Sioned Williams: Research by Stonewall has found that among those trans and non-binary people who have had their ID questioned or rejected in the past, 34 per cent cited that the problem was a difference in appearance between photos and appearance. Thirty-two per cent said their ID didn't match their given name. Twenty per cent said that the gender marker didn't match their appearance. Sixteen per cent noted...
Sioned Williams: We cannot on the one hand say that we support the rights of groups such as trans and non-binary people in policy areas such as health and education, but then not allowing them to express their democratic views. This Bill will also have a disproportionate impact on young people, as we've already heard. All of our efforts here to ensure that young people engage with the democratic process...
Sioned Williams: In their contributions to this debate, my fellow Plaid Cymru Members have highlighted concerns that are shared by many organisations, charities and other institutions. The people at most risk of losing their democratic voice as a result of this Bill are those from groups who are already disenfranchised. Yesterday, I spoke in relation to Holocaust Memorial Day about how guarded we must be as...
Sioned Williams: Thank you, Llywydd. Monday of this week was the International Day of Education, a day that celebrates the role of education in terms of promoting peace and development worldwide. The International Day of Education this year takes place once again during the COVID-19 pandemic and, as Plaid Cymru's spokesperson on post-16 education, I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate the sector...
Sioned Williams: Thank you, Deputy Llywydd. In his excellent book Yr Erlid, Heini Gruffudd of Swansea tells the story of his mother, the scholar and author Käthe Bosse-Griffiths, and the appalling impact of the growth of Nazism and the Holocaust on her and her family in Germany. They, like millions of other families who weren't considered people by the Nazis and their allies, were persecuted and some, like...
Sioned Williams: Diolch, Brif Weinidog. I welcome your answer. In 2012, following a campaign led by the former Plaid Cymru MP Elfyn Llwyd, new laws came into force that, for the first time, recognised stalking as a specific crime. My Plaid Cymru colleague Delyth Jewell also played a pivotal role in this campaign. With this being National Stalking Awareness Month, I would like to urge the Welsh Government to...
Sioned Williams: 8. Will the First Minister provide an update on the Government’s strategy to tackle the growing problem of stalking? OQ57529
Sioned Williams: In discussing tackling the pandemic, the Government has often talked about the importance of early action. That is exactly the approach that we need with this crisis. We need to provide protection, yes, but we also need to try and prevent the storm from reaching its destructive height. This is not a short-term economic shock. Like the pandemic, its impact will remain for years. We must show...
Sioned Williams: We must listen to and act with urgency upon the evidence and suggestions being proposed for ways that we in Wales can do more to address this crisis. An emergency summit, as I said, would be a first step that could help inform an emergency cost-of-living action plan. We need initiatives to support renters, for example, who have been amongst the hardest hit by the cost-of-living crisis. The...
Sioned Williams: Thank you very much, Deputy Llywydd. Our motion this afternoon calls on the Welsh Government to publish an emergency action plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that is hitting families in Wales. It's a crisis affecting households across the UK, but Wales will be and is being hit hardest by the economic storm and the huge social damage that will emerge from it in light of the fact that...
Sioned Williams: Thank you, Minister. I welcome the steps that you have outlined in your respone. The pandemic has clearly revealed the socioeconomic inequalities that exist within our society, and indeed have exacerbated those inequalities. These inequalities are also health inequlaities, with a clear relationship between one's socioeconomic situation and the impact of COVID on them. Figures from England...
Sioned Williams: 5. What new steps is the Welsh Government taking to address COVID-19 transmission levels? OQ57467
Sioned Williams: I could go on to detail our objection to many other clauses contained within this lengthy Bill, which will have a detrimental and disproportionate impact on minorities, women, children, our civil rights, and which will certainly worsen the inequalities in our justice system. But I will conclude by stating that the Bill is another example of why we need to devolve justice to Wales. Devolving...
Sioned Williams: I want to turn now to the way Part 4 of the Bill deliberately targets Roma, Gypsy and Traveller people. There is a provision in the Bill that turns trespass from a civil into a criminal offence, allowing the police to arrest Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people and confiscate their homes, their vehicles, if they stop in places that have not been designated for them. Given that authorised sites...
Sioned Williams: In terms of the first motion, Plaid Cymru once again wants to put on record our stance that it's the Welsh Parliament that should legislate in devolved policy areas, particularly in the face of the unprecedented desire of the Westminster Government to undermine our devolved authority, our identity as a nation, and our democratic right to decide what benefits our own communities. We should not...
Sioned Williams: The dangerous extremism of the present Tory Westminster Government is evident when it prompts the House of Lords to act with the determination it showed last night, sitting into the early hours defeating clause after clause of what were dubbed oppressive and outrageous Government proposals, which threaten to undermine basic civil liberties and fundamental rights. Llywydd, we must send an...
Sioned Williams: I am coming to an end—final sentence. We must ask ourselves for how much longer we can afford to accept the restrictions imposed on us as a nation by an unbalanced union, a Westminster Government that doesn't care a jot about Wales, and a completely inadequate and unjust funding formula. How many other reports like this one, containing clear warnings that something has gone badly wrong,...
Sioned Williams: All of us in the Siambr read numerous reports and briefing documents about the problems that we need to tackle, but I'd like to note, as a new Member of the Senedd, that this was my first committee inquiry, that into the pandemic and debt, and that the direct evidence that we heard about how we need to do more to support families in keeping their head above water had deeply affected me....
Sioned Williams: This week, the artist Mike Jones from Pontardawe passed away. Mike was renowned for his portrayals of the industrial communities of south Wales, particularly in the Swansea valley of his birth. Mike was brought up in Cilmaengwyn and Godre'r Graig, near Ystalyfera, when heavy industry in the area was at its height. His father was a miner, and his parents were also publicans, and this provided...
Sioned Williams: Thank you. The same report, the report of the social justice and equalities committee, recommends that the Welsh Government sets out how it will accelerate its Warm Homes programme as a way of tackling fuel poverty, because accelerate it must given the current and future cost-of-living storm, which has been deepened by the skyrocketing fuel prices, which we know will rise even further come...
