Mike Hedges: I'm going to break the long run now. I'm going to be voting for the budget. This supplementary budget is set against continuing austerity and Brexit uncertainty. We know we should be receiving at least £800 million more a year than we are currently receiving, which is, coincidentally, approximately the size of this supplementary budget. But to the Conservatives at Westminster, austerity is...
Mike Hedges: We currently have a situation where Jeremy Corbyn has more in common in terms of policy with the immediate post-war Governments of Churchill, Eden and Macmillan than either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt as the Westminster Conservatives are changing into the British version of the Republican Party. Regarding this first supplementary budget on housing, I welcome that an extra £50 million has...
Mike Hedges: Capital maintenance.
Mike Hedges: 3. Will the Deputy Minister make a statement on increasing diversity in elected office? OAQ54253
Mike Hedges: Can I thank the Minister for that response? I think we have seen some progress—albeit slowly—across a large number of areas like MPs, AMs, and even councillors. Something that concerns me is that we've had seven police and crime commissioners, not one has been a woman, not one has been from an ethnic minority, and it's very much the situation that people are looking at it and seeing that...
Mike Hedges: I would like to ask for a Government statement on incineration. Many of us across the Chamber would like to see an end to non-medical incineration. Last year, the chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Professor Sir Ian Boyd, warned that further investment in energy-from-waste plants would stunt the UK's recycling rates. One way to extinguish the...
Mike Hedges: We know that all rivers flow downhill and they all flow down to the sea across the land surface. And we also know this can be converted into electricity by either building dams across the river, and then releasing the water, or by using the river current to generate electricity. We know this is done across the world—USA, China, Russia, across South America. Does the Welsh Government have...
Mike Hedges: 7. Will the Minister make a statement on the provision of non-statutory services by local authorities? OAQ54249
Mike Hedges: As local government's budgets have reduced and increasing social care demand and education needs have had to be met, non-statutory services, or services with a minimum statutory duty, such as libraries, have been cut, and cut severely across Wales. Such cuts have seen library hours cut and libraries closed, which impacts on the poorest most; leisure facilities reduced, when increasing...
Mike Hedges: 3. Will the First Minister make a statement regarding safety on the M4 in the Swansea area? OAQ54294
Mike Hedges: Can I thank the First Minister for that response? As he's well aware, a large number of accidents of various degrees of seriousness have occurred between junction 45 and junction 47, which cover my constituency. I could continue it on into David Rees's constituency as well, but I won't do that—I think he'll have an opportunity later. I think that it is a problem there. A number of regular...
Mike Hedges: I would like to ask for a Government statement on the role of planning inspectors and the rules under which they work. It is well known that I do not believe that there is a role for planning inspectors overruling democratic decisions made by council planning committees, as opposed to the ombudsman and judicial review for all other decisions made by councils. I do not understand why...
Mike Hedges: As we all know, there's been a substantial increase in the number of people in private rented accommodation as the number of council houses has decreased, and many of those houses that would have been available for first-time buyers have been bought up by private landlords and now privately rented. So, this is a lose-lose situation. Whilst I welcome the tripling of the two months' to six...
Mike Hedges: First of all, I'd like to thank the Minister for her statement. Secondly, I would like to thank the Chancellor, Sajid Javid, for confirming what I've been saying since being elected in 2011: austerity is a political not an economic policy. The national debt has gone up from £1.78 trillion to £1.82 trillion in the last year, so it's not that we've got less debt as a country. And I don't...
Mike Hedges: I would give a simple answer to you: why don't you end the business rate relief on houses and flats? If you do that, then it wouldn't do any good to them to call them businesses. I can see no good reason for giving business rate relief on houses and flats. If you stopped that, you'd remove the anomaly, and you can do that tomorrow.
Mike Hedges: I've been a cheerleader for the city deals ever since they were being first thought of. I believe in the importance of the city deal for south-west Wales. I welcome the Welsh Government’s support, and, before anyone else says anything, the Westminster Government's support, because I don’t care where the money comes from as long as it comes into my area. What I would say is the city deal...
Mike Hedges: Can I very much welcome the Minister’s statement? The Minister has identified the four key challenges: not building enough houses to meet the need; the climate change emergency; an aging population; and not enough qualified building trades people. I think it’s unfortunate that we're in a part of the world today where this, which should be the key issue that we're talking about, will,...
Mike Hedges: I welcome the statement. Climate change demands action. The atmosphere has approximately 21 per cent oxygen at sea level. Below 19.5 per cent, the ability to work diminishes; below 17 per cent, things are getting difficult, and, when you get down to 15 per cent, people die. Sea-level rises will flood cities and coastal areas, storms will get stronger—inevitably so, because there will be...
Mike Hedges: I'm very pleased to take part in this discussion because I think we need to have more discussions in generalities about expected expenditure rather than talking about lines of expenditure and whether there should be an extra £10 to £15 million here or there, but actually talking about it as a general point. I was also very pleased we had a finance meeting in Aberystwyth, meeting with...
Mike Hedges: Thank you. The advantage, of course, Westminster has is that they can borrow for revenue expenditure, can't they, so they have that certainty because they know, even if they don't have the money coming in, they can borrow it to meet the gap.
