scottish independence

This is purely a matter for those living in Scotland but we know a number of things from the  previous splittng of countries including the amicable split of Czecoslovakia and the less amicable split of Sudan

1) Each country has its own currency
2) Each country has its own central bank
3) Each country has its own defence force
4)Each countries defence force stays within its own boundaries (Crimea has shown what can happen when a major defence force is in a different Country)
5) Each country can agree the share of the national debt or as in the case of Sudan go to arbitration
6) Each country becomes reponsible for its own tax rates, benefit rates including pensions
7) Each country will issue its own passport
8) The Country breaking away will have to renegotiate, if it wants to, all treaties and membership of all organisations as it is  a new country
9) Each country will have its own embassies
10) Free movement will depend on both being EU members

Does anyone outside the SNP believe that either Italy or Spain would not object to Scotland joining the EU to deter separatists in the Venice region and Catalonia

knotweed speech

To my constituents, the term ‘non-native invasive species’ means only one thing: Japanese knotweed, or, as it is known locally, Sally rhubarb, due to a similarity in shape and colour to rhubarb, though unfortunately not in height. I heard the Minister at the weekend describe how, when he was growing up in Tredegar, he thought all rivers were multi-coloured; when I grew up in Plasmarl in the Swansea East constituency, I thought that everywhere was covered in knotweed.		Senedd.tv FideoVideo
	Japanese knotweed is a plant native to Japan, Taiwan and northern China. It was first introduced to the UK in the early 1800s as an ornamental plant, unfortunately. The plant can grow in excess of 3m in height and is commonly seen on river banks, alongside train lines and on waste ground. In Swansea, we have at least five train lines running through the constituency: the London main line, the Swansea to Fishguard line, the Port Talbot to Felindre and Trostre line, the Swansea Valley to the docks line and the LMS line. With the exception of the LMS line, all of these lines run along steep banks. Knotweed was used to protect the banks from collapse and to protect the railway line in its journey along the Valley floor. Unfortunately, it has not stayed there; due to a whole range of things happening, it has spread throughout the whole of the constituency.
	Each year, public authorities in the UK spend about £1.6 billion in treating and removing Japanese knotweed. A recent estimate put the cost to the British economy at £165 million. In the UK, Japanese knotweed has no natural predators or controls. Consequently, it has been able to colonise areas throughout the country with, I believe, the exception of only the Orkney isles. The plant is extremely invasive and thrives on disturbance. The tiniest piece of stem can regrow, and can be spread both by natural means and by human activity—often on the soles of shoes, or attached to coats or jackets. It threatens the survival of native plant species and insects and native animal species.
	Other problems include the accumulation of litter among the stems; riverside erosion when knotweed dies back; and damage to buildings, pavements and car parks. Knotweed is able to grow through both asphalt and concrete. Concreting over will not solve the problem.
	There are few lenders who will finance the purchase of property if knotweed is present in the garden, in a neighbouring property or, more likely, in the area, often on land of unknown ownership. This is causing difficulty for those looking to sell and get a mortgage. The presence of knotweed devalues a property massively and causes huge problems to the people concerned.
	Linking to yesterday’s debate on the housing Bill, there are now a number of reluctant landlords unable to sell their houses due to knotweed, often on adjoining land that has no known owner. They are unable to sell their property so they become landlords and rent out their property because it is the only thing that they can do with it.
	There are two main types of treatment for knotweed: physical control and chemical methods. In July 2009 the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced a plan to release a native—I hope I get this right—psyllid bug aphalara itadori into the wild. It is a natural enemy of the knotweed. It is the first time that biocontrols have been used in the European Union to fight a weed. Initially it would be deployed at a limited number of test sites before wider release in England and Wales. The Centre for Agricultural Bioscience International is currently halfway through a study and has reported that the insect is coping well in the UK.
	The sites, I understand, are meant to be secret, but there is a general belief locally that one of them is in Swansea East. Recent estimates put Swansea alone at having 62,000 tonnes of knotweed, equivalent to the weight of 400 blue whales. The overall infestation has been estimated to cost about £9.5 million in chemical treatment, and will take approximately 50 years to eradicate using conventional methods and current treatment rates, and that is without taking into consideration its spread to new areas. Over the past 10 years, Swansea council alone has spent over £200,000 on controlling knotweed.
	I end with three questions to the Minister. If Natural Resources Wales becomes the lead organisation for addressing invasive, non-native species, does it mean that extra funding will be given to its annual budget to deal with this substantial knotweed problem? Will areas with a high concentration of knotweed, like Swansea, have additional support? Finally, although studies are ongoing, can the Welsh Government give any positive, meaningful news on combating knotweed using biologically controlled test sites in Wales using the Aphalara itadori insect native to Japan? In many respects, knotweed is one of the biggest issues in the whole of my constituency, dwarfing a range of other issues that people treat as the big issues of the day.

