Rhun ap Iorwerth: It is a concern in several parts of Wales and for many organisations that the banking sector appears to be turning their backs on community organisations. We know that HSBC is going to start charging a fee for community accounts. It is something that several people have contacted me about—Merched y Wawr, for example, and local eisteddfodau. I encourage everyone to sign a petition by the...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much. This is an interesting debate, a first opportunity to scrutinise the winter plan. Unfortunately, we have no winter plan to scrutinise as of yet. I do appreciate the short briefing that was made available earlier today to members of the health committee on some of the principles underpinning the plan. I appreciate having a preview from the Minister today of some of those...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you. I don't know whether you saw it, but last week, the foreign office of the Irish Government published a map to celebrate the opening of crossing 44 from Ireland to the European continent. First of all, I'd like to confirm that the Welsh Government is urging the Irish Government to remember the importance and to promote the direct crossings from Ireland to Wales. But the busiest of...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 7. Will the First Minister make a statement on the future of the port of Holyhead? OQ57079
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. I think this has been a really valuable discussion, actually, and can I first of all thank the Minister for those words, when he said that he is coming close to establishing, hopefully, a body that will encourage and promote publicly owned energy in Wales? That sounds very much to me that Plaid Cymru's long-standing campaign to establish an ynni Cymru, an...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 'We support the concept that there should be a legislated standard amount of community benefit per megawatt or megawatt hour produced from projects that proceed.'
Rhun ap Iorwerth: That would, I think, be an important step forward. But benefit can come in other forms too. It can mean real promises for jobs—economic prosperity of that kind—strengthening supply chains; cheaper energy bills, possibly, or, more environmentally positive, investment in energy efficiency within those communities; charging networks for electric vehicles; home batteries or solar energy for...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 'The provision of community benefits from renewables development is currently a voluntary initiative.'
Rhun ap Iorwerth: And that's one of the problems. I put forward a motion for new legislation to the Senedd recently after the Senedd legislative team confirmed that there would be a need for primary legislation to demand an assessment of community benefit of this kind. I wasn't selected in the ballot, but the debate is certainly still live. In that context, I welcome RWE's statement today:
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I'm asking the Senedd to agree with the second statement in our motion, which is that there is a need to ensure that all energy developments bring benefits to the communities in which they're located, and this is so important, I think. We as a nation have so much to offer in terms of energy development; we could be supplying and fulfilling not just our needs in terms of clean energy and...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'm very grateful to the Business Committee in the first instance for giving me the opportunity to set out this motion before the Senedd today, and I'm also grateful to the Members who have supported the motion in front of us. It's a very timely debate, I think. We are just before the beginning of COP26 in Glasgow. Later on today, Plaid Cymru will lead...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: —seeing the virus running riot in Welsh schools currently, and hearing from the parents who are scared and from the teachers who are scared about the continuing levels of the virus among young people and children in particular is something that we really need to continue to focus on?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Today is a pretty sobering day, isn't it, with the publication of that report by Members of the UK Parliament saying that the UK Government's response to the pandemic was one of the 'worst ever' public health failures. Those are pretty strong words. There's hardly a reference to Wales in that report—I'll get back to that in a second—but many of the questions around the response to the...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Deputy Llywydd.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. If I may send my best wishes to Andrew R.T. Davies. But I want to wish everyone well who is facing similar challenges wherever they may be. The truth is that we are in a very privileged position to do much more than wishing well, using words alone. The Government can take action, all of us can hold the Government to account and be determined not...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, and thank you for Members' contributions and the Minister's reply to the debate. We've heard references to very familiar problems that will be familiar to each and every one of us here in the Senedd, and we've heard a number of ideas from across all parties, to be fair, in terms of the responses that could be put in place. In terms of the Minister, I don't think that we...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: This is a debate that has been inspired by the passage of time, the passage of time with problems intensifying within our health and care services. With winter approaching, indeed the feeling that winter pressures are here already, and yet we haven't seen a plan from the Welsh Government for the winter this year. They managed to publish it in September of last year, in a very timely way,...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Of course.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: But your argument is to knock Wales and it's to knock devolution, so we cannot take it seriously in this context. The Minister told us that Plaid Cymru should be prioritising. The privilege of being in Government is being able to budget to prioritise, is it not? And surely now, investing in our most prized asset, our workforce in health and care, has to be a real priority. The Minister...
