Rhun ap Iorwerth: May I thank the Minister for her statement? I am pleased to hear that confidence is increasing, that cases are reducing and that the number requiring hospital treatment is also reducing. I am content with the phased approach and the cautious timetable as we lift the few remaining measures still in place. There are few direct restrictions in terms of its effect on our daily lives. In terms of...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I would like to explain why I and Plaid Cymru will be opposing forcefully this LCM. This is a very wide-ranging Bill that it refers to. It contains elements, as the Minister said, that she is eager to see being extended to Wales. I certainly don't have any opposition to seeing the sharing of legislation across these isles, for example, in an area such as making it illegal to test someone's...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Llywydd. I have become disheartened once again looking today at waiting times for health appointments. It was CAMHS appointments that I saw today, showing that only 22 per cent receive an appointment within four weeks, the lowest level ever, when it was 75 per cent a year ago. Tomorrow, we're expecting broader health statistics, including ambulance waiting times, which...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Certainly, they are, and there are people behind every statistic. I, and others on these benches, have been gathering evidence about the impact of the ambulance crisis.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: The stories that we hear are frightening: an 89-year-old woman collapsed and lying on the floor for six hours; a farming accident with no ambulance being available at all, so the patient is taken by car with a broken back; a wheelchair-dependent patient suffering a fracture being told to wait three days because it's non-urgent; a woman whose symptoms were deemed to require an emergency...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I thank the Deputy Minister for the statement today.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I know that this is an issue that the Minister has a keen interest in. We both served on the health committee in the fifth Senedd as we were going through the passage of the Public Health (Wales) Bill. I tabled the amendment that led to the Government agreeing to introduce an obesity strategy, and I know the Minister and I were in agreement that this really has to be a priority for us. The...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Just a few comments from me. The changes are few, if truth be told, but every one is significant as we move forward to a more endemic phase. But, as a first comment, it does make sense to extend the main regulations until the end of March. We still haven't put the pandemic behind us, but on a practical level, the statutory defences still in place are very few and far between. I would make the...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 8. Will the Minister make a statement on the availability of revision material for the driving theory test in Welsh? OQ57689
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much. I've been trying to find a resolution to this through the DVSA and by asking for Welsh Government support for around eight years now. It is so frustrating. Quite simply, you are welcome to take your theory test through the medium of Welsh, but there is no revision material online or mock tests and so on. There's nothing available. I know of many who wanted to take their...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Llywydd. Today, I want to pay tribute to the lifeboat crew of Trearddur Bay.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Today, the Trearddur Bay RNLI lifeboat station and crew make history by becoming the first station ever to receive a silver gallantry medal for a rescue onboard a B-class Atlantic 85 inshore lifeboat. Cast your minds back to the storms of May last year. As most of us took shelter, the crew of the Atlantic 85 were called into action, launching at the very limits of the boat’s capabilities,...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Ynys Môn is proud and very grateful to you.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you to the Member for Blaenau Gwent for introducing this legislative proposal. A number of constituents have been in touch with me, as is the case for many other Members I know, expressing concerns about sewage being spilt into our waters from storm overflows—many of them supporting the call by Surfers Against Sewage to stop the release of sewage into the seas by 2030. These people...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Deputy Llywydd, and I'm pleased to move this motion formally. It is something that is so very important to many people and families across Wales. At least 60,000 people in Wales suffer some sort of eating disorder. There are a number of different disorders—bulimia, anorexia binge-eating disorder, a number of others—and every one poses some grave challenges to those...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Back in the spring of 2018, Welsh Government commissioned an independent review of eating disorders services, as they were then, and that review, submitted to the Government in late 2018, found a system geared towards providing care for those who had already become severely ill rather than on early intervention. It found significant variation in the availability and quality of eating...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: We'll hear more from my fellow Members on different aspects of what we and Beat and those who are suffering and their families are calling for, and I look forward to hearing further contributions from all parties. We are agreed here on the principles, we are agreed in the Senedd on the need to prioritise mental health treatment, but, as important as that unity is and as important as positive...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much for taking an intervention, and I apologise in advance if it's a premature intervention. I can't wait until the end of your comments, for obvious reasons, because it will be too late then to ask a question. I don't disagree with anything you have said so far. I have recognised that there have been gains, and the three-year review by Beat recognised that there have been...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Llywydd, and thank you to the Deputy Minister for her response to the debate and thanks to everyone who's participated in this afternoon's discussion. As I've said, there is agreement on the need to strengthen services, and I'm pleased that I did have an opportunity to intervene on the Deputy Minister's comment and to ask what exactly her objection was to the proposal...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: The key bone of contention is the need for a new framework, because this is work that's already in hand. It's not us saying that we need a new framework, it is Beat; it is the leading organisation that understands where the deficiencies are in current provision for those suffering from eating disorders in Wales. I tend to listen to those who understand, in the same way as I work with and...
