The
proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken
in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous
interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied
corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the
transcript.
Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:10
The meeting began at 09:10
|
Cyflwyniad,
Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datganiadau o Fuddiant
Introduction, Apologies, Substitutions and Declarations of
Interest
|
[1]
Mike Hedges: Bore da. Good morning, everyone. Can I welcome
everyone to the meeting? I remind people that you’re welcome
to speak in Welsh or English. Headsets are available for
translation of Welsh to English. There’s no need to turn off
mobile phones or other electronic devices but please ensure any
devices are in silent mode. Apologies and substitutions:
we’ve had an apology from Janet
Finch-Saunders and David Melding is substituting. So, welcome,
David.
|
[2]
David Melding: My pleasure.
|
[3]
Mike Hedges: That takes us on to—.
|
[4]
David Melding: I do have a declaration of interest. Can I
just put on the record that I have in the past backed calls for a
Dinas Powys bypass or, certainly, for the investigation of the
scheme to be completed?
|
[5]
Mike Hedges: Thank you.
|
Deisebau Newydd
New Petitions
|
[6]
Mike Hedges: The first new petition is a ‘Public
Petition for the Dinas Powys By-Pass’, which we received last
week. The local authority’s study of traffic in Dinas Powys
is due to conclude in April. A bypass for Dinas Powys is not
currently included in the Vale of Glamorgan local development plan.
Until 2010, the Welsh Government had a grant programme for
large-scale transport infrastructure schemes, but funding currently
only appears available to smaller projects. Details have been made
available. Possible actions: I think the one I would recommend is
that we write to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and
Infrastructure asking whether the Welsh Government has had any
involvement in the current study into the Dinas Powys transport
network and, if so, would he be able to update the committee once
it’s concluded, which is meant to be this month. Are we happy
with that?
|
[7]
David Melding: So, we’ll write to the Minister and
then, contingent on that reply, decide if any further
action—
|
[8]
Mike Hedges: Yes.
|
[9]
David Melding: I would just say for the record that some of
these schemes—and anyone who’s driven on that road will
realise why there are periodic calls for it—have gone on for
20, 30 years and I don’t think this serves the public
interest greatly. There does need to be definitive decision making,
with that clearly explained, and I’m not sure that’s
ever happened. There’s another study or there’s some
sort of consultation, the local authority holds a public meeting
and then people feel slightly, I think, lost in the whole process.
So, I’d suspect that what the petitioners are really focusing
on at the moment is that they get full consideration. So, I think,
as a first step, that’s a good way to proceed, Chair.
|
[10]
Mike Hedges: We will get a reply and then we’ll decide
what we want to do. If the Minister says the Minister has no
involvement, then we will obviously write to the Vale of Glamorgan
Council.
|
[11]
Gareth Bennett: The Vale of Glamorgan Council—.
It’s kind of one of these things that seems to be falling
between cracks, because the Vale haven’t particularly pushed
for the bypass themselves. Of course, we’ve got council
elections coming up now, it might change, but they’ve tried
to say, ‘Oh, the problem is going to be at the Merrie Harrier
junction, so, the actual bypass wouldn’t resolve the traffic
issues’. But, to be fair to the petitioners, they’ve
actually done a detailed job and they’ve got their own
proposals for that junction, for the Merrie Harrier junction. So, I
think we need to do what we can to make sure it doesn’t just
fall between the Welsh Government saying, ‘It’s up to
the council’, and the council saying, ‘Oh, the regional
funding has stopped’ and all the rest of it.
|
[12]
Mike Hedges: Neil.
|
[13]
Neil McEvoy: I just picked up on the issue of the local
development plan and it just seems to be another plan that is just
not fit for purpose. I think that’s reflected in the fact
that the petition is before us.
|
[14]
David Melding: I think, certainly, the case in the last 20
years—you know, Barry has grown and, with house prices being
what they are and Cardiff growing economically, Barry is
increasingly seen as a very attractive place to live. Having lived
in Barry myself, it’s a very pleasant environment. But
it’s been somewhat unfashionable in certain quarters and I
think that’s turned a lot as people have been looking around
for places where they may live if they can’t afford to live
in Cardiff directly. We’ve seen that in the developments
around the Barry docks, which are fed pretty much on this route.
There’s a good train service, it has to be said, but
it’s the combination of these factors, and I think
that’s the type of thing that needs to be looked at in the
regional transport plan. I’m sure, as you’ve said, this
would be a good way of starting a process where this is
discussed.
|
[15]
Mike Hedges: What we normally do is we have something coming
in and we write to the appropriate Minister to get that response
and then we write back to the petitioners and, if there’s not
a meeting of minds, then we decide how to take it forward.
|
09:15
|
[16]
Okay, the next one, ‘School Buses for School Children’,
submitted with 1,239 signatures. There’s a bit of confusion
over the petition—its call for dedicated school buses for all
school pupils argues pupils should not be required to travel by
public transport, but it doesn’t call for it to be free of
charge. It also doesn’t talk about the two or three mile
limits that currently exist. We know that all dedicated buses must
have a seat belt. The Cabinet Secretary states that pupils are
entitled to dedicated at two miles at primary school, three miles
secondary. The Cabinet Secretary says, beyond this, provision is a
matter for local authorities, which isn’t quite true, because
there’s also the Safe Routes to school, and if there’s
not a safe route—even if it’s under two miles or under
three miles—then it becomes a reason for them to provide, or
a necessity for them to provide, transport. The Welsh Government
has provided non-statutory guidance. The petitioner’s raised
additional comments about CRB/DBS checks not being required for
drivers of public buses and have reiterated their call for pupils
to be entitled to dedicated school buses. We could contact the
petitioner to get some clarification on some of the
points—whether she wants to reduce the distance from two and
three miles, whether it’s meant to be free or only free where
it’s free by law. So, if we can get that further information
from her we can look at it again.
|
09:16
|
Y Wybodaeth Ddiweddaraf am
Ddeisebau Blaenorol
Updates to Previous Petitions
|
[17]
Mike Hedges: Updates on previous petitions—’Save
TWF Services’, submitted by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg and
first considered on 14 February. We wrote to the Minister for
Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language for clarification on which
local authority areas Cymraeg i Blant is currently working in and
further details on how the national element of Twf is now being
taken forward by the Welsh Government and to await the views of
petitioners. We’ve had a response from both the petitioners
and the Minister. The Minister’s outlined the areas that
it’s covered. The petitioners have welcomed this announcement
and stated that restoring these services across the country is
positive news. They’ve also commented on the
Government’s long-term financial planning regarding
increasing use of the Welsh language. The petitioners are happy,
so, traditionally, when petitioners are happy, we close the
petition. Are we happy to do that?
