Cabinet meeting: 6 October 2025

• Rt Hon Eluned Morgan MS (Chair)
• Huw Irranca-Davies MS
• Jayne Bryant MS
• Mark Drakeford MS
• Rebecca Evans MS
• Jane Hutt MS
• Julie James MS
• Jeremy Miles MS
• Lynne Neagle MS
• Ken Skates MS
   
• Dawn Bowden MS
• Sarah Murphy MS
• Jack Sargeant MS

Apologies

• Vikki Howells MS

Officials

• Andrew Goodall, Permanent Secretary
• Rachel Garside-Jones, Director Office of the First Minister and Delivery
• Rebecca Dunn, Head of Cabinet Division
• Victoria Jones, Principal Private Secretary First Minister
• Toby Mason, Head of Strategic Communications
• Sinead Gallagher, Deputy Director Cabinet Office
• Luke Young, Special Adviser
• Sarah Dickins, Special Adviser
• Madeleine Brindley, Special Adviser
• Haf Davies, Special Adviser
• Victoria Evans, Special Adviser
• David Hooson, Special Adviser
• Nadila Hussein, Special Adviser
• Kirsty Keenan, Special Adviser
• Jackie Jones, Special Adviser
• Stephen Jones, Special Adviser
• Philippa Marsden, Special Adviser
• Tal Michael, Special Adviser
• Martha O’Neil, Special Adviser
• Mary Wimbury, Special Adviser
• Christopher W Morgan, Head of Cabinet Secretariat (minutes)
• Damian Roche, Cabinet Secretariat
• Helena Bird, Permanent Secretary’s office
• Carwyn Wycherley, Cabinet Office
• Kath Hallett, First Minister’s office
• Tracey Burke, Director General Climate Change & Rural Affairs
• Sioned Evans, Chief Operating Officer
• Jacqueline Totterdell, Director General Health and Social Care
• Andrew Slade, Director General Economy, Energy and Transport
• Judith Paget, Director General Strategy
• Emma Williams, Director General Education, Culture & Welsh Language
• Nia James, Director Legal Services

1.1 Cymeradwyodd y Cabinet gofnodion y 22 Medi 2025 / Cabinet approved the minutes of 22 September 2025.

Storm Amy

2.1 The First Minister invited the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs to provide an update on Storm Amy, which had impacted Wales over the weekend.

2.2 Following the yellow weather warning for high winds, a level 1 response had been stood up at 0900 on Friday. In areas with high incidences or significant challenges, such as Betws-Y-Coed and Llanidloes, a multi-agency response was swiftly mobilised. This included providing hot food trucks and other essential support to those in need.

2.3 Most customers had their power restored within a few hours of the initial disconnection, with the majority within 24hrs and all had been reconnected by Sunday morning. The power companies had taken a proactive approach by communicating with vulnerable customers in advance of the storm, offering support and guidance.

2.4 Flooding impacts appeared to be very limited. One flood warning alert was issued on Friday night and lifted early on Saturday, a further 6 alerts were in place on Saturday evening. Final flood alerts were lifted on Sunday, and the level 1 response arrangements had been deescalated by 1800 on Sunday.

Terrorist attack in Manchester

2.5 The First Minister, on behalf of Cabinet, expressed condolences to the families of the victims and all those affected by the terrorist attack at Heaton Park Synagogue on Thursday.

2.6 Following the attacks the First Minister had met with Rabbi Rose from Cardiff Reform Synagogue on Friday morning, and the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip had spoken to Melody Odey of the South Wales Jewish Representative Council later that day. A Written Statement about the attacks would be issuing later that afternoon.

2.7 There had also been attacks on Mosques in England over the weekend. It was important therefore for the Government to continue to work closely with faith leaders and community representatives to ensure Wales remained a place where diversity was valued and protected.

Cabinet Committee on North Wales

2.8 The First Minister informed Cabinet the Cabinet Committee on North Wales would be taking place on Thursday, focusing on Transport.

3.1 Cabinet considered the Plenary Grid and noted that voting time was scheduled for 7:15pm on Tuesday and would be around 6:30pm on Wednesday.

4.1 The First Minister invited relevant Cabinet Secretaries to provide oral updates on preparations for winter.

NHS and Social Care Winter preparedness

4.2 The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care informed Cabinet of the pressures facing the NHS and Social Care systems, which included a surge in seasonal illnesses, emergency care overload with increasing demand for people with breathing issues and workforce absence due to sick leave and the impact of pressures. In addition, there would be bed occupancy issues and delayed discharges.

4.3 A whole system approach was being used for winter preparedness, with NHS and Social Care partners collaborating to address expected pressures. At the end of March, the Cabinet Secretary had hosted a national Winter Summit to discuss strategic actions aimed at enhancing service resilience.

4.4 Guidance had been issued to the NHS and Local Authorities in July, with a requirement that winter plans be submitted in September. These had been reviewed by officials and feedback had been provided to enable regions to restate plans. Operational resilience plans to cover mid-December to the end of January were due to be submitted by the end of the month.

