Rhianon Passmore: Will you take an intervention?
Rhianon Passmore: Between 1 April 1981 and 31 March 2016, 139,000 local authority housing association homes were sold off. That’s 45 per cent. None of them were replaced.
Rhianon Passmore: Will you take an intervention?
Rhianon Passmore: Do you accept that there will always be a need for social housing stock, and are you ideologically opposed to social housing?
Rhianon Passmore: Will you take an intervention, please?
Rhianon Passmore: Leader of the house, tomorrow I am sponsoring a celebration of Welsh musical performance culture in the Senedd, with the Arts Council for Wales at 12 noon in the Neuadd. I invite the leader of the house, yourself, Llywydd, and all Members to the celebration event. As well as a range of youth performances, the event will be headlined by one of Wales’s greatest sons, Bryn Terfel, and it...
Rhianon Passmore: First Minister, will you join with me in welcoming the construction of a new state-of-the-art £350 million hospital in Cwmbran, named the Grange University Hospital? It will help to modernise health services across Gwent for my constituents also in Islwyn. Judith Paget, chief executive of Aneurin Bevan university health board said, and I quote, ‘We have received fantastic support from...
Rhianon Passmore: I had also the fortune to meet with representatives of the British Society for Rheumatology and the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society in the Pierhead building recently, and I thank David Melding for bringing forward this debate. I was struck by the points made to me, and that, with a population of over 2 million and over 400,000 children in south Wales, there is a strong case to be made...
Rhianon Passmore: I will. Would the Cabinet Secretary agree that the time is right to futureproof and safeguard our structures in Wales? Would she agree with me that Wales would greatly benefit from a national overarching music performance strategy, a delivery model incorporating instrumental tuition across Wales regardless of income, wealth or privilege?
Rhianon Passmore: Thank you. Wales has world-class and globally esteemed institutions such as the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Welsh National Opera and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama conservatoire. This is supported ably by National Youth Arts Wales and Tŷ Cerdd, who also administer the elite National Youth Orchestra of Wales, national youth dance, theatre, choir, wind and brass bands. These...
Rhianon Passmore: 4. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on measures the Welsh Government is taking to ensure music education is accessible to all? OAQ(5)0152(EDU)
Rhianon Passmore: Will you take an intervention?
Rhianon Passmore: The Welsh Government programme for government, ‘Taking Wales Forward’, includes a commitment to reshape employability support for job-ready individuals and for those furthest away from the labour market. It is important to recognise that employability is not just about jobs and skills, it is about getting every aspect of Government policy—education, health, housing,...
Rhianon Passmore: [Continues.]—£503 million, and I will say it again, as I’ve been allowed to say it again, £503 million to the £1.2 billion Cardiff capital city deal. This transformational deal will improve Valleys public transport and create 25,000 new jobs, leaving an extra £4 billion in private sector investment. And I would like to place on record my appreciation to the Caerphilly council new...
Rhianon Passmore: I very much welcome the Welsh Government’s amendment to this debate that welcomes the ministerial taskforce for the south Wales Valleys that includes my constituency of Islwyn. Just last week, I stood in Newbridge train station with the Member for Newport West and representatives from Network Rail and Arriva Trains to discuss the progress of the £38 million investment in the Ebbw...
Rhianon Passmore: Will you take an intervention?
Rhianon Passmore: Would you countenance the fact that the very light regulatory approach of the UK Government in terms of employment has driven up a vast wedge in terms of zero-hours contracts, those working two or three jobs, and the inability of the welfare net to protect those has inadvertently and inappropriately affected the people of Wales due to their propensity for welfare claiming?
Rhianon Passmore: Would you take an intervention?
Rhianon Passmore: Thank you. Would you countenance the fact that, without a whole plethora of anti-poverty strategies across Wales, including this one, poverty would remain at a far worse level, due to austerity, due to Welsh block grant cuts, and due to the cruel disinvestment in the welfare system?
Rhianon Passmore: As a former councillor, I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government will intimately empathise with the plethora of demands that low-level environmental crime places on the caseload of local councillors. And outside of the portfolio of local authority responses that the Cabinet Secretary has already mentioned, including court action, the use of fixed-penalty notices can...
