UKIP's Neil Hamilton rejected as assembly commissioner

The topic chosen by Sian Gwenllian (Arfon) for the Short Debate is Assembly Member job-sharing.

She suggests that allowing Assembly Members to job share would lead to the creation of a gender-balanced Assembly and one that is more representative of the population as a whole.

A plan by UKIP to nominate Neil Hamilton to represent the party on the body that oversees the assembly has been defeated.

There were 17 members for, 3 abstained, 31 against.

If Mr Hamilton had been successful in his bid to be an assembly commissioner he would have gained an extra £13,578 on top of his £66,847 basic backbench AMs' salary, bringing his total pay to £80,425.

He had earned £85,000 a year as leader.

One of the commissioners is Joyce Watson - a Labour AM who has been the target of criticism by Mr Hamilton overher description of UKIP AMs as "rabid dogs"in a debate a year ago.

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Education Secretary Kirsty Williams highlights that "to support schools and raise standards the Welsh Government is

a) providing an additional £36 m to reduce infant class sizes;

b) supporting the creation of new school business managers to reduce unnecessary workload and allowing heads to focus on school standards;

c)working with the profession to reduce classroom bureaucracy as well as boosting professional learning;

d) proposing to use the devolution of teachers’ pay and conditions as an opportunity to elevate the status of the teaching profession; and

e) investing over £90m in the Pupil Development Grant to support Wales’ most disadvantaged learners."

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On behalf of UKIP, Michelle Brown calls on the Welsh Government to "bring together key stakeholders in the education system to consider:

a) the way funding is allocated; and

b) the ways that budgets allocated to local authorities, consortia and schools can be streamlined and simplified to reduce bureaucracy and make more effective use of the overall educational budget."

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On behalf of the Conservatives, Mark Reckless says that "the agreement between the Welsh Government and the UK Government on the Welsh Government’s fiscal framework delivers around £1.20 of funding for Wales for every £1 spent on education in England".

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Llyr Gruffydd calls on the Welsh Government to:

a) bring together key stakeholders in the education system to consider alternative funding models for schools;

b) maximise transparency and minimise bureaucracy in school funding; and

c) ensure that all schools have sufficient funding to deliver a high quality education for all pupils.

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The topic chosen for the Plaid Cymru debate is school funding.

The party says there is a "funding crisis in Welsh schools", which is having an "impact on teacher workloads, staff morale and availability of school resources which, in turn, has a detrimental impact on children’s education".

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Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care, Huw Irranca-Davies calls on AMs to acknowledges that the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 "gives carers a right to have their own needs as a carer assessed and for assessed and eligible needs to be met by local authorities".

He calls on AMs to welcome "the Welsh Government’s national priorities for carers and the formation of a Ministerial Advisory Group on Carers to ensure the implementation of the Social Services and Well-being Act makes a real difference in the lives of carers in Wales".

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UKIP group leader Caroline Jones highlights that "unpaid carers of all ages save the NHS and social services in Wales over £8bn per year, yet a vast majority of carers feel their contribution is not valued or understood".

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On behalf of Plaid Cymru, Bethan Sayed calls on the Welsh Government to set milestones for the young carers advisory group and provide regular updates to Assembly Members on their progress, to ensure consistency across all parts of Wales in the roll-out of a young carers’ card, which should include access to discounted transport, and to clarify how much of the proposed £3 million funding for carers’ respite will be allocated to young carers.

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On behalf of the Conservatives, Suzy Davies calls on the Welsh Government to "implement the Welsh Conservative policy for a young carers future grant, which would ensure young carers are supported to pursue further and higher full time education and training opportunities".

She also calls on the Welsh Government to publish figures for how many carers' needs have been assessed since the introduction of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 and how many of those assessed needs have been met.

Finally she calls on the Welsh Government to introduce a right to respite for both carers and those they care for.

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The topic chosen by the Welsh Conservatives Debate is carers.

11 - 17 June is Carers Week 2018.

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Minister for Housing and Regeneration Rebecca Evans sets out the government response to the report, which can be seen in detail here.

Six recommendations are rejected. including that automatic priority need for accommodation for prison leavers is reinstated.

The Welsh Government says it will "await the outcome of the independent assessment before considering any change to priority need. Any decision would only be taken when the full implications are understood and when we can be sure to avoid unintended consequences."

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Conservative Janet Finch-Saunders did not support several of the report's recommendations, "as I do not feel the current model of priority need under the 2014 Housing Act should change".

Committee chair John Griffiths (Newport East) presents the report, which has 29 recommendations.

The first recommendation is that the Welsh Government:

• immediately strengthens the Code of Guidance for Local Authorities in the Allocation of Accommodation and Homelessness to set out a clear expectation that rough sleepers should be determined as in priority need for accommodation under current legislation;
• brings forward an Order under section 72 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 to specify that “rough sleepers” have priority need for accommodation as the first step in a phased approach to abolishing priority need entirely; and
• works with local authorities and the homelessness sector to develop an appropriate and sufficiently robust process for verifying rough sleepers for the purpose of assessing priority need for accommodation.

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The first debate of the day is on the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee report: Life on the streets: preventing and tackling rough sleeping in Wales.

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Neil Hamilton says his objection to the new Dignity and Respect policy - regarding concern that AMs might be policed in their private lives - had related to the Michelle Brown case, in which she was excluded from the assembly without pay for a week over a racial slur she used to describe a Labour MP.

"If the assembly approves this appointment this afternoon I will perform the obligations of commissioner to the best my ability with the kind of professionalness and honesty and integrity I think I have displayed in the two years I have been here," he says.

Independent AM Mandy Jones opposes the nomination "for many reasons", but especially because Neil Hamilton abstained on a vote aimed at tackling inappropriate behaviour in the Senedd - the new Dignity and Respect policy.

"I do not see how his position is compatible with the role of an assembly commissioner," she says.

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