Adam Price: Between December 2018 and December 2019—the figures released just today—there were 41 incidents resulting in death registered within Betsi. That's 53 per cent of all such deaths reported by Welsh health boards in total. That's obviously disproportionately high when you consider that health board covers just about 20 per cent of the population of Wales. If I've understood the First...
Adam Price: Who is responsible for making the accident and emergency service at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital unsafe?
Adam Price: The health Minister's responsibilities are listed on your own Government's website as having 'oversight of NHS delivery and performance'. Therefore, there can be no doubt as to who is responsible for allowing the situation at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital to deteriorate. Staffing levels at all three of Cwm Taf Morgannwg's A&E units are well below UK-wide standards. The UK average is 7,000...
Adam Price: In creating the NHS in 1948, Aneurin Bevan won an argument around the Cabinet table, against the likes of Herbert Morrison, that regional boards within the NHS had to be accountable to, and working under the direction of, a health Minister, otherwise it would not be a national health service, hence the famous apocryphal quote about dropped bedpans in Tredegar reverberating around the...
Adam Price: Will you sack the chief whip?
Adam Price: Will you sack the chief whip?
Adam Price: Your predecessor had to face a similar predicament, of course, when Leighton Andrews campaigned against a school closure in his constituency. He did then resign. The similarities between the two cases are much more striking than any differences, though the protest there was outside the Senedd, not in the constituency. The Labour source quoted by the BBC today says that this is a clear breach...
Adam Price: Yes, I did take the opportunity to read the ministerial code, and it's quite clear in the ministerial code that Ministers cannot campaign against Government policy. This ward closure was a direct result of your own Government policy. That's the point. You're in danger, on the NHS, of turning double standards into an art form, of having your cake as a Government and eating it as an opposition....
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd. It would be churlish not to recognise the successes of the Government, which are set out in the annual report, and, of course, where there is room for agreement for the benefit of the people of Wales, even as opposition parties, it’s important to do that. That’s why we as a party gave our support last summer to some of the measures in the legislative statement. But we...
Adam Price: Now, shortly after the Labour leadership contest was over, a copy of the First Minister's manifesto proved more elusive than the Llandeilo bypass, but thankfully there are copies available, I believe, in the Senedd library. But there are some important outstanding questions that I think need answering on the relationship between that document and the programme for government. The central one...
Adam Price: Diolch. Last week, I saw for myself, first-hand, the deep sense of community spirit that the First Minister also referred to, and I'll be visiting residents in Pentre again tomorrow. This is not a time to walk on by on the other side, when people are facing such hardship and distress, or, in the case of Boris Johnson, simply not to turn up at all, of course. Now, the repair bill—I've seen...
Adam Price: As the clean-up begins, of course, questions will need to be addressed about what could have been done differently—the lessons learned that the First Minister referred to. I was wondering if he could address some of those initial concerns. Natural Resources Wales have already admitted, I understand, that debris left behind by logging operations on the mountain above Pentre contributed to...
Adam Price: When Yorkshire was hit with severe flooding in July and in November last year, and again this month, UK armed forces were drafted in to help. In the autumn, RAF Chinooks were called in to assist a pumping station near Doncaster following heavy rainfall. This resource—this level of response—might have been invaluable in the case of Trehafod and elsewhere. Although no infantry units are...
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd, for the opportunity, first of all, to point out that Plaid Cymru has opposed HS2 because of its negative impact on Wales for over a decade, since the idea was first raised under the last Labour Government. I remember that as I was the spokesperson for transport in Westminster. We've been consistent on this issue. I wanted to ask about the western Valleys again. I say...
Adam Price: What about our agreement?
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. As a worst-case scenario, up to 80 per cent of the Scottish population could contract the COVID-19 coronavirus, with 250,000 needing hospital treatment, according to their chief medical officer. Yesterday, First Minister, you said that your Government is working for the best and preparing for the worst. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of a worst-case scenario...
Adam Price: Thank you. The four nations action plan published today shows that Wales has not yet put certain measures in place. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, the virus is now classified as a notifiable disease. Why isn't it here? In England emergency powers are already in place to allow the police to direct and detain a person who does not comply with a request to be isolated if suspected of carrying...
Adam Price: The latest UK Government assessment is that up to a fifth of the workforce may be off sick during the peak in an epidemic. The number of people on zero-hours contracts in Wales between June 2018 and July 2019 increased by 35 per cent, and only one in seven of them gets sick pay. What funds do the four Governments intend to set up to ensure that people on such contracts—agency staff in the...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, I believe it's been confirmed that all cases of coronavirus confirmed in Wales had recently returned from Italy. What measures have you taken as a Government to identify Welsh residents who have returned from Italy since the outbreak of the virus, and what extra precautions are in place to ensure that the disease is contained as best as possible? And also, I...
Adam Price: Coronavirus is obviously putting pressure on the NHS in all four nations. Labour's shadow health spokesperson, Jon Ashworth, yesterday asked the health Secretary in England for extra resources because critical care beds in England were at 81 per cent capacity during the week that the latest coronavirus figures were available. The Welsh Government's own task and finish group said: 'NHS Wales...
