Suzy Davies: Leanne Wood.
Suzy Davies: First Minister, I was a little disappointed to hear that you’ve only managed to speak to two of the potential buyers. I wonder if you could tell me if you took proactive steps to speak to all those who’d shown an interest in putting bids together and, within the terms of commercial confidentiality, the kind of range of costs that the Welsh Government is most likely to support in making...
Suzy Davies: First of all, First Minister, can I thank you for your earlier response to Andrew R.T. Davies regarding the committees that the Government will be holding jointly with Plaid Cymru? I have to express my concerns that something that is important as the constitution, which includes, of course, everybody in this Assembly, is a matter for a committee that only involves two parties in this place....
Suzy Davies: The Swansea bay skills partnership is a work-based learning consortium that has been identified mainly as ‘merely adequate’ by Estyn. With such hopes for the economic potential for the Swansea bay city region, what is your Government doing to ensure that those charged with converting talent into desirable skills actually fulfil those aims?
Suzy Davies: Thank you for your statement, First Minister, particularly your comments regarding procurement. In your statement you mentioned a commitment to the long-term sustainable steel industry and confirmed to Neil Hamilton, later in the debate today, that that included what you called the heavy end of works at Port Talbot. Yet, it was reported a few days ago in ‘The Guardian’ that none of the...
Suzy Davies: By what criteria does the Welsh Government evaluate the effect of Visit Wales expenditure on the Welsh economy?
Suzy Davies: First Minister, Members will know that the part restoration plans for Parc Slip are pretty unpopular, and none of us would wish to see the history behind that repeated. But we were talking about this in some detail over a year ago now. The local authority strongly asserts that there’s no alternative to the plans. So, is the Welsh Government holding direction of April of this year—that’s...
Suzy Davies: Congratulations from me too, new Cabinet Secretary. May I also thank you for your statement today and for the report? Of course, I haven’t had an opportunity to give it the attention it deserves. I would like to do that before too long. But it’s clear from some of what I’ve seen already that this work doesn’t duplicate work that’s already been done in this area. So, there is a...
Suzy Davies: May I offer my congratulations as well, Cabinet Secretary? The behemoth that is the Welsh Government website invites businesses in the enterprise zone to apply for financial help towards the cost of business rates, or offsetting against business rates, for 2016-17. That scheme has actually been open since 4 April, which is a little bit sooner than some of the others that have been mentioned...
Suzy Davies: May I just begin today by putting on the record, I’m sure, the thanks of all of us to Professor Laura McAllister and to congratulate her on the honour she received in the birthday honours list just a few days ago? Returning Members may remember in a debate in November 2014 that I shared my consternation at the revelation that I am considered now to be an older person. Perhaps the worst part...
Suzy Davies: Will the First Minister provide an update on the proposed South Wales Metro project?
Suzy Davies: The Port Talbot peripheral distributor road, opened to relieve local traffic demand on the M4, has been operational for about three years now. What data has the Welsh Government received from the local authority, or extracted from its own work during the junction 41 experiment, about changes to movements of traffic and air quality in particular? Can you tell me what permanent changes have...
Suzy Davies: Police figures, unfortunately, reveal that Wind Street in Swansea with its well-known night-time economy has the highest rate of crime of any street in Wales. Regeneration plans are forthcoming and being developed and considered for the adjacent Castle Square area. When you have your forthcoming discussions with the police and crime commissioners, can you please include an item on the...
Suzy Davies: Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I move our amendments to this very broad, but very useful, debate. The Plaid leader’s war cry in the election was that her party has nothing in common with the Tories and wouldn’t work with us. Yet, only last week, they called for an arm’s-length body for economic development—a long-standing Welsh Conservative policy—and here we are again, drawing attention...
Suzy Davies: Wales’s radical political tradition of empowered local communities has come to be represented in modern times by our local authorities, by elected representatives, who, in some cases, experience so little buy-in from residents they serve that they can sometimes hang onto civic influence for decades. And they can hang onto ideologies for decades too: public services can only effectively be...
Suzy Davies: South Wales West Members, including of course the Member for Ogmore, will be aware of the need for an eastern bypass for the communities of Llanharan, and I hope that that will be part of the plans for the Cardiff capital region and its infrastructure projects, shall we say. But it’s the heads of the eastern Valleys in my region where it’s more difficult for the population to get the...
Suzy Davies: Thank you very much for taking the intervention there, Julie. Were you as disappointed as I was that more young people didn’t register to vote and, therefore, when they’re making the claim that, perhaps, older people have voted in a way that disadvantages them, they missed their own opportunity to make their voice heard?
Suzy Davies: Will you take an intervention?
Suzy Davies: Thank you very much for taking the intervention, and I agree with your words that we shouldn’t be proud of the fact that we’ve needed convergence funding for this period of time. We’re on the same side on this, but I’m sure you will join with me with disliking, shall we say, some of the tone of the London left-leaning papers that have characterised our constituents who voted...
Suzy Davies: Thank you, First Minister, for your statement. First of all, can I just begin by associating myself with the comments made about the potential of an autism Act? I’m pleased to say that, even just in this last month or so, you’ve moved your position from this time in May saying that you were hoping to avoid the need for a separate Bill, as that might take more time, to the more attractive...
