young People and Education Committee for the considerable amount of work they have put into this inquiry. We are considering the Committee’s report and its recommendations and will respond in due course through the usual channels for responding to Committee reports.

The Welsh Government’s national Digital Resilience in Education action plan sets out our cross-governmental commitment to equip children and young people with the skills to be able to think critically, and navigate the digital world in a safe and responsible way, including recognising where to access help.

Educating young people on how to safely engage with social media and the internet is a cross-curricular issue, with online safety a key feature within the mandatory Relationships and Sexuality Education Code.  The Code includes mandatory learning on several important issues, including an awareness of the laws in place to protect from harm and abuse, an ability to take steps to protect themselves, and an ability to raise issues or concerns with trusted adults.

Building digital resilience in our children and young people also depends on the resilience of our families and communities. Keeping safe online is full of useful resources for schools to use in the classroom, and provides a source of support and guidance for both learners, their parents and carers.

Water charges are set through an independent process led by the regulator Ofwat. Welsh Government provided a Strategic Steer for Ofwat to consider in undertaking their role as the economic regulator. This included a very strong emphasis on affordability and support for people who may struggle to pay their water bills. Both water companies in Wales have now committed to increase the support provided to customers facing hardship in paying their bills.

It would not be appropriate for me to comment further, given there are detailed  plans being negotiated by the water companies and Ofwat between now and December.

Most people in Wales receive their water services from Dŵr Cymru which is a not-for-profit company without shareholders. Profits are re-invested into providing customers water and sewage services – including expenditure on social tariffs and tackling discharges to rivers.

Water companies, as providers of essential services, require robust regulation to challenge them to operate efficiently and to drive forward improvements in performance and public service. Ofwat is the economic regulator for the water sector. Water charges, performance targets and levels of investment are set by Ofwat every 5 years via the statutory price review process. The water companies submit draft business plans to Ofwat setting out their proposals, and Ofwat may amend or challenge these via their draft determination.

The Welsh Government laid its Strategic Priorities Statement before the Senedd in 2023 for Ofwat to consider in undertaking their role as the economic regulator. This included a very strong emphasis on affordability and support for people who may struggle to pay their water bills as well as the need for substantial improvements in water company performance in the short and long term.

Natural Resources Wales are working closely with the Local Authority, Public Health Wales and Hywel Dda Health Board to address the issues of concern at Withyhedge Landfill site. The Welsh Government is monitoring the progress being made to resolve the issue and have emphasised the need for the public bodies responsible to work together to resolve the issues quickly.

I have emphasised to Natural Resources Wales who as the statutory body for regulating waste facilities, the need for swift action to prevent further odours. Natural Resources Wales are responding as a priority to resolve the issue and have increased their presence on site and will continue to update the community as activities progress. I would encourage residents to continue to report any instances of odour to Natural Resources Wales as this will help inform the effectiveness of the measures being taken.

We understand the importance to young carers of being able to have a break from their caring role. Our £9m short breaks fund provides an additional 30,000 opportunities for carers of all ages to take part in sport, leisure, or social activities. We have also supported three annual festivals for young carers which take place in August and provide an opportunity for young carers to enjoy themselves and receive information and support.

£4.85m has been allocated for the School Holiday Enrichment Programme, which provides healthy meals, physical activity, and support to learners from low-income households. Local authority and voluntary sector youth work provision offers a wide range of experiences and support for all young people. We will continue to fund programmes which support households in financial crisis. Young Carers can also access the Carers Support Fund, which provides unpaid carers on low incomes with grants to buy essential items.

I have been very clear with all health boards about my expectations that all diagnostic waits  over the eight-week target, which includes non-obstetric ultrasound, should be cleared as soon as possible.

While there has been a 30% reduction in the numbers waiting more than eight weeks for non-obstetric ultrasound between September 2023 and May 2024, significant improvement is still required.

Training requirements is an area of recent focus by the National Diagnostic Board. It is recognised across the UK that staff availability for this modality has a significant impact on achieving the required access targets. New ways of working and increasing the range of staff trained are being proposed to build a more sustainable workforce going forward.

The Welsh Government funds the National Clinical Audit and Outcome Review Programme to support the NHS in Wales to deliver quality improvement actions.

The overall programme includes the Medical and Surgical Clinical Outcome Review Programme, which reported on the surgical care of people with Crohn’s Disease treated between 1 September 2019 to 29 February 2020 and 1 September 2020 to 28 February 2021.

My officials considered the recommendations in July 2023 and wrote to medical directors of health boards on 27 July 2023 asking organisations to share the recommendations with local clinical teams. Health boards are required to consider recommendations as part of their local quality and safety processes and to take forward any required actions.

