Written Questions tabled on 21/01/2025 for answer on 28/01/2025
Written Questions must be tabled at least five working days before they are to be answered. In practice, Ministers aim to answer within seven/eight days but are not bound to do so. Answers are published in the language in which they are provided, with a translation into English of responses provided in Welsh.
Cabinet Secretary for Education
What steps is the Welsh Government taking to address the growing disparities in school infrastructure funding between north and south Wales, ensuring that all pupils have access to safe and modern learning environments?
The Sustainable Communities for Learning (SCfL) Programme has introduced a nine-year rolling programme which, subject to budget availability and individual business case approval, will see the Welsh Government grant funding of over £690 million across 82 projects in north Wales. This is in addition to the ongoing works within the Band B capital programme with a total approved Welsh Government investment of £471 million across north Wales.
Welsh Government funding of £2.32 million has been provided to the four schools affected by RAAC in north Wales to address interim remedial works that have enabled the schools to continue operating safely. Officials are continuing to work closely with the local authorities of the four schools for the longer-term management and removal of RAAC through their new 9-year investment plans.
To challenge and innovate our Sustainable Communities for Learning Programme to meet our green agenda, a Sustainable Schools Challenge project was initiated, with one of the successful projects, Campws Cymunedol Bontnewydd, seeing a Welsh Government investment of £15m for this innovative school for Gwynedd.
Providing equitable access to safe and modern learning is a value reflected throughout the SCfL Programme, with smaller capital grants distributed to local authorities based on number of schools and pupils in each region. For north Wales, funding for this year has included the Capital Maintenance Grant (£9.29m) and Additional Learning Needs Capital (£4.64m), with the wider programme accessible to all delivery partners subject to expressions of interest or submission of business cases.
All requests for project funding are considered consistently, regardless of the delivery partner or region. Business cases are robustly reviewed by a Business Case Scrutiny Group before they are considered by the Education Investment Panel, to inform Ministerial Advice.
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care
Following WQ95094, will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on the progress made by Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board to tackle the longest waiting times, including neurodevelopmental waiting times?
As indicated in the response to WQ95094, the additional money for Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board is targeted at ophthalmology and orthopaedics. Progress against its agreed delivery plan continues to be monitored weekly to ensure delivery remains on track to clear all 104-week waits by the end of March 2025.
The health board is also working to reduce the longest waits in children’s neurodevelopmental services.
What plans are in place to address the staffing shortages in oncology and diagnostics within the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board?
It is for health boards to plan their workforce according to their population need. Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has given significant focus to addressing vacancies, focusing on recruitment, retention and role diversification to sustain its oncology and diagnostic services.
The Welsh Government is helping to address both the short-term challenges and long-term sustainability of NHS staffing by investing in training new members of the workforce and supporting the delivery of ethical international recruitment programmes. This includes increases in oncology and radiology higher training places.
What plans are in place to address the staffing shortages in dentistry within the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board?
Despite the difficult financial climate, we continue to invest in the sustainability of the NHS workforce. £283.126m was invested in 2024-25 to support education and training programmes for healthcare professionals in Wales.
Health Education and Improvement Wales continues to work with stakeholders to focus on the recruitment and retention of the dental workforce. A workforce plan for dentistry was published earlier this year.
Until recently, a regulatory issue prevented qualified dental therapists, hygienists and clinical dental technicians from opening and closing NHS courses of dental treatment. This issue has been resolved, enabling these professionals to play a full role in providing NHS care.
We know that trainees are more likely to stay where they complete their training. To support rural recruitment, HEIW has put in place a dental foundation training Welsh enhanced recruitment offer. All 15 available places have been filled including the nine in the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board area.
Further to WQ94059, will the Cabinet Secretary provide a further update regarding the works to house a permanent Diagnostic and Treatment Hub site in Cwm Taf, and will he share any further data available on the number of patients being supported at the site?
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board is leading the development of the design work for a regional centre of excellence at Llantrisant.
A temporary diagnostic service, providing MRI and CT scans, has been available at the site between April and December 2024; 5180 people have been scanned.
What immediate action is being implemented to address diagnostic delays and improve outcomes for patients in north Wales considering Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board failing to meet cancer care targets?