|
[18]
We’ve got two to be taken together, ‘Slaughter
Practices’ and ‘CCTV in Slaughterhouses’. The
Cabinet Secretary has asked for the publicly-appointed annual
health and welfare framework group to consider the industry task
and finish group report at a forthcoming meeting to assist her in
consideration of whether CCTV is necessary in Welsh
slaughterhouses. It’s anticipated this will happen before the
summer recess. The petitioner’s raised concerns about
significant flaws in the methodology of the task and finish group
report, including the membership of this group, which primarily
comprised of industry representatives. The petitioner has urged the
Cabinet Secretary to consider the full range of evidence available
before determining what actions are taken. I think we ought to send
the most recent comments to the Cabinet Secretary and have an
update from the Welsh Government when appropriate and come back to
it.
|
[19]
‘Support for the Control of Dogs (Wales)
Bill’—this was submitted back in April 2013. The
petitioners are awaiting a meeting with the Cabinet Secretary,
which has obviously been cancelled due to the unavailability of the
Cabinet Secretary. So, can we await that meeting to take place?
Yes.
|
[20]
‘Call in All Opencast Mining Planning
Applications’—considered on 3 February 2015 by the
previous committee. In February 2017, the committee decided to
write to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs to
seek an update on the latest policy on this subject. We’ve
received a response. The petitioner has provided further comments,
which are also included in the papers for this meeting. We’ve
had a debate on opencast mining back in April 2015, which mentioned
this and others. We’ve had a reply from the Cabinet Secretary
for Environment and Rural Affairs on the other petition recently
received, and will be on the agenda for
the committee’s next meeting on 9 May. So, we could defer a
decision until we have the two of them.
|
[21]
Neil McEvoy: Yes.
|
[22]
David Melding: Agreed.
|
[23]
Mike Hedges:
‘Establish Statutory Public Rights of Access to Land and
Water for Recreational and Other Purposes’—last
considered on 14 February; response from Cabinet Secretary on 7
March. The petitioner has also made further comments, which are
included in the paper. Since it was first considered, various items
of correspondence have been received, both in support of, and
opposed to, the aims of the petition. We’ve had a number of
letters and e-mails from people who are anglers—I’m
sure you’ve all had as well, because I’ve had them in
my capacity as the Assembly Member for Swansea East, as well as
Chair of this committee.
|
[24]
The Cabinet Secretary has informed the committee that she intends
to consult on proposals to enhance the type and variety of land and
water available for a wider range of outdoor recreation. There is
no formal timetable for this consultation. The petitioner has
submitted detailed comments in response, and expressed frustration
with the length of time that it has taken to develop proposals for
reform in this area. But I don’t see how we can do anything
further until the Cabinet Secretary does do something. We could
write to the Cabinet Secretary with the further information
we’ve had from the petitioner, and, hopefully—
|
[25]
David Melding: It is a matter of real public interest. I’m
sure I’m not the only Assembly Member who gets written to by
canoeists and anglers on a regular basis.
|
[26]
Mike Hedges: I’m sure every single one of us does, and
there’s not necessarily a meeting of minds—
|
[27]
David Melding: No, indeed.
|
[28]
Mike Hedges: —or a willingness to share, on either
part.
|
[29]
Gareth Bennett:
I think it makes sense to send something
to the Cabinet Secretary. Maybe that will speed things up. Because,
at the moment, the worry is there isn’t any
timetable.
|
[30]
Mike Hedges: Yes. We would just want to get it resolved; I think
everybody does.
|
[31]
‘TB testing of cattle’—considered on 21 March,
and agreed to await the views of the petitioner’s response to
the letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural
Affairs. The response of the petitioner’s been received, and
is included in the papers. A consultation on a refreshed TB
eradication programme, which included proposals to move to
six-month testing intervals for herds in high TB areas, closed in
January. The Cabinet Secretary has stated that a substantial number
of responses are currently being considered. A statement on a
refreshed plan is due in early May.
|
[32]
The Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee has
recently undertaken an inquiry into bovine TB, and is due to report
in the summer term. The committee heard evidence from the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that six-monthly
testing in high-risk areas had seen beneficial impacts in England.
The petitioner outlined his concern with six-month testing,
including increasing costs to farm businesses, increasing stress on
cattle, health and safety implications for those carrying out the
tests, and logistical problems.
|
[33]
I suggest that we supply the petitioner’s comments to the
Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs, for her to
take into account in her deliberations, and also make this
available to the climate change committee. If they’re looking
at it, let’s—
|
[34]
David Melding: I’m a member of that committee. This is
a very fast-moving area, both because of the consultation and the
work that the committee has done. And there’ll be a lot of
public discussion on this in the next couple of months as well, I
think, so these concerns will certainly be ventilated. And
I’m sure the petitioner will be aware of these developments,
but they should be encouraged, obviously, to follow them, and to
use the normal processes that people have to influence the work
that goes on in the Assembly, via their Assembly Members, and
contacting the Minister.
|
[35]
Mike Hedges: Yes, but if we send all their correspondence on to
that committee, they can do with it as and what they
will.
|
[36]
David Melding: Well, I think it’s worth the petitioner being
told. This genuinely is receiving possibly a quite significant
examination at the moment. It is an area of public policy
that’s, if not going to get changed, then is going to get
adapted quite considerably, I expect.
|
[37]
Mr Francis: We can write to the petitioner along those lines and
inform them of those parts of—
|
[38]
David Melding: Yes. It’s definitely now is the time for them
to get their views across, and it’s kind of happening,
really.
|
[39]
Mike Hedges: And send everything we’ve had on to the
committee as well. Okay.
|
[40]
‘A Welsh Government Department for Europe Would Ensure a
Clear, Strategic and Accountable Voice for Wales in Ongoing
Negotiations’—considered for the first time on 11
October 2016, passed, with the petitioner’s additional
comments, to the External Affairs and Additional Legislation
Committee, and asked them to consider raising the issue covered by
the petition in their forthcoming scrutiny of the First Minister on
the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. A response to
the committee Chair was received on 8 March. The petitioner was
informed that the petition would be considered by the committee but
had not responded when papers to the committee were being
finalised. Still not responded?
