15/02/2017 The Wales Report

Tonight on The Wales Report: What next for Wales' poorest areas?

We speak to Communities Secretary Carl Sargeant about his plans

after scrapping the Communities First scheme.

Is there a bright Brexit future on the horizon?

We'll hear from the leader of the Welsh Conservatives,

And Aileen Richards, the first female to sit on the

board of Welsh Rugby Union, tells us how she

thinks you can get more women into public life.

Good evening and welcome to The Wales Report.

First tonight, what next for Wales' poorest areas?

Remember you can join in the discussion tonight ?

When it was launched in 2001, Communities First

was the Welsh Government's big plan to tackle

poverty in Wales' most deprived areas.

But the programme has been mired in controversy

and concerns that it doesn't deliver.

Communities Secretary Carl Sargeant confirmed in the Senedd yesterday

that the scheme would be phased out.

With EU funding also at risk, that announcement

has left many wondering what support will be left for those communities

to help people out of poverty and into work.

In some of Wales' most deprived areas, local Communities First

projects provide a lifeline to those struggling with benefit changes and

poverty. You will notice it is getting dry so

what we're going to do is add the egg.

The programme here helped 120 residents into work last year,

teaching a range of life skills. People say it has helped them build

confidence. I was on the cookery course. I was

in a group for postnatal depression funded by Communities First. We were

offered this as an add-on for a qualification. If it wasn't for

Communities First I wouldn't have been able to afford to be able to do

the qualification or have childcare that they have paid for. It has

given me confidence for getting out there and doing it.

Those involved in the scheme say it is not just about finding people

work. Often more complex support is needed to help them turn things

around. Employability is key but only one

piece of it. People have low self-esteem and low confidence and

you just think they really, really need intensive intervention to help

get back on their feet and back into work and this is what we are doing.

And what we would like to carry on doing.

But despite pockets of success like this, Communities First has faced

huge criticism. Since it was launched in 2001, it has been mired

in concerns about the misuse of funds and even some high-profile

fraud cases. Most importantly, it has made no change to the overall

picture of deprivation in Wales. After 15 years and ?300 million of

investment, almost one quarter of people in Wales are living in

poverty. It depends on how we judge

Communities First. If we judge it as a poverty eradication programme,

let's be honest, it has failed. By and large, the poorest areas in

Wales are at the same. It is over 15 years since the programme was

introduced. I think we look at it as a poverty mitigation programme and

then it has had enormous successes. You have to ask what some

communities would be like without it.

It was confirmed that the scheme was to be phased out. People working in

the scheme and the people they support have already faced a long

period of uncertainty. The problem is when you make an

announcement as has been done, it already has effects. People are

already looking for other jobs which means that some of the services are

disintegrating already. My concern is that this is quite urgent because

I can tell you there is a lot of nervousness around at the moment.

Many of the same areas that are supported by Communities First also

received funding from the European Union. While it is true that those

two sources of funding that have -- have failed to lift Wales out of

poverty, the question marks hanging over them are causing concern.

A huge source of funding would disappear from the EU and from

Communities First. Parts of Wales could have their -- have core parts

removed. What will happen to those communities?

I think Communities First has been a success in many areas but it is

temporary Reef fresh. He announced your phasing it out and

the money will come to an end next April. What next?

We will look at interventions and other programmes. Communities First

could never be the only poverty programme. I am looking forward with

optimism to tackling poverty. What about the cookery course we

saw? Well that carry on? We will have a ?6 million revenue

fund and a ?4 million capital fund where local authorities can pick up

the best local programmes that are having a good effect. There are some

effective programmes but the poverty trap is stubborn and we have to do

something about it. A lot of projects were listed by our

speaker that said it was a sad day. There is no long-term vision for

tackling poverty. I don't agree with you. We are very

keen on making sure that all our policy interventions from government

and making sure that we're tackling poverty head on. The fact is that...

Why did you run backbencher described it as a sad day?

That is a matter for him and I think he is just misunderstood. He doesn't

agree with me but that is nothing new in any party. We have

opportunities to make sure communities across Wales are

tackling poverty and we will do that.

