David Melding: Terraced housing combined to make a unique succession of urban communities, villages almost, that contrasted sharply to nucleated urban development elsewhere. About 40 per cent of homes in Wales are terraces, and this will still amount to 28 per cent of our housing stock by 2050. This inheritance should be enthusiastically celebrated, rather than seen as an incubus or hangover from the...
David Melding: Thank you, Llywydd.
David Melding: History, geography and the rapid expansion of extractive industries, especially coal, have combined to produce a unique built environment in Wales, and I'm pleased to introduce this debate this evening. I'm also pleased to allow Hefin David and Suzy Davies to have a minute of my time. The terraced housing of the industrial period is present in other parts of the UK, but not in the...
David Melding: I think that perhaps one thing we should look at is reducing the tax burden on commercial investment by rewarding environmentally sensitive building techniques and practices and how they're going to use the building and other facilities they may have there that will be environmentally sustainable. Perhaps you could offer a few incentives there to mitigate the unfortunate decision you've...
David Melding: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, it's always a pleasure to follow Mike Hedges, and how brave he was to approach this issue from a philosophical point of view. He seemed to be arguing that land tax was both essential and imaginary at one stage, but perhaps I didn't really follow his logic terribly well. The rest of his peroration was on the purpose and wonder of tax, and I've read the...
David Melding: Llywydd, it is in the public interest that this Bill receives support today. Given the decision of the ONS on the classification of RSLs, we must act. We've always accepted the principle of this Bill on this side of the Assembly, however we have sought to scrutinise it as a piece of significant, if necessary, deregulation. Consequently, it requires rigorous risk management. Our amendments at...
David Melding: I'd be pleased to join you.
David Melding: Okay, well that's 100 per cent more than I thought we had.
David Melding: Can I say I welcome this report and the Welsh Government's commitment to a wider plastics strategy? We've been calling for this for some time. I think a UK approach to many of the policy levers to manage plastic waste and increase recycling is definitely the best way forward, although there are initiatives we can take as well, as was indicated in what the Minister said about the renewed...
David Melding: Cabinet Secretary, can I say—[Inaudible.]—I do not believe that there needs to be a tension between productive agriculture and care for the environment. So, we can certainly combine these very important public goods and aspirations. There clearly are some areas where we could have a broader range of produce, and horticulture I think is a very interesting one. There are some areas where we...
David Melding: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I'm obviously in your good books this afternoon, and long may it continue. [Laughter.] First Minister, Cynon Valley is the third least economically active constituency in Wales, and we know the association between economic activity and prosperity. The main reason that people remain economically inactive, when they could, actually, for health reasons, be fit enough for...
David Melding: First Minister, I certainly agree that the Help to Buy scheme has been successful, as it has been in England, and the other demand-side measures that you mentioned—most of them are also in England—have also been helpful, but they're not as powerful as supply-side measures. Can I tell you, now, the latest figures? Since March 2018, just gone, the average house price in Wales is now over...
David Melding: I feel I ought to start in a more generous spirit than I did last week, because we often clash on housing matters. So, let me just welcome some of the tone of this statement and such phrases as: 'I want to work with them to build at scale and pace'—that's the various people building houses; 'We believe that home ownership is not just for people on higher incomes'—well, that's why I...
David Melding: Can I welcome the announcement today? One of the disadvantages—and, Deputy Presiding Officer, you'll share fully in this—of first being elected in 1999 is that we remember going around this race course in the first place, and the spatial plan was regarded as being highly innovative, ground-breaking indeed, a 20-year vision, integration across the main public policy areas so that they're...
David Melding: I think this is a very important question; I thank Mike for raising for it. Forty five per cent of accidents occur in the home, and accidents are in the top-10 causes of death for all ages, particularly high amongst children—after cancer, I think the highest—and older people. Now, in the many interventions that we make, for instance, insulation of homes, social care visits, we should be...
David Melding: I'm sorry to heap another encomium on the Minister, but I think his commanding performance throughout this matter—I've not always agreed with what he's done, but I do think we're now seeing the fruits of a very imaginative compromise that will respect the results of the referendum and strengthen the British constitution. Llywydd, devolution was predicated on EU membership. It probably would...
David Melding: Can I thank Mick Antoniw for seeking to defend the prerogatives of this Assembly so strongly? I think it's another example of Executive overreach. We were told at the dawn of devolution that we would do things differently. We would take what was best in the British parliamentary tradition, but we would ensure that we had openness and scrutiny, especially over—irony of irony—secondary...
David Melding: On 1 April 1918, David Lloyd George approved the creation of the Royal Air Force, the world's first entirely separate and independent air force. The RAF would become the most powerful air force in the world, with more than 290,000 personnel and 23,000 aircrafts. Then, at a crucial point in world history, the RAF defended our island against the Nazi onslaught, in what became the most famous...
David Melding: Llywydd, I'd like to raise a point of order under Standing Order 6.15 and Standing Order 12.50. Big announcements by the Welsh Government, such as a review of a major public policy, surely need to be made orally to the Assembly. This permits timely scrutiny, and thereafter allows the Assembly to monitor and evaluate performance. In the Chamber yesterday, the leader of the house gave a...
David Melding: The Cabinet Secretary will know that, in the latest year for which figures are available, the uptake of those eligible decreased from 54.4 per cent to 53.4 per cent, so a 1 per cent reduction. I hope this does not become a trend. And, also, at the moment, screening is not offered to anyone over 75. And I have a constituent who's been very anxious about this because he has taken part in...