|
[41]
Mr Francis: No.
|
[42]
Mike Hedges: The Chair of the committee has provided
information about the committee’s evidence session with the
First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local
Government, including on the capacity and resources within Welsh
Government. The committee recently published its first report on
the ‘Implications for Wales of leaving the European
Union’. The action is: we could await the views of the
petitioner. We could send them a link to the report.
|
[43]
Mr Francis: Yes.
|
[44]
Mike Hedges: ‘Land
& Access Lane Sale at Abercwmboi’ was considered for the
first time on 14 February. We’ve written to the Cabinet
Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure. A response from the
Cabinet Secretary was received on 30 March. The petitioner also
submitted further comments, which we’ve received. The Cabinet
Secretary has confirmed that the access lane is an adopted highway
that protects the route as a right of way. The petitioner met with
a Welsh Government official in January to discuss the potential
sale. It appears that several options for preserving the current
usage of the lane for residents were discussed during that meeting.
The petitioner remains concerned that the possibility of a fence
being built alongside the lane would restrict the ability of
residents to use their garages or rear gardens for parking. There
appears to be little further that the committee can do until
current discussions between the Welsh Government and the local
authority are concluded. The committee could write to the Cabinet
Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure to ask that he provides
the committee with an update on that point. Happy with that?
|
[45]
David Melding: Yes.
|
[46]
Mike Hedges: ‘Petition to Protect our High
Street’: first time on 14 February. Agreed to write to the
Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government to seek answers
to the specific questions raised by the petitioner. Received a
response. The petitioner was informed that the petition would be
considered by the committee but had not responded when papers for
the committee were being finalised.
|
[47]
Mr Francis: No response.
|
[48]
Mike Hedges: The Cabinet Secretary states that details were
announced in a statement to the Assembly on 17 February. Local
authorities will administer the scheme and ratepayers can contact
their council to discuss support they may be entitled to. The
Cabinet Secretary also provided a link to statistics on the
rateable value of businesses in Wales. We await the views of the
petitioners.
|
[49]
Long-standing petitions—this is a list of these:
‘Public Inquiry into ABMU Health Board’, which was last
considered March 2015. The petitioner considers the matter closed,
so we close it.
|
[50]
‘Proposed Ban on the Use of e-cigarettes in Public
Places’: last considered June 2015. The petitioner responded
to a request for comments and expressed his satisfaction with the
new Public Health (Wales) Bill. Close it.
|
[51]
‘Save our Services—Prince Philip Hospital’: last
considered February 2014. The campaign group that submitted it has
now disbanded. The petitioner states that the health board has
improved its approach in relation to consultation and that current
service provision at Prince Philip Hospital appears to be working
satisfactorily. So, close the petition.
|
[52]
‘Save our Hospital Services’: last considered February
2014, when consideration was put on hold due to a judicial review.
The Chair wrote to the petitioner on 3 March 2017 and two further
emails seeking a response have been sent. No response has been
received, so close the petition.
|
[53]
‘Save Prince Phillip Hospital A&E’: last considered
February 2014. The Chair has written to the petitioner on 23
February, and two further e-mails seeking a response have been
sent. No response has been received. Still none. Close the
petition.
|
[54]
‘Against Health Cuts from the Residents of
Pembrokeshire’: last considered February 2014. Written to
them in February 2017, and sent two further emails. No response has
been received. Happy to close?
|
[55]
‘Planting Trees to Reduce Flooding’: last considered
November 2015. Contacted the petitioner on 3 February 2017. Two
further e-mails. No response has been received from the petitioner,
so close it.
|
[56]
‘Eating Disorder Unit in Wales’: last considered
September 2014, when the committee agreed to take a watching brief.
The clerking team has recently sought to contact the petitioner,
but the contact details held no longer appear to be active. So,
close the petition.
|
09:30
|
[57]
Mr Francis: On this one, at your request, Chair, we did
contact Bethan Jenkins as well in the sense that she may have
contact. We haven’t heard back yet. So, we could hold that
one for longer if preferred.
|
[58]
Mike Hedges: Hold on until we—
|
[59]
David Melding: That might be wise because it’s
regularly discussed in Assembly proceedings and Bethan has, you
know, taken a very strong line on this and brought the whole issue
to public attention.
|
[60]
Mike Hedges: So, we’ll hold back and see if Bethan can
give us a means of contacting.
|
[61]
‘Please make Senedd TV accessible to deaf people’: last
considered in October 2014. We tried to contact the petitioner.
Again, can we contact the cross-party deaf group and see if
they’ve got any means of making contact?
|
[62]
Mr Francis: We can do, yes.
|
[63]
Mike Hedges: ‘Guarantee good support close to home for
disabled children and their families’: last considered in
June 2013. Contacted the petitioner on 9 March and a further e-mail
has been sent. There have been staffing changes in the organisation
that submitted the petition—Scope. We haven’t had a
response yet, but we’ll give them further time to
respond.
|
[64]
‘Secondary School Awareness of Self-Harm’: last
considered in January 2015. We contacted the petitioner 9 March and
a further e-mail has been sent. No responses yet. Give them further
time to respond?
|
[65]
David Melding: Yes, agreed.
|
[66]
Mike Hedges: ‘Medical Emergency—Preventing the
introduction of a poorer Health Service for North Wales’:
last considered in October 2015. A short research paper on the
current petition has been provided. The petitioner was contacted 20
March. No response has been received. Give the petitioner until the
next committee?
|
[67]
David Melding: Yes.
|
[68]
Mike Hedges: ‘Planning Control and the Welsh
Language’: last considered in October 2014. We contacted the
petitioners. No responses yet. Give them until the next
meeting?
|
[69]
David Melding: Agreed.
|
[70]
Mike Hedges: And that, I think, as far as they tell me, is
the end of all the historical petitions.
|
[71]
Mr Francis: It is, yes.
