Huw Irranca-Davies: I welcome this debate thoroughly. My blood pressure went up a little bit at Mark's contribution, so you’ll understand if I address some of the comments in my opening remarks directly to Mark. First of all, let me say: I'd always want a Government that seeks to be an active partner in economic growth, not a disinterested bystander; one that seeks to work with unions and employers, businesses...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 7. What support does the Welsh Government provide to improve primary education in Ogmore? OAQ53946
Huw Irranca-Davies: I welcome that response and I have to say it's very welcome for me that I seem to be, every other month now, attending the opening of a new facility within Ogmore, either primary or secondary schools. Most recently, in fact, the former First Minister in September opened the new Betws primary—wonderful for that community where the previous school had been damaged by fire only a few years...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you, John, for initiating this debate, and also to everybody who's contributed, and it's a delight to follow Jenny as well with a focus on food. And actually, it's on a specific area that I want to focus my short comments. I want to focus on the issues of hunger and food poverty, and the campaign that has been running nationally for some months now, which is the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Could I just begin by thanking both the Minister and also the First Minister for their very direct and immediate and energetic engagement in this with the workers, meeting the unions in the plant last week, along with Carwyn my colleague, local MPs and others, and being right in the front seat on this? And could I echo everything that my colleague Carwyn Jones said on behalf of not the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Can I just begin by thanking Andrew R.T. Davies for raising the issue of the event we had here with pernicious anaemia, an event I couldn't attend myself because it coincided with the devastating Ford announcement? But, thank you, Andrew, for raising it. I'm delighted the Minister is going to write to us both, and I'm sure that will be the start of quite a long conversation now, with the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Could I just say to the Minister that the concerns that he's outlined today in this welcome update and statement are echoed by many of those feelings that he will have heard from the European advisory group, those stakeholders that represent industry, that represent the third sector, that represent a wide cross-section of Welsh society and act as an expert sounding board for Welsh Government?...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Thank you for giving way, Nick. If I'm listening accurately to what you're saying, you are actually supporting at least the principle behind points No. 2 and No. 3, but you don't like the tone. The principle of No. is 2 about the lack of detail you've just spoken about more eloquently than I can; you also regret the lack of detail. And you do reject the idea of a centralised or UK-directed...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Indeed, and I welcome you giving way because it helps the debate.
Huw Irranca-Davies: And if I suffer, I'll accept it, Llywydd. It's simply to say you don't accept the idea that the UK Government in No. 3 is trying to avoid that. But the idea of a centralised or UK-directed fund, rejecting that—do you accept rejecting that?
Huw Irranca-Davies: What progress has been made on increasing the capital limit for contributions to care home costs?
Huw Irranca-Davies: Can I first of all thank the committee for bringing forward this really worthwhile report, with some worthwhile recommendations? But I'm only going to focus on one area—I say to the Chair of the committee—and that's the issue that is referred to in the report around active travel and what more can be done. And it's interesting that the report actually flags that if we were to genuinely,...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Indeed, I will.
Huw Irranca-Davies: Absolutely, I fully agree with you, John. And the work you did on putting in place the groundbreaking legislation to do this I think took us so far, but, actually, now delivering on the Welsh Government's aspirations to have 20 mph speed limits as the de facto speed limit within urban areas would be a huge help in this, and, in fact, he's prophesied what I was going to say next: imagine a...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Just very briefly, with those opportunities to look at innovative ways that we could release capacity on that very important M4 corridor, one way is to shift the massive growth that we now have in package transport up and down the country, coming from Bristol, Avon, but also west Wales as well. So, innovation such as the rail operations group, with their proposals to actually refurbish...
Huw Irranca-Davies: What about car sharing?
Huw Irranca-Davies: The Minister will note the vote last week by 83 per cent of the Ford workforce to support industrial action up to and including strike action in response to the Ford closure proposal. So, I wonder whether time can be found for a statement on Ford Bridgend in the near future, and at least before the summer recess, which would allow the Minister to update us on progress with the taskforce, and...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Thank you. I do welcome the statement today, and I only have one question. I note that back in 1854, a young doctor called John Snow, who worked in Soho in London at the height of a cholera epidemic, plotted on a map with dots exactly where the cholera outbreak was going, and using that evidence actually dealt with a cholera outbreak that was linked to one contaminated sewage pipe that was...
Huw Irranca-Davies: It's great to have this statement in Adult Learners Week, because it reminds us that it is never too late. At whatever age you are in life, you keep on learning. It was certainly the case for me when I went back to do my Master's in my mid 30s, it was the case for my late mum when she did her Open University course in her 60s, and it was definitely the case when I was holding a surgery up in...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I wonder what role the Minister sees modular housing playing in meeting the needs within local authority areas. I was delighted to be able to join her only recently in Maes Glas in Ynysawdre to look at the Valleys to Coast initiative with modular housing, very much on that theme of houses for life that can be adapted and changed as the years go by. Now, that's being developed by a Port Talbot...
