The Blue Print

Our campaign to protect the Llanishen Reservoir has received another boost thanks to a decision in the High Court.

The owners of the site decided to question whether the Assembly Government was right to list the structure for its historical significance. Many of us had argued for some time that recognising the engineering contribution of this reservoir was in keeping with the listing that had already been applied to the three other connecting reservoirs.

Yesterday HH Judge Milwyn Jarman QC  ruled against Western Power Distribution on all the points that had been raised. This is superb news for our campaign and confirms what we all thought, that the Government was right to acknowledge the role that Llanishen has played since its construction.

As the AM in whose constituency the reservoir is based I am delighted with this outcome. However the battle doesn’t end here. Ultimately we need to be in a position where the site is protected from the threat of development and as far as I am concerned the only way to do this is for Cardiff Council to make a compulsory purchase of the site.

Cardiff Council has now decided to propose a 4^thoption for the reorganisation of school places in Whitchurch and once again they ignore the damage they will do to the excellent standards in this part of Cardiff North.

Having been part of a superb local campaign against the three previous options for change, the council is still determined to close one of the primary schools and reduce the size of the high school from a 12 to a 10 form entry, thus removing 60 pupils per year from the school.

The council still doesn’t get it. Whitchurch for both primary and secondary education is popular with pupils and parents, we produce excellent results and the breadth of the curriculum provides opportunities for students in many subject areas. The schools are well subscribed and the problem of surplus places in other parts of the city isn’t one which affects the north of the city.

Whitchurch, along with the north of the city generally is changing. Younger families are moving in and the demand for primary education, even on the council’s own figures, is likely to increase. Culling one primary school demonstrates not only a lack of vision but an ignorance of the standards achieved in this community.

Yet again this is an attack not just on excellence but on parental choice. The message from county hall is that the more successful you are as a school, the more sceptical and unsupportive our council will be. And beware because this issue not only affects the community of Whitchurch but those surrounding areas from where pupils are able to attend the high school at present. Rhiwbina, Birchgrove, Llandaff North and Gabalfa are all within the high school’s catchment area at the moment but if their children can’t attend the school in future where does the council propose to send them?

Cardiff Council is more interested in penalising success and dumbing down our education system instead of raising standards in schools where there are problems.

It was roughly this time last year that I stepped aside from the Conservative Shadow Cabinet, having been a front bench spokesman for the previous 10 years.

During the past year I have enjoyed the freedom accorded to backbenchers, the flexibility to speak on any issue and champion any cause, and as an ordinary AM without a policy responsibility it is refreshing being able to see the wider picture. These past few months have also allowed me to throw myself into the role of chairing the Public Accounts Committee.

As the Chair my role is quite varied, in addition to chairing the meetings and giving our function a sense of direction I have a close working relationship with the Auditor General whose appointment I recommend to the Assembly, and with the Wales Audit Office. Earlier today I visited the office to speak with the staff.

The past few weeks cannot have been easy on them. As an office their role is to support the work of the Auditor General and as such they would have worked closely with the former holder of this office. His departure shocked not only those of us in public life and those in the media, but importantly would have been felt in the audit office itself. I went there today to reassure them of our support for their work.

We are fortunate in Wales to have a big team of highly qualified, committed and professional audit staff. Their reports to the Assembly are of the highest quality, and in addition to their work in auditing public bodies they are also a major contributor to the raising of standards in policy delivery and public expenditure.

The room this afternoon was packed. One could sense what a difficult time they had been through, but after I had formally congratulated our new Auditor General Gillian Body one could also sense a new start.

Last night my Legislative Competence Order on the devolution of powers to Wales to reform our mental health services was approved by The Queen in a meeting of the Privy Council.

This is the first time that an ordinary back-bench Assembly Member has succeeded in pioneering a transfer of legislative power from Westminster to Wales. The problem with being in opposition is that there are limitations on what can be achieved, the opportunity therefore to convince both the Assembly and Parliament of the pressing need to transfer powers is somewhat unique.

Now that these powers rest in Wales the Assembly can get moving with reforming mental health services which have lagged behind the rest of the NHS in responding to the needs of patients. In addition to giving early access to assessment, care & treatment, and advocacy, we need to use this momentum to tackle the stigma of mental illness.

The pain and suffering caused by a physical injury, perhaps a disease or broken limb or a hospital stay all inspire sympathy from friends, neighbours and relatives. The pain and suffering caused by a psychological injury is not always seen in the same context, even though 1 in 4, perhaps 1 in 3 of us will encounter such an injury at some point in our lives.