As soon as we became aware of the situation Digital Health Care Wales (DHCW) set up an incident team and all directors of digital were engaged.

The group was able to identify systems that were affected and provide local support where required to ensure appropriate business continuity plans were put in place to minimise impact on patient care.

The primary care system EMIS was resolved relatively quickly on Friday morning. By Saturday all other affected systems which could have direct impact on patient pathways were fully resolved.

The implementation of business continuity plans for all affected systems ensured direct patient impact was minimised wherever possible.

We provide dedicated support for mental health services to work collaboratively with partners to enhance data analysis and share mental health research. The main aim is to increase the analytical capacity and capability for mental health evidence, making better use of the wealth of existing data and literature, while also undertaking and managing primary research to address key evidence and evaluation gaps.

The current priorities include identifying effective interventions for suicide and self-harm prevention; evaluating the effectiveness of risk assessments used in mental health services and developing evaluation plans for the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the Suicide and Self-harm Prevention Strategy.

We also support a research associate post, working across Welsh Government and the Wolfson Centre for Young People’s Mental Health at Cardiff University. This helps ensure Welsh Government policy affecting young people’s mental health and wellbeing is informed and evaluated using the best available evidence. The research associate works closely with colleagues in the School Health Research Network, a policy-practice-research partnership between Welsh Government, Public Health Wales, and Cardiff University.

The Welsh Government is part of the UK Research and Innovation-funded Administrative Data Research Wales (ADR Wales) partnership. As part of this, we secured £17m for 2022-26.  Mental health is one of the ADR Wales priority themes, and is led by Professor Ann John, from Swansea University. 

Through Health and Care Research Wales we continue to fund the National Centre for Mental Health, and offer a range of open and competitive research funding opportunities for mental health researchers through both Wales-specific and UK partner schemes.

We have a number of early years programmes which support the first 1,000 days – this period significantly influences outcomes for children, parents, and families. Our universal early help programme, Families First supports children and families through the first 1,000 days and beyond. It places an emphasis on prevention and early intervention, providing support for the whole family. The programme works with the family to stop problems from escalating towards crisis.

Flying Start continues to make a real difference to the lives of children in some of our most disadvantaged communities. Flying Start children and families can access an enhanced level of health visiting support from a dedicated team of Flying Start health visitors. Flying Start health visitors work in partnership with families, communities and other professionals to promote key public health messages and play a vital role in positively influencing health outcomes for our future generations. Flying Start health visitors can refer to or call upon the support of a multi-disciplinary team of other professionals, both health and non-health to work together to meet the needs of the child and their family.

All Flying Start families are offered a pathway of parenting support from antenatal to aged four years and a range of options considered with parents depending upon their needs and individual circumstances. This can include one to one support, informal groups, or formal evidence-based parenting programmes. Higher need families will be supported to engage in services.

Additionally, the Childcare Offer for Wales provides up to 30 hours of early education and funded childcare for three and four-year-olds.

We have recently consulted on our draft mental health and wellbeing strategy, which includes commitments to further support infant mental health and parent infant relationship work. We are analysing responses to the consultation; we intend to publish a summary report in October and provide further details about the publication date for the final strategy and delivery plan, which will outline our overarching vision and priorities for mental health.

We provide dedicated support for mental health services to work collaboratively with partners to enhance data analysis and share mental health research. The main aim is to increase the analytical capacity and capability for mental health evidence, making better use of the wealth of existing data and literature, while also undertaking and managing primary research to address key evidence and evaluation gaps.

The current priorities include identifying effective interventions for suicide and self-harm prevention; evaluating the effectiveness of risk assessments used in mental health services and developing evaluation plans for the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the Suicide and Self-harm Prevention Strategy.

We also support a research associate post, working across Welsh Government and the Wolfson Centre for Young People’s Mental Health at Cardiff University. This helps ensure Welsh Government policy affecting young people’s mental health and wellbeing is informed and evaluated using the best available evidence. The research associate works closely with colleagues in the School Health Research Network, a policy-practice-research partnership between Welsh Government, Public Health Wales, and Cardiff University.

The Welsh Government is part of the UK Research and Innovation-funded Administrative Data Research Wales (ADR Wales) partnership. As part of this, we secured £17m for 2022-26.  Mental health is one of the ADR Wales priority themes, and is led by Professor Ann John, from Swansea University. 

Through Health and Care Research Wales we continue to fund the National Centre for Mental Health, and offer a range of open and competitive research funding opportunities for mental health researchers through both Wales-specific and UK partner schemes.

