Gareth Bennett: Thanks to the committee Chair for bringing today’s debate. This was a well-intentioned Act. However, the post-legislative scrutiny work has highlighted serious problems in implementing it, which we’ve been hearing about this afternoon. One of the problems is that local councils, in large part, have to implement the Act, but it comes hard on the heels of other Acts that they also have to...
Gareth Bennett: I was interested by Hannah’s question and I had a look at the case, which I kind of had heard of from years ago. I think it used to be known as the Shrewsbury 2, rather than 24, but I gather it’s the same case. When I tried to put it into a political context, the conclusion I came to was that tougher trade union restrictions on issues like flying pickets weren’t introduced until later....
Gareth Bennett: Thank you for that answer, Minister. Now, the last time I asked you questions with your local government brief, I was talking about traffic charges in Cardiff and you said you would write to me, which indeed you did. So, thank you for the information you provided. You stated that, in terms of parking and traffic violation charges that were collected by Cardiff council and other...
Gareth Bennett: Yes, thank you. We do need a balance, but I’m glad that you were mindful of considering it although I appreciate that the responsibility lies automatically with another Minister. But, thank you. Now, complying with regulations can be a recurring issue for councils. Obviously, we need regulations—sensible regulations, that is—but regulations do add cost. One recurring debate that we will...
Gareth Bennett: Diolch, Lywydd. Minister, one of the traditional functions of local councils is in the field of housing. But sometimes excessive regulation can be a block, particularly for smaller house building companies, and some of these regulations relate to great crested newts. Now, the UK Government has brought out a White Paper in which they propose a newt-offsetting scheme. This would allow...
Gareth Bennett: Thanks, Minister, for the proposed settlement that you’ve brought to the Chamber today. In general, we in UKIP share the general public’s desire to maintain police officer numbers, particularly officers on the beat. This is because we acknowledge that public perception of crime and crime prevention is an important factor in keeping public trust and retaining cohesive communities. So, we...
Gareth Bennett: Thanks, Minister, for your statement today. A lot of the discussion today has been about Communities First; well, that scheme is now going, so we do have to ensure that any kind of programme that replaces it is going to be effective, but, mainly, today, I wanted to talk about the other side of the poverty issue, which is what Dawn Bowden alluded to: employability. Now, you’ve previously...
Gareth Bennett: Thanks, Minister, for your statement. There do seem to have been some problems at the top end of this organisation in recent months. The Minister may well recall that the last chair, Laura McAllister, stayed in post beyond her intended term of office because the Welsh Government felt that a suitable replacement couldn’t be found at that time. You then came up with Paul Thomas, but he’s...
Gareth Bennett: First Minister, you explained last week that, although the Welsh Revenue Authority is being created, nearly all of the staff are having to be recruited in London because we just don’t have the skilled people here in Wales, and this is a persistent problem. But it does rather beg the question of what your Government has been doing about skills and training over the last 17 years.
Gareth Bennett: We had a visit to the Assembly last week from Whizz-Kidz, a group of wheelchair users, who had recurring complaints that transport staff hadn’t been trained to deal with disabled people. This was unfortunately the case with rail staff, bus drivers, and taxi drivers. What can your Government do to ensure that transport staff are properly trained in this respect?
Gareth Bennett: Thanks to the health committee for bringing today’s debate. Health issues are frequently discussed here in the Chamber, and that merely reflects the fact that they’re one of the major concerns of our electorate. As a newcomer to this place, I’m interested in the process whereby a committee, 50 per cent of whose members belong to the governing party, produce a report with concrete...
Gareth Bennett: The Government’s focus on play is welcome. We now have a fairly weighty Government document on this. This document is geared up for schools, nurseries, social workers and local authorities. Surely, a major problem though is that so many parents are sedentary or even obese that we have to persuade them to get out of the house to the local park to play with their kids. So, I wondered what we...
Gareth Bennett: Thanks to the Minister for bringing today’s debate. We broadly support the aims of the report, and we also support the Conservative amendments. One of these deals with having measurable objectives. We can occasionally become overly obsessive about targets. However, an absence of meaningful targets will make it increasingly difficult for any Government to gauge how well its policies are...
Gareth Bennett: Thanks to the Minister for his statement today. We in UKIP broadly support the intention to reduce the bureaucracy of local government, while, at the same time, striving to preserve some meaningful link between elected local councillors and their constituents. As with most things in politics, this reorganisation needs to be a balancing act. On one hand, we have public concerns over too many...
Gareth Bennett: Thanks to David Melding for bringing the debate today. A lot of the issues under discussion today were also touched on, to some extent, in yesterday’s Government debate about creating better local environments. These terms ‘creating better local environments’ and ‘liveable cities’—this kind of thing—I do find a rather all-embracing subject matter, so it is sometimes difficult to...
Gareth Bennett: The debate today covers a wide range of areas, so I will concentrate on one aspect, which is air quality. Air quality matters to everybody, so it is right that we take what steps we can in the Assembly to improve it. We in UKIP support the Government’s motion today. We also support the Conservative amendment, which tackles the issue that the Welsh Government has the ability to impose...
Gareth Bennett: Yes.
Gareth Bennett: I will accept the possibility. Will you also accept that there’s a possibility that it could be because of reduced rubbish collections?
Gareth Bennett: Ultimately, we may be in danger of patting ourselves on the back for meeting recycling targets whilst ignoring the increasing piles of rubbish dumped in fields and back alleys. Cardiff, Newport, Swansea and some other towns are seeing more and more residents moving into small housing units like flats, or into shared accommodation like houses in multiple occupation. Many occupants of these...
Gareth Bennett: We in UKIP support today’s Conservative motion. We are also concerned at the public health implications of reducing rubbish collections, and we acknowledge a likely connection between reducing collections and seeing a consequent increase in fly-tipping. There has been a drive by councils across Wales in recent years to reduce collections in order to meet Welsh Government recycling targets....
