Nick Ramsay: 5. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to address climate change? OAQ53862
Nick Ramsay: Trefnydd, as you know, yesterday, BBC Wales carried a story about farmers being unable to recycle their plastic waste due to Wales's only recycling centre, I think, moving from a payment basis to a charge basis for the intermediate operators. I appreciate that the Welsh Government have responded that this is an issue between farmers and the private sector, but there clearly is an impact on...
Nick Ramsay: Thanks for giving way, Deputy Minister. You're quite right—I'm aware of that project as well, and perhaps sometimes we do spend too much time worrying and focusing on the traditional ways of delivering broadband where, in certain rural areas, where it's going to be very expensive and very difficult to connect people up, perhaps what you just said, the use of white space, is one innovative...
Nick Ramsay: I'm pleased to contribute to today's debate on e-sports and to agree with many of the comments made by my colleague David Melding in his eloquent opening of this debate. I must be honest, however, that my knowledge of this area is rather limited, but from what I've read over the past few days in bringing myself up to speed on the whole area of e-sports, this is a rapidly growing debate and...
Nick Ramsay: Minister, this is a very important question. Tri-Wall Europe, a big employer in Monmouth in my constituency, a company that makes cardboard packaging for the motor industry and for many other industries as well, is headquartered in the far east but uses its base in Monmouth to supply all over Europe. In the previous Assembly, the then Minister for economy said after a visit to Tri-Wall that...
Nick Ramsay: Minister—Counsel General, I should say—Hefin David, the Member for Caerphilly, has made an important point, I think, about the potential in future—whilst recognising that WEFO fund has been incredibly important to community-based projects in the past, there is the potential now to make the new structure more suited to both your area, Hefin, and my area, to better support environmental...
Nick Ramsay: I've had a number of interesting conversations with Alun Davies and Mike Hedges over the last few weeks about the co-operative movement. Well, I found them interesting, anyway; you probably groan as you see me approaching you in the tea room. But it is an interesting concept, and it is a concept that has been embedded within Wales for many, many years now. My colleague Mark Isherwood often...
Nick Ramsay: Yes, I think the issue here is that there are going to be individual circumstances in each case, and what we've agreed on as a committee is that the procedures in place in the Welsh Government should be robust enough so that those individual circumstances can be taken into account, so that if there's any suggestion that a survey is needed, it should happen, and if a survey can be completely...
Nick Ramsay: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Can I thank all Members who've contributed to today's debate and thank the Deputy Minister as well for his comments, and everyone for raising a number of important points? I think I should point out as well that the committee recognises that some of these issues date back a fairly considerable length of time and, obviously, the Deputy Minister wasn't in post at that...
Nick Ramsay: Alongside these poor contractual arrangements, there appears to be a significant lack of due diligence. The Welsh Government chose to purchase a site for the studio that consisted of three very different and unusual assets costing £6 million, and failed to commission a full structural survey beforehand. Most people have a structural survey before buying a house, but this was a £6 million...
Nick Ramsay: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Rightly, the announcement of the arrival of Pinewood in Cardiff in 2014 was met with excitement and anticipation that such a world-renowned brand was coming to Wales and could bring an estimated £90 million to the Welsh economy and boost the Welsh film industry on an international level. Pinewood’s arrival offered opportunity and hope but, just four years later, the...
Nick Ramsay: As you said, Minister, we need to ensure that funding reaches the front line. To be fair, programmes such as twenty-first century schools have provided much-needed funding for local authorities to improve school buildings and other aspects of school life, but, of course, that doesn't help the revenue situation of existing schools, particularly when they don't always tick the right funding...
Nick Ramsay: Can I firstly concur with the comments made by Joyce Watson and the Minister regarding the netting of trees? I first became aware of this over the last few weeks, and it does seem to be a cynical circumventing of the rules. It's not what the rules did intend originally, and I do hope the Welsh Government will look at it, and I'm happy to support that campaign, Trefnydd. On a lighter, more...
Nick Ramsay: 'On time, within budget, and in a successful manner.' It's not always that we hear those descriptions of projects. This was very—. I don't have much to add, actually, to what the Chair of the committee has said. This was a very interesting inquiry to be involved in. Can I also thank the witnesses who came before the inquiry? We've managed to deliver, I think, a very efficient and timely...
Nick Ramsay: I think I'm fast becoming my party's Africa champion, Minister. I seem to always be asking you about Africa or Love Zimbabwe in my questions to you. Can I concur with the comments that John Griffiths has just made? As you know, I do have links with the Love Zimbabwe charity, which has strong links with the town of Abergavenny. As I told you last week, Martha Holman, one of the volunteers, has...
Nick Ramsay: Minister, we know that local government pension schemes have invested in a huge range of companies, including fossil fuel companies as well. We know the sort of pressures that local government pension schemes are under and look like they will continue to be under, so it's not just a question of what the Welsh Government is going to invest or disinvest in. What advice are you giving to local...
Nick Ramsay: My colleague on the Finance Committee, Mike Hedges, is always keen to point out the cyclical nature of LTT and property transactions, and what you've just said about it being early days and having had exceptional years is certainly something that we've looked at on the Finance Committee. I welcome what you said, that people buying properties at the lower end should have less of a tax burden....
Nick Ramsay: I resisted the temptation to say it was a momentous week in Welsh taxation because we tend to say that during every set of questions with all the changes that have been happening with devolved taxation over the last months and, indeed, the preparations over longer. When he was the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, the First Minister said that he was sceptical about the extent to which taxation...
Nick Ramsay: Diolch, Llywydd. Finance Minister, the Federation of Small Businesses report on creating a new tax system in Wales has highlighted some concerning facts about the lack of awareness on devolved taxes. Perhaps most shockingly, their August 2018 survey found that 66 per cent of FSB members said that they were not aware of devolved taxes when questioned, with some stating that there'd been little...
Nick Ramsay: Thank you, First Minister. As you know, I attended the topping out of the new critical care centre in Llanfrechfa last week. You mentioned Gwent clinical futures. That new critical care centre at Llanfrechfa only works as the top of the Gwent clinical futures pyramid, with general hospitals operating, such as Nevill Hall, at the second level, and community services as the base level—at...