|
[72]
Mike Hedges: So, I’m going to suggest that we get, for
the next meeting, a list of the historical petitions by subject
area, and we also make that list available to each subject
committee, and if some of them want that to help with their work or
want to get involved in it, then they can do. Otherwise, we will
come back and start to make our way through those live petitions
and, hopefully, engage in more of these inquiries, like the one
we’re doing on disabled people and transport.
|
[73]
Mr Francis: Okay.
|
[74]
David Melding: I think it’s a very good idea to make
available the historical ones in a list to the various subject
committees, because, you know, we’re encouraging outreach and
public engagement and it would be, if nothing else, a good source
of possible contact.
|
[75]
Mike Hedges: I think that one of the greatest weaknesses of
this institution is our silo mentality, not just at Government
level, but at committee level as well. And I think that one of the
things this committee ought to be able to do is work with all of
the other committees. Now, there will be times when what
we’re doing will fit in with them and there will be times
when it doesn’t. But if it does, then it’s an advantage
for everybody. The one that I always think about is—this only
happens because I happen to be on the Public Accounts
Committee—the hospital food. The Public Accounts Committee
spent a huge amount of time looking at this and trying to get
progress on it, over several years, and the petition, sort of,
feeds naturally into it. Thank you.
|
[76]
Mr Francis: Do you want to take a five-minute break while
the witnesses come in?
|
[77]
Mike Hedges: Yes, we’ll have a five-minute break.
Thank you.
|
Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng
09:33 a 09:53. The meeting adjourned between 09:33 and
09:53.
|
Sesiwn
dystiolaeth: P-05-710 ‘Sicrhau y gall Pobl Anabl Ddefnyddio
Trafnidiaeth Gyhoeddus Pryd Bynnag y Bo’i Hangen
Arnynt’
Evidence Session: P-05-710 ‘Ensure Disabled People can Access
Public Transport As and When They Need it’
|
[78]
Mike Hedges: We now return into public session. Can I
welcome Steve Wright from the Licensed Private Hire Car
Association, and John Forsey, from the highways, transport and
recycling department of Powys County Council? Can I welcome you
both to the meeting? Thank you for coming along to help us with
this inquiry. If I can start off by asking a couple of questions,
then my colleagues will join in.
|
[79]
What do you think of the quality and accessibility of taxis and
private-hire vehicles for disabled users under the current
licensing arrangements? Basically, is it working for disabled
users?
|
[80]
Mr Wright: I’ll start if I may: clearly it’s
not. I’ve been involved in transport since 1967, in one way
or another, and there are lots of good things—wheelchair
accessibility and what have you—but there’s still a lot
to be done on the front line with regard to training and delivery
for people at stations—all modes. In my last eight years I
served on the Transport for London board and I worked alongside
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, a disabled person. Back in 1993, I
gave evidence with Bert Massie of RADAR on disabled issues. Yes,
things have come along and, yes, there is better provision but, at
the front line, it doesn’t happen and a lot of the points
that Whizz-Kidz have made in the petition are very valid.
|
[81]
Mr Forsey: I would echo that. I think there is a mixed
provision across Wales. I think there are some local authorities
that are pushing the boundaries a little bit. I think there’s
a lot that other local authorities could do to perhaps be a little
bit more proactive in this area. There’s actually quite a
good opportunity.
|
[82]
Mike Hedges: Do we need common national standards?
|
[83]
Mr Wright: Yes. One of the things—. I spent three
years giving quite a lot of evidence to the Law Commission, which
was looking at England and Wales. I know that you’re about to
get devolved powers on this, but I actually think the principles
that the Law Commission put in place were correct. I think, if we
do get some national standards, the inconsistency between local
authority and local authority will improve. I think national
standards are a good thing. I think, if the bar is set at a level,
everybody can aspire to it, and the delivery for disabled people
will become better.
|
[84]
Mr Forsey: Again, we’d echo that. As local authorities
and licensing authorities, we’d welcome a more consistent
approach, and to replace the perhaps antiquated legislation such as
the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, I believe it is. There is a
desire, I think, for some form of consistency across Wales. How we
roll that out across Wales and whether there’s a single
licensing authority, via the Welsh Government, monitored by local
authorities more locally—. There is always going to be the
issue, though, potentially, of the cross-border situation where we
have England and Wales perhaps operating under different taxi
licensing regimes. But generally there’d be a welcome
approach from the local authorities in Wales.
|
[85]
Mike Hedges: Because also you get people licensing in one local
authority and doing the vast bulk of their work in another local
authority. Powys was an example of where you had lots of Swansea
taxi firms and private-hire firms licensing in Powys and working in
Swansea.
|
[86]
Mr Forsey: Absolutely. It’s something we’d be keen
to look at.
|
[87]
Mr Wright: I would suggest that the cross-border issue is more
prevalent than it’s ever been because of technology enabling
people to do things outside of their own area. I think there is a
problem with that. Certainly, in London, where lots of people are
licensed, drivers are popping up all over the place. I think the
legislation doesn’t need to be protectionist, but it does
need to take account of local provision. Local provision, including
disabled provision, will be harmed if people from outside that
don’t meet the regime’s standards and requirements come
into an area. It devalues it. I think the Secretary of State and,
obviously, the devolved powers like yourselves and, indeed, people
like the Greater London Authority, do need to get to grips with
this. I think the cross-border issue is a particularly interesting
aspect for you guys to look at.
|
[88]
Mike Hedges: Moving on to devolution, David.
|
[89]
David Melding: Thank you, Chair. As you’ve already alluded to,
we do get powers, under the Wales Act 2017, over licensing and
regulation. Those powers, I think, will come into effect in April
of next year, so we’ve got a year. I wonder, do you think
there should be a consultation process and a thorough review of all
this, with the aim of considerably improving the current system?
