Rhun ap Iorwerth: The commissioner goes on:
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 'we don't know whether the worthy and important new investment in climate and nature in this budget is being undone by business as usual elsewhere in Government.'
Rhun ap Iorwerth: That is damning. There's the £29 million for electric buses. Well, excellent. The figure itself is fine. You'll know that I'm a keen campaigner for electric vehicles, but, with a budget such as this, we need evidence to show whether giving £29 million for new buses is the best way of having the best impact in terms of decarbonisation from that expenditure of £29 million. And, in addition...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 'Without a comprehensive assessment of all spending decisions,'
Rhun ap Iorwerth: said Sophie Howe,
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 'positive progress in some areas may be undermined by high carbon projects or programmes in others. The Welsh Government have an opportunity to become a global leader on budgeting in a climate emergency, by publishing a "carbon impact account" alongside its annual budget.'
Rhun ap Iorwerth: They haven't taken that opportunity in this budget. To respond to the question that was asked earlier, it's not just where the money comes from, but what message the Government is conveying through this budget as a whole. It's not just looking at environmental sustainability that the commissioner is doing. It's the commissioner's role to ask more general questions as to whether decisions...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 4. What consideration has the Minister given to funding the housing support grant when allocating the Welsh Government budget? OAQ55037
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 1. Will the Minister make a statement following the announcement regarding the departure of Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board's Chief Executive? 391
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you, Llywydd. In discussing the draft budget yesterday, quite some attention was given to the very important issue of decarbonisation. So, what are the Government's priorities in terms of encouraging decarbonisation in transport in Wales?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: And that's where I want to go next, because yes, you are at a very early stage—a very early stage indeed—in terms of the investment that should be happening on a wide scale in terms of a charging network for electric vehicles. I look forward to participating in a debate here in the Chamber this afternoon on how to encourage the use of electric vehicles through the planning system. But in...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I have to say that it's been a cause of great frustration for me, having succeeded in reaching that agreement, to see these delays in spending the money. In a written response I received in November on Government expenditure over the past five years on charging infrastructure, we see that as little over £0.5 million is provided in grants to the councils of Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: My appeal is simple: don't do anything in your budget that threatens expenditure on tackling homelessness. You have to maintain and increase housing support grants and Supporting People, because, behind the statistics on homelessness, there are real people. With a heavy heart, I will mention one of them. The coroner this week confirmed that Paul Daniel Hughes was the gentleman found dead in a...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: My team was truly saddened to hear of Paul's passing. He'd been a regular visitor to my office. A local man, homeless, he lived in a tent on the banks of Afon Cefni for a period. My team tried to help him, and were frustrated time and time again. He was made homeless originally because of the death of his mother, or after the death of his mother. He'd been in a hostel for one time but was...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much. It's never nice to personalise these issues, but it's clear that confidence in the ability of Gary Doherty has been lost for some time to secure the kind of progress needed within Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board after almost five years in special measures. If truth be told, I see plenty of evidence in many areas that things have been getting worse recently, and...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: The chairman and the board clearly had run out of patience with the chief executive, but let me say clearly that the people of the north of Wales have run out of patience with the failure of the health board, in direct partnership, of course, with this Labour Welsh Government. They have nothing but respect for dedicated health workers, but they need to have their faith restored that Betsi...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I want to speak today about Parkrun, the global society of running clubs that encourage people to run 5 km every Saturday morning. It's been going since 2004, and now hundreds of thousands of people run on a weekly basis, and groups of volunteers run parkruns in all parts of Wales. Llanddwyn and Llangefni are the two that are most local to me, and, according to the Parkrun website—I checked...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: As a proud campaigner in favour of greater adoption of ultra low emission vehicles, or ULEVs, I welcome very much this motion from David Melding, and I'm happy to support it. Just in response to what we heard from Angela Burns—you said you like your car, you like to drive fast, but you'll support EVs—EVs drive like any other car. We're not asking you to give up anything; we're asking you...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Just in a second. In years to come, no doubt when people insist on having charging points in their homes, builders will put them in. But what Government can do is insist that that happens through legislation now, in order to drive that culture change, which will lead us to that point in the not-too-distant future.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: To keep my answer short, electric vehicles are still more efficient than internal-combustion-engine-driven cars even if they're fuelled by electricity generated by fossil fuels, because they're more efficient. But you're absolutely right, of course: that's where we need to get to, that we're using clean electricity to drive the car. So it's a central point. There's much that we need to do in...
