Jenny Rathbone: I’m going to speak initially in my capacity as Chair of the Equality and Social Justice Committee, and then move on to some things that are burning issues in my constituency. We looked at the social justice budget, obviously through the lens of trying to identify how we are going to support the most vulnerable in our society.
Jenny Rathbone: One of the things that majorly concerned us was that the one-off non-recurrent allocation of £117 million as a result of the UK Government's decision to give everybody a handout to subsidise the energy companies' horrendously raised charges has serious implications for how vulnerable families are going to survive next winter, because that £200 Wales fuel support scheme has been really...
Jenny Rathbone: I thank the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee for allowing members of the climate change committee to take part in this really important inquiry in scrutiny of Stage 1 of the Bill. I wanted to talk a little bit more about recommendation 9, which is the need for more clarity on the role of local procurement and local food supply chains, and how they're going to be supported by the...
Jenny Rathbone: This scandalous exploitation of individuals who have the least and who need to keep warm, like everybody else, really exposes that we have a completely broken system. So, if you ever get the chance to talk to the UK Government about their failure to act on this—. It's been over three months that Jack Sargeant has been raising this in the Senedd. And what have the magistrates been doing when...
Jenny Rathbone: Next Monday is the hundredth anniversary of radio broadcasting from Wales. It was launched in Cardiff from a room above a music shop on Castle Street and it was the first broadcasting venture outside London. Astonishingly, people from Pontypridd, Rhymney, Newport and Gwent all managed to tune into radio 5WA's inaugural broadcast. Astonishing, because, unless you could afford the equivalent of...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much indeed for your interesting report on a very important subject. I think too often in the past the primary purpose of the school system was to maximise the numbers of people who achieved five A to Cs, including English and Maths. I think it's called the capped score in the jargon. But this takes no account of the complexity and challenge of pupils' lives and their ability...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Thank you, Deputy Minister, for commissioning this roads review, which is going to help us align our net-zero obligations with our transport strategy, and it's clear that there's still quite a lot of work to do to ensure our planning policies are also aligned with our net-zero obligations. For example, just as we need to halt unsustainable housing...
Jenny Rathbone: —on the buses, because they are clogged up in the congestion created by cars, which is an absolutely vicious circle, and I wondered how we can make serious and rapid progress on that in order to make rapid progress there.
Jenny Rathbone: We've all either observed or seen the steep spike in the price of vegetables and the empty shelves in our shops. The horticulture start-up and horticulture development grant schemes led last year to 19 new entrants into commercial horticulture and the expansion of 12 existing schemes. I wondered if we could have a debate in Government time on whether this is merely a short-term problem...
Jenny Rathbone: First of all, I'm having difficulty finding this new plan that's been published today on the internet. It would be great to know whether it has actually been made available to us all, because I'm very keen to understand which are the seven key areas and the 36 actions. Following up on the points that you've just made to Luke Fletcher, we can hope that the UK Government will do the right thing...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much, Minister, for this very important statement. I think it's really important that we all realise that, unless we change our ways, we are all going to be in danger of dying from the simplest intervention, for example, if we were to get an infection, break our arm, or some other thing. It would take medicine back to the nineteenth century really. So, this could hardly be more...
Jenny Rathbone: 3. What is the Welsh Government’s strategy for tackling the shortage of Gypsy and Traveller sites across Wales? OQ59178
Jenny Rathbone: 3. What assessment has the Counsel General made of the costs associated with devolving responsibility for courts and sentencing to Wales? OQ59179
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you, Minister. I attended the excellent event, hosted by the Llywydd, which was celebrating how people fleeing persecution have found sanctuary in Wales. But we cannot deny that some communities are more welcome than others, and the Gypsy and Traveller community do not feel welcome; they feel persecuted. And it is disappointing that local authorities are proactive in proposing new sites...
Jenny Rathbone: I'm very glad that this issue has been raised, because whilst policing is not devolved, I'm absolutely sure that the police are as concerned as we are about the way in which hateful views are exposing our young people to harmful images and extreme right-wing views. Yes, the RSE is very important to counter the hateful and self-harming images that young people are becoming exposed to, but...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you, Counsel General. Obviously, this is a work in progress. I just want to draw your attention to the fact that the Equality and Social Justice Committee's inquiry into women involved in the criminal justice system has revealed that less than half the magistrates surveyed by the Magistrates Association had heard of the women's justice blueprint, which aspires to reduce the number of...
Jenny Rathbone: I just want to remind us all that every single household with a pay-as-you-go meter has already received £400 via the UK Government into the account that they hold with the energy companies, whilst it’s a very much smaller proportion of the generally much more vulnerable households on prepayment meters who’ve received either the UK Government’s or the Welsh Government’s voucher...
Jenny Rathbone: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I understand that our patron saint, Dewi Sant, told Welsh soldiers to wear the leek on their helmets so that they could distinguish their comrades in battle from the Saxons who wore similar armour. This suggests that leeks must have been much more plentiful in the first century than they are in the twenty-first century, if they were being used for decoration rather...
Jenny Rathbone: Okay. I will just complete by saying we now have protected geographical indication status for Welsh leeks since last November, so there's a lot to celebrate about the Welsh leek.
Jenny Rathbone: 2. What progress has the Welsh Government made on embedding prudent healthcare into every aspect of health and well-being in Cardiff Central? OQ59234