Because, I think, Mr Wright, you referred to your past experience
in Parliament, when the debate was very much focused there with
looking at these sorts of issues. So, how ambitious should we be
and how, initially, should we go about it? Would you start with a
consultation with the industry?
|
[90]
Mr Wright: Absolutely. I think that’s always the best
place to start. I think it’s—. I’m aware that
consultations—. In the London Assembly, last week, they said
that, ‘We mustn’t make consultations tick-box
exercises.’ If consultations are done properly and
stakeholders—like the disabled, like the trade, like the
local authorities—are thoroughly engaged, you get the right
outcome. So, for me, a thorough, well-worded, well-structured
consultation is the absolute way to start the process.
|
[91]
Mr Forsey: Again, I echo my colleague’s views there. One
of the benefits we feel as local authorities is, where there is
consultation, there will be perhaps more of an impetus for the
Welsh Government to listen to the local views that Welsh local
authorities are putting forward. We feel that consultation is
paramount—to engage with all stakeholders, to start to create
legislation that’s absolutely relevant and
appropriate, and perhaps a little
bit futureproofed as well, going forward.
|
[92]
Coming from a transport background as
well, I think there are opportunities. For example, in Powys, I buy
in roughly the services of around about 150 taxis a day. Now,
perhaps through the Learner Travel (Wales) Measure 2008,
there’s an opportunity to tie all this in together in terms
of training and delivering the most appropriate outcomes for
passengers.
|
10:00
|
[93]
David Melding: You’ve mentioned cross-border issues
and training a couple of times, so presumably those would be very
much central to the consultation. But are there other areas that we
would focus on, if we were really trying to improve public policy
in this area?
|
[94]
Mr Wright: I was on the GoSkills industry training board for
a long amount of time, which covered the whole of the UK back in
the day I was on it, and we did get some NVQs and various other
things, but because of the patchwork quilt of local authorities,
the actual training is delivered in a very different—. You
know, different standards mean different levels of training. I
actually think, if you get to the national standards, then you can
get a national framework for training. Then, you can get a national
framework for getting the bits and pieces in the street, like the
step access, that the ramps come down and the bus can actually park
by the—. All the way across the piece, you can do that. So, I
think you’re absolutely on the right track there of really
getting down to getting this cross border—getting the
standards national. You absolutely need local control. Localism is
the right way to do this, but it needs to map into national
standards, national training and national delivery. So, from my
point of view, I would say that’s the way to go.
|
[95]
Mr Forsey: Again, taking the mixed-bag approach to licensing
in the authorities in Wales, after doing a quick little bit of
research, I think there’s about three or four local
authorities in Wales that mandate that, in order to gain a licence,
you have to follow some form of disability training. That could be
a BTEC in the professional standards for taxi drivers. Ceredigion,
for example, use a condensed version of the MiDAS training, which
again helps deliver outcomes in terms of securing passengers
properly into their vehicles and just creating that awareness
around DDA issues as well.
|
[96]
You’re absolutely right in terms of accessibility, in terms
of taxi ranks in towns. It’s a bit of a dilemma for local
authorities, in that it could be taking up valuable car-parking
space for the traders, yet we need to recognise the value that
taxis do have for people who have no other means of transport. So,
there’s a mixed bag that we need to consider in terms of the
legislation, in terms of the infrastructure, and the licensing
perhaps.
|
[97]
David Melding: And to extend it a bit further: we do
have a general consultation aimed at improving standards across the
industry, not necessarily just focusing on accessibility issues for
disabled people, although that would probably be a substantial part
of any consultation. Should we be looking at improving standards
more widely? How would we go about this consultation?
|
[98]
Mr Wright: Well, what I would suggest is that a lot of the
hard miles have been done by the Law Commission. Obviously, the Law
Commission, as a neutral body as opposed to a Government body, has
looked in depth, but I think technology has moved on. Therefore,
another good look-see by your own Assembly would be a good way to
do things. You know, things change. Apps have now come in.
|
[99]
David Melding: So, this is capturing Uber and the like,
is it?
|
[100] Mr
Wright: That’s right. Things have changed. There are
things about that system that are good, but there are things about
it that are awful as well. And the regulation is rather—. The
loopholes have been exposed in the regulation. So, the regulation
needs to be firm, it needs to work, and it needs to
deliver—not just for the disabled community, but for the
community at large. At the end of the day, the travelling public
are the winners if it’s done properly. At the moment, when
you’ve got people who can exploit regulation, use their tax
offshore and all the rest of it to avoid paying tax in the UK,
it’s not right. It actually undermines the people who are
doing it properly. So, it’s very important to get your
consultation process right and to focus on those things.
|
[101] Mike
Hedges: Thank you.
|
[102] David
Melding: And you definitely think this is the approach, in
terms of looking at the regulations and standards and having those
enforceable benchmarks, rather than a less severe, non-regulatory
approach? Or could we combine them? How would you react to
that?
|
[103] Mr
Wright: Well, personally, when I went along to see my
first Government Minister in 1993, he said to me,
‘We’re for deregulation, but actually there’s a
balance.’ With regard to public safety and transporting
people around, you do need to have regulatory control. I think you
need to balance very carefully not red-taping the industry with
allowing it to work and deliver the best service possible. So, I
think there’s the balance to find there, and I’m sure
that you’ll do that through your consultation.
|
[104] David
Melding: And Mr Forsey, you perhaps have experience of
how—through the best intentions—you can out-regulate
people from the market, which doesn’t exactly help local
people, necessarily.
|
[105] Mr
Forsey: Absolutely. I’ve been involved with the voluntary
bus quality standard consultation that the Welsh Government are
trying to—. It’s not without its challenges. It’s
about striking the right balance and making sure we deliver the
right outcomes. It’s a question of how far do we want to take
the consultation and how far does the Welsh Government want to
legislate or regulate. For example, is there an opportunity to look
at something that is quite close to a lot of rural authorities in
Wales—community transport and how that is regulated and
controlled and how they fit into this mix? To my mind, I’m
absolutely clear that taxi licensing is a form of public transport,
and, if we’re going to apply good-quality standards to buses,
perhaps there should be a similar consistent quality to other forms
of transport that complement the bus and the train networks, such
as community transport and taxis.
|
[106] David
Melding: It’s an area often overlooked, I think,
community transport in this whole accessibility area. It’s
one thing to improve how to get on to a bus, but, for a lot of
people, that’s not feasible in the first place and they will
need more bespoke services, and they need to be captured. Thank
you, I thought those answers were very helpful, Chair.
|
[107]
Mike Hedges: That was very helpful. Neil.
|
[108]
Neil McEvoy: Thanks—really interesting. Maybe I should
declare an interest in being a Cardiff councillor as well. When you
mentioned the local authorities, I just wondered which ones were
more proactive than others and where you see the gaps,
really.
