Delyth Jewell: Come on, Wales, tonight. Good luck to the crew in Baku.
Delyth Jewell: First Minister, the British Red Cross has found that loneliness is one of the most significant impacts of COVID-19 restrictions. Worryingly, their research also found that 37 per cent of people in Wales wouldn't be confident in knowing where to go for mental health and emotional support. Could I ask what your Government will do to address this, to ensure that health boards have the capacity...
Delyth Jewell: Trefnydd, on 25 June, we will mark Go Green Day, and the focus of the campaign is on tropical deforestation. That might sound like something that's far away, but the planet, as I'm sure you are aware, loses an area of forest every year equivalent to nine times the size of Wales because of our consumption of palm oil, soy, coffee, the paper that we write with, the timber that we build with....
Delyth Jewell: Minister, thank you for your statement. We have an opportunity, after the pandemic, to build a nation that will benefit future generations, and investing in public transport, active travel and green infrastructure will be a crucial part of this. However, it is vital that we ensure that communities that have been waiting a long time for investment in infrastructure are not left behind. You...
Delyth Jewell: Minister, modal shift is going to be so significantly important in all of this, so what role will areas like fast lanes for public transport and electric vehicles on future roads—how important a role will that play? And, with reference to your point on maintaining existing roads, I'd like to draw your attention to the most recent UK climate change risk assessment. It points to a number of...
Delyth Jewell: Will the Minister make a statement on efforts to improve animal welfare on Welsh farms?
Delyth Jewell: What an ill-starred anniversary this is. I won't use my contribution today to rehearse the lies that were told during the 2016 referendum—they are a matter of public record—but I do take exception to the tone of the latter half of the Conservative motion with its focus on opportunities, conveniently ignoring the power grab from Westminster under the internal market Act, and the EU...
Delyth Jewell: I'd like to nominate Peredur Owen Griffiths.
Delyth Jewell: 4. Will the Minister make a statement on child poverty rates in South Wales East? OQ56701
Delyth Jewell: Thank you, Minister. Wales now has the highest rate of child poverty of any UK nation, with one in three children living in poverty. I worry that we've become so used to hearing that figure that it's lost its potency, so just to remind the Chamber that what that figure—that one in three children figure—means is that thousands of children in Wales are going to bed hungry. They're going...
Delyth Jewell: Counsel General, you've said that you will now bring forward an appeal to challenge this flagrant attack on Senedd competence. From day one, Plaid Cymru identified the threat to our hard-won democratic powers, and the reality is that there is a supermajority here in this Parliament to extend those powers, but the Westminster Government is denying that majority and that mandate. Their actions...
Delyth Jewell: I was saddened to hear this week that Bryn Seion chapel in Ystrad Mynach will be closing its doors for the last time on Sunday. The chapel has served the area since 1906, and has been a focal point of Welsh life not only in the town of Ystrad Mynach itself, but throughout the valley as a whole. It was a branch of the old chapel in Hengoed, and over many years generations of families marked...
Delyth Jewell: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. When we think of the natural world, we think about abundance, don't we—lush forests, epic mountainsides, roaring rivers. But the natural world is made up of co-dependent ecosystems, food chains and habitats that interweave and interconnect, and once you start to chip away at any part of it, it has an indelible impact on the whole. Plaid Cymru has brought forward...
Delyth Jewell: But, to go back to those targets, because they play an important role—targets set the tone and track—how does that landscape look internationally? The Convention on Biological Diversity targets lapsed in 2020; they were global targets to reverse wildlife loss and decline in the natural environment, and the UN confirmed that we had all failed miserably to achieve them. And when you miss a...
Delyth Jewell: Dirprwy Lywydd, what a wonderful debate this has been.
Delyth Jewell: I thank Janet Finch-Saunders for her speech. I recognise as well that declaring a crisis on its own doesn't achieve enough, as the Minister just said. That's why we would also propose targets and governance on the things that need to be done. But I like that image of hope and that crescendo of action that she talked about.
Delyth Jewell: That sense of crescendo, of a growing sense of cross-party support, was picked up by Huw Irranca-Davies, and I welcome his support, too.
Delyth Jewell: Thank you to Siân Gwenllian for speaking again about the hope that comes from the fact that rare species can be saved, and for talking about how important it is to turn this situation around for our children.
Delyth Jewell: Mark Isherwood reminded us of the international framing, of course, of our debate. It's been so wonderful as well to hear Mark, Siân, Jenny, Julie and other Members talk about their own species for which they're champion. To the young—well, to the new Members, I should say, in the Senedd, who might be envious about how many species champions we've been talking about, I'm sure that Wales...
Delyth Jewell: Thank you to Mabon for that contribution about the wonderful nature in Dwyfor Meirionnydd, the Snowdonia Society, as well as the power of the community. That's such an important element.
