National Assembly for Wales

I have met my Cabinet colleagues to discuss equality within their portfolios and the gender review in particular. I chaired the first bi-monthly meeting of the gender review steering group on Monday. These meetings will maintain momentum and provide an opportunity to influence gender equality—and intersectionality—across our policies.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has statutory powers to assess the extent and manner in which a public authority in Wales has complied with the public sector equality duty. The Welsh Government works closely with the Commission on monitoring arrangements and on the Welsh Ministers’ report on equality.

The Superfast Cymru scheme facilitated the roll-out of superfast broadband access to over 32,140 homes and businesses in Caerphilly, investing over £7.6 million. The average download speed across Caerphilly is 67.7 Mbps.  

We are engaged in ongoing discussion with UK Government to ensure that Wales is fully represented during the UN reporting milestones of 2019, including the examinations of the UK under the UN convention against torture, and the UN convention on the elimination of discrimination against women.

The Welsh Government has been clear from the outset that leaving the EU must not lead to any regression in human rights protections. The Counsel General and I are working together to monitor developments with regard to equalities legislation and assess the potential implications for Wales.

The latest Ofcom 'Connected Nations update' shows 56 per cent geographic coverage for 4G services across the whole of Wales and 75 per cent geographic coverage for 2G, 3G and 4G combined. 

A range of improvements are being made across and within all Cabinet Secretary portfolios relating to digital transformation. I took a paper to Cabinet on 2 October discussing further opportunities for digital to support and accelerate transformation across the Welsh public sector.

Superfast Cymru provided almost 733,000 premises across Wales with access to fast fibre broadband. The average download speed across Wales is over 86.9 Mbps.

The principles of the 'Wales procurement policy statement' support all public bodies, including those in the South Wales West region, to secure best value from their third party expenditure.

Building on the work we have carried out in previous budgets and with the third sector, we have, as part of this budget, agreed a definition of preventative spend that will help to support future spending decisions. 

We have continued to protect local government in Wales from the worst effects of austerity in our settlement for 2019-20. The setting of budgets and council tax is the responsibility of democratically elected local authorities that are answerable to their local populations for the decisions they make.