housing bill

	As most people are aware, there has been a substantial growth in private rented properties across Wales. As the number of council houses and flats are reduced, the private rented sector has filled some of the gap. There is currently a voluntary landlord accreditation scheme run by Cardiff Council on behalf of the 22 local authorities, and a key element of the new legislation is to establish a comprehensive online database of all private landlords and letting management agents in the private rented sector. After a private landlord or agent registers, they will then have to become accredited following attendance of an approved training scheme. Agents will have to join an approved body, and at least two thirds of their staff must be trained. We have some people who are bad landlords by default. They do not mean to be bad landlords; they just do not know enough to not be, and I think that this is an opportunity to solve that problem. It should improve standards in the private rented sector and provide more information on a landlord to local authorities.
	In Swansea, many landlords live far away from Swansea and have bought houses as investments. I do not think that it is asking too much for houses to be checked for gas, carbon monoxide, fire and electrical safety prior to being rented out. We need to raise the awareness of landlords and tenants of their respective rights and responsibilities. The Bill also sets out to allow councils to charge a higher rate of council tax on empty properties and allows housing associations to give assured tenancies and deals with the abolition of the housing revenue account subsidy, so a portion of the rent paid by council tenants will no longer be returned to the Treasury. The Bill seeks to prevent people from becoming homeless and builds on the work currently being done by local authorities on homelessness prevention, where Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council was identified as an example of best practice. The legislation aims to ensure greater emphasis on preventing homelessness, extending the help available and improving the services to those not considered to be in priority need, and to improve the ability of local authorities to offer secure accommodation via the private rented sector, which is becoming more and more important as the amount of council housing continues to reduce.
	The two major changes are that, from 2019, a local authority will be expected to secure accommodation for households with children even if they have been found to be intentionally homeless, but only for the first time in the past five years.
	In the committee, the most contentious part of the proposed legislation was the removal of the automatic right of all former prisoners to be given housing priority. If the legislation is successful, they will be assessed in the same way as all other applicants. This is a policy that I believe is fair and just. I do not believe that, just because someone is an ex-prisoner, they should have greater rights than anyone else. Everyone’s housing requirements should be assessed on their needs equally, and not on anything else. I also correct the false rumours circulating that applicants who are subject to immigration control are not eligible for assistance under the Housing Act 1996. The intended effect is that fewer households will suffer homelessness, that there will be better prevention work and increased help for those who currently receive limited assistance, and, more importantly, choices for those facing homelessness. Unless there is an increase in the quantity of rental accommodation, then all that is happening is a different way of sharing out rental accommodation. The third major part of the legislation proposes to place a new statutory duty on local authorities to provide new Gypsy and Traveller sites where need has been identified. As we know in Swansea, if official sites are not provided, unofficial sites will be created. The legislation aims to improve the standard of accommodation and to reduce illegal sites and unauthorised encampments. The fourth major part of the legislation sets standards for rent and service charges for local authority housing, ensuring that they are clearly and separately identified. The legislation intends to further facilitate the development of co-operative housing by allowing fully mutual housing co-operatives to grant assured tenancies, protecting the interests of lenders. Housing co-operatives, which, in some European countries, comprise up to 20% of all housing, provide around 1.1% in Britain. The housing co-operative model also provides a substantial amount of accommodation in north America. With a shortage of housing in Wales, I do not believe that we can allow this potential for providing accommodation not to be used. So, I hope that everybody will support this this afternoon.

Reserved Powers model of devolution

On Saturday Ed Milliband committed the next Lavboutr Government to implementing a reserved powers model.
This means that what is not devolved is stipulated as opposed to what is devolved.
This provides far greater clarity to the settlement.
This should lead to far less judicial involvement.
It also raises the new question of what should be devolved
1) now
2) in the future
3) never

Questions on the Williams report on Public services

 

 

On costs of reorganisation the commission has had to make a number of assumptions to calculate the total cost of reorganisation.

