Wales Welsh Government News

An expected announcement on tax and borrowing powers for the Welsh Government has been delayed.

The UK Government had previously said it would respond in the Spring to an independent report which recommended transfer of certain financial powers.

The Welsh Secretary now says talks are continuing.

• Politics
• Silk Commission
• Welsh Government

Welsh Secretary David Jones has been explaining why an expected announcement on calls for the Welsh Government to be given borrowing powers and control over taxes has been delayed.

• Politics
• Welsh Secretary
• David Jones

Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith has criticised a delay in the UK Government's response to a call for the Welsh Government to be given the power to borrow money. He says it means 'the gaping hole in Wales' capital budget still isn't being addressed.'

It is hard to know if this is simply incompetence or whether our Secretary of State’s antipathy toward devolution is blocking the borrowing powers. Either way, it is Wales and the Welsh people that are losing out as David Jones continues to deny the Welsh Government the tools they need to kick-start the Welsh economy that is being failed by the Tory-led coalition.

• Politics
• Owen Smith
• David Jones

An announcement on the prospect of the Welsh Government gaining borrowing powers won't be made this week as had previously been expected.

Welsh Secretary David Jones had previously said that the UK Government's response to the Silk Commission would be made in the spring which he said was defined as ending on June 21st. The Wales Office say there won't be an announcement before June 21st. David Jones says,

We have made good, positive progress in our assessment of the Silk Commission's recommendations. We expect to make an announcement in the very near future.?

• Politics
• Silk Commission
• Wales Office

The Conservatives have renewed their attack on the Welsh Government for not following Westminster's example and defining the public's right to report, film and tweet what happens in local council meetings.

This time the criticism has come from a Tory party official after complaints from Cardiff Bay that an earlier letter from the Local Government Secretary, Eric Pickles, was 'entirely inappropriate' and showed 'astounding ingnorance'.

The Labour Administration in Wales is openly opposing the right for journalists and bloggers to tweet, film and report meetings. It is obscene that Welsh bloggers are being handcuffed and arrested in Wales for reporting meetings because they don't have the legal rights that English bloggers now have. No amount of bluster can disguise the fact that the Labour Party are the enemies of openness and on the side of town hall tyranny."

• Politics
• Eric Pickles
• Welsh Government

The First Minister says the Welsh Government's working relationship with the UK Government is 'professional, business-like, constructive, numerous, complex and sometimes frustrating.' Carwyn Jones' comments follow further evidence given to the Silk Committee which is looking into further devolution.

The evidence sets out the view from Cardiff on how the two governments work together. It says there are 'many good examples of effective joint working' but complains about UK Government communications.

UK Government communications can be a major issue and there are occasions when the UK Government makes announcements that relate primarily to England, but have significant implications for Wales, without prior consultation.

There's also concern about delays caused to Welsh Government legislation as a result of 'the complexities around the boundaries of the devolution settlement' and a charge that the implications for Wales of changes at a UK level aren't always factored in.

The implications for the devolved administrations of some very significant UK Government reforms are not always factored in to UK Government planning at a sufficiently strategic level and some changes are imposing very significant unfunded costs on the Welsh Government, to the detriment of devolved services.

• Politics
• Welsh Government
• UK Government

A fledgling aerospace firm headed by heavy metal legend Bruce Dickinson has announced a £5m investment.

The Iron Maiden frontman is fast becoming as big a noise in the world of business as he is in the music industry.

He hailed the Welsh Assembly Government today for backing his company's ambitious expansion to the tune of £1.6m.

Cardiff Aviation Limited was set up in July last year and is jointly run by Mr Dickinson and his business partner Mario Fulgoni.

His firm is an aircraft maintenance and flight training group with headquarters within the Welsh Government's St Athan-Cardiff Airport Enterprise Zone.

The investment was announced today at the Paris International Air Show. The rest of the cash will come from private backers.

• Business
• Welsh Government
• Iron Maiden

Responding to claims by Plaid Cymru that ambulance waiting times for emergency calls are not being met the Welsh Government says the proportion of calls which resulted in a response of 20 minutes or longer represents 6.8% of calls received by the Welsh Ambulance Service.

While recent improvements in performance are encouraging, more needs to be done to ensure performance improves in the long term. The Minister for Health and Social Services has accepted a number of recommendations made following the recent review of Welsh Ambulance Services, with focus on delivering a clinical service to ensure patients receive the right response, at the right time and in the right place.

There is wide agreement that the eight minute target should not be seen as the only measure of ambulance performance. While speed is particularly important for some conditions such as cardiac arrest, there is little clinical evidence to suggest other less acute conditions would benefit from a blanket eight minute response. We are currently exploring how ambulance service performance can be measured to better reflect the outcome for the patient, not just the speed of arrival.

• Health
• Welsh Government
• Ambulance

More than 11,000 emergency calls in Wales took ambulances more than 20 minutes to respond to, according to figures obtained by Plaid Cymru.

One Category A call took 7 hours to reach in the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board area while another in Cwm Taf took over four hours figures out today reveal.

Plaid Cymru submitted a Freedom of Information request to find out how many calls were responded to within 10 minutes - eight minutes is the target, 10-20 minutes, 20-30 minutes and more than 30 minutes.

Elin Jones, Plaid's Shadow Health spokesperson, said: "To have more than 11,000 of the most urgent calls taking more than double the target time of eight minutes to respond to is disturbing. These calls can be life and death situations where time is crucial.

Last month The Welsh Government said more needed to be done to raise the performance of ambulance response times. Figures released in May revealed they had missed their target for eleven months in a row.

• Health
• Welsh Government
• Ambulance

Plaid Cymru has welcomed the Welsh Government's move to introduce an independent panel to limit the pay of council chief executives. The move is contained in an amendment tabled by the Local Government minister to the local democracy bill.

All three opposition parties had joined forces to force the u-turn by the Welsh Government by threatening to vote against the bill. Plaid's Simon Thomas confirmed that his party will support the legislation and has confidence that the independent panel will keep salary levels down.

He also dismissed warnings from the Welsh Local Government Association that the move could lead to legal challenges. He said the WLGA had been 'defending the indefensible' and hoped that, after 'an initial flurry of huffing and puffing' it would offer leadership.

• Politics
• Plaid Cymru
• Simon Thomas