Jenny Rathbone: 5. What discussions has the Minister had with the Minister for Climate Change about accelerating the retrofitting programme to households in fuel poverty? OQ57417
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you, Minister. I heard your earlier comments, and I just want to focus in my supplementary question on the role of the private sector, because the worst-insulated homes are in the private rental sector, which is also where tenants are having to pay higher rents. I was speaking to a constituent this weekend about the inability to keep their living room warm, even after eight or nine...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much for calling me. This is the first debate on the work of the Equality and Social Justice Committee. Our report looked at the impact of the pandemic on personal indebtedness and how the Welsh Government and public services should be responding. At the forefront of everybody's mind today—apart from the fate of our current Prime Minister—is the unprecedented rise in energy...
Jenny Rathbone: The public is not stupid. Many of our witnesses and contributors foresaw this huge hike in energy costs that households are now grappling with. They predicted that this was going to be a tsunami or perfect storm, which, I'm afraid, is now staring us in the face. This is not simply an energy crisis compounded by a climate emergency. Britain is now significantly poorer as a result of the...
Jenny Rathbone: On a related matter, we were concerned by allegations from Shelter Cymru of alleged police involvement in illegal evictions during the pandemic, repeated in both their written and oral evidence. We sought further details from Shelter on exactly what information had been shared with the police. After our report was published, I wrote to all four police forces in Wales asking them to respond to...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much indeed for all your very useful contributions. As Jane Dodds said, we've all been weathering the same COVID storm, but we've not been rowing in the same boat; I think that's a really useful allegory. I think it was particularly useful that Jane Dodds mentioned the debt bonfire issue and the legacy debts that really hang around people's necks. For example, Shelter...
Jenny Rathbone: Okay. I thank you, Heledd, particularly, as you weren't part of the inquiry, for your points about council tax and the important role that we collectively have to play to ensure that public bodies aren't making the problems worse, and also ensuring that we cut the role of bailiffs harassing people in difficult circumstances. I think the Minister made it abundantly clear in her response that...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much indeed. I am delighted to hear you highlight the importance of Flying Start, but also the really important role of midwives and health visitors, who can really change the dial when people become pregnant and have these very, very young children. Everybody wants to do the right thing for their child when they are first born, and so I look forward to hearing how the enhanced...
Jenny Rathbone: 9. What ambitions does the Welsh Government have to expand apprenticeships? OQ57483
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you, First Minister. A hundred and twenty-five thousand is a really excellent target. I wondered if you were able to say how many there are today, just so we understand just how much road we've got to travel, and in your view, is this going to be sufficient to meet all the challenges that Wales faces in our public services, particularly health and social care, and in addition to that,...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. My constituency has the pleasure and the honour to host the statue of Betty Campbell, and because it has been created whilst Betty really is a living memory, she was able to draw on the evidence from people who'd worked with and trained with Betty, who'd campaigned with Betty, or who had lived with Betty, and all the work she did to really drive forward...
Jenny Rathbone: Breaking the law is an important part of protest, if the matter deserves it. And many of the people who break the law in the cause of social justice end up becoming prime ministers or presidents, so we need to think about that very carefully. I thank the Welsh Government for allowing the LCM to be split into two separate votes. I'm content to provide consent to some perfectly unremarkable...
Jenny Rathbone: How does the Welsh Government use ReAct funding to increase the availability of English to Speakers of Other Languages classes?
Jenny Rathbone: On 4 January, Public Health Wales announced this important enhancement to the cervical screening service. Whilst it was disappointing that they failed to provide some context as to why this was an improvement, rather than a reduction in service, hindsight is a wonderful thing. And I can see why a change that was introduced nearly two years ago in England and Scotland was not deemed to be...
Jenny Rathbone: This debate takes place on the afternoon when we've all had the opportunity to ask questions of our health Minister. So, we have fresh in our minds the areas of health provision where we can all agree we need to do better, whether that's eating disorders, ADHD, hearing loss, social prescribing, or, earlier, I attended a meeting about ovarian cancer, which was hosted by Mark Isherwood. On all...
Jenny Rathbone: Okay. I'd like to hear from the Minister how that compares with the bowel screening that takes place in the over-60s, because obviously once again this is something that takes place in people's homes, they don't need to go for an appointment, they don't need to travel to see the nurse who's going to do the screen. This is a very important way of ensuring that cervical cancer is something that...
Jenny Rathbone: Next week, I'm going to be visiting an organic beef and sheep farm in the First Minister's constituency, which I'm much looking forward to. You won't be surprised to know that I'll be raising, with the Farmers Union of Wales officers who are going to be there, what we can do to grow more fruit and vegetables in Wales, which at the moment we currently import, which means they're less fresh and...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you for your statement, Minister. You quite rightly mentioned the massacres that have occurred since the Holocaust, but I just want to mention a couple of the massacres that occurred during and immediately after the first world war, which are very vividly and passionately remembered by many of my constituents. Sioned Williams has just mentioned the Armenian massacre of 1915. This was a...
Jenny Rathbone: —who really warn about this. So, I appreciate that, above all, Holocaust Memorial Day remains an unimaginable burden for the Jewish community in Cardiff, as well as the Gypsy and Traveller and Roma community, and also all the gay community, who were massacred by the Nazis. But today, as the prospect of war in eastern Europe raises its ugly head again, what does the Minister think we can do...
Jenny Rathbone: Well, I haven't got the Act in front of me either, but I'm absolutely of the view that this is a great opportunity for all learners—the new curriculum as well as the additional learning needs Act. I just wanted to ask you what plans you have to co-locate all special schools on mainstream school sites in the future so that people with ALN, who come in all shapes and sizes, can benefit from...
