When I challenged the Transport Secretary, Ken Skates, in the Assembly over transport issues in North Wales, he dodged both the key call in the North Wales Growth Bid for him to delegate powers to a new North Wales Regional Transport Body, and the Statement in the 12th January 2018 letter sent to Mr Skates by Wrexham Council’s Lead Member for Transport that he is ‘concerned that there does not appear to be any evidence to suggest that any tangible progress has been made thus far to arrest the decline in the local bus industry’. Bus sector representatives had told me in Committee the previous week that everyone was still waiting to hear an outcome and for direction from Mr Skates’ Wrexham Bus Summit a year ago, and subsequent workshops.
Speaking in the Debate on the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee Report: ‘City Deals and the Regional Economies of Wales’, the next day, I quoted the North Wales Economic Ambition Board’s Statement to Committee that “Devolution of functions to North Wales that matches that of neighbouring English regions is a defensive necessity and a desirable enabler of growth”, and asked Mr Skates “Will he therefore have the courage to devolve the powers that North Wales is calling for - or could the Cardiff command-control mechanism compromise the whole project?”. Noting that after almost two decades of Labour Welsh Government, Wales remains the poorest part of the UK, with West Wales and the Valleys, including 4 North Wales Counties, bottom across the UK at just 64% of UK average production, and even Flintshire and Wrexham at only 89%, I stated that “the Growth Deal Bid therefore seeks both to maximise the cross border opportunities presented by England’s Northern Powerhouse and to spread prosperity westwards”.
Questioning the Leader of the House, I highlighted concern raised with me by Welsh Women’s Aid that the funding towards specialist violence against women, domestic abuse, and sexual violence services received from the Welsh Government Health Department had fallen from £355,000 last year to just £34,000 in 2017-18, where funding has instead passed to regional Health Boards for allocation, but this has not happened.
Questioning the Assembly Commission, I highlighted the need for the National Assembly to become more accessible to North Wales.
Assembly engagements included FUW Farmhouse Breakfast, Welsh Refugee Coalition 'Sanctuary in the Senedd' event and ‘40 years of Welsh Women’s Aid’ celebration.
I also attended BMA Wales’ briefing on the current state of General Practice in Wales. We heard that 6 more GP practices in North Wales were ‘at risk’, that 13 had been placed under Health Board management, that this meant it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage the practices and that funding allocated to the Health Board was not fully filtering down.
I visited the inspiring young people who created the first ‘Youth Shed’ in Denbigh, providing a safe place for young people to develop.
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