|
[109]
Mr Forsey: The city and county of Cardiff, which mandates
disability training and BTEC, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Bridgend, and
Ceredigion, I think, are the four that I’ve been made aware
of. I think there’s a lot of scope for other local
authorities to perhaps catch up with those four, specifically on
this issue. There are amendments to the Equality Act 2010 that
mean, if you have a disabled-access vehicle registered with a local
authority come 6 April this year, it will become an offence if the
taxi driver discriminates. So, hopefully, it may resolve some of
the issues that Whizz-Kidz were referring to, in that taxi drivers
were refusing to take people in wheelchairs. Hopefully, that may
start to address the issue. I don’t think it’s going to
completely resolve it. It may start to address it.
|
[110]
Neil McEvoy: Yes. So, do you think training across the
board—mandatory training—would help?
|
[111]
Mr Forsey: Absolutely. In my mind, I think there’s an
opportunity if local authorities looked at it holistically, in
terms of, if we’re the licensing authority, we’re also
buying in large numbers of transport, especially for learners with
special educational needs and more rural transport. There’s
an opportunity there to mandate some quite specific and appropriate
training across the board for a taxi licensing company, which
shouldn’t be too onerous either.
|
[112]
Neil McEvoy: Yes. Do you think the same, Mr Wright?
|
[113]
Mr Wright: Yes. If I could cover training, because I was the
first company in the UK to get a national training award and
Investors in People, so I’m quite focused on training and the
needs of training. I think the important thing about training and
the resource for training is there is grant money available for a
certain amount of courses. Training should be modular. It’s
no good training a private-hire driver who hasn’t got a
wheelchair ramp in the back of the vehicle to be able to use a
hoist. It really does need to be modular and appropriate and fit
for purpose.
|
[114]
One of the things that tends to happen
with training, at times—and it’s not a good
thing—is everybody’s trained to do everything, rather
than focusing on the people who do a specific job, whether it be
bus, train, taxi or private-hire vehicle. If the training is
modular, it’s effective, and the resource is used better, and
any grant money that’s available is also spread amongst those
who need it. So, you know, you wouldn’t need to teach a
private-hire driver who probably takes—. I remember Bert
Massie saying this to me: not everybody’s in a wheelchair.
Many, many disabled people are blind, have an assistant dog, or
whatever. You need to focus on training those—what to do with
an assistant dog, where to put it in the stairwell, et cetera, et
cetera, et cetera—and not train them up in how to get a
wheelchair into the back of a taxi. So, it’s very important,
training; it’s absolutely integral to what you’re
seeking to achieve, but it absolutely needs to be modular and fit
for purpose for the job that it’s trying to
achieve.
|
[115]
Neil McEvoy: Okay, thanks.
|
[116] Mike Hedges: The
other problem that disabled people have is that, quite often, they
want to do short journeys and there are some taxis that
aren’t very happy to do short journeys. We had a case
in Carmarthen fairly recently where a taxi driver refused to take a
lady a short distance. She needed to travel that way due to her
health problems. Have you come across those sorts of problems and
have you got any solutions to them?
|
[117] Mr
Wright: Well, that’s unacceptable as far as I’m
concerned. Having run a cab company that started with two cars and
ended with 100 cars, I had about 2,000 drivers working for me and
believe you me, some of them don’t like short journeys. But
they don’t like short journeys per se—they’d all
like to be going to the airport or on a tour of the world and
making as much money as possible. But it comes with the turf in the
industry that you have to do all jobs. You are there as part of
public transport, and as part of public transport you’re
providing a service. You’re providing a service for everybody
in the community, including the disabled, including special needs
and including the hospitals and everybody else, and you need to be
there for everybody.
|
[118] I must say,
it’s not just on disabled journeys. Drivers don’t like
short journeys because they think that they’ve lost out on
the big one. But, that is something that, with regulatory power,
should be dealt with. If a driver is reported for refusing a
disabled person, they should be suspended in my view. Some sort of
disciplinary action should take—. It’s not acceptable.
If you’re in the industry, you can’t cherry-pick what
you want to do. That’s my view on that.
|
[119] Mike
Hedges: Thank you very much.
|
[120] Mr
Forsey: Absolutely. You know, taxi companies come into business
and you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth. Coming from
a fairly small town in mid Wales, I would suspect that most of the
journeys undertaken by our taxi companies are relatively short
journeys, with the occasional cream of going off to the airport.
Again, it’s that expectation—if I’m going to show
up and present myself to a taxi, I want to be carried. It
doesn’t matter where I want to go. That’s where the
customer wants to go.
|
[121] Mike
Hedges: Thank you. Gareth.
|
[122] Gareth
Bennett: Just carrying on on that issue of the short journeys,
it’s interesting that Cardiff is one of the authorities that
has better practices for training and disability issues, because in
the evening the short journeys do become an issue with people
trying to get home after a Saturday night out, for instance. It has
been a bone of contention reported in the paper, the South Wales
Echo, continually over the last couple of
years—there’s been a major issues with girls, single
girls, not being able to get a taxi for a short journey back to
where they live from the city centre. Oddly, the taxi association
has become embroiled in it because the guy who was running the taxi
association was one of the people accused of not taking people for
short journeys. So, obviously I can’t comment on that case,
but it perhaps illustrates the difference between things that are
written down as good practice and the practice that gets pursued by
the taxi drivers. So I wondered what you thought about that.
|
[123] Mr
Forsey: I just wonder whether there is an opportunity here for
those situations—I know it’s very difficult to
prescribe now, but there’s perhaps an opportunity for some
amendment or something to car-sharing legislation. If you’ve
got young, vulnerable people on a Saturday night, who’ve
perhaps had a little bit too much to drink, but they need to get
home safely, perhaps through technology, I don’t know how,
but we could pool these young people together and make a number of
shorter journeys a bigger journey, especially within a city
environment. It doesn’t just apply to a city environment. In
a rural environment, we have the towns where people will fall out
of the hills and come into the main town for a bit of a night out,
but then they have the same trouble with getting home. It’s
that critical mass issue as well. There are issues that could be
addressed, perhaps through some form of new, modern
legislation.
|
[124] Mr
Wright: I think, certainly, a ramping up of training to tell
drivers that it’s not acceptable, is the starting point, but
that then needs to be backed up with the risk of losing your
licence if you don’t take people. For me, it’s a bit of
carrot and stick here. Drivers are drivers. They all want to do the
long jobs, but it’s not acceptable—you’re public
transport, you can’t be in and out of it when it suits you.