Health boards in Wales are responsible for planning and delivering services to ensure safe and timely access to diagnostics and treatment for their resident population. Our expectation is that all health boards should be working to achieve the national target of at least 75% of people referred on the suspected cancer pathway starting first definitive treatment within 62 days of the point of suspicion.
The health board is taking a range of actions to improve the timeliness of access to cancer services. These include commissioning additional activity for dermatology, endoscopy and urology, waiting time initiatives and recruitment to key roles to improve the capacity and resilience of challenged tumour sites.
The NHS Executive is directly supporting the health board to reduce unwarranted variation and drive sustainable improvement for cancer waiting times across all parts of Wales, including a focus on component waits across the pathway and increasing straight-to-test rates.
We have launched a £2m national programme to support health boards and NHS trusts to recover cancer waiting time performance for the five cancers with the lowest performance rates. We are investing heavily in cancer services, including tens of millions of pounds in equipment, facilities, training more oncologists and radiologists, modernising and expanding our cancer screening programmes, and introducing rapid diagnostic centres to investigate people with unclear symptoms.
Will the Welsh Government provide additional funding to hospice care in order to cover unavoidable costs?
Welsh Government recognises the important contribution that hospices make to palliative end of life care in Wales and is committed to finding a long-term sustainable funding solution.
We have delivered our Programme for Government commitment to review hospice funding, securing an additional £2.2m per annum on a recurrent basis from April 2022.
In March 2024, we provided 12 health board commissioned hospices with a £4m cost-of-living grant to support delivery of their vital services. This was agreed in conjunction with Hospices Cymru and the National Programme Board for Palliative and End-of-Life Care. And we have allocated an additional recurrent £3m to hospices in the Draft Budget 2025-26.
Work is underway with the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee, the National Programme Board for Palliative and End-of-Life Care and Welsh hospices to develop a hospice commissioning framework/guidance for Wales. This will look at the length of service level agreements, Agenda for Change issues and address variation to ensure sustainable, effective and value service provision.
Phase one of this work is scheduled to be completed by April 2025.
What consideration has the Welsh Government given to increasing service level agreements in hospice care to a minimum of 5 years to provide greater stability and foster innovation?
Welsh Government recognises the important contribution that hospices make to palliative end of life care in Wales and is committed to finding a long-term sustainable funding solution.
We have delivered our Programme for Government commitment to review hospice funding, securing an additional £2.2m per annum on a recurrent basis from April 2022.
In March 2024, we provided 12 health board commissioned hospices with a £4m cost-of-living grant to support delivery of their vital services. This was agreed in conjunction with Hospices Cymru and the National Programme Board for Palliative and End-of-Life Care. And we have allocated an additional recurrent £3m to hospices in the Draft Budget 2025-26.
Work is underway with the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee, the National Programme Board for Palliative and End-of-Life Care and Welsh hospices to develop a hospice commissioning framework/guidance for Wales. This will look at the length of service level agreements, Agenda for Change issues and address variation to ensure sustainable, effective and value service provision.
Phase one of this work is scheduled to be completed by April 2025.
What consideration has the Welsh Government given to increasing statutory funding for hospices so that it reflects actual staffing and operating costs?
Welsh Government recognises the important contribution that hospices make to palliative end of life care in Wales and is committed to finding a long-term sustainable funding solution.
We have delivered our Programme for Government commitment to review hospice funding, securing an additional £2.2m per annum on a recurrent basis from April 2022.
In March 2024, we provided 12 health board commissioned hospices with a £4m cost-of-living grant to support delivery of their vital services. This was agreed in conjunction with Hospices Cymru and the National Programme Board for Palliative and End-of-Life Care. And we have allocated an additional recurrent £3m to hospices in the Draft Budget 2025-26.
Work is underway with the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee, the National Programme Board for Palliative and End-of-Life Care and Welsh hospices to develop a hospice commissioning framework/guidance for Wales. This will look at the length of service level agreements, Agenda for Change issues and address variation to ensure sustainable, effective and value service provision.
Phase one of this work is scheduled to be completed by April 2025.