But you are more or less washing your hands of this. You're seeing to

local communities, it is up to you, you can carry on with the projects

or not. That is not the message. You're

working with them. 100,000 apprenticeships, the best childcare

anywhere in the UK. We are seeing that --... Let's not make this a sad

day for communities. What I don't understand is that of

the pot of money was available to amenities by Communities First, does

that no get spread through communities or is there a specific

poverty part? If you look at the whole Communities

First budget there is around ?3 million of savings. We will be

making stronger interventions in those other programmes to make sure

they link up better. One announcement yesterday was a ?12

million project that didn't receive much coverage. It will fund projects

similar to those in your VAT and those things that work we will

continue to do -- similar to those in your video.

It is not great timing for these projects due to coming out of the

EU. They are already facing uncertainty.

You are right. It is important that we plan for the future and that is

what we have done. Brexit and welfare reform have had to stabling

effects on our communities and we need to get a grip of this and

tackling poverty is one of this government's main priorities. We

have got to do something different. Do the same and you get the same

effect and we are not doing that. Britain's journey towards the EU

exit door is progressing. The House of Commons took the big

step of backing the triggering of Article 50 last week

and now the debate moves So we're a step closer to Brexit

but what will it mean for Wales? One politician who's full

of optimism about life outside the EU is the leader

of the Welsh Conservatives, How do you think the Brexit process

is going? Quickly enough? I think it is going well. The

detractors wouldn't say that but if you look at what Theresa May has

done around the negotiations, she has set up various ministries and is

going to bring forward a bill to consolidate all the legislation to

be done in tandem with the negotiations. He has stuck to her

guns and want article 50 in focus by the end of March.

What about the voice of Wales in that? None of the devolved regions

feel that their voices are being heard. Why do think that is?

I don't agree with that. The Prime Minister has shown her intention to

engage with devolved administrations. I think it is a bit

rich for Labour ministers to talk about not being heard when you look

at the First Minister was the actions and refusing to talk to me

even though I have offered to work with him. Theresa May has not taken

that approach and has had the First Minister of devolved regions around

the table and making sure all that feeds into the process.

You are not part of the white paper for the Welsh Government but where

would Common ground be with Carwyn Jones?

I think there could be a lot but I'm not just talking about Carwyn Jones.

The common ground would be about the transitional arrangements when we

come out of the European Union, how the United Kingdom will operate, in

particular around issues that might bring more responsibility to this

institution. The tape of landscape that we want on structural funds and

the Common Agricultural Policy for the UK. I believe that we could find

common ground. Let's look at funding because Wales

has been dependent on funding and you have said before the referendum

that you could guarantee that money would still come to Wales. David

Cameron was more cautious but you said you would guarantee that a UK

Government would get that money to Wales. Are you still guaranteeing

that? That money will be there to

distribute around the United Kingdom, without a shadow of the

doubt. Every ?2 and we only get ?1 back. A damning indictment is that

Wales still requires huge amounts of this money because successive

governments have failed to lift a GDP figures.

You see it as they are to be distributed around the UK but he

can't guarantee it will come here. Those are the political choices we

can make. Well your government make those

choices? Of course because we have a

government governing for the whole of the native kingdom, not a

government like the Labour administration here. We have created

a record number of jobs and increase prosperity levels. What we haven't

got regrettably in Wales is a government here.

Let's focus on Brexit. Whether the money will be the same. You cannot

guarantee. That money is there. It is the

political choice. People bought at the ballot box to see what type of

government they want. There will be a general election in 2020.

You will be in power. When we come out, there will be a general

election in 2020 and it will be manifested in what those parties

seek to do. It can bring that money into wheels. You will campaign to

bring that money here. But there will be less money coming from the

European Union if we had stayed in because all the indicators were

saying that that money was going east to the succession countries

rather than coming over to the countries that have historically

been in the European Union so less money would a comment.

You mentioned farming. We know that many Welsh

farmers voted to leave so why will they be better off?

If you look at the average age of farmers in European Union, there is

no way to build a successful industry. I believe that we will be

able to craft the Common Agricultural Policy that has

security and protection of the environment and elements to ensure

we do our bit for global warming and climate change and will be able to

craft that to be fit for the Wales and United Kingdom.

