Mohammad Asghar: First Minister, 'Our Valleys, Our Future' pledges to exploit the job creation potential of major infrastructure investment, such as the M4 relief road and the south Wales metro project. The M4 relief road is currently bogged down in a public inquiry, and one of your own backbenchers has claimed that the south Wales metro project is being set up to fail. First Minister, what contingency plans...
Mohammad Asghar: Cabinet Secretary, may I ask for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for health on the provision of dementia services in south-east Wales, please? Proposals by the Aneurin Bevan university health board to close the dementia ward at Chepstow Community Hospital are causing considerable concern among the community in the area. If this ward closes, patients would have to travel to Ebbw Vale or...
Mohammad Asghar: I welcome this annual review, which identifies seven key equality and human rights challenges. I want to address in my brief contribution today one of those challenges: the elimination of violence, abuse and harassment in the community, and I particularly want to address the issue of Islamophobia, and antisemitism in the same way. There were 500 more hate crimes in Wales this year compared to...
Mohammad Asghar: 1. What is the Welsh Government doing to ensure that vulnerable groups in Wales have access to employability programmes? OAQ51455
Mohammad Asghar: 6. What further action will the Welsh Government take to reduce the risk of people in Wales suffering a stroke? OAQ5145
Mohammad Asghar: Thank you very much for this reply, Minister. But, Mencap Cymru recently pointed out that there are huge barriers facing people with learning difficulties who want to work, in Wales. They estimate that, of the 14,000 people with learning disabilities known to social services, only 800 are in employment. It means less than 6 per cent, Minister, which is definitely not acceptable. Can I ask...
Mohammad Asghar: Thank you for the reply, Minister. The fact is, according to the Stroke Association, atrial fibrillation—it's a kind of disease with irregular heartbeat—can increase the risk of stroke by up to five times. AF is easily detectable and effective treatments exist to reduce the risk of stroke. However, the number of people who have not been identified as having AF combined with the number...
Mohammad Asghar: A happy new year to all. May I ask for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for health on preparations by the national health service to deal with the outbreak of Australian flu in Wales? Public Health Wales has confirmed that cases of the H3N2 strain of the virus have been detected in Wales. Over 100,000 people needed treatment in A&E in Australia due to this particular nasty virus. Over...
Mohammad Asghar: The challenges facing our south Wales Valleys communities are considerable and huge. This is the latest of many initiatives to try to break and reverse the cycle of deprivation by addressing the problems of economic inactivity, educational outcomes and public health issues. The Cabinet Secretary has recognised that other programmes, in their words, have fallen by the wayside, so while I...
Mohammad Asghar: 8. What action will the Welsh Government take to improve roads in south-east Wales in 2018? OAQ51507
Mohammad Asghar: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. The traffic analysis firm INRIX recently reported that there were more than 30,000 traffic jams in 2017 on Welsh roads. They estimated the cost to the Welsh economy was nearly £278 million—a striking figure—you could build two state-of-the-art hospitals with that sort of money. In view of the delays in progressing the M4 relief road project and dualling the...
Mohammad Asghar: This week sees the first reduction in the tolls on the Severn crossing since 1966. The Conservative Government's action to remove the value added tax from the tolls is the first step towards scrapping charges on the bridge altogether by the end of this year. The benefit of this to the Welsh economy, Presiding Officer, of abolishing these charges, is about £100 million a year. By this action,...
Mohammad Asghar: 7. How does the Welsh Government ensure that local authorities in Wales have sufficient land available to meet the demand for new housing developments? OAQ51558
Mohammad Asghar: Thank you for the answer, First Minister. The Welsh Government requires local planning authorities to maintain a five-year housing land supply to meet local demand for housing and to monitor this on an annual basis. However, Caerphilly County Borough Council's local development plan has failed to ensure sufficient deliverable land has been made available to meet the needs they have identified...
Mohammad Asghar: Leader of the house, may I ask for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for health on payments by Welsh NHS trusts in damages and legal fees for medical negligence? According to research, in the last five years, four of the seven local health boards paid out over £200 million. It's a striking figure here, Minister, and, basically, this could be used to eradicate child poverty, homelessness...
Mohammad Asghar: Does the Cabinet Secretary agree that our benefits system should be designed to make sure work always pays? And will she join me in welcoming the fact that unemployment in Torfaen has fallen by 37 per cent since November 2010? Thank you.
Mohammad Asghar: Cabinet Secretary, as a result of the poor local government settlement, Newport City Council has announced cuts to many statutory services. These include cuts to school breakfast clubs, transport for children with special needs, activities for people with autism, and family information services. Newport City Council also intends to cut its contribution to a Gwent-wide service for finding...
Mohammad Asghar: It was only last week I raised this question with the Minister, and I'm very pleased, within a week we are debating on this issue. Over 100,000 people in the United Kingdom suffer from multiple sclerosis. In January 2016, the number of MS sufferers in Wales stood at 4,260, and every year, another 200 people are diagnosed with the condition. MS is unpredictable and different for everyone. It...
Mohammad Asghar: In his budget last November, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced changes to the universal credit system. These include the removal of the seven waiting days before a claimant can apply for universal credit, significant improvement to the advanced payment system, including increasing the amount available, and changes to support people with their rent payments when moving from housing...
Mohammad Asghar: Leader of the house, may I ask for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport on what he is doing to deliver closer links between south-east Wales and Bristol and the west country? Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns, held a Severn growth summit in Newport on how we can develop economic links, building on the reduction of tolls on the Severn crossing...