Will the Cabinet Secretary provide a breakdown of how the healthier Wales budget expenditure line in the Welsh Government's draft budget for 2025-26 is due to be spent?
The designated ‘A Healthier Wales’ budget totals £74.228m for 2025-26 and is split between the following budget lines.
Draft Budget Plans for 2025-26
Description £m
AHW – Digital 57.759
AHW – Early Prevention 6.850
AHW – Clinical 2.595
Healthcare Science 2.000
AHW Transformation Programme 5.024
BEL 0060 – A Healthier Wales 74.228
Digital £57.759m
The Digital Priorities Investment Fund (DPIF) is used to fund strategic digital transformation opportunities in NHS Wales, and it is intended to support the delivery of NHS Wales service change. In 2025-26 the fund will prioritise support for the National Data Resource platform that will form an integral part of the data architecture and increase the services available within the NHS Wales App, Digital Maternity, the electronic prescribing and medicines (ePMA) programme and Connecting Care across care settings.
Early Prevention £6.85m
This budget, supported by Public Health Wales and the Health Boards, supports actions to create a step change in the prevention of ill health in Wales and sets out a package of evidence-based investment proposals intended to address both the immediate and underlying causes of poor health and wellbeing.
AHW Clinical £2.595m
This funding is used for the NHS Executive’s planned care programme to deliver cancer waiting list recovery and diagnostic endoscopy waiting list recovery.
Healthcare Science £2m
This funding supports the NHS Executive’s planned care programme to deliver Imaging, Pathology and Advanced Therapies.
Transformation Programme £5.024m
The Transformation Programme fund has been a key lever in driving success against the ‘A Healthier Wales: our plan for health and social care’. The fund focusses on creating integrated community care and support services/arrangements that are closer to home and that are rooted in the key principles of the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014; Prevention, Voice and Control, Co-production and Wellbeing.
It should be noted that as ‘A Healthier Wales’ is our 10 year strategic plan for the health and social care system in Wales this covers a wider range of policy actions and associated budgets that contribute to the delivery of our overall strategy. These budget sources have become subsumed in baseline budgets across the MEG, as we have moved through the implementation of AHW and the NHS have also re-focussed existing resources on delivering the outcomes within the plan.
How many meetings has the Cabinet Secretary and his immediate predecessor had with clinicians in relation to eradicating corridor care in the Welsh NHS?
I will write to you with a substantive response and a copy of the letter will be published on the internet.
Is the freehold of the premises of any children's residential homes in Wales owned by an individual with a conviction(s) for sex offences?
Is the freehold of the premises of any children's residential homes in Wales owned by an individual with any conviction(s) for child sex offences?
Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning
Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the financial support available from the Welsh Government for households, businesses and communities in Wales to improve access to reliable high speed broadband services?
Responsibility for improving broadband connectivity in Wales rests with the UK Government. Despite telecommunications not being devolved to Wales, due to historic under-investment at UK level over the past decade or more, we have helped provide access to fast and reliable broadband.
The Welsh Government is finalising a business case for reinvesting returned funds from our Superfast Cymru roll-out to improve digital connectivity at premises that do not have access to at least superfast broadband speeds (30Mbps). A further announcement will be made in due course.
Access Broadband Cymru is a Welsh Government intervention to offer fast, reliable broadband to eligible premises. It can offer assistance to individual properties currently not able to access superfast broadband by providing grant aid to receive it through suitable technologies.
The scheme requires immediate and significant work to adjust its operation to reflect the evolving broadband market and the ongoing evolution of available technology solutions. To enable this work to take place the scheme was paused to all new applicants and new applications from 7thAugust 2024.
We anticipate that the scheme will re-open to applications in the Spring of 2025.
Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on the future of the Access Broadband Cymru grant scheme?
Access Broadband Cymru is a Welsh Government intervention to offer fast, reliable broadband to eligible premises. It can offer assistance to individual properties currently not able to access superfast broadband by providing grant aid to receive it through suitable technologies.
Given the changing broadband landscape in Wales, the scheme is reviewed periodically to test whether an intervention is still needed, that it still meets the needs of homes, businesses and third sector organisations, and that it can be delivered within available funding and resources.
An internal review found that the scheme remains the only mechanism to fund the delivery of fast and reliable broadband to the very hardest to reach premises.