We have a number of early years programmes which support the first 1,000 days – this period significantly influences outcomes for children, parents, and families. Our universal early help programme, Families First supports children and families through the first 1,000 days and beyond. It places an emphasis on prevention and early intervention, providing support for the whole family. The programme works with the family to stop problems from escalating towards crisis.

Flying Start continues to make a real difference to the lives of children in some of our most disadvantaged communities. Flying Start children and families can access an enhanced level of health visiting support from a dedicated team of Flying Start health visitors. Flying Start health visitors work in partnership with families, communities and other professionals to promote key public health messages and play a vital role in positively influencing health outcomes for our future generations. Flying Start health visitors can refer to or call upon the support of a multi-disciplinary team of other professionals, both health and non-health to work together to meet the needs of the child and their family.

All Flying Start families are offered a pathway of parenting support from antenatal to aged four years and a range of options considered with parents depending upon their needs and individual circumstances. This can include one to one support, informal groups, or formal evidence-based parenting programmes. Higher need families will be supported to engage in services.

Additionally, the Childcare Offer for Wales provides up to 30 hours of early education and funded childcare for three and four-year-olds.

We have recently consulted on our draft mental health and wellbeing strategy, which includes commitments to further support infant mental health and parent infant relationship work. We are analysing responses to the consultation; we intend to publish a summary report in October and provide further details about the publication date for the final strategy and delivery plan, which will outline our overarching vision and priorities for mental health.

We provide dedicated support for mental health services to work collaboratively with partners to enhance data analysis and share mental health research. The main aim is to increase the analytical capacity and capability for mental health evidence, making better use of the wealth of existing data and literature, while also undertaking and managing primary research to address key evidence and evaluation gaps.

The current priorities include identifying effective interventions for suicide and self-harm prevention; evaluating the effectiveness of risk assessments used in mental health services and developing evaluation plans for the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the Suicide and Self-harm Prevention Strategy.

We also support a research associate post, working across Welsh Government and the Wolfson Centre for Young People’s Mental Health at Cardiff University. This helps ensure Welsh Government policy affecting young people’s mental health and wellbeing is informed and evaluated using the best available evidence. The research associate works closely with colleagues in the School Health Research Network, a policy-practice-research partnership between Welsh Government, Public Health Wales, and Cardiff University.

The Welsh Government is part of the UK Research and Innovation-funded Administrative Data Research Wales (ADR Wales) partnership. As part of this, we secured £17m for 2022-26.  Mental health is one of the ADR Wales priority themes, and is led by Professor Ann John, from Swansea University. 

Through Health and Care Research Wales we continue to fund the National Centre for Mental Health, and offer a range of open and competitive research funding opportunities for mental health researchers through both Wales-specific and UK partner schemes.

We have a number of early years programmes which support the first 1,000 days – this period significantly influences outcomes for children, parents, and families. Our universal early help programme, Families First supports children and families through the first 1,000 days and beyond. It places an emphasis on prevention and early intervention, providing support for the whole family. The programme works with the family to stop problems from escalating towards crisis.

Flying Start continues to make a real difference to the lives of children in some of our most disadvantaged communities. Flying Start children and families can access an enhanced level of health visiting support from a dedicated team of Flying Start health visitors. Flying Start health visitors work in partnership with families, communities and other professionals to promote key public health messages and play a vital role in positively influencing health outcomes for our future generations. Flying Start health visitors can refer to or call upon the support of a multi-disciplinary team of other professionals, both health and non-health to work together to meet the needs of the child and their family.

All Flying Start families are offered a pathway of parenting support from antenatal to aged four years and a range of options considered with parents depending upon their needs and individual circumstances. This can include one to one support, informal groups, or formal evidence-based parenting programmes. Higher need families will be supported to engage in services.

Additionally, the Childcare Offer for Wales provides up to 30 hours of early education and funded childcare for three and four-year-olds.

We have recently consulted on our draft mental health and wellbeing strategy, which includes commitments to further support infant mental health and parent infant relationship work. We are analysing responses to the consultation; we intend to publish a summary report in October and provide further details about the publication date for the final strategy and delivery plan, which will outline our overarching vision and priorities for mental health.

Health board Integrated Medium-Term Plans (IMTPs) show a consistent increase in demand for ultrasound education in Wales. In 2024-25, I agreed an increase in the number of medical ultrasound training places, from 15 to 20 to help ensure a pipeline of sonographers within the NHS Wales workforce.