4.5 There would be a number of key actions incorporated into the winter planning guidance, such as the vaccination campaigns, with targeted efforts to boost uptake amongst staff, which was only around 34.3% the previous year. In addition, single points of access / care coordination hubs would play a vital role in supporting people to remain safely at home during winter, when pressures on urgent care intensified.

4.6 Health boards were creating respiratory response plans and developing an acute deterioration pathway to better manage chronic respiratory patients, while lowering emergency admissions.

4.7 Furthermore, there would be targeted support for the most vulnerable, with Local Health Boards being directed to use primary care to identify and proactively support people through supplementary services. Work was continuing to reduce pathways of care delays, while improving hospital discharge, reducing both crowding in emergency departments and ambulance patient handover delays. So far, there had been a 26% reduction in total days delayed compared to August the previous year.

Winter weather resilience planning

4.8 The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs focused on winter weather resilience planning. Last year, Wales experienced 2 storms, Bert and Darragh, within a few weeks. They brought flooding, high winds, infrastructure damage, power outages, a coal tip landslide, and the closure of Holyhead port.

4.9 These events had impacted hundreds of homes, businesses, transport, energy infrastructure and communities across Wales, and underscored the importance of rapid coordination, resilient infrastructure, and proactive planning.

4.10 The government and responder organisations had continued to learn lessons from the impact of these storms as well as other past emergencies, recent incidents, exercises and inquiries, such as the Covid inquiry. The insights gained had strengthened the ability to better assist communities and particularly vulnerable people.

4.11 There had been a significant contribution from communities in responding to last year’s storms, and it was vital to continue to empower them to build their resilience. Work was underway to produce a Community Resilience Framework, to ensure partners and the Third Sector were able to support communities to be better prepared and able to respond and recover quickly from such incidents.

4.12 In terms of the coming winter, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) was commencing a campaign that week to encourage people to take 3 simple steps to help communities to be flood ready, and the 4 local resilience forums in Wales would be identifying the risks and mitigations needed in their areas.

4.13 The recently completed summer inspection of Category D tips raised no immediate concerns and the winter programme to inspect all Category C and D tips was due to start in November. The Government was monitoring developments in relation to the Nant yr Odyn coal tip and the Ffos y Fran mining site.

4.14 As well as the flood warnings, there was also the emergency alert available. This was effective in reaching 2 million devices in 13 local authority areas ahead of Storm Darragh. The alert was tested last month.

4.15 Since last year’s storms, the crisis management, command, control and communications structures had been re-designed and tested through real world incidents.

4.16 Commitments in the Wales Resilience Framework were being delivered, including an enhanced pan-Wales governance structure with the reconstituted Wales Resilience Forum chaired by the First Minister. This set the strategic direction, supported by a strengthened Wales Resilience Partnership.

Keeping people warm this winter

4.17 The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip provided Cabinet with information on the action underway to keep people warm over the winter, given that 25% of households were suffering from fuel poverty.

4.18 With high energy costs and wider pressures on household incomes, the government was again responding to the challenges many families across Wales were facing. Although energy costs had fallen since their peak in 2022, they remained well above pre-crisis levels and continued to disproportionately impact vulnerable households.

4.19 The Claim What’s Yours campaign continued to put more money into peoples’ pockets, and the Nest advice service, the £30 million demand-led scheme to help protect people against increases in energy costs, was amplifying its impact by highlighting the campaign to its service users. In addition, the Government was also being more proactive about promoting Nest.

4.20 The Discretionary Assistance Fund (DAF) and Fuel Vouchers continued to provide a lifeline for people in urgent need, with a budget of £39.5 million. In addition, the government would continue to fund the Fuel Bank Foundation, providing a further £600,000 to support their national Fuel Voucher and Heat Fund in Wales.

4.21 Safe Warm Hubs continued to provide an extremely valuable resource to local communities and government funding was again supporting them this year, by providing funds to local authorities.

4.22 The UK government had extended the Warm Home Discount, resulting in 110,000 Welsh households receiving this payment for the first time. In addition, over 3 quarters of pensioners in Wales and England, with an annual income of £35,000 or less, would be eligible for the fuel payment this winter.

4.23 The government was also in regular contact with other organisations who supported families through the winter. Such as reminding the energy suppliers of their obligations towards their customers, including the specific requirements of their license to work with vulnerable customers and those in debt.

4.24 Cabinet welcomed the updates.

5.1 The Cabinet Secretary for Education presented the paper to note, which set out the short-term mitigation actions to respond to the ALN legislative review.

5.2 It was noted the Cabinet Secretary would be making a statement to the Senedd the following week to outline the findings from the legislative review and next steps, and would be appearing before the Senedd’s Children, Young People and Education Committee, a week later, to discuss education reforms.

Cabinet Secretariat
October 2025