Leanne Wood: The Institute for Fiscal Studies report on wealth inequalities in the UK has laid bare the gaping chasm between rich and poor. Among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, the UK is the second most unequal country, after the United States. This is a disgraceful state of affairs, and it's been now described by the report's authors as a threat to democracy. It's...
Leanne Wood: It's been a deeply upsetting week for anyone who has read or been involved with the royal college's review of maternity services in Cwm Taf. The testimonies of the mothers whose babies died cannot but move any of us, and the way they've been treated is enough to make anyone angry. Now, I asked the question last week about whether this would have happened in another area—say, for example, a...
Leanne Wood: Will you take an intervention? I accept what you've just said about Islamophobia. Do you therefore share my concerns about the comments of Boris Johnson about Muslim women, calling them letterboxes and contributing to making this problem even worse? Do you have anything to say about that?
Leanne Wood: It's hard to see how anyone could disagree with the second part of this motion, that we need to root out racial discrimination in our society. To me, that's pretty obvious. Apart from isolated voices on the far right, few would argue that someone could be less worthy because of the colour of their skin, despite the fact that many people undoubtedly hold those views in private. But this is...
Leanne Wood: Will you take an intervention?
Leanne Wood: You're describing some really good work on the part of some really good organisations in Wales. But do you accept that their work is made so much harder when politicians, like Boris Johnson from your party, refer to Muslim women as letterboxes, for example?
Leanne Wood: I, like many other people, am concerned about the treatment of homeless people in this country. I was horrified to see the Labour-run Cardiff Council forcibly evict homeless people from parkland in Museum Avenue. People might have seen one homeless man crying out as his belongings were tossed into the back of a flatbed van, heading for who knows where. 'They basically just took my world' was...
Leanne Wood: I'd like to start my contribution to this debate with a big 'diolch', 'thank you', to Greta Thunberg, the school strikers and Extinction Rebellion, but also to all of the other environmental campaigners and activists who've been raising this alarm for years, if not decades. You are succeeding, the conversation is changing—with some exceptions, of course. The Extinction Rebellion protests...
Leanne Wood: Will you take an intervention? There's no doubt your contribution to workers' rights and the trade union movement is commendable. Do you therefore regret the amendment that's been put down by the Government today to delete all the substance out of our motion, effectively, and just congratulate itself without thinking about what it can do in the future to further protect those workers' rights?
Leanne Wood: Diolch. I'd like to begin by thanking our partners in the trade union movement for their work in supporting Plaid Cymru to develop this motion. Today is International Workers' Day, and we are pleased to be able to host today's debate. We believe it's important to mark the day by giving Members in this Chamber the chance to voice support and solidarity for workers and to contribute to the...
Leanne Wood: I would like to congratulate the Rhondda-based Cory Band for taking first place at the forty-second European Brass Band Championships in Montreux, Switzerland, over the weekend. This triumph was the sixth time they have won the competition since 2008, with a number of second and third placings during the same time period. The victory has cemented their position as the greatest brass band in...
Leanne Wood: Speaking to headteachers in the Rhondda, it seems that their job is as much about clever accounting as it is about providing direction, leadership and drive to staff. In the local authority that covers the Rhondda, some secondary schools are more than £0.5 million in the red. There's pressure to balance the books, but services have already been cut to the bone, so the only way now to make...
Leanne Wood: 6. What is the Minister doing to ensure that schools are adequately financed? OAQ53785
Leanne Wood: I attended the briefing this morning on this, and there wasn't enough time for me to ask questions there on behalf of my constituents in the Rhondda, so I hope I will be afforded the time now, Llywydd. It's good to have an apology from the health Minister, and, I have to say, when I first read this report, which refers to a culture of people's concerns being dismissed, I immediately thought...
Leanne Wood: Trefnydd, I'd like to raise some matters that were brought to my attention during a recent visit to the Rhondda campus at Coleg y Cymoedd. I was informed by senior management at the college, and ColegauCymru, about the serious financial constraints, not just on colleges, but also on students. Education maintenance allowance payments, which could mean up to £30 a week for some students, have...
Leanne Wood: Although we're celebrating new-found species like the Maerdy monster, recently found on a Rhondda coal tip, the picture for other species isn't so rosy. Anyone watching the brilliant recent BBC programme Land of the Wild will be concerned by the message at the end of the series by Iolo Williams about the extent of species decline in this country. Species decline and soil degradation are key...
Leanne Wood: How is the Welsh Government responding to the climate emergency?
Leanne Wood: Will you take an intervention?
Leanne Wood: Do you agree with what my colleague Helen Mary Jones said—that many people's problems with mental health could well be linked to welfare reform? And if you do accept that, do you accept that if we had control over some aspects of welfare reform here, we could mitigate some of those worse aspects of it?
Leanne Wood: But is welfare reform one of them?