As the Assembly Government now moves to the introduction of a Welsh law to reform mental health services we need to use the opportunity to deal with the perceptions of what mental illness is, and how any of us can be affected. It doesn’t matter what we all do for a living or how wealthy, intelligent, or fit we are because mental illness knows no boundaries.

If attitudes are to change then politicians need to take a lead, children need to be educated as part of their understanding of health issues and a wider debate is needed.

Earlier today I asked the Local Government Minister whether should remove the social services function from local government and merge it with the new Local Health Boards.

This question built on my speech last week at the RESEC (Research in Specialist Elderly Care) conference in Bangor where I suggested that government departments ought to be working together in planning for our future care needs, and that they should be examining the regulatory framework & inspection regime to see whether it’s fit for purpose.

For some, giving the LHBs responsibility for social services would be a controversial step, especially those running our county councils; for others who are tired of poor performance in the delivery of social care this would be a sound move to make.

One of the biggest barriers to strategic planning and the provision of seamless care is the fact that two organisations are responsible for people in the health and care sectors. A person in hospital is the responsibility of the NHS, if they are discharged with a care package they will have the input of usually both health and social care workers, who in turn are accountable to the NHS and local government. In theory there’s no reason why this shouldn’t work but the practicalities are quite different.

The first problem is at the point where a person is capable of being discharged to their own home but the discharge planning is flawed. According to hospital managers local government are slow to put in place an appropriate package of care, I suspect they are right. However many of our hospitals are also slow to ensure that the district nursing service is lined up and involved in advising on the appropriateness of the discharge. Age Concern told me this week that they are seeing an increased number of unsafe care packages being put in place. This is a disgrace for a nation that purports to care about the elderly.

The second problem is for those who require nursing care in a residential home. The experience of most families is the long drawn out battle between LHBs and local government over who should pay the care home costs where a person has, for example, dementia. By 2050 there will be 1.7 million people in the UK with dementia, an increase of 81%, and for many a care home is needed. Having had constituency experience of the disagreements between statutory bodies over funding this is a big issue. The dispute is usually over the actual level of nursing care required for the patient, a rather stale and impersonal spat between two organisations charged with caring for the individual.

Planning for our future care needs is one of the greatest challenges we face, we must be bold. Who exercises these functions is an important part of that debate.

The confirmation of a Papal visit to Britain later this year has already sparked controversy, less than 24 hours after the Pope officially announced it to the 35 Catholic bishops of England and Wales in Rome.

He certainly has been forthright in his comments, which some have seen as an unprecedented attack on the UK Government’s Equalities Bill. However, it should also be said that he did preface those comments by stating the UK’s firm commitment to the equality of opportunity for all members of society is well know across the world.

Whilst I do not completely agree with what he went on to say regarding the ‘violation of natural law’, I do have some empathy with the thrust of Pope Benedict’s argument.

What he is saying that pursuing the objective of giving people absolute equality to all has unintended consequences of unjustly limiting peoples’ religious beliefs.

I thought the Archbishop of Cardiff’s conveyed the Pope’s view even more cogently in today’s Telegraph. He said:

“The Church of course upholds absolutely the equal dignity of every person, irrespective of their faith, age and ability. But I think there is a misunderstanding because sometimes in government legislation, government equality seems to be that we are all absolutely equal, which we are not. We are equal in dignity but beyond that, each one of us is unique.”

Therefore, we should strive for individual dignity and individual responsibility but not individual or absolute equality because doing that we will always encroach on someone’s personal beliefs.

Whilst not a Catholic I am a Christian and currently a governor at a Church-in-Wales Secondary School in Cardiff. In my view faith schools for example should have the option to employ someone of that faith to lead the direction and ethos of the school with personal conviction. Otherwise the whole basis on which that school exists is undermined.

Whether you agree or disagree with the Pope’s comments, I think we should look forward to his visit. I have today called upon the Assembly Government to tell the Welsh public what discussions and actions it has taken to bring the Pope to Wales in September.

I am sure many Christians in Wales remember Pope John Paul’s very prestigious and successful visit to Cardiff in the very hot summer of 1982. This visit will only be the second visit of a reigning pontiff to Britain in over 470 years and as we have seen, they only come along once in a generation. So for Wales to miss out on this significant and high profile visit would not just be a huge disappointment to the Catholic and wider Christian community, it would be a huge disappointment to the whole of Wales

The news that Cardiff Airport is to revamp its terminal http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8474283.stm is very welcome, and for those of us in public life who have criticised the appearance of and services at the airport this is to be celebrated.

I hope that the planners and the Assembly Government prioritise these changes so that we can start a renaissance at Cardiff Airport. Unlike some of my colleagues in the Senedd I am a fan of air travel and the contribution it makes to the economy and the potential it has here in Wales. Having travelled quite a lot from Bristol in the past year and having seen the quality of the airports elsewhere in the UK, such as Newcastle (seriously…it is a fantastic airport!) it is time for Cardiff to seize the opportunity.