You mean a UK wide Common Agricultural Policy so when it comes

to making a deal with New Zealand you cannot guarantee that Welsh lamb

would be at the top of the agenda, can you? You're missing the point

about key priorities for agriculture so in the government has to sign up

to the idea we need food security and any government recognises the

importance of having food security is part of its policy because we

know there will be water shortages, there is global hunger regrettably

across the planet and any government that does not have food security at

the heart of its planning... Let us talk about Welsh lamb. Welsh lamb is

part of the portfolio. The Welsh ministers said a food trade deal

with New Zealand would be a disaster. This is the same Welsh

minister who said farmers are the best people to run their business.

Who said there is no such thing as UK agriculture. I would not put too

much store by what the Welsh agriculture minister says. You are

confident Welsh farmers will be at the top of the agenda for a UK

minister forming trade deals across the world? Of course. The

Conservatives are the party who stand up for rural Wales and rural

Britain and they will be campaigning to make sure the Welsh voices heard,

making sure we deliver for Welsh farmers to have an industry that has

succession at its heart so we have young people coming into the

industry and food security and environmental goals that the

taxpayer once. You said it is not right that some Welsh farmers, up to

80% or 90% dependent on EU subsidies but they need that money, there is

no guarantee they will get that money after Brexit. Good security at

the heart of your decisions, you have to put the money on the table.

Who puts the money on the table? The Treasury. The UK Treasury sends

money to Brussels and Brussels sends the money back. You are saying that

a UK Government after Brexit would still give those subsidies to Welsh

farmers? Those dependent will still get that money? Any government worth

its salt has food security at its heart. To underpin agriculture

because we have a Common Agricultural Policy... Yes or no?

You will need to continue to subsidise agriculture but we need to

move to a position where you get more money from the marketplace.

Every farmer I speak to want that goal and because of the way the

Common Agricultural Policy works we have not moved in that direction and

have become more dependent on subsidies. No farmer in Wales will

be worse off? That is the guarantee you made. Farmers in Wales have had

an extra ?30 million on the table because of the Brexit vault because

of the devaluation of the pound against the euro. Exports are

booming. I have not heard any of the detractors say we have got our

calculations wrong. People saying we would have economic collapse, record

unemployment and the country would go to the dogs. We have not had

that. Let us have some apologies from them because I stand by every

word I said and I will be heard to account. Let us have some apologies

from people who misled the Welsh public and that referendum. Plenty

of people cannot wait for Brexit and you are one of them. There are those

who have doubts that it is more complicated than they thought and

perhaps if there were to be a second referendum they would thought

different make. What would your message be to people who maybe have

regrets? The vote was 52-48. You cannot discount 48% of the

electorate who voted to remain and we have to take as many people along

this journey with us so we have a successful negotiation. We have a

successful exit from the European Union. I believe we can do that but

we must remember, especially from the Assembly point of view, that

will voted out, and we have a Assembly that by is in denial of

that result. You had Labour backbenchers castigating their own

constituents for voting out. You had other Labour members standing up and

seeing people would be slashing their wrists. Is that the language

people should be using? No. The referendum was fought on June 23.

Let's move on. We will deliver Brexit. Let us not look at our feet.

