Rhun ap Iorwerth: Yes, the picture is worrying across Wales, and has been throughout the pandemic, but in Holyhead there's been a significant problem after two surgeries had to be placed in the hands of the health board in 2019, and that, I'm afraid, was because of failures in ensuring a sustainable workforce over a period of many years. I think the success of Plaid Cymru in helping to establish a medical...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I thank Llyr for bringing this issue before us today and, indeed, for his work in this area over a period of years. Let me speak quite openly: the Betsi Cadwaladr health board is still facing very grave problems with its mental health services. The Hergest unit is still facing very serious questions around patient safety. And, yes, it was too soon to bring the board out of special measures....
Rhun ap Iorwerth: We're talking about serious, deep-rooted issues affecting patient safety, resulting in tragic losses of life. We're also talking about impacts on hard-working front-line staff, desperately worried about the care they can offer due to problems with underinvestment and under-resourcing. Responsibility, finally, must be accepted and acted upon for the years of failings in mental health care in...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: A few words on matters of principle, first of all, in principle, and I think this is something that we in Plaid Cymru have shown time and time again during the course of the pandemic, we have been ready to support the introduction of a range of measures to control and limit the transmission of the virus. Indeed, we've been encouraging the implementation of such measures, and it's been true in...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Llywydd, we have given these regulations the careful consideration they deserve and, in coming to the conclusion that they have to be rejected as they are, I emphasise that we are still willing to look at the evidence, to read detailed action plans and guidance. But, given that we don't have those today, we are voting the way that we believe is right in the hope that a more robust proposal...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you for taking an intervention. I just want to say in this intervention: I agree with everything pretty much that you've said. And that is where this falls down; we're not talking about the principles of what you have been portraying. I have children myself at university; I want to make sure that they're safe. Our argument today is that these particular regulations and the proposal by...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. I want to take this opportunity to urge the Government and the Minister here to raise their game, to show greater urgency in their response to the mental health crisis that we are facing at the moment. And the Minister, herself, is one, I know, who feels passionately about mental health. That's why she is in post. But that passion now needs to translate...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lywydd. We've thanked them; we've clapped for them; we've come to appreciate them perhaps more than ever over the past 18 months. But after sacrificing so much, our NHS health and care workers across Wales deserve now to be properly and fairly rewarded through their pay. The least we think Welsh Government could do is stand alongside healthcare workers in Wales...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thanks for all your contributions, starting with Russell George starting in a measured way, paying tribute to our health workers. But the issue here is this isn't about showing commitment, warm words towards the workforce; this is about paying them properly. And I will stand shoulder by shoulder with the health Minister in criticising UK Government for its actions in terms of its...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Of course.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: But your argument is to knock Wales and it's to knock devolution, so we cannot take it seriously in this context. The Minister told us that Plaid Cymru should be prioritising. The privilege of being in Government is being able to budget to prioritise, is it not? And surely now, investing in our most prized asset, our workforce in health and care, has to be a real priority. The Minister...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: This is a debate that has been inspired by the passage of time, the passage of time with problems intensifying within our health and care services. With winter approaching, indeed the feeling that winter pressures are here already, and yet we haven't seen a plan from the Welsh Government for the winter this year. They managed to publish it in September of last year, in a very timely way,...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, and thank you for Members' contributions and the Minister's reply to the debate. We've heard references to very familiar problems that will be familiar to each and every one of us here in the Senedd, and we've heard a number of ideas from across all parties, to be fair, in terms of the responses that could be put in place. In terms of the Minister, I don't think that we...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. If I may send my best wishes to Andrew R.T. Davies. But I want to wish everyone well who is facing similar challenges wherever they may be. The truth is that we are in a very privileged position to do much more than wishing well, using words alone. The Government can take action, all of us can hold the Government to account and be determined not...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Deputy Llywydd.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Today is a pretty sobering day, isn't it, with the publication of that report by Members of the UK Parliament saying that the UK Government's response to the pandemic was one of the 'worst ever' public health failures. Those are pretty strong words. There's hardly a reference to Wales in that report—I'll get back to that in a second—but many of the questions around the response to the...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: —seeing the virus running riot in Welsh schools currently, and hearing from the parents who are scared and from the teachers who are scared about the continuing levels of the virus among young people and children in particular is something that we really need to continue to focus on?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'm very grateful to the Business Committee in the first instance for giving me the opportunity to set out this motion before the Senedd today, and I'm also grateful to the Members who have supported the motion in front of us. It's a very timely debate, I think. We are just before the beginning of COP26 in Glasgow. Later on today, Plaid Cymru will lead...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I'm asking the Senedd to agree with the second statement in our motion, which is that there is a need to ensure that all energy developments bring benefits to the communities in which they're located, and this is so important, I think. We as a nation have so much to offer in terms of energy development; we could be supplying and fulfilling not just our needs in terms of clean energy and...
