Lee Waters: The advances in technology have got huge potential to improve the passenger experience and improve the viability of buses. The Welsh Government have been funding the Bwcabus project in Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, which has used a demand-responsive model to make public transport viable in smaller routes. That sort of approach, merged with app-based technology, has got huge potential....
Lee Waters: What analysis has the Welsh Government undertaken of the opportunities outlined in the Institute of Welsh Affairs’s recent report, 'The Economic Impact of Energy Transition in Wales’?
Lee Waters: [Inaudible.]—Nonsense.
Lee Waters: I just want to speak briefly to welcome the Bill's being introduced. It's been now seven years since we overwhelmingly agreed in a referendum that this place should have the powers of a parliament, and it's only right that we change the name to reflect that reality. I'm pleased also that the McAllister report is being decoupled, so we can focus on the elements that we can all agree on while...
Lee Waters: Well, there's nothing wrong with people informally saying that the Senedd is our Welsh Parliament, but I think the official name should be Senedd. In terms of the general public's understanding, we're still not quite 20 years into the being of this place; I think understanding will develop as time goes on. As I say, there are other reasons for choosing the term 'Senedd', not least the final...
Lee Waters: Diolch. Preparations are accelerating for a 'no deal' Brexit. Stockpiling medicine and food is getting the attention of the media, but the reality for the Welsh economy could be far more austere. Our economic policy has focused on providing support to so-called anchor companies—large multinationals with bases in Wales that we have favoured with grants and other financial inducements. But...
Lee Waters: The purpose of today's motion, tabled by myself, Vikki Howells, Jenny Rathbone, Hefin David, Adam Price and David Melding is to look again at the central importance of this overlooked sector of the our economy. From the cross-party buy-in to this motion, it is clear that there is an appetite for a new approach. With my colleague Jenny Rathbone, I recently visited Preston to learn more about...
Lee Waters: I agree with the Cabinet Secretary that this debate and the foundational economy debate are flip sides of the same coin. It looks likely that the fourth industrial revolution is going to generate huge wealth, but it's wealth that's not going to be shared evenly. It will be distributed unequally, which is why the stress of the foundational economy looking after left-behind communities is so...
Lee Waters: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm pleased to give a minute of my time to Jenny Rathbone. The science is unequivocal: the link between human activity and rising global temperatures is as strong and as certain as the link between smoking and cancer, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The Paris climate change agreement set a target of no more than 2...
Lee Waters: Now, 1.5 degrees doesn't sound like much, but it translates to more frequent and more extreme weather events, such as storms, heatwaves and flooding—the kind of events that have a severe impact on human life. The difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees of global warming is the difference between an Arctic that is free of ice once per decade, or once per century. It's the difference...
Lee Waters: Thank you very much. I warmly welcome the vision behind the statement of putting Welsh and English on an equal footing so they can work simultaneously on the same platforms, and the ambitions you have of making sure that devices like Siri and Alexa can chat to us in both languages seamlessly. It's clearly the right one. An emphasis on better machine translation and Welsh language bots is...
Lee Waters: 5. What discussions has the Counsel General had in relation to the growing use of digital technologies in the legal sector? OAQ52810
Lee Waters: Thank you, Counsel General. The Law Society president has recently said that the law profession is not preparing new entrants for the realities of current practice, let alone the changes that we can foresee. I'm very pleased that you and the Minister for digital, the leader of the house, and the Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning are able to attend the round-table I'm convening...
Lee Waters: This report has not been hurried. The first evidence session was held in January 2017 and for the time that I was on the committee, those of us who served—and it's significant, when you look at the report, the number of different people who've gone through this particular process; it's involved coming up to a fifth of all Assembly Members. But I think we took our time deliberately,...
Lee Waters: Briefly, the attributes you ascribe to the black route can also be applied to the blue route, which you support. Would you be willing to reconsider your position on that?
Lee Waters: There are days when I find politics fairly frustrating, and often, on those days, I wonder what I will do on the day when I am no longer sitting in this place, and I quite like the idea of teaching. I think today's debate and the motion before us would make a very good case study in what is wrong with the way we do politics, because I look at Plaid Cymru's motion and there's nothing in it I...
Lee Waters: I won't, David. I just want to develop an argument. There is common cause across all parties here. This is an argument that—David Melding said future generations will not forgive us lightly for not acting seriously. Instead of tripping each other up and scoring political points—. Many of the points in the motion, as I say, I agree with, and I do hope that the new Welsh Government in the...
Lee Waters: I think—[Interruption.] The irony of that, given the debate within Plaid Cymru on nuclear, is not lost on me. But, let me say, what I would be saying to the classroom is that these things are not black and white, that you have to pick your moments and fight your battles. I'll take no lectures from Plaid Cymru on the record on climate change. I led the campaign to create an active travel...
Lee Waters: Cabinet Secretary, I've just had a letter from the managing director of Schaeffler in the UK confirming that they're beginning their 45-day consultation period, with a view to closing the long-established plant in Llanelli with the loss of some 220 jobs. Clearly, this is very disturbing news for Llanelli and for the country. We can hardly afford to have further losses to our manufacturing...
Lee Waters: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. It's reassuring that the new clinical model is shown to be achieving the objectives that we've set for it, and that it is clinically safe. But, as you acknowledge in your statement, the patient experience still is seen to be wanting in some areas. Inevitably, if you shift priority from one area to another, there are going to be longer waits for some. You say in...
