Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, members of all four of the largest NHS unions have now voted to reject your Government's pay offer of 3 per cent; the Royal College of Nursing in Wales doing so by a massive 94 per cent. Will you now agree to their request for formal pay negotiations?
Adam Price: Will the Minister provide a timetable for the resolution of the blood-bottle shortage that is currently affecting services in GP practices across Wales?
Adam Price: As you would expect, I think you were overly generous and too fair in your assessment of the situation, as far as the attitude of the UK Government towards us, is. It's true for you, as it is for all of us, that your greatest strength is your cautious approach in trying to persuade people. But that can become a weakness when you face the UK Government, which has such an unreasonable and...
Adam Price: SAGE has concluded that, even with careful planning, there may not be any net benefit to COVID immunity certification, and indeed a paper of one of its sub-committees has argued that a domestic certificate—which is what we're talking about, rather than a travel certificate—has the potential to cause harm. The technical advisory cell, in its summary, cites two major UK studies that...
Adam Price: Moving to random selection.
Adam Price: Some practical questions, if I may, about the proposed COVID pass. Lateral flow tests, we know, are less reliable than PCR tests, and self-administered tests are currently the most unreliable of all because they can be falsified. The technology does exist to upload home lateral flow tests directly in a way that they cannot be falsified. Do you propose using that technology? Given increasing...
Adam Price: First Minister, last week you wrote to Senedd party leaders sharing the latest Swansea University modelling that showed NHS pandemic pressure peaking at the beginning of November. You explained that the Labour Party's decision to cancel its Welsh conference was influenced by this modelling and the need for all of us to do whatever we can to protect the NHS in the months ahead. The clear...
Adam Price: Westminster's serial neglect of Wales's railway network has left Wales with the UK's oldest and worst maintained track and the slowest and dirtiest trains. The obvious answer is for us to wrest control over own infrastructure, but, while Westminster continues to resist, can we afford to stand still? The Welsh Affairs Committee has recently suggested creating a Wales rail board, comprising the...
Adam Price: The Minister of State in the Welsh Office, David T.C. Davies, again last week defended the cancellation of the electrification of the south Wales main line to Swansea, by arguing that it would not have produced any benefits to passengers. Now, decarbonisation, quite apart from its positive environmental impact, would have had the pretty substantial benefit to passengers of not poisoning them....
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Last week, the UK Government revealed that pollution levels from nitrogen dioxide in the new Great Western Railway's bi-mode trains were, on average, five times higher, and, at peak levels, 20 times higher than those recorded on Wales's most polluted street, Hafodyrynys Road near Crumlin—deemed so bad, it is this week being demolished. The Rail Standards and Safety Board's...
Adam Price: 'The solutions to Wales's problems will never come from Westminster' is, for many us, a foundational truth of Welsh democracy. That's true of the problems that are unique to Wales, but also of the global problems to which Wales is not immune, but which we can make, possibly, our own unique contribution to solving. In that context, it's inspiring to see the momentum growing behind exciting,...
Adam Price: It says something about the callousness of this Conservative Government that you've already referenced this afternoon that they believe the right thing to do now is to remove the universal credit uplift when millions of families are facing devastating hardship. So long as our welfare in Wales is the responsibility of the moral vacuum that is Westminster, then families here will continue to...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. When faced with the choice of using a regressive tax—like national insurance—to fund public services, or a progressive alternative, then a Tory Westminster Government will always choose the former. Do you think this strengthens the case for devolving national insurance to Wales, particularly given the prime Minister’s insistence on ripping the devolution settlement to...
Adam Price: The election may be over, First Minister, but the bitter legacy of deep poverty and inequality in our communities, which is bequeathed to us by this deeply unequal United Kingdom, that persists. The 31 per cent of our children in Wales who are living in poverty: how can you argue that the union has been a force for untrammelled good for them? Contrast that with New Zealand: this last week, a...
Adam Price: [Inaudible.]—another example. Westminster's latest assault on Welsh democracy involves the £500 bonus for health and care staff in Wales. Not content with taxing it, Westminster now appears to be using it as an excuse to cut people's benefits. So, instead of receiving a thank-you bonus, many workers will be punished with a deduction of up to 63 per cent in their universal credit. If we...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. The people of Wales voted this month by a margin of more than 2:1 for parties that stood on a platform of greater powers for the Senedd. Westminster's reaction to this mandate so far has been not just to ignore it but to seek to reverse it. They have a plan for Wales; it just doesn't involve us. The Senedd bypassed on the replacement to European Union funds; Transport for...
Adam Price: In relation to the Indian variant, the primary Indian variant of concern, you said that there are a number of areas where we still do not have definitive evidence in relation to its effect in terms of vaccination efficacy and also whether it causes a more serious form of the disease. Could you say a little bit about those areas where we do have some understanding? So, particularly, I've read...
Adam Price: May I thank the First Minister for his statement, and also respond to the spirit of collaboration that was intertwined throughout that statement? You mentioned that Welsh choral tradition as a sign of that spirit of collaboration, and of course we do have to remember that I think the original term for the Welsh Parliament was to create a cymanfa genedlaethol, that gathering for song. So that...
Adam Price: A Parliament that is perfectly balanced between Government and opposition makes political co-operation across party lines not just desirable but necessary, and we stand, in Plaid Cymru, ready to find common ground in the interests of the people who have elected all of us to this Senedd. We'll work with Government where possible, and with the opposition parties where necessary, in the sprit of...
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd, and may I start by congratulating you on your election as Llywydd? It's good to see a member of Plaid Cymru winning at least one election this afternoon, but may I extend the same congratulations to David Rees, and, of course, I extend my warmest congratulations to Mark Drakeford on being confirmed as First Minister this afternoon? As I said following the result of the...
