Jenny Rathbone: First, there was an excellent launch of Peas Please in Cardiff city centre yesterday, launched by the Food Foundation, to try and get more people eating more vegetables, and to highlight the fact that, despite the five-a-day campaign, people are not eating more fruit and vegetables, and up to 20,000 people in the UK are dying as a result. About 30 organisations were involved, including...
Jenny Rathbone: I’m also very pleased that we’re reintroducing this Bill, which has some very important conditions attached to it. I’m delighted to hear that Plaid Cymru is urging you to do something about obesity. I just wondered whether there was any possibility of including anything of a regulatory nature in this Bill, because although there are many things that the Government is doing to try and...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary, for the statement. Obviously, this is a very important area of our manifesto commitments. I’ve got over 20 schools in my constituency—primary schools, that is—all of which provide foundation phase early learning from the age of three. But all of them are providing part time. So, that is the reason why, Mark Reckless, you can’t simply be...
Jenny Rathbone: I’d just like to pick up on the point made by Nick Ramsay because it’s completely unacceptable that a third of all hospital readmissions are due to medicine errors. I want to probe a little bit further on the specific point that when it’s been decided that somebody is ready to leave hospital, why is it not possible for them to then pick up the prescription that they may have been...
Jenny Rathbone: I appreciate that the Government can’t intervene on something that’s not a devolved matter, but I just think it’s important that we express our concern. Today I met the family of Nicole Cooper, who is the partner of Mr Naderi, and the father is a former police officer with 30 years’ service, and the son, who is the brother of Nicole Cooper, has represented Wales in the 300m jump—the...
Jenny Rathbone: I just wanted to respond to Paul Davies, really, to say that this is not just a rural affairs matter. My constituents in an urban constituency are just as concerned about the quality and the cost of food as any other residents are, so I think that it’s really important that we address this issue in a timely fashion, because farmers who voted to leave didn’t realise that they were...
Jenny Rathbone: My question, really, is: how are we going to turn that corner, given that, at the moment, we only grow vegetables on 617 hectares of land, which is 0.4 per cent of agricultural land, hardly any of which is in receipt of pillar 1 payments. Many of the people who are involved in the labour-intensive activity around horticulture are people whose future in the country is unclear, because...
Jenny Rathbone: 9. What preparations has the Welsh Government made for the European week for waste reduction? OAQ(5)0268(FM)
Jenny Rathbone: I think Wales has an excellent story to tell, and our very modest levy on plastic bags has had an unbelievable impact in terms of 70 per cent reduction of plastic bag use. The focus of the European week is on reducing the amount of wasteful packaging, and we know from Plastics Europe, which is a trade association for plastics manufacturers, that about two thirds of the plastic used each year...
Jenny Rathbone: I wanted to pick up on two things that are in the report and one that is not. First, I would also like to hear from the Minister about the children who are at risk when they’re being home educated, simply because they’re not being seen regularly by other services. As the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child observes, they do need to be seen by a professional at least annually, so they...
Jenny Rathbone: Focusing on the 20,000 homes that your Government’s committed to building, I was surprised in committee to learn that, of those, only 1,000 at the moment are going to be built to the new eco standards of warmth. Given that some 40 per cent of people living in social housing can’t afford to heat them properly, I wondered why you haven’t looked more carefully at Pentre Solar, the six...
Jenny Rathbone: In the context of the commission’s responsibilities to use resources wisely, I just wondered whether you could elaborate a little bit on how much money we spend on the catering service, where we have a contract with Charlton House, and, in the context of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and the Environment (Wales) Act 2016, whether there are any clauses in there to...
Jenny Rathbone: Will you take an intervention?
Jenny Rathbone: I’d be grateful if you could just elaborate on where you get these assessments from, because I’d be particularly interested in that.
Jenny Rathbone: Just following on from that, I think that the precautionary approach that has been taken by both Lee and Russell George is the one that we need to adopt. Of course, it is absolutely right, as Dai Lloyd says, that it’s unfair that we are having these tolls on these bridges into Wales when the Humber bridge— which, incidentally, was built as a result of a by-election in 1966 when the Labour...
Jenny Rathbone: Whilst I recognise that Cardiff University must be free to choose which areas of research they should concentrate on, I fear that this decision to dismantle the Wales Heart Research Institute is a public relations disaster. Those who responded to the Have a Heart campaign had every right to assume that their modest contribution would be permanently strengthening and understanding an effective...
Jenny Rathbone: Picking up on the useful comments from David Melding, I think that there are clearly some people who have failed to register, because you’ve said that there were more than 55,000 registered as of 9 o’clock last night, plus 12,700 who’ve started the process. So, that’s some 68,000. I just wondered if you’ve got any idea of the numbers who might be involved who simply have ignored the...
Jenny Rathbone: In the context of the sobering statistics on obesity and today’s announcement by Cancer Research UK that teenagers drink a bathtub full of sugary drinks every year—four to ten-year-olds half a bathtub—this extreme sugar consumption is something we have to combat. So, whilst the increase in exports of Welsh food and drink is welcome, I feel we need to spend a lot more time focusing on...
Jenny Rathbone: What is the Welsh Government's response to the High Court ruling against the UK Government on inadequate plans to tackle illegal levels of air pollution?
Jenny Rathbone: The air quality directive is one of the most important EU directives. Governments are required to achieve compliance by the soonest possible date that reduces exposure as quickly as possible. The Air Quality Standards (Wales) Regulations 2010 require Welsh Ministers to draw up and implement air quality plans to address pollution in the relevant zones, one of which is Cardiff. You will, I’m...
