Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:07 pm on 11 June 2024.
Vaughan Gething
Labour
2:07,
11 June 2024
There are many good ideas that we would like to take up now and in the future. There are also things we are already doing today, of course. So, there is a range of schemes offering discounted and free travel for children and young people that we constantly keep under review. We have discounted bus tickets for under-22s through our MyTravelPass scheme. We also have free travel on rail services for under-16s in a number of circumstances where they're accompanied by a fare-paying adult in Wales already. But more than that, contactless pay-as-you-go ticketing across the south Wales metro area will be delivered later this year.
I'm interested in how we have more means available to us. I would like to be able to deliver on a whole range of areas, but I need the resources for us to do so, and we've just gone through an incredibly painful process to get a budget that balances. I think, in the future, we may be able to do something along the lines of what the Member suggests, but I need the resource that I don't have at present. And in the pragmatic choice, we've made choices about how and where we target our resources to make the biggest possible difference. That's the budget that we've passed. I look forward to a different horizon, with greater hope and greater means to achieve our objectives in the future, and I look forward to seeing if that will be enabled by the public votes on 4 July.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.