Jenny Rathbone: I'm sure you'll join me, First Minister, in deploring the fact that 90 per cent of the world's children are now breathing toxic air as a result of our collective failure to safeguard our environment. We know that air pollution kills more people than road traffic accidents, and the British Lung Foundation published data in the last 10 days highlighting that there are 57 health centres and...
Jenny Rathbone: The market is broken at the moment, and therefore this Bill proposes to fix that. We need to get it right. We can't go on having tenants who are being forced to stay in damp or insecure properties just because they simply don't have the money to pay for the letting agent's fees. That is not the way in which markets operate and, at the moment, they are operating entirely to the advantage of...
Jenny Rathbone: The only losers in this Bill are the outrageous letting agents who've been charging both the tenant and the landlords for carrying out work. They've been double-jobbing, these unscrupulous agents, and they need to be put out of business. We heard very good evidence from both the Residential Landlords Association and the Association of Residential Letting Agents that they want us to put these...
Jenny Rathbone: I'm unable to understand why it's not possible to simply add as an addendum to the fixed penalty that evidence must be produced that the money has been repaid. It doesn't need to be anything more than a copy of their bank statement that shows that the money has been repaid.
Jenny Rathbone: One of the resilience issues that have been exposed by the whole discussions about what can happen as a result of Brexit is the shortage of fruit and vegetables grown in this country. Obviously, this is an important issue both for the well-being of all of us, but particularly for our ability to supply our schools, our hospitals and other public services with fresh produce. So, I just wondered...
Jenny Rathbone: I think the issue that most concerns me is how we manage to use this targeted money to level out the opportunities for young people in more deprived areas, or the pupils within schools who don't have the range of possibilities that better off households can provide for their children. I think there's a big challenge for those schools in my constituency that have significant numbers of...
Jenny Rathbone: What action is the Welsh Government taking to combat antimicrobial resistance?
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you. Corporate parenting is all our responsibility, so I completely share David Melding and Helen Mary's comments on this matter. Last night, I attended a dinner organised by the faculty of sexual and reproductive healthcare, along with my colleagues Julie Morgan and Angela Burns. It was done on the Chatham House rule where everything remained in the room, but I was really shocked to...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you for your statement. I think this is a very important issue, because there's a real danger that, as we have this threat of leaving the EU, we will become an inward-looking country when we are part of a global economy. We can't get away from that. This idea that we somehow can hack it on our own is pretty frightening. Anyway, I want to pay tribute to Cardiff University in particular,...
Jenny Rathbone: I very much welcome the attention you're giving to this important subject and the joined-up approach that you're giving to it. I absolutely agree that NEETs are a real indicator of potential youth homelessness, and one of the things we need to do in conjunction with the Cabinet Secretary for Education is ensure that all our schools are paying attention to the well-being of all their young...
Jenny Rathbone: 8. What consideration has the Welsh Government given to adopting the World Health Organization’s air quality limits for the emission of particulate matter? OAQ52997
Jenny Rathbone: Leader of the house, I'm sure you'll be aware that this is a very important matter that relates to the concerns of my colleague for Newport West, which is that pollution and congestion are very, very serious matters when it comes to public health. You may be aware that there was a report last month, published by the English public health organisation, about the effects of long-term exposure...
Jenny Rathbone: I wondered if we could have a statement, a whole-system approach from the Government, on gambling. Last week, the Gambling Commission published its annual report on the issue of young people and gambling, and, worryingly, it is now the biggest harmful activity that young people up to 16 are engaging in. So, it's now a bigger problem than alcohol consumption by under 16-year-olds. Some of the...
Jenny Rathbone: It's not green taxes that are making people poor. It's the deliberate policies of the UK Government in terms of how they choose to tax and distribute benefits. I have to agree with him on one thing—that the VAT on essential goods is not a progressive tax, but we therefore have to find another tax to replace it. Were we to leave the European Union, that is something we could do, but we have...
Jenny Rathbone: The people who are faring worst out of the Chancellor's budget are women in low-paid, part-time work because they are going to miss out on any tax cuts because they earn too little to profit from the rise in personal allowances, and they're suffering reductions in real income as a result of the benefits freeze. So, they are actually going to be worse off, regardless of all the hype about how...
Jenny Rathbone: What work has the Welsh Government done on extending the metro east of Cardiff, including temporary mitigation measures?
Jenny Rathbone: Minister, on your explanation that it has taken a year and we still haven't resolved this issue, the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee is going to the national library next Thursday—I wonder if you can give us a brief so that we can come back with some clear answers to these questions so that we can just get on with this; otherwise we're going to lose the lottery funding.
Jenny Rathbone: For the record, my postbag is full of people who don't want to see the destruction of the Gwent levels, which some of them are describing as the equivalent of the Amazon basin. So, that is certainly a particular concern of many, many of my constituents. However, I completely agree with the motion. We need to ensure that the new Government has options available because, looking back, it's five...
Jenny Rathbone: Okay.
Jenny Rathbone: I don't disagree with Mark Reckless. I'm sure that's one of the possible options, but obviously there are other places that need to be served. This isn't quite the place for examining the detail. But one of the important things we've learned recently, since Transport for Wales took over the Arriva contract, is that James Price has assured us that the Keolis contract is flexible enough to be...
