Adam Price: First Minister, I'd like to ask you, finally, to respond to some new information that's been released in relation to the now-rejected proposals to introduce unpaid breaks for nurses in the north. First of all, can you say whether you believe it is appropriate that your officials sought to involve the chief executive of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, Gary Doherty, in political...
Adam Price: First Minister, how much money is being handed over to private sector management consultants to try and fix the Welsh NHS?
Adam Price: First Minister, we both agree that creeping privatisation is a threat to the NHS. The surprising thing, perhaps, is that that threat, in part, comes from you. You're funding a management consultancy gravy train at a time when front-line staff and services like A&E are stretched to breaking point. Perhaps I can help you out with some of the figures, First Minister. Freedom of information...
Adam Price: First Minister, that same freedom of information disclosure also revealed that some of these management consultants in north Wales are being paid up to £1,000 a day, which is more than most nurses earn in a week. Now, let me present one more sobering statistic that points to your mismanagement of the NHS in north Wales: PwC are being engaged by you to cut costs—or, as it's euphemistically...
Adam Price: As we embark on a new year, I'd like to begin, apart from wishing you blwyddyn newydd dda, with your end-of-year video. No, not the infamous James Bond one, but the one in which you set out your biggest achievements in your first year as First Minister. You highlighted, as one of those achievements, building almost 480 houses a month in 2019. Are you able to tell us what proportion, roughly,...
Adam Price: Well, as we normally say under these circumstances, I can assist the First Minister, as the Assembly Research Service, quoting your own Government's statistics, say that the corresponding figures for 2016 and 2017 of homes built per month were 552 and 574 a month respectively. You were even marginally down on 2018, so it doesn't seem that that's something, First Minister, to crow...
Adam Price: In relation to houses, I was merely asking you what the position was over the last year, the first year of your tenure, compared to the previous three years under your predecessor. What I have to say to you is that you've gone backwards, in terms of the last three years. In terms of trees, you've been unable to confirm it, but I suspect that, once again, you haven't met the target for new...
Adam Price: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm very grateful to have this opportunity to introduce this motion on child poverty, which dovetails very neatly—completely unplanned, but serendipitously—with some of the theme of the last debate. Child poverty is one of the most persistent problems that we face as a society. In Wales relative child poverty has been in a band, essentially, between 36 per cent of...
Adam Price: I certainly agree with the spirit of the point you're making, that we should definitely hold Westminster to account and continue to do that very vociferously. But I suppose the logic of my case is that we have to ask ourselves what we can do here now, because the salvation will not come, I think, likely any time soon from Westminster. Now, in essence, we've had two elements of an anti-poverty...
Adam Price: I entirely agree with you. The case that I'm making is, look, we should create our own instrument because, as the biggest systematic review in this area by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has said, income support policies like a Welsh child payment are the ultimate multipurpose policy instrument because of their cumulative impact across so many parts of children's and families' lives. The...
Adam Price: The debate started with Rhianon Passmore focusing on the question of whether we have the power. I mean, when Rhodri Morgan decided that the Welsh Government was going to top up the child trust fund, I didn't see much discussion or soul searching then; it was the right thing to do and if you didn't have the power, you went and asked for it. And that's the Calman attitude now. And I think that...
Adam Price: My time is very, very limited, I'm afraid. Leanne, I think, pointed to the wealth of evidence that there is internationally on the value of cash transfer versus in-kind payments. There's a debate going on, of course, between the benefit of universal basic services versus universal basic income, the social wage that Joyce Watson referred to, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming that,...
Adam Price: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. First Minister, I'd like to start by raising with you the case of Peter Connelly, who died in what the Welsh ambulance service trust described as 'difficult and unacceptable...circumstances'. There had been an eight-hour delay in admitting Mr Connelly to Wrexham Maelor Hospital. Following his death, the senior coroner for north Wales issued a regulation 28 report on...
Adam Price: I'm sure that it's right to say that there are systemic reasons for the problems that have been highlighted, but would the First Minister accept that there have been so many cases in north Wales that there must be specific reasons, which would suggest that the kinds of general factors that exist elsewhere have caused a large number of tragic cases? Part of the issue, of course, is a lack of...
Adam Price: If I understand the First Minister correctly, you were arguing that your failure, in a way, is a reflection of your success. For the eighth year on the bounce, it is again true to say that over 85 per cent of the beds are occupied, which is above the safe threshold that you have set. Some 125 patients were healthy enough to leave one hospital last week, but there was no social care available...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Despite repeated public safety concerns, the then justice Secretary at Westminster, Chris Grayling, pressed ahead with the part privatisation of the probation service in 2014. A year later, Conner Marshall from Barry was murdered by David Braddon, who was under the supervision of a privately run community rehabilitation company. This has turned out to be one of the most...
Adam Price: Thank you, First Minister. When the system was privatised, as we know, eight organisations were awarded the contracts worth just under £4 billion. Working Links was the company supervising David Braddon. In 2015, the year of the murder, The Financial Times reported that staff were writing to the company complaining of excessive workloads. Last week, the coroner concluded that the management...
Adam Price: First Minister, you make the case very eloquently that, certainly, probation should have been devolved long ago, and it's certainly the case, I think, that had the justice system been devolved then we wouldn't have followed the disastrous changes that the UK Government implemented, and I think you have to ask: could it be that an innocent life would not have been lost? Obviously, the Thomas...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, one cannot begin to imagine the grief of parents who suffer the loss of a child. As reported by BBC Wales Investigates last night, an inquest found that the healthcare provided to Sarah Handy contributed to her baby's death in 2017. Her case is one of 140 being reviewed to establish whether mothers and babies were harmed while receiving care at Cwm Taf...
Adam Price: In last night's programme, Andrew Morgan also said that when there were calls for the resignation of Cwm Taf's chief executive, he was asked not to speak out. Do you agree that any attempt to gag an elected representative is totally unacceptable? And will he launch his own investigation to see whether the allegations that Mr Morgan made vis-à-vis the health board are true? Cwm Taf is not...