Working in collaboration with the NHS Executive and alongside the National Imaging, Pathology, Endoscopy and Healthcare Science programmes, Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) has developed a set of short to medium-term workforce actions for diagnostics services in Wales.

The diagnostic workforce plan has been created in response to the Diagnostic recovery and transformation strategy for Wales which sets out a number of key priorities.

An approval to tender for ultrasound education was approved by the HEIW board in January 2024 for the first cohort in the 2024-25 academic year, starting in January 2025: 

In April, the two courses tendered to supply all-Wales were:

• Ultrasound Postgraduate Diploma (PgDip), accredited by the Consortium for the Accreditation of Sonographic Education (CASE) – two-year course.
• Ultrasound Postgraduate Certificate (PgCert), to increase and enhance the provision of sonography education in Wales to support the rising service demand – one year course.

The postgraduate diploma and certificate should enable students to practice in any of the four specific clinical areas – obstetrics and gynaecology; abdominal/general ultrasound; vascular and musculoskeletal conditions.

Growing the imaging workforce is vital to achieving the ambitious targets for recovery across the UK. Sonography has been on the UK Government skilled worker visa: shortage occupation list for more than 15 years. 

GPs and their teams are the front door to the NHS for many people, providing high-quality care close to home while managing the pressures of very high demand.

Our current GP trainee marketing campaign Train, Work, Live provides financial incentives to attract GP trainees to specialty training schemes in Mid, North and West Wales. These are areas  where it has been historically difficult to recruit. 

The GP specialty training programme has been significantly expanded over the past few years and there has been a significant increase in the fill rate for GP training. The current recruitment target of 160 new GP trainees each year is consistently being achieved.

This is further supported by increasing the numbers of GP trainers (circa 545) and training practices (circa 200) across Wales.

A total of 199 new GP trainees were recruited in 2023. This will have a direct positive impact on increasing the number of GPs caring for patients across Wales.

The Celtic Freeport’s Outline Business Case (OBC) was submitted in January 2024, following which a joint assessment was carried out by the UK Government and Welsh Government. Feedback was provided to the Freeport consortium, who resubmitted their OBC in April to address areas requiring improvement.

The general election delayed the final sign-off of the OBC by both governments and the subsequent legislative processes for designation of tax sites. We hope to restart this process with the new UK Government soon, following which the Freeport will be formally asked to produce a Full Business Case (FBC). Agreement of the FBC is expected to lead to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding and the release of up to £25m seed capital.

As part of our Manufacturing Action Plan, we are currently mapping the supply chain for floating offshore wind (FLOW) in the Celtic Sea. This involves mapping the capability, capacity and resilience of existing supply chains in West Wales. We are also working with Business Wales and Sell2Wales to ensure local companies are ready to successfully bid for new contracts.

It is important that Welsh ports are in a good position to capitalise on the opportunities that FLOW offer. To this end we have announced a £1 million grant payment to ensure future FLOW projects can deploy from Pembroke Port. This is on top of the £60 million that Pembroke Dock has received as part of the Swansea Bay City Deal, which will enable FLOW production and deployment, as well as supply chain research. 

We have regular dialogue with the Crown Estate regarding FLOW in the Celtic Sea and are supportive of the UK Government taking measures to modernise the investment and borrowing powers available to the Crown Estate to help ensure the pipeline of developments in the Celtic Sea.

Local Ownership and community involvement is front and centre of our energy policy. We have already achieved 97% of our target of 1 GW of renewable energy to be locally owned in Wales by 2030. Pembrokeshire’s local area energy plan provides further opportunity for the local community to get involved in schemes.

Through the Welsh Government Energy Service we have funded Preparatory Grant to 5 Community Energy Organisations throughout Pembrokeshire. Through the Development Bank of Wales investment of £2.7m has been made available to projects in Pembrokeshire.

Finally, Ynni Cymru has funded three community energy organisations under the Community Energy Resource Grant initiative to develop in-house skills and experience in pursuit of the development of further community renewable energy projects. Ynni Cymru is also working with community energy projects to explore opportunities to smarten those assets in line with Ynni Cymru ambitions around Smart Local Energy Systems.

Substantive response

Substantive response

We know relative poverty among families with three or more children has continued to increase. I welcome announcement of a new ministerial taskforce to explore how they can use all available levers across government, recognising the wide-ranging causes of child poverty.

I am keen to work closely with the new UK Government on our shared ambition of tackling poverty, this will include discussing the role of the benefit system at the DWP and Welsh Government Interministerial Group.  Our own ambitious Child Poverty Strategy for Wales published earlier this year will be informing our discussions at a Wales and UK level.

Substantive response