Adam Price: —believes that. And believes that because there is a role for everyone in creating the new Wales. It is work that we all have to do to create structures to deliver it.
Adam Price: I'm pleased to have the opportunity for the second time today to scrutinise the programme for government annual report. I won't rehearse the points I made earlier on the systemic lack of delivery of this Government in key areas such as child poverty and fuel poverty. But I will say that we have become far too familiar with this repetitious pattern over the term of this Government and previous...
Adam Price: Well, the Labour activists I've quoted are critical of your party's final policy document, which I have seen, because it does not commit to extending free school meals—the very policy you've been attacking me on for these last few weeks. It seems I'm now closer to Labour values than you are. The document contains few new ideas, but at least some new admissions. In it, Labour Party members,...
Adam Price: First Minister, the remarks I just read out are not my views—they're the views of someone who was a non-executive director of your Government for almost a decade. It's difficult to find a more damning indictment than this statement from them about that experience: 'I have never been part of a Board with such a lack of measures of progress or outcome success.' You campaign in poetry and...
Adam Price: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Seeing those big, bold 'delivered' stamps on your annual report's opening page, First Minister, I was reminded of a paper I recently read about your Government, which said this: 'There tends to a box ticking drive to ensure Manifesto and Programme promises can be said to have been met. What I have never seen is an overall attempt to assess whether the desired outcomes...
Adam Price: You and I have talked about this very issue before, but the question is, of course, what are we going to do now. What we would do in Government is to undertake to revalue more regularly and ensure that the council tax system is more proportional to the value of properties. We know in Blaenau Gwent, for example, we've seen the value of properties increase more than twice as much compared to...
Adam Price: Obviously, the additional £5.5 million increase to the council tax reduction scheme that you referred to, First Minister, is welcome, but it's lower than the increase in council tax arrears, and the people who are most likely to have gone into arrears are those affected by coronavirus, households with children, people with disabilities. Freezing council tax is a short-term measure, though...
Adam Price: First Minister, the Scottish Government is providing £90 million in extra funding to councils to enable them to freeze council tax next year, offsetting what would have been, on average, a 3 per cent increase. It would cost around £100 million to allow Welsh councils to freeze council tax next year and offset the average 4.8 per cent rise that we saw last year. At this time of great...
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd. May I, first of all, echo the comments made earlier and say that our thoughts and prayers are with the families of Alan Minard, Ross Ballantine and Carl McGrath at this very difficult time?
Adam Price: Of course, the actions that have been taken now during the pandemic are welcome, but the children's commissioner has made the point that we do need to see the review, which is looking at what can be done beyond the immediate, turned into a concrete plan of action. Many people working in this field are pointing out that Wales has the least generous provision for free school meals across the...
Adam Price: Organisations working in this field in Wales have called for you to publish the findings of the child poverty review, and it's regrettable they're only now being made public as a result of a freedom of information request. They are, however, very revealing. Not only are they contrary to your own Government's policy, they're in line with what we in Plaid Cymru and others have been advocating....
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, in September 2019 I asked you to set out the anticipated responsibilities of the new child poverty review lead. Can you update the Senedd on the key findings resulting from their work?
Adam Price: It's right, of course, for us not to be just parochial, if you like, and comparing ourselves to other nations in these islands, but comparing ourselves to some of the best in the world. We know, of course, by Sunday, Israel had vaccinated 20 per cent of its population—I think it's now up to 28 per cent. It was initially expected that their programme would also suffer a slow down with Pfizer...
Adam Price: First Minister, you haven't addressed my question, and it's a reasonable question for me to put to you, and, indeed, it's a question that my own elderly parents ask me, because they're in the position—they haven't had a date at all; both of them in their 80s. My father, an 85 year old ex-miner, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; he in a clinically vulnerable group, and yet he has...
Adam Price: First Minister, if the rate-limiting factor is supply—and the health Minister just said that that was true across all of the nations—what it then explains is the differential rate of vaccination in Wales compared to, as we've heard, the UK as a whole, England and Northern Ireland in particular. If it's the same rate of supply across these nations, then why are we seeing a differential...
Adam Price: First Minister, you're right, obviously, to point to those positive steps that should be supported and encouraged, but would you accept that more can and needs to be done? I'll give you one example—just 2.6 per cent of South Wales Police officers are black, Asian and minority ethnic, compared to 6.7 per cent of the population within the force area. Statistics produced by the Wales...
Adam Price: In 1990, following the most high-profile murder case in the history of South Wales Police, three black men were wrongly convicted of the murder of Lynette White, and, 11 years later, 12 police officers were acquitted on a technicality in the largest police corruption case in history. In the case known as the Butetown Three, five police officers were disciplined 11 years ago following an...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, Mohamud Hassan was a fit and healthy 24-year-old. On Friday evening he was arrested at a property in Cardiff, where neighbours reportedly spoke of a significant commotion. Having been taken into custody at Cardiff Bay police station, Mr Hassan was released without charge on Saturday. Later that evening, he tragically died. Witnesses were reportedly shocked by...
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd, and it's a pleasure to move the amendments tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian.
Adam Price: The vote being held in Westminster today is a piece of pure political theatre. It's not necessary to ratify the treaty, as the Executive can do that without parliamentary approval. It isn't even necessary to implement it, as most of that can be done via secondary legislation. The proposition that this is somehow a vote on 'no deal' is an unalloyed barefaced lie that the Westminster opposition...
