Cabinet meeting: 28 April 2025

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

Apologies

• Rebecca Evans MS

Officials

• Andrew Goodall, Permanent Secretary
• Rachel Garside-Jones, Director First Minister’s Group
• Rebecca Dunn, Deputy Director Cabinet Division
• Victoria Jones, Principal Private Secretary First Minister
• Toby Mason, Head of Strategic Communications
• Sinead Gallagher, Deputy Director Cabinet Office
• Wayne David, 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
• 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
• Kath Hallett, First Minister’s office
• Tracey Burke, Director General Climate Change & Rural Affairs
• Sioned Evans, Chief Operating Officer
• Nick Wood , Deputy Chief Executive NHS Wales
• Andrew Slade, Director General Economy, Energy and Transport
• Emma Williams, Interim Director General Education, Culture & Welsh Language
• Diane Dunning, Deputy Director Legal Services
• Andy Fraser, Deputy Director, National Security & Resilience (item 4)
• Lori Frater, Head of Resilience Unit (item 4)
• Paul Kindred, Deputy Director Culture (item 5)
• Catrin Hughes, Head of Policy and Strategy, Culture (item 5)

The First Minister, on behalf of Cabinet, congratulated the Minister for for Mental Health and Wellbeing on her marriage over the Easter recess.

1.1 Cymeradwyodd y Cabinet gofnodion y 31 Mawrth 2025 / Cabinet approved the minutes of 31 March 2025.

Pope Francis funeral

2.1 The First Minister noted the sad passing of His Holiness Pope Francis, whose funeral had taken place on Saturday.

The Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill

2.2 The First Minister referred to the UK Parliament being recalled over the Easter recess to debate the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill. This was an England only Bill in response to the owners of British Steel ceasing orders for raw materials, without which the two blast furnaces at Scunthorpe would have had to cease operation.

2.3 This was different to the situation at Port Talbot, where Tata Steel had a plan for transitioning the plant to more sustainable steelmaking. It had been reported the £500 million allocated to Tata, to help with the transition, was in addition to the £2.5 billion allocated to the National Wealth Fund for the steel sector. It would be important to ensure that Port Talbot was also able to benefit from this investment.

2.4 It was noted the First Minister had met with Tata Steel and Trade Unions at the Port Talbot plant on Friday the previous week.

UK Supreme Court's ruling on the definition of a woman

2.5 Cabinet noted the UK Supreme Court had recently ruled on the definition of a woman, and it would now be important for the Welsh Government to take the time to consider the judgement carefully and take the steps required to meet the obligations under the Equality Act 2010, as clarified by the ruling.

3.1 Cabinet considered the Plenary Grid and noted that voting time was scheduled for 7:05pm on Tuesday and would be around 6.15pm on Wednesday. From this week Plenary meetings would be held in Siambr Hywel, to allow refurbishment of the Senedd building to take place in anticipation of an expanded Senedd.

4.1 The First Minister introduced the paper, which asked Cabinet to agree the content of the Wales Resilience Framework and the actions within the associated delivery plan.

4.2 With the recovery from the pandemic and the range of ever more complex and evolving risks, it was a time of unprecedented challenge and uncertainty across the World. For example, both Portugal and Spain were currently suffering from a major power outage, the cause of which was uncertain.

4.3 The government’s crisis management arrangements had been activated on 30 separate occasions during 2024 to support a range of emergencies and other challenges. The threat of storms and flooding, animal health risks and wider national security threats were ever present, and there was a need to prepare to help mitigate the impact of these to protect communities and enhance resilience capabilities.

4.4 The Wales Resilience Framework set out how improvements in the understanding and planning for risk for both Government and partners could be delivered, whilst improving the resilience structures to support communities. This was a collective effort, which could only be achieved through strong partnerships taking a ‘Once for Wales’ approach to building preparedness and response capabilities.

4.5 Central to that approach was embedding learning from past incidents with a demonstrable commitment to continuous improvement that not only made the most of partnerships across the public, private and voluntary sectors, but also empowered communities and the public to become more resilient.

4.6 It was also important to continue to build and maintain strong and mutually supportive intergovernmental relationships with the UK government, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive to achieve shared resilience goals. The framework made clear that collective efforts were an integral part of the UK’s overall resilience and national security arrangements.

4.7 There were actions to improve accountability and transparency, with a State of Resilience Report to the Senedd being published every 4 years, and an annual statement to the Senedd on current preparedness capabilities.

4.8 It was essential to improve the public’s understanding of risk to increase resilience across households and communities. Empowering communities to build their resilience was vital to improve communication and engagement.

4.9 The Framework and Delivery Plan would be published on 13 May, with the First Minister delivering an oral statement to the Senedd that afternoon. The plan would then be presented to members of the reconstituted Wales Resilience Forum the following day.

4.10 Cabinet welcomed the paper and put on record its thanks to Civil Contingencies officials who manage the government’s crisis management arrangements.

4.11 Cabinet approved the paper.

5.1 The Minister for Culture, Sport and Social Partnership introduced the paper, which asked Cabinet to approve the publication of new Priorities for Culture.

5.2 These new priorities and ambitions offered a roadmap for the future and would help inform the strategic direction and investment within the culture sector for the medium to long term.

5.3 It was a succinct document, with 3 high level priorities:

• culture brings people together
• a nation of culture, and
• culture that is resilient and sustainable.

Each of these were supported by a specific set of ambitions.

5.4 An external steering group, consisting of sector voices, higher education specialists and freelancers had monitored the development of the Priorities for Culture across the last two years, and there was confidence that the content of this document accurately reflected the ongoing ambitions for the sector.

5.5 Cabinet welcomed the paper.

5.6 It was important to demonstrate the importance of culture to Wales and also to engage with young people and children. The priorities were intergenerational and linked to early years education, Welsh language learning, Healthy Wales and social prescribing. There was the social justice element, ensuring that all people had access to culture, particularly disabled people. There were also links to the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan.

5.7 There were innovative ways of expressing culture, such as through the art used to enhance the appearance of flood defences. Furthermore, culture was embedded throughout rural areas, via Welsh speaking communities, Young Farmer’s clubs, the National Parks and UNESCO world heritage sites.

5.8 Culture had the ability to transform town centres, particularly with the siting of services delivered by local government within libraries.

5.9 Some thought would need to be given to supporting those Welsh cities interested in bidding for the UK City of Culture in 2029.

5.10 Cabinet approved the paper and noted the Priorities would be launched via an oral statement to the Senedd on 20 May.

Cabinet Secretariat
April 2025