Mark Isherwood: Diolch, Lywydd. Although we agree that any final deal must be developed with the best interests of the Welsh economy and society at heart, this Welsh Government motion has been overtaken by events. I therefore move amendment 1 to replace this with a motion recognising the result of the referendum about the UK’s membership of the EU; welcoming the UK Government’s 12 negotiating objectives...
Mark Isherwood: I wonder if you could indicate what progress you have achieved with that. Finally, if I may, a subject you would expect me to highlight, given that, last week, there was a conference on sustainable communities and asset-based community development at the SWALEC stadium in Cardiff: how do you respond to that conference’s call for an approach that promotes citizen-led action in the first...
Mark Isherwood: Diolch, and thanks for the statement. Of course, we share with you the recognition that safer communities cannot be achieved by a single government, service or community. This is a shared agenda. You referred to the decline in first-time entrants to the youth justice system. As you know, the problem is the persistent recurrence of repeat offenders who then increasingly end up in custody, but...
Mark Isherwood: As you might know, Erin Pizzey, the campaigner against domestic violence who opened the world’s first refuge in Chiswick in 1971, came to the Assembly recently. She said that domestic violence was about generational family violence, that we need to look at parenting, and that if we don’t intervene, these people will fill our prisons and hospitals. How do you respond to her statement,...
Mark Isherwood: Some 40 per cent of children still don't visit the dentist regularly. A third of children are starting school each year already showing signs of tooth decay, and it's the most common single reason why children aged five to nine require admissions to hospital. Given that this north Wales mobile dental unit stopped last September, and the health board is only reporting now their bid for funding...
Mark Isherwood: I was referring to 2006, when there most clearly was. That’s why we generated a campaign, with hundreds and hundreds of mayors and residents on the steps outside. And paradoxically, and oddly, in 2011, the closure programme announced by health boards matched exactly the Labour Welsh Government closure campaign from five years previously.
Mark Isherwood: Would you give way? Would you agree, recognising—[Inaudible.]—out of date, buildings need to be replaced, that shouldn’t have been done without transition and without replacement beds?
Mark Isherwood: It is now 11 years since I launched CHANT Cymru at the request of campaigners across Wales, fighting for local beds at community hospitals. Campaigners against the closure of Chatsworth House Community Hospital in Prestatyn had asked me to form CHANT Cymru—Community Hospitals Acting Nationally Together—to bring together local groups from across Wales campaigning to save their local...
Mark Isherwood: I agree, because, sadly, as you know, Wales still has higher child poverty than Scotland, Northern Ireland and all but two of the nine English regions. At least we’ve pulled ahead of two of those regions—I think London and the East Midlands. But, last week, the royal college of paediatricians said that poverty was the biggest threat to children’s health in Wales. I welcome the news,...
Mark Isherwood: Well, of course, the particular concern was whether this was a grant recipient body, and whether the Welsh Government have acted on the recommendations of the Wales Audit Office all those years ago in terms of ensuring that effective controls were in place. But, moving on to a related matter, as I’ve raised with you previously, the ONS figures published last July said Wales had higher...
Mark Isherwood: Diolch, Lywydd. Of course, Plas Madoc Communities First was a grant-recipient body that received funding direct. After the whistleblower was vindicated, with the support of, dare I say, Janet Ryder, Eleanor Burnham and myself, and there were convictions in court, we also had two Wales Audit Office reports, one into Plas Madoc specifically and one into Communities First generally, which I’d...
Mark Isherwood: I welcome Huw Irranca-Davies’s reference to the Age Cymru report, findings and recommendations. You referred to the consultation on a future demand-led fuel poverty scheme, but the Fuel Poverty Coalition Cymru has expressed concern that, by introducing age requirements in the eligibility criteria proposed, this will deny help to many households in fuel poverty that are currently eligible....
Mark Isherwood: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on woodland management in Wales?
Mark Isherwood: Diolch. The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and wider society on the grounds, as we’ve heard, of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation. This annual equality report states that the Welsh Government’s evaluation of the strategic...
Mark Isherwood: The Welsh independent living grant helps disabled people to live independently. A fortnight ago, the First Minister told me the decision to transfer this to local authorities followed advice from the Welsh Government stakeholder advisory group, but membership organisation Disability Wales advises that their preferred option of a Wales independent living fund was not included for the...
Mark Isherwood: I call for a single statement on cervical cancer, recognising that last week was Cervical Cancer Prevention Week. It was highlighting that, although cervical cancer is largely preventable, the number of women being diagnosed in Wales is worryingly high, and the number attending cervical screening at its lowest for 10 years. More than one in five women are now delaying or not attending this...
Mark Isherwood: As HSBC told me when I met them last year to discuss the closures in Flintshire, as NatWest replied to me as I opposed and wrote to them regarding their closure in Holywell, and as the Yorkshire Building Society is now saying, the reason for this is the switch from bank-based service usage to digital usage. Of course, that—as has been now said about HSBC in Holywell, Holyhead and...
Mark Isherwood: Will you recognise—[Inaudible.]—you only have to go back five years when both BMA Cymru and the Royal College of General Practitioners aimed campaigns at Assembly Members warning them that we would get here, that 90 per cent of patient contacts are with general practice and yet funding as the share of the NHS cake had fallen, and they’ve had to relaunch those campaigns now because they...
Mark Isherwood: Well, as we’ve heard, in the 1970s and 1980s, blood products supplied to patients by the NHS were contaminated with HIV or hepatitis C. Around 4,670 patients with haemophilia blood-clotting disorder were infected, over 2,000 have since died in the UK with, as we heard, 70 in Wales, from the effects of these viruses. Successive UK Governments have since refused to hold a public inquiry into...
Mark Isherwood: If I could just ask you two questions relating to your statement: you refer to the committee inquiry into the educational outcomes for Gypsy/Traveller and minority ethnic learners. I wonder if you could tell me, did you take evidence from John Summers High School in Flintshire, which has played a great and leading role in engaging with the local Gypsy/Traveller community and improving...
