Adam Price: Notwithstanding the point made by the Member for the Cynon Valley, this is fundamentally an unfair tax. It’s wreaking economic carnage on our high streets. Isn’t it time just to scrap this tax altogether and replace it with something like an internet sales tax?
Adam Price: 3. Will the First Minister commit to taking steps to equalise the level of government investment in all parts of Wales? OAQ(5)0506(FM)
Adam Price: The Government’s own figures show that the level of Welsh Government’s capital expenditure on infrastructure in south-east Wales is twice that per head in north Wales, and three times the figure for mid and west Wales. I mean, it’s concern over that huge investment gap that led my party to vote against the supplementary budget last week. What assurance—[Interruption.] What...
Adam Price: What assurance can she give my party and Members on all sides who represent those regions that we will have equal investment for all parts of Wales so that we can see prosperity shared across our country?
Adam Price: Could we stay with the White Paper, Llywydd, and the recommendation on the regional map for Wales? It’s 20 years—I almost can’t believe it—since I was commissioned, along with Professor Kevin Morgan, by the Secretary of State at that time, Ron Davies, to redesign the regional map for Wales in terms of NUTS II, to create a Valleys and west Wales region, and an east Wales region, in...
Adam Price: I’m grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for his considered response. Now, we heard in the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee this morning some concern expressed by the Bevan Foundation, for example, and by Professor Karel Williams, that there is an overdependence on the model and the map, which is, in the south, based on the city regions, and, in the north, based on the growth deal...
Adam Price: We had a perhaps less considered dialogue a few days ago across this Chamber on the question of the balance of investment by Welsh Government across our regions, and let me emphasise that there is nothing I would say that would be anti-Cardiff in any sense, but would the Cabinet Secretary be willing to commission research so that we have statistics to look at the gulf that exists and has been...
Adam Price: I think that, as the Chair has highlighted, while it is welcome to see the Government’s positive response to some of the recommendations, there is some disagreement about the role and the remit of the national infrastructure commission, and some of that disagreement is fundamental. It goes to the very heart of what problem the commission is trying to solve. You wouldn’t necessarily know...
Adam Price: Will the Cabinet Secretary give way?
Adam Price: When has anyone, I think, in this Chamber, actually called for less investment in south-east Wales or in any part of Wales? The point is to get investment up in the other regions as well. We’ve provided him with some innovative methods whereby he could do that.
Adam Price: I’m very grateful to the Chair of the committee—collaborative and consensual as ever. I think the key point was the role of a national infrastructure commission, if, in the remit letter, it has clear guidance from the Welsh Government that we need to equalise the levels of infrastructure investment across the regions, and, absolutely—echoing the point made by Hefin David—as well...
Adam Price: Last week, the Welsh Government announced two new business investment funds of £7 million each. The application deadline is in just five weeks’ time. The same thing happened with the growth and prosperity fund last year. It was announced on 17 September last year and the deadline for the large applications was just four weeks later. The Scottish Government has created a £500 million fund...
Adam Price: I have the pleasure to follow the Minister and to commend her on this statement, and indeed the approach that the Welsh Government has adopted in putting innovation right at the heart not only of public procurement but of public policy. We’ve heard, I think, so many times, the public sector, probably rightly, berated for adopting an approach that is often low cost over wider considerations...
Adam Price: I’m more than happy to wait patiently. I’m not sure that my notes had arrived by that point, so I’m grateful to you. Now, every time we discuss taxation, there is some reference to a royal figure—I think it was Llywelyn ein Llyw Olaf the last time, on the land transaction tax. We were reminded that this was the first time that we were to levy a tax as a nation since those days. And...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the Republic of Ireland with my colleague, Steffan Lewis, to meet Irish Government officials, policy makers and politicians to discuss the consequences of the UK leaving the EU for Ireland and for Wales. It’s fair to say that they shared our sense of trepidation. But,as with the economic crisis of 2008, they have at their disposal a...
Adam Price: As the Cabinet Secretary has just said, Ireland is a strategically vital export market for the Welsh economy, worth more than £800 million a year. Now, on the negative side, during our visit, we were told that moves were already afoot to start channelling freight to mainland Europe away from Welsh ports and through Roscoff. Is the Cabinet Secretary aware of this, and what is the Welsh...
Adam Price: It’s gratifying to hear that the Cabinet Secretary is engaging with Irish politicians. Could I urge him, in further discussions that he’ll have, to learn from some of the tools and tactics that the Irish themselves have adopted? The Irish Government has recently, for example, published a designated trade strategy. Wales doesn’t have, at the moment, a specific trade strategy. It sets out...
Adam Price: Seven weeks ago, at that dispatch box, on 8 February, the Cabinet Secretary told the Senedd that the due diligence process would take between four to six weeks. Now, if there’s been a problem with a lack of complete information, why hasn’t the Government done what the private sector would do in these kind of situations, in projects which are far larger than this, which is to get everyone...
Adam Price: If we follow the logic of the First Minister that now is the time to take advantage of historically low interest rates, why is it that his own Government’s finance Secretary is limiting the financing through the mutual investment model to £1 billion, not increasing it to the £7.5 billion suggested by Gerry Holtham, who was a senior adviser to his Government? Isn’t this yet another...
Adam Price: I have mixed feelings about the report that’s been published. I don’t want to disillusion the Cabinet Secretary that he’s following in the footsteps of Cincinnatus, going back to some farm because of political problems. I do think that it’s a good thing that the Government is producing a report of this kind and that we are having a discourse at a governmental level on the future and...
