Nick Ramsay: Alongside these poor contractual arrangements, there appears to be a significant lack of due diligence. The Welsh Government chose to purchase a site for the studio that consisted of three very different and unusual assets costing £6 million, and failed to commission a full structural survey beforehand. Most people have a structural survey before buying a house, but this was a £6 million...
Nick Ramsay: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Can I thank all Members who've contributed to today's debate and thank the Deputy Minister as well for his comments, and everyone for raising a number of important points? I think I should point out as well that the committee recognises that some of these issues date back a fairly considerable length of time and, obviously, the Deputy Minister wasn't in post at that...
Nick Ramsay: Yes, I think the issue here is that there are going to be individual circumstances in each case, and what we've agreed on as a committee is that the procedures in place in the Welsh Government should be robust enough so that those individual circumstances can be taken into account, so that if there's any suggestion that a survey is needed, it should happen, and if a survey can be completely...
Nick Ramsay: I've had a number of interesting conversations with Alun Davies and Mike Hedges over the last few weeks about the co-operative movement. Well, I found them interesting, anyway; you probably groan as you see me approaching you in the tea room. But it is an interesting concept, and it is a concept that has been embedded within Wales for many, many years now. My colleague Mark Isherwood often...
Nick Ramsay: Minister—Counsel General, I should say—Hefin David, the Member for Caerphilly, has made an important point, I think, about the potential in future—whilst recognising that WEFO fund has been incredibly important to community-based projects in the past, there is the potential now to make the new structure more suited to both your area, Hefin, and my area, to better support environmental...
Nick Ramsay: Minister, this is a very important question. Tri-Wall Europe, a big employer in Monmouth in my constituency, a company that makes cardboard packaging for the motor industry and for many other industries as well, is headquartered in the far east but uses its base in Monmouth to supply all over Europe. In the previous Assembly, the then Minister for economy said after a visit to Tri-Wall that...
Nick Ramsay: I'm pleased to contribute to today's debate on e-sports and to agree with many of the comments made by my colleague David Melding in his eloquent opening of this debate. I must be honest, however, that my knowledge of this area is rather limited, but from what I've read over the past few days in bringing myself up to speed on the whole area of e-sports, this is a rapidly growing debate and...
Nick Ramsay: Thanks for giving way, Deputy Minister. You're quite right—I'm aware of that project as well, and perhaps sometimes we do spend too much time worrying and focusing on the traditional ways of delivering broadband where, in certain rural areas, where it's going to be very expensive and very difficult to connect people up, perhaps what you just said, the use of white space, is one innovative...
Nick Ramsay: Trefnydd, as you know, yesterday, BBC Wales carried a story about farmers being unable to recycle their plastic waste due to Wales's only recycling centre, I think, moving from a payment basis to a charge basis for the intermediate operators. I appreciate that the Welsh Government have responded that this is an issue between farmers and the private sector, but there clearly is an impact on...
Nick Ramsay: I'm pleased that Leanne Wood has asked this question. As you're probably aware, I'm delighted to be the Assembly's species champion for—I can see you leafing over to your page on species champions; well versed—the freshwater pearl mussel, one of the lesser known of the protected species, which is arguably Wales's most endangered species, and one of the most critically endangered species...
Nick Ramsay: 5. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to address climate change? OAQ53862
Nick Ramsay: Diolch, Weinidog. It's one thing to declare a climate change emergency, but as I'm sure you would admit, it's more difficult to take the difficult steps to deal with that. As former American Vice-President Al Gore described it, it's an inconvenient truth that we all must face up to. Promoting electric cars and charging points, as Rhun ap Iorwerth has been doing outside the Senedd today, is...
Nick Ramsay: Will you take an intervention? Thanks for giving way, Jane. We shouldn't forget, of course, the valuable role of apprenticeships as well. A lot of young people, or a proportion of young people, who leave earlier in the school life do so because they don't really feel that what they're doing is for them, but we've seen from the example of some apprenticeships being taken up that that can fill...
Nick Ramsay: Mike Hedges has pretty much asked my supplementary question word for word, so I'm thinking on my feet. But if I can use some personal experience—that's always a good way out of these problems—a few years back, a chief executive officer of a small engineering firm in Chepstow, contacted me and said that he found the Welsh Government procurement form system much easier to fill out than...
Nick Ramsay: 7. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to improve the environment in Wales? OAQ53929
Nick Ramsay: Thank you, First Minister. I'm sure you'll join me in welcoming the news that Monmouthshire County Council joined the Welsh Government last week in declaring its own climate change emergency, but, as I said to the environment Minister last week, declaring an emergency is one thing, but you need to actually see—I won't use the word 'concrete' in the answer; that would be...
Nick Ramsay: I've been trying to reduce the traffic on the A40 between Raglan and the castle, but I see Mike Hedges is eager to increase it, but there we are. Two quick questions, if I may, Llywydd. Firstly, as we heard earlier, a considerable amount of money has already been spent on the M4 relief road to date in terms of the scoping of the project and also the acquisition of land—I think it's in the...
Nick Ramsay: Can I concur with some of the points that have been made by Mick Antoniw? The issue of mental health in schools has been one that's been rising up the agenda, and I think there's growing evidence that extra-curricular activities in school are beneficial, in many cases, to pupils' mental health. But, of course, the costs that Mick Antoniw talked about—the associated costs—can also have a...
Nick Ramsay: I also agree with the comments that Lynne Neagle has made. We have been asking you and, indeed, the First Minister about this issue for some time. I welcome the agreements that have been put in place by the five local authority leaders so that SenCom, a very valuable service, will continue in its current form until 2022, I think I'm right in saying. This should give greater security to the...
Nick Ramsay: I'm pleased this issue has been raised. Clearly, mental health is an issue that affects all areas, but our NHS staff clearly are vulnerable to the effects of it. You mentioned there—I think it was the Swansea area that you said there's an element of good practice. It's obviously important that that good practice is rolled out across the rest of Wales as soon as possible. So, could you tell...
