Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd. There are so many interesting comments and questions and I’m very grateful for those, but it won’t be possible for me to respond to them all in the next two minutes, so please forgive me for that. But, I will certainly ensure that you will get a reply. In terms of the lack of time for scrutiny, well, to a certain extent, I’m to blame for that. I’m not going to...
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd. It gives me great pleasure to present this annual report on the Assembly Commission’s official languages scheme for the fifth Assembly. The Commission has set the aim of being an institution that’s known for providing excellent bilingual services that are innovative, and to be a body that’s an example for other bodies in Wales and beyond. It’s good, therefore, to...
Adam Price: It’s my pleasure, also, to rise to thank the auditor general for his service. It is characteristic of him, to tell the truth, that he’s innovating, even in leaving, because I think he’s the first one of the auditors to propose a farewell letter that provides, in one place, an overview of the landscape that he has been observing over the last eight years. It is very useful, and it’s...
Adam Price: I mean, forget Crossrail, we in Wales should be livid because of the way that we're being treated.
Adam Price: I do welcome the vision set out in the document, and Professor Barry putting forward £2 billion-worth in current net terms over a period of 60 years. The risk, of course, is that, at the current rate, it’ll take 60 years before we see these benefits emerging. Now, what he says, of course—and I sincerely wish the Cabinet Secretary all the best in making the case for Wales—is that we...
Adam Price: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary and Professor Barry for showing so starkly, truth be told, how badly Wales is being treated—that is, a country that has 5 per cent of the population, as we heard, and 11 per cent of the rail network getting 1 per cent of the investment. Of course, this has been true for many years.
Adam Price: Given the current level of interest rates and annuity rates, a debt service liability of about £150 million, over the course of 30 years, would unlock about £2.5 billion, using the kind of innovative financing method like the MIM that the First Minister referred to. Do you think that represents value for money, and, if it does, shouldn't we be much more ambitious in terms of the scale of...
Adam Price: Thinking particularly about a post-Brexit scenario, it was very interesting the evidence that we heard from the chair of the Haven Waterway zone talking about the potential with regard to free ports and free economic zones, because that, actually, is a policy idea where there is strong evidence globally that it works. It's much more specific than the broad-brush enterprise zone idea....
Adam Price: It’s a great pleasure to follow the Chair of the committee. It’s difficult to know what to say about this policy, because it’s a policy that had mixed objectives in mixed areas, and the results have also been very mixed, as the Chair mentioned. Altogether, we could differentiate between the enterprise zones that were created as a result of specific opportunities, and then those...
Adam Price: It's a pleasure to follow the Chair in presenting, I think, very comprehensively and cogently, what is, I think—we all have to accept—a pretty damning report. And, indeed, it's hard to think of a more damning committee report or, indeed, a more damning auditor general report, which accompanied it. On the face of it, as he said, the Government accepts all our recommendations, but when you...
Adam Price: Alun Davies is right, of course, that in the near enough century of economic crisis we've witnessed in the former coalfield communities, since the collapse of the coal price in 1924, we've had a series of interventions and initiatives and strategies, and I think they can all be summed up, really, as micro progress and macro decline. The question that I think we must pose to him, and I'm sure...
Adam Price: Cabinet Secretary, I can understand why Tory Ministers are congratulating you for slavishly following their privatising agenda, but the fact that we are now poised to hand over responsibility for our national railways to a French-Spanish consortium of transnational corporations is surely not a source of celebration. It's a source of regret and political soul-searching by the Labour Party....
Adam Price: What discussions has the Cabinet Secretary had with local authority leaders regarding the integration of health and social care services?
Adam Price: We always welcome any new thinking in economic strategy and the Cabinet Secretary will be aware that I'm myself trying to engage positively with him. It's in all of our interests that, actually, the high-level goals at the heart of any economic strategy are achieved. But, I have to say, if what we get is an ever lengthening series of vague statements, that initial enthusiasm, that there is a...
Adam Price: First Minister, there’s been a great deal of concern in the Neath area on the possible proposal to exclude Neath station from the main line as a new line is built. Now the Petitions Committee has confirmed to me in an e-mail that the reason a petition on this proposal has been judged to be valid is because it’s the Welsh Government that has commissioned the initial scoping work on this...
Adam Price: I understand the Cabinet Secretary's argument. I wonder, though, if a purpose-specific bond was put together on the lines that I've suggested that, actually, you would be able to convince the UK Treasury, for that specific purpose, to raise the borrowing limit. Indeed, this is something that has been suggested by Professor Holtham, that you mentioned in another context earlier. So, I was...
Adam Price: Well, I welcome that news very warmly, and perhaps this is an opportunity to test the dispute resolution agreement within the fiscal framework. We will see in due course. Securing Barnettised funding, not only in terms of this overspend, but across the rail network, would mean that there would be £2 billion per annum rather than £1.3 billion, and £700 million would be a means for us to do...
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd. A fortnight ago, Cabinet Secretary, you published the mid-term review in terms of the Wales infrastructure investment plan, which originally included a pipeline of projects worth £42 billion in total. Now, of course, in next year’s budget there’s only around £1.5 million—£1.6 million—which is capital investment, and I think we recognise, having done the maths,...
Adam Price: I was quite struck by what you just said, leader of the house, in terms of your tour round Wales. I'm very grateful we've had a conversation as well about you and your officials coming down to some of our communities in Carmarthenshire that are facing the frustrations that will be shared by many people and many Members across this Parliament. I'm grateful for that, but I'm very struck by you...
Adam Price: If I can ask on procurement, then, on the economic contract, will we make LGBT-inclusive employment policy one of the criteria in terms of our procurement policy in Wales and in terms of the economic contract? Secondly, we mentioned the problems in terms of housing that particularly affect the LGBT community, and the landlord training that has been set up as part of the Housing (Wales) Act...
