Bethan Sayed: I wanted to ask a question with regard to whether the Welsh Government are able to make representations to the UK Government with regard to the potential deportation of a family—the Rebwah family—who are currently based in Swansea. There are two families who left Iraq in tragic circumstances. Two of the fathers froze to death on their way, and the mother died. One of the families have...
Bethan Sayed: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your response and I’ve listened to all of the responses here today. My first reaction would be to say to you that, if you accept the recommendations by the group that you’ve commissioned, why have you not ruled out a merger? I’m finding it difficult to understand, if you are accepting those recommendations, why you need to commission more research...
Bethan Sayed: I recently met with ‘The Big Issue’ and street vendors in Cardiff, and, as politicians and citizens alike, we can do more to help those who are sleeping rough, such as promoting the StreetLink scheme, which allows anyone to call or send an online alert about the location of someone they see sleeping rough, so authorities will then locate them and offer them that support. The expansion of...
Bethan Sayed: Thank you very much, and I look forward to going undercover and seeing how many we sell and how many we can—. Well, we’ll have a competition, shall we? Let’s see. But to go back to the serious issue, there are of course other ways in which you and your Government can help solve this particular problem, as opposed to just selling ‘The Big Issue’. Placing duties on local authorities...
Bethan Sayed: I certainly concur with the questions earlier about the housing cap. I think that’s a ticking time bomb and something that we have to be campaigning against. But one of the many problems people face when forced into rough sleeping is that, currently, they’re not considered to be in priority need. In the past you’ve rejected phasing out priority need, and defended that decision. And I...
Bethan Sayed: Will the Cabinet Secretary outline progress in relation to improving data collection for the Welsh Government's communities programmes?
Bethan Sayed: First Minister, I heard your response to David Rees, but I didn’t hear whether you as First Minister and as a Government here would be supporting the prison in Port Talbot. I recognise what you say about Bridgend, but you will understand that the prison in Port Talbot, if it is built, will be significantly over capacity, and is not something that we think will add benefit to the local...
Bethan Sayed: I thought everybody was being quite negative with the election campaigns in First Minister’s questions, so I wanted to bring something positive to business questions and call on the Welsh Government to congratulate Josh Griffiths and Matthew Rees, both from the Swansea Harriers. Josh Griffiths has qualified now with an amazing time, more than professional runners, for the IAAF World...
Bethan Sayed: I’m contributing instead of Llyr Huws Gruffydd, although I appreciate that Llyr would have been much more involved in the discussions than myself—I’ve actually just read the report today. I do appreciate many of the comments that have been made here today, but I think, having read the report, I may come from a different perspective on many of the issues. I agreed with what the Cabinet...
Bethan Sayed: I’m very pleased to hear about the £500,000 that’s going into transition for eating disorders between CAMHS and adult services, via the Plaid Cymru and Labour Party negotiations on the budget deal. I’ve heard from people who came to the last cross-party group saying that that’s where they wanted the money to go, because they recognised the change in structure of treatment from a more...
Bethan Sayed: I wanted to ask for a statement, either from the Minister for education or the Minister with responsibility for Welsh language—I’m not sure which is responsible—on the fact that I received a message over social media, along with a number of other Assembly Members, on the fact that Warwick university’s history department didn’t recognise the Welsh language A-level as a qualification...
Bethan Sayed: Welcome back. When you were away, I asked for a debate on the register of animal abuse in Wales, because there have been a number of campaigns calling for this. The RSPCA has also called for a task and finish group from the Welsh Government looking at the options. For example, in Tennessee there is a list that is open to the public, and in New York there is a list for those who buy and sell...
Bethan Sayed: Cabinet Secretary, in light of this week’s attack in Manchester, I thought it would be appropriate to ask what the Welsh Government is doing with regard to community cohesion. I ask in this context: a few years ago, I wrote to South Wales Police asking about some of the reasons why young men in Cardiff, for example, were moving to look to extremism as a way of life, or as something that...
Bethan Sayed: Thank you. It will be interesting to see an analysis of that, because I wanted to go on to ask particularly about at-risk groups, because we know that it may not be as simple as saying that it is because they may have a potential political grievance, or that they feel politically alienated that drives them to do this. It may be, as we’ve seen from other perpetrators of previous attacks in...
Bethan Sayed: And my third question is something that has animated my mind since Manchester, and many of us here today as well, with regard to extremism, not only on the side of how we would see minority groups, but also far-right groups as well, who are attacking anybody at the moment who are Muslim in our society, even before they know what the religion of that potential perpetrator is. We had a debate...
Bethan Sayed: I don’t intend to speak for very long, but I firstly just wanted to thank the campaigners for all your hard work, and it shows that people power does really work. And I don’t think you should undermine the fact that campaigners are doing this for a very real purpose, regardless of the fact that there might be other neuromuscular diseases that warrant that law. Why not legislate for those...
Bethan Sayed: No, I am not playing to the gallery. I’m speaking based on what I’ve experienced in my constituency, and the level of support for this that you can see here today. And if Government Ministers can see that, they should support that Bill. And in answering your question with regard to other conditions, I believe, having consulted the GP next to me before I stood up, that Asperger’s will...
Bethan Sayed: Well, okay, we can have a back and forth here—
Bethan Sayed: [Continues.]—you are supporting the Bill, I’m supporting the Bill. Working on this consensus, perhaps—. I’m not doing it just to get a clap, I’m doing it because I care about the people who have come here today and are bothering to care about these issues. I have somebody on a waiting list for two and a half years for the interim diagnosis of global development delay, waiting in my...
Bethan Sayed: Thank you, Llywydd. I am very pleased to open this debate on the initial report of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee on broadcasting in Wales, ‘The Big Picture’. Thank you to the clerks and the Assembly Members of all parties for their hard work on the committee. Despite the Assembly’s current lack of formal powers in this area, I believe there is now a consensus...
