Suzy Davies: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Just give me a second to find the question.
Suzy Davies: Will the Minister make a statement over plans to merge elements of National Museums Wales with Cadw? EAQ(5)0053(EI)
Suzy Davies: Thank you for that response, Cabinet Minister, and for your written statement last week. Thank you, Llywydd, also, for allowing the urgent question so that the statement could receive early scrutiny. As Welsh Conservatives, we would have no objection to sponsored bodies or bodies within Government making the most of their opportunities to improve all operational activities, including...
Suzy Davies: Cabinet Secretary, recent reviews of the literature have confirmed that telepsychiatry is as effective as in-person psychiatric consultations for diagnostic assessment, is at least as good for the treatment of disorders such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and may be better than in-person treatment for some groups of patients, notably children, veterans and those with...
Suzy Davies: Will you take an intervention?
Suzy Davies: Thank you very much for taking the intervention. It was just on your last point there that a 50 per cent discount means that the house is only worth half its original value. Inevitably, the value of a house on sale is going to be more than its building costs, so, while you may have a general point that a discount needn’t be too generous, to equate a building cost with the sale cost is just...
Suzy Davies: I’m very grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Thank you to everybody who’s taken part in the debate today. This debate was about supply—much-needed affordable housing supply. I acknowledge and, of course, appreciate that there are different views on this, some based on ideology and some based on experience, but none of the contributions I’ve heard from the other parties today...
Suzy Davies: I’m a bit short on time, so if you could keep it quick. Thanks.
Suzy Davies: What it informs me of is that the Welsh Government hasn’t made it easy for anyone to build social housing during that time. Developers like building big housing estates, except when there are downturns in the economy and they are left with a lot of risk. What they like, and especially the smaller sort of developers that we have here in Wales, is the steady work—the sell and build again...
Suzy Davies: Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd, and thank you, Huw, for bringing this short debate forward today. Obviously, we’ve been having parallel conversations with the individual bodies you mentioned, so I won’t repeat anything you’ve said except to encourage the Cabinet Secretary to consider some of the suggestions that Huw Irranca-Davies put forward. One of the points that was put to me is that some...
Suzy Davies: The ‘State of Nature 2016 Wales’ report states that land management is an important factor in conservation, as over 70 per cent of Wales is made up of farmland. Management, of course, includes safety management. The authors of the report have recently called on Welsh Government to do a number of things, including support land management that helps to maintain and enhance nature and the...
Suzy Davies: Having spoken to residents in the area and Natural Resources Wales to discuss the ongoing situation, I think it’s clear that change is needed and I thank you for your response to the short debate last week. In the meantime, though, have you considered using your powers under section 61 of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 to issue a direction to Natural...
Suzy Davies: The YMCA, of course, embraces young people from all kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds and has a very good record of working with other groups. I hope that they will look at the example of Matt’s Cafe in Swansea, which works with a number of supermarkets to take unsold food to use in a community cafe. Considering that it was announced yesterday that the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University...
Suzy Davies: Minister, Hefin David and Julie Morgan, the reasons why we are asking for an autism Act and the reason this was in the manifestos of other parties, and the reason why other parties in this place are of the same mind is that the autism spectrum disorder strategic action plan just didn’t work. The refreshed plan doesn’t look like it’s going to work. Now, I’ll happily accept—I will...
Suzy Davies: Well, one of the purposes of an autism Act would be to make sure that it covers all ages, so that this transition age of 16, 18, or even 21 or 25 in some cases, is irrelevant. This is about individuals, regardless of how old they are, their rights and what they should be able to demand from public services and the rest of society. Seven years ago, and this is back in 2009, after the Wales...
Suzy Davies: Will you take an intervention? I’m grateful to you for taking an intervention. When you say ‘in the years to come’, how long does that mean?
Suzy Davies: Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. Can I just add my congratulations to Joyce as well? I think it is something that we should all be proud of, but you most of all. The transfer of languages between generations tends to fall to women—not exclusively, of course—but I’m wondering whether there’s something here that could work to the UK’s advantage post Brexit when it comes to acquired modern...
Suzy Davies: Keeping people out of hospital is placing demand on primary care services that are already stretched. People in need of social care are more likely to call on primary and, probably, reablement care than the general population. Social care isn’t all about the GP, though, and I’m wondering how the Welsh Government is securing the support of non-medical intervention to support the confidence...
Suzy Davies: I would also like to thank the commissioner for her report, and I’d like to start by congratulating her for keeping within her budget, saving money on almost every line in her budget. Her office’s settlement last year was particularly difficult, and this year has been no different. I look forward to the details in the draft budget. We welcome that efficiency, of course, but the fact that...
Suzy Davies: Thank you for your statement, John. I’m slightly thrown now by Mark Isherwood’s figures earlier on, but in your speech you mentioned that we had 112 refugees from Syria resettled in Wales, which means that that doesn’t seem to have changed since August, if that’s still the case, and it still means that 13 councils haven’t resettled any Syrian refugees at all. I’d certainly like to...