If you’re in there, if you’re available for hire, there
should never be, ‘I can’t take this person because
of—.’
|
[125] Gareth
Bennett: I think there might be an issue in Cardiff. I’m
slightly speculating, but there might be an issue whereby the
drivers association has probably become a sort of unofficial trade
union for the taxi drivers. So, It might be that the council, as
the licensing authority, doesn’t want to come down too
heavily on the taxi association. Obviously, good relations need to
be maintained, but on the other hand, as the licensing authority,
surely they have a responsibility to uphold the standard. So, is
that another balance that has to be struck?
|
10:15
|
[126] Mr
Wright: Well, as somebody that runs a trade association, it
would be absolutely unacceptable for me to be saying,
‘Drivers who work for my operators don’t want to do
certain jobs.’ I would not have any alignment whatsoever with
any trade body that wasn’t prepared to do its piece as a part
of the public transport system. At the end of the day, it’s
not negotiable for me.
|
[127] Mr
Forsey: The ever-present issue of reducing resources
within the local authorities, and how we apply the monitoring of
the licensing regime, at the moment, I think, it’s very
reactive to customer complaints. Perhaps we need somehow, working a
bit smarter, to be more proactive working in this new regulated
industry.
|
[128] Gareth
Bennett: Thanks for your answers. They were good and helpful.
But, my fault, I did take us slightly away from the disabled issue
because there was that general issue of short journeys. The
disabled group that came in, they particularly were highlighting a
problem that sometimes they feel they have to wait longer to get a
taxi, and in some cases, appointments get messed up because of late
arrivals. Could anything be done in particular to alleviate those
problems?
|
[129] Mr
Wright: I picked that out from the slides that I’ve
read through and studied as one of the more difficult things to
resolve. At the end of the day, we had specialist vehicles within
our private-hire fleet that I ran, and if—. The being
instantly available is not easy. If you try to make every single
vehicle wheelchair accessible, for example, that wouldn’t
help blind people and people that want a low seat and not to have
to climb. There are various trade-offs, and the one thing
that’s not easily resolved by regulating or any other method
is guaranteed fast provision. Now, I would suggest that if
you’ve got an appointment, or you’ve got various things
to do, do what we all do: if we’re going on holiday, we
don’t book it five minutes to flight time, do we? A little
bit of pre-booking would help, and I think that’s advice for
the people. That way, they get a good spread of private-hire
vehicles and taxis that can do the various different jobs. Some are
special needs, some are blind people, and some are deaf people. We
used to take all sorts of disabled people, and I think, in fairness
to the trade, a little bit of notification will get you the vehicle
that you want. It’s not difficult to book half an hour in
advance.
|
[130] The one thing I
think you can’t expect from this whole slide that they ask
for is an instant service, because they do have different needs
from normal passengers. You try to do and provide everything you
can for them, but if you pre-book, you will actually find that you
should always get the vehicle that you want and it should arrive on
time. I had a lot of disabled passengers that used us, used our
private-hire company, and we got to the relationship with them of,
‘We don’t want to let you down. If you’re going
to the doctor’s, if you’re going to the hospital, if
you’re going to the clinic, if you’re going to a
special function, let us know, we’ll make sure we’ll
get the drivers in for you.’ So, I think there’s a
little bit of self-help on that particular one, but most of the
other things are resolvable with regulation and training.
That’s the difficult one to answer.
|
[131] Gareth
Bennett: Yes, I appreciate that there is going to be a limited
number of vehicles, perhaps, they can use. I guess, in reality,
they probably know that pre-booking is a good idea, but on some
occasions, I suppose something arises and you can’t always
pre-book, but I take on board that you’re not going to get an
instant service. I wondered what you thought about when a taxi
fleet gets fitted out for various disabled users—should there
be guidelines as to what proportion of taxis are wheelchair
friendly, what proportions of taxis in a local authority area are
friendly to the blind, et cetera? What would your views on that
be?
|
[132] Mr
Forsey: We have a relatively small number of
wheelchair-accessible vehicles that we know about within the fleet
within my local authority. I suspect that’s varying again
across Wales. However, it strikes me that I suspect there are taxis
available—wheelchair-accessible taxis—that are
available in certain parts of Wales, at certain parts of the day,
that aren’t available. What do I mean by that? I think there
are examples where local authorities are buying in
wheelchair-accessible vehicles to take learners with special needs,
for example, to school. The taxi company may take the view that
they’ve earnt enough money there, ‘Thanks very much, I
don’t want to be out on a Friday and Saturday night.’
Quite how we encourage or regulate or make those vehicles available
throughout the day for a longer period of time is a challenge.
However, to my mind, that’s part of the public transport
provision, especially for people who have disability problems. That
perhaps could be a bit of a wasted resource, and again I come back
to my point about the local authorities, the licensing authority
and the school transport bit, and how we all work together. Social
services will have a role in this as well, to try and make these
vehicles, perhaps, more available.
|
[133] Mr
Wright: From my perspective, obviously having run a fleet, in
the industry that I’m in, as a private-hire operator, most
people are self-employed. So, which drivers would you choose to
tell, ‘Well, you 10, out of the 100 I’ve got, have this
type of vehicle’? It just doesn’t work, applying it. I
think it’s difficult to do that. There aren’t many
owned fleets. It’s a bit of a myth that the taxi operator
owns all the vehicles. It isn’t that way; it’s usually
the driver who owns the vehicle. Therefore, it’s a real job
to quota them into this amount of vehicle and that amount of
vehicle. It’s very difficult to do that. So, I don’t
think that’s the solution.
|
[134] I think there is
a level that’s found, and I think that level is assisted by
incentives through Government or elsewhere to get specialist
vehicles. I think if you encourage people—. What some drivers
will say is, ‘Well, if I get a specialist vehicle, it
actually is going to cost me an extra £3,000 or £4,000
to get the testing, the wheelchair fittings done, seatbelt
anchorage points, and all those sorts of things. There’s no
extra money for doing this, so if I can get some sort of subsidy,
I’m the type of person who would like to do this.’ And
I think there are more subtle ways, rather than mandating that 10
per cent of the fleet should be wheelchair accessible or specialist
needs. I think there’s a subtle way of doing it.
|
[135] Gareth
Bennett: And there are none of these subsidies existing at the
moment, then.
|
[136] Mr
Wright: Well, you can get subsidies from the local authority.
