Mick Antoniw: Minister, my constituency of Pontypridd—and of course much of Rhondda Cynon Taf—was devastated by the floods. Treforest retail park alone—an estimated £150 million of damage. The first thing I want is an assurance that the funding that's available to recover from the flood damage isn't going to be affected in any way, because many of those businesses are now also affected by the...
Mick Antoniw: Will the First Minister make a statement on the support available to businesses and employees during the coronavirus pandemic?
Mick Antoniw: Minister, firstly, thank you for all the detailed answers and all the regular advice notes and so on, which are of considerable assistance to, I think, all of us who are fielding many, many questions from members of the community at this particularly difficult time. And it is a difficult and very anxious time, so I would particularly like to put on record, I think, my praise and commendation...
Mick Antoniw: Thank you, Deputy Llywydd. Can I start by saying that I reported on this matter to the committee this morning? The committee has not, because of time constraints, been able to consider the details of the Bill. I have been able to look through the Bill, and I report, really, as Chair of the committee within that capacity. Can I firstly say that, in taking emergency powers, there is still and...
Mick Antoniw: I want to ask you a little bit about enforcement of the social distancing legislation in the workplace, and I suppose in doing so also put on record the tremendous work that our trade unions are actually doing in contributing to that. The efforts with the branches, the union representatives, the safety representatives, working alongside their employers, their businesses, I think are making a...
Mick Antoniw: Diolch, Llywydd. We reported on this Bill on 13 March and we made 12 recommendations, and, as the Minister has stated, she responded on 23 March. I welcome the acceptance by the Minister of recommendation 5 and the positive comments made in respect of our recommendations 4, 6, and 9. I would like to make some general observations on the Bill, which has taken six years to prepare. It is a...
Mick Antoniw: First Minister, today is National Postal Workers Day, and I wonder if you will join me in thanking all those posties and their trade union, the Communication Workers Union, who do such fantastic work all year round and who, as designated key workers during the coronavirus crisis, have worked round the clock to make sure every community gets its mail. First Minister, I have one additional...
Mick Antoniw: Minister, you'll be aware that the University of South Wales, based in Treforest, has been at the forefront of research about new ways of testing for coronavirus and that they produced a potentially game-changing rapid response test. It's part of an upsurge in local enterprise and innovation to produce personal protective equipment, and to develop new ways of testing that we've seen in Wales...
Mick Antoniw: Diolch, Llywydd. The first set of regulations that we'll consider today, the principal set of coronavirus restrictions regulations, were laid before the Assembly during the period when the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee were not sitting as usual, as a result of this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As such, and in line with the temporary process established by the Business...
Mick Antoniw: [Inaudible.]—decision by Welsh Government in respect of the payment of £500 to care workers, can I just suggest this is a first step in what must eventually become a new deal for our public sector workers? Can I ask what progress is being made to persuade the UK Government to waive the tax in these payments, as indeed happened during the flooding crisis? And also, First Minister, can you...
Mick Antoniw: Minister, it is perhaps inevitable there are going to be job losses amongst the six million furloughed workers in the UK. Tourism has all but collapsed, and much of the aviation industry, as you've already reported on, has reduced substantially. Now, we've heard announcements recently of the voluntary redundancies in my constituency, in GE, in Nantgarw. GE is a very highly valued company of...
Mick Antoniw: [Inaudible] COVID-19-related inflammatory disease, which affects children in the UK and, indeed, other parts of the world. Will the Minister give an assessment of the risk to children and young people in Wales, and update us on any action taken by the Welsh NHS? And could you also confirm that any evidence that emerges in respect of child-specific COVID-19 illness risks will be factored into...
Mick Antoniw: First Minister, Boris Johnson, in Prime Minister's questions today, says that he believes it is right to charge low-paid, front-line healthcare workers, coming from abroad to work in the NHS, the immigration health surcharge, amounting to hundreds of pounds or more a year. Now, Keir Starmer, the Labour leader and the leader of the opposition in Parliament, quoted a letter from doctors and...
Mick Antoniw: Thank you, Llywydd. Members will be aware that these two sets of regulations amend the principal regulations on the coronavirus restrictions, and they're made, as has been indicated by the Minister, under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. Now, for context, I'd like to briefly outline the purpose of the principal regulations, which came into force on 26 March and were...
Mick Antoniw: First Minister, one of the consequences of the pandemic is the impact on the aviation industry. All employers in this industry have constructively engaged with trade unions on behalf of their workforces to manage these very difficult circumstances, to protect jobs and to protect skills for the future. However, sadly, there is one employer who has been described as a 'commercial predator', who...
Mick Antoniw: How's that? Is that okay?
Mick Antoniw: Minister, there are many consequences of coronavirus, not just the disease. We've discussed the associated consequences of lockdown, such as mental health. The one I want to raise, though, is the increased risk in respect of gambling addiction. You will be familiar, Minister, I would have thought, with the case of Chris Bruney, who was a 25-year-old who lost £119,000 in five days. He was...
Mick Antoniw: First Minister, across all parties, we very much welcomed some weeks ago now the £500 additional payment to be made to our front-line care workers in recognition of the extra contribution and the really important contribution they're making during this coronavirus pandemic. This was very much at the expense of £32 million of Welsh Government money for 64,000 of those workers. I wonder if...
Mick Antoniw: I think that's fixed now, Llywydd.
Mick Antoniw: Thank you. Llywydd, the committee, of course, as the Minister has explained, has not had the opportunity to scrutinise this particular memorandum. But, as Chair of the committee, there are a number of comments that I think it is important that I do make, because this is a serious piece of legislation that does impact on rights, albeit predominantly corporate rights, but also, to some extent,...