The big issue beyond redevelopment though is being able to attract more airlines to use the airport. If we want people to flood to Cardiff then the shiniest building in the world will not do it, they need airlines that take them to where they want to go and at prices which compare well with Bristol and Birmingham. We need the management at the airport and the Welsh Assembly Government to start attracting new airlines to Cardiff because at the moment a lot of business is simply going elsewhere.

For many of my own constituents being well placed near the M4, getting to Bristol and Birmingham is not a big problem and although slightly more inconvenient than Cardiff the financial savings make it worthwhile. Hurrah to a new terminal but where are the airlines?

Before Christmas our new First Minister appointed his new Cabinet, including the surprise promotion of Jane Hutt as the Minister for Business and Budget. The use of the word budget sounds like she was found in “Pound Stretcher”!

After her failings in health and education I suppose the natural next step was to take control of the Assembly finances. In the debating chamber today I asked her what discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer since her appointment. Cutting through the waffle in the reply she obviously hasn’t.

In all fairness she has met with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and she does keep in touch with officials but the man in charge is the Chancellor. I find in incredible that she hasn’t even had a telephone chat with him in light of the 17% cut to public expenditure which he has ordered. The Treasury are making plans for significant reductions in public spending in an attempt to reduce the deficit. In the Financial Times on Monday the Chancellor said that this was “non negotiable”.

Surely any capable Minister would want to know what the thinking at Whitehall is and what the likely impact will be for Wales. We are roughly one month into the new Assembly Government and already we are seeing a poor performance by our new budget Minister.

But I suppose that’s always the risk with budgeting

On Saturday I spent some time volunteering with a new initiative called the Cardiff Foodbank. I must admit it’s not the sort of thing I usually do, although I am involved in a number of charitable organisations.

In December I met with Ian Purcell one of the organisers who talked me through what the Foodbank does, and how it is linked into the UK charity. Foodbank asks people for food donations which can be stored and given through a voucher scheme to families in crisis who are identified by health and social care professionals.

I got involved as it caught my attention because the charity helps families in Cardiff, and it targets groups for whom there’s little community support.

I am not doing to apologise for believing that unless charity begins at home then we have little chance in fostering an understanding as to how to be kind to anyone else in the world. I know that there is considerable suffering outside of the UK but in fairness the government and organisations do an incredible amount of work overseas. We are all taken by the pictures of destruction, famine and disease on TV but the plight of our immediate neighbours can all too often be overlooked. The families in crisis helped by Foodbank are those where the effects of unemployment might be starting to hit hard or where an elderly person for example might have little or no family support. It’s the sort of situations where there’s not much help at the moment.

So on Saturday I helped out at Sainsbury’s in Thornhill where we encouraged shoppers to donate items from our shopping list and it was a massive success. The organisation was first class, we were ordered into three groups to hand out leaflets, collect items at the tills and load the food into the van. The generosity of the public was incredible; the spirit of human kindness on full display and apart from a few people who weren’t too interested the response was more than a tonne of food collected. One lady even donated a full trolley load!

I came away glowing, not because of what I did, but because of what I saw.

An excellent article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph on faith schools caused me to think about the future of those schools in Wales, especially in light of Edwina Hart’s comments during the Welsh Labour leadership campaign that they “should be left to wither on the vine.”

I attended the Bishop of Llandaff Church-in-Wales secondary school in Cardiff. It was the natural choice for my family where church played an important part in our lives. The decision wasn’t part of some middle class trend, I doubt at the time if my parents considered themselves to be in this category, it was a choice about the type of schooling based on their and my beliefs.

Church schools in Cardiff like Welsh medium schools are fewer in number than other maintained schools, and as a result their catchment areas therefore are usually wider. We had a good cross section of pupils from most of Cardiff, Barry and the Vale attending what is still an excellent school. The political left have traditionally seen faith schools as elitist and the comments by the Health Minister show a worrying lack of understanding.

I firmly believe in an expansion of faith schools, they provide excellent standards and are usually found in several slots in the top ten of schools. As opposed to being the preserve of the middle classes they can provide huge opportunities for pupils in areas who otherwise would have to settle for the local Comp. An education through the Christian ethos can be of tremendous benefit, where an understanding and appreciation of faith in our education system is capable of breaking down barriers in a society where we are becoming increasingly suspicious of others.

The lack of ambition for a diverse education system is holding Wales back and not providing an educational experience which promotes choice and responds to our diversity as a nation.