Alun Davies: Diolch yn fawr.
Alun Davies: What financial impact has the cost-of-living crisis had on elderly people?
Alun Davies: First Minister, do you agree with me that it takes some front for a Conservative to criticise the national health service? One of the issues we've seen over the last decade has been how austerity has ripped the heart out of our public services. Brexit ripped the heart out of our economy. What we need to do to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of Aneurin Bevan establishing the national...
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to the Minister for her full statement this afternoon. I think all of us, on all sides of the Chamber and whatever our political differences may be, have a great well of gratitude to everybody who's working in the current circumstances across the national health service and in local government providing social care as well. I think we all recognise the enormous pressures that are...
Alun Davies: That's no surprise, is it, First Minister, that something created by this UK Government will adversely affect Wales? The Scots have learnt this week about the UK Government's disregard for democracy. What we have understood is that we have a chaotic subsidy control regime introduced post Brexit, when the reality of taking back control was not to give control to the people of Wales, to the...
Alun Davies: Minister, you'll be aware that, on Friday, the south Wales coroner made a ruling that two nurses who died as a consequence of contracting COVID at work died of an industrial disease. This will clearly have some significant repercussions for the approach of the Welsh Government in dealing with these matters. I've raised issues around public service workers in my own constituency who have had...
Alun Davies: I'm grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm grateful to the Minister for his statement this afternoon, although I must say that I find his trust in the United Kingdom Government somewhat touching, and potentially misplaced. We've had a debate earlier today in questions around the way in which the subsidy regime is being managed, and he's quoted himself the betrayal over EU funding. So, I...
Alun Davies: We know the economic issues we're facing were made in Downing Street—[Interruption.]—and the incompetence of economic management in London, together with Brexit, has led to one of the biggest cost-of-living crises that many of us have ever seen. Now, this makes the Conservative Party laugh, of course, because when people are hungry, when people are cold, they really don't give a damn...
Alun Davies: Of course, the best way to achieve this, as we all know, on every side of the Chamber, would be to go back to the old eight counties where you've got local government with sufficient capacity and clout to be able to deliver those schemes. You know that, they all know that, but there we go. I won't go after it this afternoon, everybody will be pleased to hear. But what I would like...
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to the Presiding Officer for allowing me to contribute to this point of order. It was certainly unfortunate what happened this morning, and we accept that. However, the Deputy Minister herself was put into a difficult situation and I attach no blame to the Deputy Minister for the circumstances of what happened this morning. I think the lessons we need to learn in terms of...
Alun Davies: I accept the point you make, although I wouldn't go all the way down the brutality of that route. But pricing people out of a car only works where public transport is available. In places like the ones I represent, that public transport isn't available, so what you're doing is hammering the poorest and most vulnerable people.
Alun Davies: This has almost become a conversation, but—
Alun Davies: —my constituents use those car parks, and your constituents who work in the city centre rely on my constituents using Cardiff as a local city. We don't have the opportunity to do anything except drive into Cardiff. We need that, and so the danger is you're creating a division between Cardiff and the Valleys.
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to the committee and to the clerking team of the committee for producing this report. Of course, the test that I will establish for Government policy is how it affects the people of Blaenau Gwent, because the exchange that I enjoyed at least—I don't know if anybody else did—with Jenny Rathbone earlier was about the difference in experience between those in the centre of...
Alun Davies: Jenny, you might find this surprising, but I'm celebrating my fifty-ninth birthday next month, so my thinking is developing on the bus pass, shall we say, and perhaps I should declare an interest in it. But, look—
Alun Davies: Yes, I would be prepared to pay £1. But, I also think that perhaps we should be making public transport free, or £1 flat rate for everyone, wherever they're travelling to, at any time. I actually think that we need to think about investing in public transport and not just putting up barriers to public transport. So, I don't have the sacred cows that all too often we parade in this Chamber,...
Alun Davies: —in the same way as we do elsewhere. So, I'm grateful for your indulgence, Deputy Presiding Officer. Minister, in replying to this debate, I want to see the equality of treatment for people up and down the country, and I want you to pass the Blaenau Gwent test. I want you to pass it with flying colours, and I want to ensure that we have the investment in the buses, the rail, and the...
Alun Davies: I'm always grateful for the Minister's candour. It's a refreshing candour, and we all appreciate it. Let me say one thing, and I admire your fortitude with an electric bike. If you lived in Tredegar this morning, you wouldn't have enjoyed it. But, in terms of the issue around Cardiff, because it is an important issue, it's profoundly unfair that my constituents and constituents from elsewhere...
Alun Davies: I welcome the First Minister's statement in answer to Llyr Gruffydd supporting the devolution of the Crown Estate. I think that's a very important move in terms of providing renewable energy supplies for Wales, and I'm looking forward to the Minister for Climate Change's statement later this afternoon on those targets. But, First Minister, as well as ensuring that we have the ability to...
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to the Minister for her statement this afternoon, and I also welcome the cross-party unity that we see on this subject. I'm glad that she referenced the BBC programme last night, How the Holocaust Began, because I think it is an important aspect for us to understand—the way that ordinary people were both the victims and the perpetrators of the Holocaust. And I think that that...
