Mr Simon Thomas: Leanne Wood.
Mr Simon Thomas: One of the areas where Wales has fallen behind a little in terms of treating cancer is the diagnosis waiting time. A number of cancer charities, during the campaign that we’ve all just participated in, have been in touch with a number of candidates and asked what we can do in this Assembly to improve diagnostic times. Plaid Cymru, for example, had a proposal for diagnosis within 28 days....
Mr Simon Thomas: Welcoming the education Secretary to her new role, can I ask her, first of all, if she will, therefore, publish the remit letter that she has issued, or her predecessor has issued, to HEFCW, so we can understand the circumstance in which this decision was made? This directly arises, of course, from the cut to HEFCW’s grant, which the previous Labour Government brought in and which she...
Mr Simon Thomas: First Minister, the woman responsible for the Conference of the Parties discussions in Paris, Christiana Figueres, visited Wales last week. She came to speak at the Hay Festival and she spoke very eloquently on the need for Government, businesses and the voluntary sector, if you like, the civic society, to collaborate in order to achieve the dream of the Paris negotiations. She also said...
Mr Simon Thomas: 5. What discussions has the First Minister held regarding courts in Wales that have been earmarked for closure by the Ministry of Justice? OAQ(5)0027(FM)[W]
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, First Minister. Unfortunately, one of those courts earmarked for closure and will close is the main court in Carmarthen town centre, which is a historic building for the whole of the town. Now that that decision has been taken, the people of the town are eager to take back ownership of that building and turn it into a resource for the town. It is, of course, full of history and...
Mr Simon Thomas: As this is the first business statement we’ve had for some weeks, I might have one or two things I’d like to ask the business Minister that I hope we’ll hear from the Government over the next couple of weeks. I want to first of all say that I support what Lynne Neagle has just called for, and, of course, this strike is affecting museums across Wales, in fact, and many museums in rural...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, Minister, for your statement. I would like to raise two issues with you, and I do hope that the Government will be able to respond with statements on these issues. First of all, we today commemorate the massacre in Orlando with a minute’s silence in this Chamber, and it was noted that the flags of the Assembly and the Welsh Government were at half-mast today and yesterday, with...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I welcome the new Secretary to her role and yourself to the Deputy Presiding Officer’s role? I think it’s the first time you’ve been in the Chair, as well. [Assembly Members: ‘Hear, hear.’] I’d like to thank the Secretary for her statement. I’d like to say there was an awful lot of rubbish in it, but I mean that in the best possible,...
Mr Simon Thomas: We haven’t forgotten the election that we’ve just fought, and I do very clearly recall the Labour Party candidate in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire speaking very clearly and pledging that, if he had been elected, he would come to this place and argue for the return of maternity services to Withybush hospital and argue in favour of the repatriation of paediatric services to...
Mr Simon Thomas: Will the Member give way?
Mr Simon Thomas: I’m grateful to the Member for giving away. He just mentioned the police and crime commissioners. Four of them have just been elected in Wales: two Plaid Cymru, two Labour, and all four in favour of the devolution of police.
Mr Simon Thomas: Business Minister, thank you for your statement. Of course it has been a sad week for all of us as elected politicians to see one of our number gunned down on the street whilst going about her daily work of helping people. Now, Assembly Members have all been notified of how we can improve and consider our own personal security, and I’m sure many will consult with their local police. But I...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’d like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement. I feel confident in responding to this statement, because this is a sector of the economy where I make the biggest personal contribution, namely food and drink. I look forward very much to celebrating with the National Farmers Union tomorrow in this Assembly—we’ll be celebrating Welsh...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Minister, there’s another important team that’s been in Paris, prior to the football team, which we were congratulating and wishing well earlier on, and that’s the team led by the former Minister that went to the climate change negotiations in Paris prior to Christmas last year. In light of those discussions, does this Government, your Government, consider...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you for that confirmation. Of course, that agreement does set the course in taking carbon emissions to zero by the second half of this century and to keep the increase in carbon emissions at 1.5 per cent until that point. Now, during last week, we heard news that we’re about to pass the symbolic but important threshold of 400 parts per million carbon emissions, which shows that the...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you for that confirmation, but I do think that we need to keep these targets under review, because an 80 per cent reduction target may not be enough in fact to contribute to that overall Paris ambition. But one of the key ways in which we in Wales could contribute to our own targets and world targets is through better developed renewable energy. We’ve already heard a little about that...
Mr Simon Thomas: Can I introduce you to some facts, Minister? Can I refer you to an article in the ‘Agricultural History Review’, entitled ‘Measuring Regional Variation in Farm Support: Wales and the UK, 1947-72’? The conclusion of this article was this: previous pre-EU farm subsidies penalised Wales when farm size was smaller on average than in the UK as a whole. The fact is that the Welsh farmer has...
Mr Simon Thomas: 2. Will the Minister make a statement on legislation relating to the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement? OAQ(5)0012(CC)[W]
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you for that response, Secretary. You will know, from the experience that we had in the last Assembly, when I believe the majority, across parties, wanted to remove this defence, that that wasn’t achievable in the way the Government went about it and the way in which legislation works here. Whilst I accept entirely that the Government has to—well, not has to, but that, in this...
