Jenny Rathbone: Thank you for your statement, Minister. I think your statement illustrates just how difficult it is for an ordinary tenant to fully understand the law that governs their landlord relationship. It is quite complicated. I think I just wanted to pick up something that Delyth Jewell commented on, which is the security of tenure for private rented tenants. Because, as you say, the majority of...
Jenny Rathbone: I think it's very important to reflect on what has been done, and also some of the challenges ahead. One of the key priorities of the Government is decarbonisation, and rightly so, given that we were the first Government to declare a climate emergency. However, we have to recognise—and we all do recognise, I'm sure—that we have a lot more work to do on eradicating fuel poverty, which is a...
Jenny Rathbone: Will you take an intervention?
Jenny Rathbone: I agree with pretty much everything that's been said, so I just want to focus on some further aspects. I just want to focus on the word 'beauty' in your statement, because I think that's a really important ambition. Why do we want to build ugly buildings? There's a huge cost to ugly buildings that we shouldn't be allowing. I recently visited Ewenny Court in Ely, which in the First Minister's...
Jenny Rathbone: This would feel like groundhog day if it wasn't in the context of the cataclysmic storms and floods that we've had in the last few weeks, which makes it astonishing to me that we are debating whether or not to invest in more roads, when it's absolutely clear that the climate emergency requires us to find different solutions to the congestion problems that we have. We know, from the...
Jenny Rathbone: I agree with you. We constantly abolish roads and there are areas of Wales where we don't any longer have a railway line, and therefore we know that people who need to go to work from remote villages are going to need to use a car, at the very least to get to the bus transport that might take them to the town where they are going to work. So, I'm not saying that no roads should be maintained...
Jenny Rathbone: The commission has years of transport expertise amongst its members: how long do they need to come up with the solutions that they must surely have to hand? We don't need to be a transport expert to realise we're going to need to be ordering buses in the short term as an interim solution until we have the new metro, tram and train lines that will need time to be constructed.
Jenny Rathbone: That's a very powerful message that Leanne has left us with. I proudly represent one of the most diverse constituencies in Wales, where the community at large warmly welcomes asylum seekers and embraces the city of sanctuary and the country of sanctuary that I hope that we all aspire to. But, we know that the rise of far-right groups in Wales is a particular cause for concern for the police....
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much. I was listening to Mandy Jones's contribution outside, and thank you for calling me back. I just wanted to add, though, that there's no room for complacency in Wales. We know that the highest number of antisemitic searches on the internet was in Wales. It highlights that there's often a cross-over between those who are looking to confirm their antisemitic prejudice, along...
Jenny Rathbone: Diolch. Thank you very much, acting Presiding Officer. I've chosen the topic of 'Is obesity a disease?' (a) because today is World Obesity Day, (b) because today the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health reports that obesity continues to rise, and it remains the case that over one in four four and five-year-olds are obese—a pretty damning and sobering fact. And thirdly, when I met...
Jenny Rathbone: So, we absolutely need to apply the same rigorous standards for public procurement in our schools, and I hope that the refreshed healthy eating regulations are going to have some teeth, because with so many of our children living in poverty, and families that are most vulnerable to choosing on price alone, even if nutritionally they are very poor value, it means that the free school...
Jenny Rathbone: Will you take an intervention?
Jenny Rathbone: I just wondered how then you see us tackling the stigma, which the all-party parliamentary group picked up, because there's no doubt that people are feeling reluctant to approach their health professionals and partly because health professionals are not being sympathetic to the issue.
Jenny Rathbone: 7. What is the Welsh Government's strategy for reversing biodiversity loss in Wales? OAQ55214
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you for that, First Minister. I absolutely celebrate the Local Places for Nature scheme, but I first of all just want to highlight the work of WWF, planting seagrass on the Pembrokeshire coastline, which is going to be equivalent to two football pitches and is fantastically good news for about 100,000 fish and 1.5 million invertebrates, because of the way in which it has restorative...
Jenny Rathbone: It's good to see that there's considerable unity around supporting our international airport, and I think it's good to hear the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee recognising some of the changes that have been made to make the airport viable. It's absolutely the case that, if the Welsh Government hadn’t taken it over in 2013, the airport would have closed. End of story. We have to...
Jenny Rathbone: Yes.
Jenny Rathbone: Okay. I agree that £1 million or £2 million is a lot of money, but I think that the point is that they are still within the amount of money that's already been agreed with the Welsh Government, further to the collapse of Thomas Cook. So, there's no doubt that the collapse of Thomas Cook, and indeed Flybe, and on top of that coronavirus, are delaying the timescale by which the company is...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much. One in 10 women is affected by endometriosis. The causes of endometriosis are unclear, but retrograde menstruation, hormonal imbalance, surgical scars, problems with the immune system and genetics all play a part. Many women suffer for years before understanding why they suffer with painful monthly periods, chronic lower back pain, pain during sex, diarrhoea,...
Jenny Rathbone: I represent the city centre of our capital city, and clearly there are huge numbers of shops, restaurants, bars and entertainment venues that are likely to be affected by this. The city centre is beginning to feel like a ghost town, so I'm very grateful for the rates relief that you have announced, as well as the time to pay that you have negotiated with the inland revenue. But clearly, there...
