Adam Price: 2. Will the Minister provide a statement following RCN Wales’s rejection of the Welsh Government’s additional NHS pay offer for 2022-23? TQ734
Adam Price: The King's Fund that was working with the health board on governance, this is how they described things in the winter of 2020, when you decided it was fit to take the health board out of special measures: the fund observed deteriorating executive behaviour, with individual executive team members criticising each other to the chair and independent members, deepening independent member concern...
Adam Price: Your Government's decision to take Betsi out of special measures was a blatant attempt to pull the wool over people's eyes. Two years ago, and with an election looming, you wanted to give the impression that you had guided the health board through significant reform, that you had done your job. It was premature. It's proved to be reckless, and it demonstrated a lack of judgment and...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Betsi Cadwaladr is a failing health board. It's failing patients and it's failing staff. The Tawel Fan inquiry found a catalogue of shocking and unacceptable failures in the care of some of the most vulnerable patients, some with dementia, left to lie naked on the floor. Patient safety risks have been identified, with several critical reports into vascular services. An...
Adam Price: You referred, Minister, to the bypass in Llandeilo, and I welcome the commitment that there is in the transport delivery plan to that particular scheme. But could you explain, in terms of the announcement that you are about to make, as you say, that that will be done on the basis of WelTAG 2, namely the framework that was the basis for the consultation? And will it move on then to WelTAG...
Adam Price: Three quarters of all public transport journeys in Wales are made by bus, but buses get a fraction of the investment currently earmarked by the Government for rail. Cutting that funding further at a time of falling passenger numbers and rising costs will decimate the bus network; it will disproportionately disadvantage women, children and young people, the elderly, the disabled, workers on...
Adam Price: Industry body, Coach and Bus Association Cymru, has said the risk to services and jobs without continuity of funding has only been delayed. They are predicting cuts in bus services ranging from two thirds to mass deregistration of all routes. That would mean people across Wales suddenly unable to go to work, to shop, to go to hospital, to go to college and school. As the chief executive of...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Today, the Government, with the publication of the roads review, will be heralding its commitment to a historic shift in policy and priority from roads to public transport. So, why is it that you announced late on Friday that you were merely delaying a catastrophic cut in support for bus services from the end of March to the end of June, that will literally decimate what is...
Adam Price: [Inaudible.]
Adam Price: Well, certainly it has been an illuminating, if somewhat dispiriting debate in its conclusion, with the remarks of the Minister, but I'd like to thank all Members who contributed to it. Peter Fox is a reasonable man—I'm not sure that I can say that more broadly, it has to be said—but I think the central point here, Peter, is this: if we have these powers, there's no point having powers if...
Adam Price: Would the Minister give way?
Adam Price: Seeing as she's quoting the Scottish Fiscal Commission, does she also recognise that the net additional revenue that the Scottish Fiscal Commission has identified for next year, in terms of the divergence between the policies, is £1 billion extra? That's the net additional revenue that Scotland has.
Adam Price: Will the Minister give way?
Adam Price: On the question of the primary home, what discussion have you had with HM Revenue and Customs in terms of having a concordat in terms of rules for defining what a primary home would be, because that applies, of course, in other tax contexts as well?
Adam Price: —you can mitigate the risk, as well. I have limited time, I'm afraid. You can mitigate the risk, as well, because the block grant adjustment approach allows for those kinds of risks to be mitigated. We mitigate currently through the fiscal agreement already in place in terms of the budgetary risks that arise from the different distribution of taxpayers that we have in Wales, and that block...
Adam Price: There are two principal reasons, really. One, it would enable us to raise additional revenue for public expenditure to create the kind of decent society we want to be, and to do so in a fairer way by creating a more progressive tax structure here in Wales. So, take that first point—raising more revenue. The problem with the current system of tax devolution that we have is that it makes it...
Adam Price: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Our motion today seeks to ensure that we in Wales have the power to set bands for income tax as well as rates. Now, it sounds like a fairly dry and technical debate, but actually it goes really to some pretty fundamental questions—two fundamental questions that every nation needs to answer through its democratic process. The first is: what should the size of the...
Adam Price: The Minister will have seen the figures, of course, and they are concerning, aren't they? It varies from a fall of a little under 3 per cent among the youngest cohort, 3 per cent of those between 16 and 64, but 9 per cent in those over 65. There are different factors, of course, driving those different statistics, but, certainly, they paint a picture that is worrying. I know that the...
Adam Price: 1. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the decline in the number of Welsh speakers in Carmarthenshire according to the most recent census data? OQ59088
Adam Price: Will you give a ruling as well?