The reorganisation in Cornwall is not a good comparison because there the district Councils merged into the county Council. All the major services such as Education, Social services and Highways were unaffected as they were already run by the County Council.

 

1) Will TUPE be applied to staff on reorganisation - There were concerns over whether TUPE would have applied during the reorganisation of the Wales Audit Office. TUPE had to be specified as applying, in order to avoid any doubt then the application of TUPE needs to be specified preferably on the face of the bill

 

2) Will there be added years for staff taking early retirement- Historically staff taking early retirement have been given enhancements of up to 6 2/3 years in order to facilitate their retirement, will this enhancement be available for any who are seeking early retirement on reorganisation.

 

3)  Will there be actuarial reductions for early access to pensions- At the last reorganisation there was no actuarial reduction for those accessing pensions early. If such a reduction occurred it would seriously affect the pensions people would receive or they would spend the time between reorganisation and their expected retirement date without income.

 

4) How will different conditions on joining authorities be dealt with- Different authorities have different terms and conditions e.g. Neath Port Talbot salary reduction and working hours reduction. What will happen to these terms on merger.

 

5) If it costs £100 million ( I believe the cost will be substantially higher) how will it be funded. If it is funded from the local government settlement how many jobs will be lost. Where else could it be funded from and whilst many councils have fairly large reserves much of that is earmarked.

 

6) Why is it expected that ICT costs will be low- ICT costs can rapidly escalate when different systems are being merged. There will be data transfer costs, contracts that will still need to be paid and possible compatibility problems.

 

7) If it goes over cost how will that be funded- Will jobs and services be cut or will the Welsh Government underwrite such costs.

 

8) Will there need to be a new job evaluation and if so how will costs be funded- As different authorities produced different grades for the same job, on reorganisation will these need to be addressed because otherwise we will see different salaries for the same job across the new authorities.

 

9) How much will it cost to change signs, headed paper- Whilst not a substantial sum, the changing of signs and headed paper across Wales will add up.

 

10) Will travel costs be paid for staff relocated- On reorganisation a number of staff will have to travel, possibly long distances to their new site. Will all staff be paid travel costs and how will this be funded

 

11) Will there be any salary protection and if so for how long.

 

On the general report the following questions occur

 

1)      Why is it important that Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue has the same boundaries as ABMU as  opposed to the same boundaries as the  Police Authority

2)      Shouldn’t more be done to integrate services provided by the same provider e.g. Hospitals and GP services, Education and Children’s social services

3)      Why do you think Powys is unique it is approximately 1/5 of the size of the Scottish Highlands and also smaller than some other Scottish Authorities

4)      The Government has ruled out the merger of CADW and RCHAMW why do you think a merger would be beneficial

5)      On Unit cost of Local Authority Corporate management, the graph does not make sense (how can a graph where there is only one point on it not reach that point) and if the top three in costs  were removed it equates roughly to a straight line

6)      The 2012 GVA for Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend is £14964 and for Swansea £15469 indicating the GVA in Bridgend Neath Port Talbot is 96.5% of the GVA in Swansea,  why does the commission consider this variation would concentrate deprived regions.

7)      As Health boards have been identified as “too remote” why would the same not  be true of very large Councils

8)      Why would larger authorities not make silo working and risk aversion worse

9)      What evidence from Wales or the rest of Britain is there that bigger authorities are better. Birmingham is the biggest unitary authority in Britain does the commission think it is the best despite the well documented problems there. What evidence is thee that the three largest authorities in Wales (Cardiff, Swansea an RCT) out perform the others

10)  Why was the models used in the rest of Europe not studied in  more depth

11)  What examples have the Williams Commission got of one local authority being split between two city regions(Bridgend in the Cardiff City region and Neath Port Talbot in the Swansea City region)

 

 

 

 

 

 

My views on the second supplementary budget

I support of the second supplementary budget

Unfortunately the budget follows the substantial public expenditure cuts of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition in Westminster and the affect that has had upon Wales and public services in Wales

Firstly I would like to correct the Conservatives on Health expenditure

2003-04	4,170,585	10,914,434	38%
2013-14	6,541,454	16,167,748	40%

 

An increase of over 56%

And an increase of 2% in the total Welsh budget spent on health

At the current rate of increase Health will soon be over half the total expenditure by the Welsh Government

£150 million was announced by the Minister for Finance in October to meet new demands arising from the Francis Review. £142.6 Million is to be funded from reserves and 37.4 Million from Invest to save.

