Adam Price: Will the Cabinet Secretary provide further information on the implications for the Wales and Borders franchise of the withdrawal of Abellio Rail Cymru’s bid from the procurement process?
Adam Price: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can we have a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the dispute in our universities at the moment? Many Members will have attended a rally that was staged this afternoon by the University and College Union, and the Government has expressed sympathy and support for their case, but with the dispute now entering a new chapter—as happened in...
Adam Price: I do think that we should applaud the Government in terms of the ambition set out with these targets. Some of them are very far-reaching indeed: closing the gap in terms of skills, and in terms of the various qualification levels between Wales and the rest of the UK over a period of a decade. Now, that is ambitious, but can we know what resource is being allocated in order to meet some of...
Adam Price: Comments by a former Cabinet Minister in your own Government today clearly suggest that what happened in my case was not a one-off aberration, as you previously argued, but part of a wider pattern—a smear machine whereby Government resources are being systematically misused to silence and intimidate critics, including people within your own party. And I have to say that, together with the...
Adam Price: You attack me personally on a question about personal attacks.
Adam Price: You're attacking me again.
Adam Price: Ad hominem attacks.
Adam Price: Will the First Minister outline the Welsh Government's policy on repairing trunk roads?
Adam Price: Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It's become more and more apparent in light of the report of the auditor general, for example, and then the evidence gathered by the Public Accounts Committee recently, that one of the cornerstones of the procurement policy of the Welsh Government, namely the National Procurement Service, is underachieving to say the least. The target, if Members...
Adam Price: One of the main weaknesses as I see it in terms of procurement at the moment in Wales is a lack of staff with appropriate qualifications and the ability of public bodies to retain those experienced staff. In 2012, Cardiff University said in a report by Professor Kevin Morgan that there was a serious skills shortage at the heart of the public sector in Wales in relation to public procurement....
Adam Price: Can I turn, finally, to a specific example, which I think raises further questions on whether or not NPS and the wider framework of procurement policy is fit for purpose? NPS recently awarded a three-year contract called Arbed 3, which is an all-Wales contract to insulate thousands of homes, to the Scottish based company, Everwarm, which is itself a subsidiary of a much larger firm called...
Adam Price: Doesn't the Cabinet Secretary, though, understand the wider context to this? He's a Secretary of State who really sees south-east Wales as a suburb of Bristol, who wants to—along with his friend and colleague—recategorise Wales as a principality. It's part of a deliberate attempt to reintegrate Wales into some kind of nostalgic notion of a Britain that probably never existed; it's a...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. This is a short debate whose outcome may cast a long shadow. Now, ostensibly, it's about the publication of a particular report—a particular set of circumstances—which, of course, has a personal tragedy at its heart. However, its significance also goes far wider than that. I should say, at the outset, I don't have any unrealistic expectations that publication of this...
Adam Price: 8. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the availability and funding of treatment for the eye condition Keratoconus? OAQ52039
Adam Price: Cross-linking treatment was available for Welsh people who had this condition at Bristol Eye Hospital until 2015. Since then, I've had one case of an 18-year-old young woman whose eyesight was deteriorating, and she was advised that the condition was developing quickly. Her mother decided to pay for private treatment because she feared blindness. Since then, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg is...
Adam Price: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. A fo ben, bid bont: he who would be a leader, let him be a bridge. That's the old saying in the Mabinogion. Well, of course, in the wake of the intervention by Alun Cairns, maybe we should overturn that to: a fo bont, bid ben—he who would be a bridge, let him lead. Why did he do this? And why did 40,000 people sign a petition opposing it? I...
Adam Price: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the availability of apprenticeships through the medium of Welsh?
Adam Price: I welcome this mid-point review. I've not had an opportunity to read it all as of yet, of course. I assume the Cabinet Secretary has. Could he share with us—? As this is a review, of course, it will have identified certainly things that worked very well and others that may not have worked so well, and, of course, it's those that didn't work so well that are perhaps those where lessons can...
Adam Price: Secondly, I'd like to turn to the question that—. We've rehearsed this issue many a time, Cabinet Secretary, but it is this issue of the balance of regional infrastructure investment across Wales. You did refer to it, actually, in your remarks in relation to the strategic picture that needs to take account both of national and regional needs. We've produced figures, of course,...
Adam Price: —well, that bit of the M4 corridor in south-east Wales—representing it. Obviously, politics does impact upon these decisions, so how can we make sure, whoever the next First Minister is, that there are structures in place, particularly looking at the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales, to ensure that we get a better spread of investment across Wales? And finally, on the issue...
