5. Sut mae Llywodraeth Cymru'n helpu ffoaduriaid o Wcráin i geisio noddfa yng Nghymru? OQ59347

Diolch yn fawr, Ken Skates. Our team Wales approach has led to over 6,500 Ukrainians finding sanctuary in Wales. We're continuing to support guests, helping them to move on into longer term accommodation and be supported. As part of our 2023-24 budget, we're investing a further £40 million in our humanitarian response.

Thank you, Minister. That really is very heartening to hear, and I'll be meeting with Ukrainian refugees in my constituency on Friday. We know that local services are utterly essential in ensuring that our guests feel welcome and secure here in Wales. Minister, I was also pleased to see the additional money that the Welsh Government is providing for local authorities to deliver these essential public services, with a £40 million package of funding, including, of course, the continuation of free public transport, and this is in very stark contrast to the disappointing UK Government decision not to continue tariff funding into year 2. Have you any updates at all from UK Government Ministers providing clarity on what funding they will now be providing to support Ukrainian people here in Wales?

Thank you very much, Ken Skates, and it is important that we made that commitment, that £40 million package of funding. We made that commitment in partnership and consultation with our local authority partners, who have been so crucial, and the third sector, in delivering support for Ukrainian refugees in Wales. We're awaiting clarity from the UK Government in relation to funding. They've announced a £150 million homelessness prevention fund, but we haven't heard what the allocation for Wales will be. But I have written, with Councillor Andrew Morgan, who's the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association, to seek urgent clarity on this, because it is support for the move-on that we want to seek. Of course, we need to see what our share will be, because the UK Government has cut the year 2 integration tariff—you'll have seen that in my written statement in December. So, we lost £29 million in that decision alone.

But I will say that I'm pleased we've made a decision to extend hosting payments into the second year after arrival and to uplift thank you payments for those hosting them to £500. This again had been cut by the UK Government, in the sense they had a confusing way forward in terms of those thank-you payments, not giving them to more, but we are going to make that payment. But I will say that I'm in regular contact with the UK Minister for Homes for Ukraine, Felicity Buchan, and it's useful to have feedback from the Senedd for those meetings.

Last year, Denbighshire welcomed Ukrainian refugees, and I would like to praise my constituents for their generosity to Ukrainians. And I'm pleased that Ken Skates has raised this question today. Equally, I was pleased that the UK, Welsh and local governments worked together to play our part in the war effort. However, some Ukrainian refugees in Denbighshire have decided to leave the area for other parts of the UK, due to a lack of good transport links and facilities across the area, and that's fact, as I met some of them in the summer of last year. Therefore, what is the Welsh Government doing to ensure that refugees from Ukraine don't have to find other parts of the UK to live in?

Well, I think one of the most important points that I would make is that we have extended the welcome ticket—we've extended the welcome ticket public transport scheme until 30 June this year. There is no such public support transport scheme in England, I have to say. I do wish the Ukrainian guests who are obviously going to be moving across Wales, into Wales and outside of Wales, I wish them well, but I do want to make it clear to colleagues, and to yourself and to those you represent, that we have got that welcome ticket. That's been so important in terms of people being able to access work and enable them to move around, and I know that that's been welcomed by local authorities across Wales.

Good afternoon, Minister. Just following on from that question from Gareth as well, I also met with Ukrainian guests and their hosts in Powys last week, in Talybont, and one of the issues that they did raise with me was transport, particularly in a rural area. There is a concern around the freedom pass coming to an end at the end of June, so my first question is: I wonder if you would consider extending that to allow for them to continue to have that free bus transport. But another issue was around their driving licences and the ability for them to continue to keep those driving licences after a year of being in the UK. It is the situation that after a year being here, they have to take the UK driving test. I'm sure many of us who currently drive in this room would be horrified at the idea that we needed to take a driving test in this country. So, I wonder if you would consider being in touch with your colleagues in the Department for Transport to see whether Ukraine could be added to the list of countries where the driving licence can be exchanged for a UK driving licence. Diolch yn fawr iawn.  

Diolch yn fawr, Jane Dodds. It is helpful to have this feedback from Members across the Chamber from Ukrainian guests. That feedback about the welcome pass is important, because it was very tough to get that extension with limited finance, but it's useful for feedback. I will raise these issues about access to UK driving licences with the UK Government; obviously, it's within their powers. They're able to use their existing licence to drive on UK roads, as you say, for the first 12 months, but beyond this, they have to convert their Ukrainian licence or take a UK test. This is something that I will be raising with the UK Department for Transport, and I will get back to Members. I'm sure our colleagues in the Welsh Conservatives will want to raise this as well.

I just wanted to ask you about the plight of Afghan refugees. We've just been told that they're going to be forced to leave hotels and move into a single offer of accommodation, or they'll just be on the street. Given they've been here for 18 months since the Afghan withdrawal, there's clearly concern that people will be in jobs, they'll have children in school. So, how is the Welsh Government able to ensure that these people are provided with suitable housing offers to not disrupt the links they've already made, and prevent them from becoming homeless? Has the UK Government provided you with any information about money to be made available to local authorities, who will suddenly have a huge new wave of people who will be presenting as homeless? 

Thank you very much, Jenny Rathbone. I can inform Members that yesterday afternoon, officials in the Welsh Government had a call from the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to talk about their plans, which have now been made public this afternoon, to close all Afghan bridging accommodation. The statement has been made by Johnny Mercer, Minister for veterans' affairs, this afternoon. We are just taking account of and absorbing that information, but we understand all bridging accommodation will close within months, and that it appears that three months' notice will be given. We will have to wait to see what this means in terms of Home Office, DLUHC and Department for Work and Pensions teams visiting each site. 

We do anticipate there'll be around 400 people affected in Wales. I've asked already—and I'm expecting a call from the Minister—how funding would be made available in Wales. There is very little clarity. I understand that there may be money channeled through local authorities, but that's not clear. I haven't seen a statement yet. So, we need to get more of a sense of what this will mean, but I understand that Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan local authorities and the Wales Strategic Migration Partnership were informed last week.