As someone who strongly believes in invest to save I will be looking to see how this invest to save money has generated savings in future years.

£50 Million is being held in a contingency fund in case some Local health boards are unable to achieve a breakeven figure at the end of the year.

The Welsh Government have indicated to the Public accounts Committee that the January estimated end of year deficit position of Local health boards was just under £77 Million.

Historically the January estimated overspend has come down by the end of the financial year.

Health board budget positions have become depressingly familiar.

Substantial overspend in the first quarter

Stability in the second quarter

Some improvement in Quarter 3

Substantial savings in quarter 4

Of course when we talk about Health board overspends it is really short hand for Hospital overspends

 

Questions I hope the Finance Minister will ask the Minister for Health

·     If each hospital carried out each procedure at the cost of the cheapest how much would be saved?

·     Which areas of each trust are causing the over spends?

·     If the situation reported to the public accounts committee in Betsi Cadwalladr trust of the board agreeing a budget but departments considering those budgets indicative and refusing to accept them exists in any of the other trusts?

·     How the cost of medicines that go out of date and have to be destroyed varies between the best and the worst performing trusts, hospitals and wards?

Leaving Health

I warmly welcome the allocation in the supplementary budget of £79.3 Million to the Wales Infrastructure Fund.  With £32.5 Million allocated for SME investment fund and £34.5 Million allocated to help to buy Cymru.

An example of allocating finance to meet the priorities of Labour and the people of Wales.

Finally I congratulate the Finance Minister on the supplementary budget.

 

 

 

The changing face of Local Government in Wales

The membership and make-up of local councils, especially in cities such as Swansea and Cardiff, has become more diverse and varied over the last 25 years. When I was first elected to the world of local government at the tender age of 32 back in 1989 on the old West Glamorgan County Council – which at the time consisted of a large Labour Group with a hefty majority - I was considered very young, possibly too young to be a councillor, amongst a group of predominantly men aged over 60 and retired.

 

Needless to say, local government and local democracy has come a long way since then!

 

Today, Swansea Council has a gender mix of 42 men and 29 women, with at least three of its members openly gay. The Swansea Council Labour Group is even more gender balanced with 21 women and 27 men, whilst the Labour councillors in my own constituency of Swansea East strike a gender balance of 10 men and 10 women.

 

In terms of the average age, there has been a remarkable shift with at least 4 councillors still in their early twenties, including Cockett Ward’s Mitchell Theaker, who I believe holds the impressive title of being the youngest Cabinet Member in the UK.

 

On ethnicity, Swansea Council also has two black female councillors, one of whom was selected by the local Morriston Labour Party to replace me as the Labour candidate when I stood down from the council in May 2012 to concentrate on my role as an Assembly Member.

 

I realise not all Welsh local councils have made the impressive progress that has been achieved in Swansea towards producing a council membership that is far more representative of the areas and communities it covers; however progress has been made in other parts of Wales.  

 

For local government to be transparent and accountable, it relies upon an active and open local press. Again in Swansea, we are lucky in that we have a local paper that is both daily, and closely follows the activities and business agenda of our local council. Of course, when I was Council Leader, there were times I wished it had followed the council less closely!

 

But with the reality that very few members of the public attend council meetings, it’s even more imperative that the press is there to report accurately and fairly what is happening and what decisions are being taken by the people we have elected to watch over our City.   After all, it’s through the local press that most people will get their council and local political news from, which further highlights the role of the press in the scrutiny and decision process.

 

That is why I was pleased that the previous Welsh Government Minister for Local Government, Carl Sargeant, gave his blessing for local councils to continue to publish certain statutory notices, including planning applications, in local papers. If that money and “business” had been removed from the local press, I believe that it would have seriously curtailed local reporting.

 

At the start of this year, I welcomed the action being taken by the Welsh Government in recognising the importance of broadcasting and live streaming council meetings, which led to funding worth £1.25 million being divvied out between councils to improve local democracy and strengthen public engagement.

 

Although, I’m not naive enough to think that this funding will lead to the viewing figures of council meetings rivaling that of Coronation Street, I am fully behind the idea of broadcasting and live streaming council meetings on websites.

 

In a modern democracy where technology is used on a daily basis, it’s only right that members of the public see how decisions affecting their everyday lives are taken, as well as having the opportunity to play an active role in the scrutiny process.