I’m more experienced in London, but I don’t know
what’s available through a council. I mean, obviously, money
does go—certainly from London councils—out to
Dial-a-Ride and various other people to provide various bits and
pieces and special needs stuff, and of course there is work as
well. Councils also procure and have the opportunity through their
procurement to say, ‘Well, you’ve got a better chance
of this contract if 25 per cent of your vehicles are wheelchair
accessible.’ There’s a sort of subtle way of doing it
without mandating it on fleets.
|
[137] Gareth
Bennett: Right, okay. Yes, that sounds like a good
idea—to use the carrot rather than the stick.
|
[138] Mr
Wright: Correct. I think it’s a good way.
|
[139] Gareth
Bennett: There’s an issue to do with the possibility of
phasing in the introduction of a requirement for 100 per cent
vehicle accessibility, but that might actually be what we’ve
just dealt with.
|
[140] Mr
Wright: Can I just come in on that point? Certainly, I have to
lean on my London experience. It’s a bit unique because
it’s 32 boroughs, and it’s a 10 million—8 million
to 10 million—population. And the way it works is to have the
privilege of being hailed on the street, you need to be a
wheelchair-accessible vehicle. I came in a vehicle—. I beta
tested the system today; I got a taxi from the hotel down here,
rather than a bus. I thought, ‘Well, I’ll give them a
whirl and see how we get on’, and it was fine, and I said,
‘You’ve got wheelchair accessible’, ‘Yes,
we’ve got that.’ And I think if the taxi has that
wheelchair-accessible capability mandated, it works, and the
private hire, as Bert Massie said in evidence to the transport
committee, he actually said, ‘Well, we need private hire to
be not wheelchair accessible, because of the different seat levels
and the different needs and the different types of passengers that
you take.’ He was very keen to point out that not
everybody’s in a wheelchair. He was in a wheelchair, but he
said, ‘I speak for everybody’, and we have to look at
the disabled across the spectrum, rather than just one group of
disabled people. So, I think when you’re going to possibly
mandate wheelchair accessibility, you create quite a few problems,
and you actually inadvertently discriminate against other disabled
people.
|
[141] Mr
Forsey: I think Mr Wright here has presented a perfect example
of how the consultation—we referred to consultation
earlier—how wide it needs to go, because there will be
disabled people, there will be blind people, there will be other
user groups that all need to be consulted, because they will all
have a view, and what we wouldn’t want to do, through
unintended consequences, is to apply something that doesn’t
help another part of the sector.
|
[142] David
Melding: You’re aiming for consistent availability,
really, aren’t you?
|
[143] Mr
Wright: Correct. Absolutely.
|
[144] David
Melding: To achieve that, obviously you need careful
consideration.
|
[145] Mike
Hedges: I’ll take on the last question from me,
it’s: are the taxi ranks designed correctly? Should more be
done to make them not just wheelchair useable? Buses have those
raised kerbs to make it easier to go on, although you do have cars
parking now that does away with it. You also have the situation
that you have some that are not necessarily situated—. Not
just for people who are in a wheelchair, but others who have
difficulties—people who are blind, I mean. Some of them
don’t have that, sort of, raised area where their stick tells
them when they have come to the end of the kerb, and that sort of
thing. So, do you think more needs to be done to make taxi rank
designs more suitable? Because far too often, in my experience,
what happens is they find the parking bit of the land, they put
‘Taxis Only’ on it, and then it’s okay for 90 per
cent of the population.
|
[146] Mr
Wright: You’re absolutely right. On my journey with the
Transport for London board, as I say, I worked with Baroness Tanni
Grey-Thompson and we decided to make a public transport journey to
the Victoria coach station. Lo and behold, the bus couldn’t
get the ramp out to the kerbside in Victoria, which is right in the
middle of central Westminster in London. It’s the same with
the ramps and what have you: they do need to be designed. At the
end of the day, what we did on the underground was that part of the
underground platform was at a raised level for a roll-on, roll-off,
and it’s the same with taxi ranks: you don’t have to do
the whole streetscape—100m of it; you only need to do little
things to make a taxi rank far more accessible and far more
user-friendly for the blind, for the disabled, for the wheelchair
users. Yes, it costs money, of course, but it would
complement—. The fact that if you mandate the wheelchair
accessibility, it would complement that.
|
[147] Mike
Hedges: Thank you.
|
[148] Mr
Forsey: Absolutely. I think this comes back down to a
consistent standard across Wales. I mean, personally, I don’t
see why somebody in Cardiff should be treated any differently in
terms of their accessibility to a taxi than somebody who lives in
Powys or Wrexham. It’s about trying to get that consistency
of approach. Yes, capital funding to develop taxi ranks, et cetera,
is always going to be a challenge for local authorities, but
through grants such as local transport funding, for example, there
may be opportunities to develop to complement existing public
transport provision as well. For wheelchair users to have
accessible bus services, potentially, they will probably want to
get to a taxi to complete their journey if they’re going to
visit a friend or a hospital or something. I think we just need to
take a bit more of a collective view over how we design taxi ranks
to complement the other forms of public transport as well, and to
give that consistency.
|
[149] Mike
Hedges: Are there any other questions? If not, can I thank you
very much for coming along? You’ve certainly helped inform
our discussions, which will take place at our next meeting with the
Minister. Thank you. It’s been very enlightening. Thank
you.
|
[150] Mr
Forsey: Thank you very much.
|
[151] Mr
Wright: Thank you very much. It’s been an honour to
come.
|
[152] Mike
Hedges: Thank you.
|
10:28
|
Cynnig o dan Reol
Sefydlog 17.42(ix) i Benderfynu Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o Weddill y
Cyfarfod Motion under Standing Order 17.42(ix) to
Resolve to Exclude the Public from the Remainder of the Meeting
|
Cynnig:
|
Motion:
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bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o
weddill y cyfarfod yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog
17.42(ix).
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that the committee
resolves to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting in
accordance with Standing Order 17.42(ix).
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Cynigiwyd y cynnig. Motion
moved.
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[153] Mike
Hedges: Can I move us back into private session for a few
minutes?
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Derbyniwyd y cynnig. Motion
agreed.
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Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am
10:28. The public part of the meeting ended at
10:28.
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