The scheme did, however, require immediate work to adjust its operation to reflect the evolving broadband market and the ongoing evolution of available technology solutions. Work is also being undertaken to review grant ceilings and the scheme’s administration to ensure that it continues to offer a targeted, flexible and responsive connectivity safety net to those that need it.
The changes required are significant and to enable this work to take place the scheme was paused to all new applicants and new applications from 7thAugust 2024.
We anticipate that the scheme will re-open to applications in the Spring of 2025.
Further to WQ93371, will the Welsh Government confirm when it intends to publish the findings of its review into SME productivity?
The short-term review into SME Productivity met for the first time this month. I expect to be in a position to publish the interim findings ahead of summer recess.
Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on what discussions they have had with the Arts Council of Wales in regards to promoting LGBT awareness?
The Welsh Government published its LGBTQ+ Action Plan in 2023. As part of our commitment to eliminate inequality in all its forms, the Arts Council’s Remit Letter seeks to ensure the organisation implements the commitments in the plan.
Further to WQ95442, is it the case that the Welsh Government is unable to act on the charge against Snowdonia Hotel Ltd because they have no remaining residual assets?
No, it is not the case. The charge is not limited to the assets of Snowdonia Hotel Ltd and it remains on the assets which did not relate to Snowdonia Hotel Ltd.
Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government
When will the Welsh Government announce its decision about the financial support the Government will contribute towards the plan to turn the old Debenhams in Bangor into a health and wellbeing centre?
Welsh Government are supportive of the proposed Bangor Health Hub project and are working closely with Cyngor Gwynedd and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board to develop the proposal. We are currently waiting for further information in support of the proposal from Cyngor Gwynedd before the project can be considered for funding to develop the Outline Business Case. This information is expected in February 2025.
Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip
Will the Welsh Government commit to abolishing all of its diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives?
No. Welsh Government remains committed to building a Fairer Wales.
What targeted measures will the Welsh Government introduce to address inequality in rural areas of Aberconwy?
Equality remains at the heart of all Welsh Government policy interventions, which are targeted at all communities across Wales, including rural communities.
How many prosecutions and convictions have occurred under the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Act 2020?
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in Wales monitor the number of cases relating to the Act which are referred to them, as well how many of these cases are charged, and what the outcomes of these cases are. It is not currently possible to publish figures as the number reported is so small as to pose a risk to personal information being disclosed.
What representation has the Welsh Government made to the UK Government about the need for a UK-wide inquiry into child sexual exploitation by grooming gangs in light of the growing chorus of voices from political figures, victims and the Welsh public?
The Welsh Government welcomes the UK Government’s announcement of a rapid audit of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the UK led by Baroness Louise Casey. We will be engaging fully with this review and are actively liaising with UK Government colleagues on this matter.
Will the Welsh Government commission a Wales-wide inquiry into child sexual exploitation by grooming gangs in Wales?
The Welsh Government welcomes the UK Government’s announcement of a rapid audit of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the UK led by Baroness Louise Casey. We will be engaging fully with this review and are actively liaising with UK Government colleagues on this matter.
Will the Welsh Government publish all of its correspondence with social services in regards to the operation of grooming gangs in Wales?
I will write to you with a substantive response and a copy of the letter will be published on the internet.
How many genders does the Welsh Government recognise?
Will the Welsh Government publish all of its correspondence with stakeholders regarding the operation of grooming gangs in Wales?
Will the Welsh Government publish all of its correspondence with the police forces in regards to the operation of grooming gangs in Wales?
Will the Welsh Government publish all of its correspondence with local authorities in regards to the operation of grooming gangs in Wales?
Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
What recent discussions has the Cabinet Secretary held with Pembrokeshire County Council regarding the Newgale beach access and shingle bank realignment scheme as an alternative to the Newgale coastal adaptation project?
Further development work is ongoing this financial year on the Newgale coastal adaptation scheme, led by Pembrokeshire Council as the relevant highway authority with funding support from the Welsh Government. My officials are liaising with the Council who have assured that the suggested alternative is being appropriately considered before a decision on the preferred scheme that they will move forward with developing and promoting.