Adam Price: Yesterday, your colleague Chris Bryant MP, dismissed independence supporters as 'childish'. You yourself have suggested supporters of Welsh independence are inward-looking and 'inherently right-wing'. With recent polls showing that more than half of Labour voters are now in favour of independence, and that support is highest among our young people, on the national question, isn't it the...
Adam Price: First Minister, upon winning your party's leadership election in December 2018, you said that, in a fractured world, Members of the Senedd should strive for 'a kinder sort of politics'. Last week, your Labour colleague and leader of Neath Port Talbot council, Rob Jones, was forced to step aside after a recording emerged of him making despicable comments about our fellow Senedd Member Bethan...
Adam Price: But surely, First Minister, even now you can issue an outright condemnation of his remarks. The recording also reveals a sinister way of going about politics, doesn't it? He, astonishingly, alludes to favouring projects supported by Labour councillors for public funding. Citing the example of Alltygrug cemetery in Ystalyfera, he talks about telling officers to go and search down behind the...
Adam Price: I just ask him finally: could you admit that the words used by Councillor Jones to describe Bethan Sayed are absolutely appalling? You have all the information, surely, that anyone needs to make that statement now. In last week's budget, the UK Government faced fierce criticism for the way in which its so-called levelling-up fund favoured Conservative constituencies. In the first tranche of...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, today we mark the very sombre anniversary of the first recorded death as a result of COVID-19 in Wales. You've talked about the need for a future public inquiry that will seek to identify lessons from the last 12 months. Do you share the view, as I do, recently expressed by Sir Mansel Aylward, that one of the clear lessons is that there was a failure to...
Adam Price: Many people, First Minister, are pointing to the way in which COVID-19 has highlighted and further exacerbated existing health inequalities that the Welsh health and social care policy forum, which draw together the leading organisations in the sector in Wales, have written to you, asking you to commit to a cross-Government strategy to reduce these inequalities, addressing the deeper social...
Adam Price: First Minister, you previously said that you share my party's ambition of paying care workers fairly, with a guaranteed minimum wage of £10 an hour, but that can only happen, you said, if your party at Westminster succeeds in persuading the UK Government to adopt such a policy. Surely we can't afford to outsource such a fundamental decision to a UK Tory Government—they're never going to...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, every administration should look back on its time in office and ask the question, 'What should we have done better?' When you ask yourself that question, what answer do you give?
Adam Price: I must admit, First Minister, that Labour's campaign launch recently caused a bit of a double take. When I asked you four weeks ago today to commit to giving the real living wage to our care workers, your response then was to pour scorn on what you deemed to be unaffordable pledges. Fast forward a month, and the real living wage for carers now is a headline policy for you going into the...
Adam Price: I note you said there, First Minister, that you were making a 'conservative assessment' of Plaid Cymru's policies and I think you used your words very advisedly, because I expect you next to be quoting Theresa May and the magic money tree. That's not an election campaign that went very well for her in the end. Our policies will be costed, independently verified by Professor Brian Morgan and...
Adam Price: May I take this opportunity to extend my sincerest sympathies to those who have lost loved ones as a result of the terrible cruelty that we have suffered during the last 12 months, and those still suffering today? Our thoughts are with them all. As you said in your statement, First Minister, it will be some time before the impact of the pandemic can be fully understood, and I do fear that the...
Adam Price: Thank you very much, Llywydd. On behalf of the Plaid Cymru group in the Welsh Parliament, I extend my sincere sympathy to Queen Elizabeth and her family in their bereavement. It's important to bear in mind, as has already been noted, in the midst of all the official mourning, that we are talking here about a wife who has lost her husband, with an incomprehensible void opening up after so many...
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd, and may I start by congratulating you on your election as Llywydd? It's good to see a member of Plaid Cymru winning at least one election this afternoon, but may I extend the same congratulations to David Rees, and, of course, I extend my warmest congratulations to Mark Drakeford on being confirmed as First Minister this afternoon? As I said following the result of the...
Adam Price: A Parliament that is perfectly balanced between Government and opposition makes political co-operation across party lines not just desirable but necessary, and we stand, in Plaid Cymru, ready to find common ground in the interests of the people who have elected all of us to this Senedd. We'll work with Government where possible, and with the opposition parties where necessary, in the sprit of...
Adam Price: May I thank the First Minister for his statement, and also respond to the spirit of collaboration that was intertwined throughout that statement? You mentioned that Welsh choral tradition as a sign of that spirit of collaboration, and of course we do have to remember that I think the original term for the Welsh Parliament was to create a cymanfa genedlaethol, that gathering for song. So that...
Adam Price: In relation to the Indian variant, the primary Indian variant of concern, you said that there are a number of areas where we still do not have definitive evidence in relation to its effect in terms of vaccination efficacy and also whether it causes a more serious form of the disease. Could you say a little bit about those areas where we do have some understanding? So, particularly, I've read...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. The people of Wales voted this month by a margin of more than 2:1 for parties that stood on a platform of greater powers for the Senedd. Westminster's reaction to this mandate so far has been not just to ignore it but to seek to reverse it. They have a plan for Wales; it just doesn't involve us. The Senedd bypassed on the replacement to European Union funds; Transport for...
Adam Price: [Inaudible.]—another example. Westminster's latest assault on Welsh democracy involves the £500 bonus for health and care staff in Wales. Not content with taxing it, Westminster now appears to be using it as an excuse to cut people's benefits. So, instead of receiving a thank-you bonus, many workers will be punished with a deduction of up to 63 per cent in their universal credit. If we...
Adam Price: The election may be over, First Minister, but the bitter legacy of deep poverty and inequality in our communities, which is bequeathed to us by this deeply unequal United Kingdom, that persists. The 31 per cent of our children in Wales who are living in poverty: how can you argue that the union has been a force for untrammelled good for them? Contrast that with New Zealand: this last week, a...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. When faced with the choice of using a regressive tax—like national insurance—to fund public services, or a progressive alternative, then a Tory Westminster Government will always choose the former. Do you think this strengthens the case for devolving national insurance to Wales, particularly given the prime Minister’s insistence on ripping the devolution settlement to...
