Adam Price: Well, certainly, from our side, we would be grateful for opportunities, perhaps, to sit down with the First Minister and the health Minister to continue this discussion. We’ve heard earlier, of course, just how much influence Steffan had in terms of shaping this place’s response, the Government’s response, and Wales’s response to Brexit. He was a voice of great authority, of course,...
Adam Price: I'm very grateful to the First Minister. As part of the 2018-19 budget, Plaid Cymru, at Steffan's behest, negotiated and secured a commitment from the Welsh Government to reinstate an in-patient perinatal mental health ward in Wales. Steffan was so passionate about perinatal mental health services that the First Minister, during his time as finance Minister, included funding for the...
Adam Price: Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'd like to take this opportunity to further put on record the huge contribution made by our friend and colleague Steffan Lewis to our national life by asking about three of those issues that were very close to his heart.
Adam Price: Steffan Lewis's first contribution in this Parliament was in support of mining communities across Wales and, in particular, the injustice of the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme. As the First Minister will no doubt be aware, a deal in the 1990s saw the UK Government agree to underwrite mineworkers' pensions, but in exchange it can receive 50 per cent of the surplus each year. Over the decades, the...
Adam Price: Our thanks is unending to you, Steffan, to your mother for giving you to us, and to Shona for sharing you with us all.
Adam Price: Steffan was every bit the definition of a passionate Welshman. But he was also a man of Gwent, and he saw in the triumphs and tragedies of that great county the key to understanding the problems and possibilities of the nation as a whole. It was Gwent who brought the first blossoming of Welsh nationalism in the form of Cymru Fydd to a shuddering halt in a stormy meeting in Newport in 1896....
Adam Price: Thank you Llywydd. Wales is a small nation, but every now and then we breed giants. I got to know Steffan Lewis first over 20 years ago in light of the Islwyn by-election. We heard talk of this incredible young boy from the Gwent valleys who was not only a member of Plaid Cymru, but of the SNP and Mebyon Kernow too, and had managed to get the WRU to note this in the programme for the...
Adam Price: 'The European Single Market and Customs Union.'
Adam Price: And, again, we've seen Labour politicians in Westminster today saying that the UK Government has to respect motions and amendments to the motion that are to be tabled next week. Well, surely the Welsh Government should then respect the same principle here. The policy has been decided, and this isn't a semantic difference, as the First Minister argued yesterday, as far as the customs union is...
Adam Price: single market participation and participation in a customs union.
Adam Price: Now, I asked him how this could be reconciled with the motion that he's referred to already this afternoon, which was passed on 4 December, because that motion was quite clear, and I will read it: 'Calls on the UK Government to seek UK membership of both the European Single Market and Customs Union.'
Adam Price: I also thank the First Minister for his statement. It is an update on the situation and provides an analysis of a situation that is complex and, as we've heard, very concerning for us in Wales. What we need more than anything, of course, at the moment, with only 80 days to go until we depart the European Union, is two things, I suppose, from the Welsh Government: clarity on the Welsh...
Adam Price: I look forward to hearing the First Minister making those arguments when he welcomes the Irish in opening their consulate here in June. It's also true, isn't it, that economic success feeds through to other things as well? Because, actually, what we see in Ireland is that child poverty is lower than in Wales and life expectancy is higher in the Republic of Ireland, so economic success feeds...
Adam Price: So, in terms of the rankings, maybe I can help the First Minister. According to the World Bank, we'd be currently twenty-third in the 36 countries that are members of the OECD—that's between South Korea and Spain. So, I guess you could say we're just below the promotion zone in the second division of the world's advanced economies. Ireland, which is a similar-sized country in a similar part...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, your Government announced last week that it has engaged the OECD in conducting a review of Welsh economic strategy. You've used the OECD, of course, through its PISA programme, to benchmark Wales in the educational rankings worldwide. Can you say where Wales ranks in terms of GDP per head against the other member countries of the OECD? And do you think we'd be...
Adam Price: Adam Price.
Adam Price: May I wish you sincerely all the best for you and your family for the future, and thank you from the bottom of my heart, on behalf of the people of Wales, for your years of service? [Applause.]
Adam Price: During this time, closer to home, of course, at the dispatch box in this Chamber, as you've already alluded to, you've generally sustained—our Amman valley passion notwithstanding—a quiet dignity, if I may say, in your dealings with colleagues. You have overseen a very wide brief with masterly composure. I, for one, have found you a tough opponent to disrupt. Shall we just say it's hard...
Adam Price: First Minister, I'm sure you'd be the first to agree that we haven't always seen eye to eye over the years. But, I have no doubt that at every point during the period that you have held high office you've had the interests of our country foremost in your thoughts. When you took the reins, you were just the second First Minister in our history, and that particular honour will be yours forever,...
Adam Price: Yes, but, First Minister, it's not enough, is it, to blame Westminster for all our woes? The Equality and Human Rights Commission report, recently, on poverty in Wales pointed out that poverty rates in Wales have risen faster in Wales than across the UK, and the United Nations rapporteur on poverty pointed out the measures that are being taken by the Scottish Government that could have been...