Let's grab the great opportunities ahead. On immigration, Carwyn Jones

has written to today's me to the decision to cut the numbers of

unattended migrants and children travelling here. Do you agree with

Theresa May or do you -- do you think there are too many children

coming here? I believe in immigration and that it supports us

culturally and economically. The referendum was about giving power

back to politicians in this country to make the decisions that control

immigration on our borders. We could well through the ballot box get a

government that says we will take everyone. You back Theresa May? It

is a wonderful thing called democracy. Theresa May of the Prime

Minister of this country who has to make the decisions on immigration

and she has made this particular decision. Do you back it? We are

putting over ?1 billion into the Middle East to support refugee

camps. We have a very good record and we have to make sure people stay

as close to the country they have been displaced from so that

eventually they can go back. Do you back her decision? The UK Government

has a very good record when it comes to supporting refugees and making

sure we are a home and sanctuary and we will continue to make sure that

we offer those solutions and put the resources in place to support

refugees. Do you back her decision when it comes to unattended

children? I back her decision when it comes to the immigration choices

she is making because it is for the whole country and we are putting

money on the table to support refugee camps and are taking

refugees and I believe immigration is positive economically, socially

and culturally. Positive discrimination, quotas,

all-female short lists, twinning, zipping -

they've all been a part of the debate on how to encourage

more women into In Wales' top 100 businesses, only

2% of chief executives are women. In Westminster, of Wales' 40 MPs,

just nine are women. Two years ago, in an

attempt to address this imbalance, the WRU appointed its first

female board member. Former businesswoman

Aileen Richards has told us of her experience

and how she would go about I joined in 1995 and it was a very

different world. We had 10% of managers female. 25 years later it

was 50%. That tells you about the level of change that is going on

driven by what was the good organisation who recognised that you

can run a better business and have better business results if you have

a diverse set of leaders. Typically whether it is in sport, Parliament,

business, there is still an underrepresentation but the good

news as it is much greater than it was before but there is still some

way to go. The board of Welsh rugby union is a board I sit on. I am a

woman. There was some scepticism from the board members when I

joined. Late in any new job you have to prove yourself, demonstrate you

add value and make a contribution, and that leads to acceptance over

time. It takes time because if you are going to develop females up,

whether it is through a club or through an organisation or politics

or whatever you have to create opportunities for them, give them

experiences, give them development, and with women you have to give them

confidence, mentoring and encouragement, because we know, all

the research shows that women are less confident at standing for

positions. In whatever field that is in. The belief of the WRU is that

you have to have the right skills and we have recently done a big

exercise in school profiling and the skills we need to be bored and where

we are going to get them from and recognition that will be including

women. That is absolute commitment that we have to drive a skills

agenda, drive the diversity profile, not just women, and that has to lead

to more women being represented on the board. The first thing, you have

to persuade people, is that it is the right thing to do. There has to

be belief that we will run a better board, business, Parliament,

whatever, because it is more diverse. We have to take them with

us through the power of persuasion because that is the right thing to

do. I'm joined now by Cerys

Furlong, the Chief Executive of ChwaraeTeg, a charity that

promotes women's equality. How big a problem is this? I would

agree with almost everything that Aileen said about behaviour change

needed. Our concern is that the pace of change is too slow. It has taken

134 years to get the first female onto the WRU board. The problem is

across the board, whether it is in politics, chief executives, and on

boards of companies in the private sector. Why? In the NHS 77% of the

workforce are women and in management it is 10%. Why is there

that block? There are a range of factors but simply put we conceive

of leaders and leadership in the way that we are used to seeing it. If

the current leaders are classic white male in the -- middle-aged we

are predisposed to think of future leaders in the same model. What to

do about it? Aileen suggesting it is about persuasion rather than the

stick. Maybe it is not about quarters or all women short lists of

twinning and slipping as some parties have done. What do you think

of these mechanisms to promote women? There is no one silver bullet

and no one intervention whether from the government or voluntary is going

to make the breakthrough. I agree we need that behaviour change and we

need to make the argument but we have been making that for decades

and have not seen the change. We would support things like quotas as

the necessary legislative nudge but hopefully as a short-term measure

and when we get that mass of women representing the public and private

sector that will not have to remain. They often cause rows, all women

short lists, within the Labour Party for example, some of those women

might feel they are only there because they had help, if you like.

It is all about skills and women should compete on their skills base.

You are saying that is almost utopia and we are not there yet. Yes, I do

not buy that. Women compete on their skills but unfortunately when we are

assessing those skills and looking for future leaders we are situating

that within narrow mindset that is within our existing perception of

what good leaders should be. Is it historical or is there sexism? There

can be sexism but our research has shown that there sexism, we are not

seeing that certainly in the work we have done around public

appointments. We think we could get gender balance in this Assembly with

some concerted effort around this. It is working with boards so that

they aim for gender diversity explicitly and that might be around

quotas but it is also about building a bigger pool of talent because we

need to give women the confidence in their skills to be able to do it.

What do women bring to a boardroom? Why do we need these skills? They

are 50% of the population. No one woman is ever going to speak for all

women. It is about increasing diversity across the piece but this

is something we can do. We know it works. We know it increases the

representation and we make better decisions for the people we work

for. Is the political leadership there? We used to have 50% Assembly

women leaders. The political drive is there but too often we are at the

end not the means and if we want to get to the end we have to put the

effort in and put the steps in place to get there.

If you'd like to get in touch with us about what's been discussed

tonight or anything else, email us at

[email protected], or follow us on social media

where the discussion continues - the hashtag is #TheWalesReport.

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