Dawn Bowden: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for that response. Can I highlight some work that’s going on in Cwm Taf Local Health Board at the moment, who’ve been running a campaign to promote public education and awareness of the effective use of prescription medicines over about the last 15 or 16 months? Since the health board started its campaign, support and advice has been given to more than 7,000...
Dawn Bowden: 9. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on any discussions with health boards over the safer use of prescription medicines? OAQ(5)0086(HWS)
Dawn Bowden: Firstly, can I join others in thanking the older person’s commissioner for Wales and her staff for presenting us with such a comprehensive report? The report rightly identifies that older people are, to many of us, our everyday heroes, but are sometimes made to feel that they’re excluded from society and the victims of false assumptions around frailty, decline and dependence. What is...
Dawn Bowden: Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement? I was very pleased to accompany you yesterday, Cabinet Secretary, to a very chilly site in Merthyr Tydfil, the Trecatti site. The microclimate there, actually, that you experienced is called ‘an overcoat colder’. I was particularly pleased to be there with you on that day when you brought the Bill into the National Assembly, as we take...
Dawn Bowden: Do you want me to respond, Deputy Presiding Officer?
Dawn Bowden: I’m happy to accept that I may have got the figures wrong, Chair, and if I did, I apologise, but I do not apologise for my comment about the Member taking two salaries.
Dawn Bowden: The second part of the motion’s resolution talks about abolishing additional payments to officials for being returning officers, and I think it's certainly the case that this is an area that requires looking at, given the number of elections that we now have to deal with in the course of a parliamentary term. In that context, remuneration for returning officers does need reviewing, and it...
Dawn Bowden: Sure.
Dawn Bowden: Well, thank you, Hefin, for that intervention, and yes, it's absolutely my understanding that the deputy leader of Caerphilly Plaid was actually in attendance at that meeting of the council's then remuneration committee—that’s what I think it was called—and his refusal to still acknowledge it or even apologise for that is quite reprehensible, frankly. So, yes, let's have a look at the...
Dawn Bowden: Thank you, Chair. I’m sure many of you will remember the issue that arose in Caerphilly council in December 2012, when it came to light that some chief officers had been party to drafting and taking to a council committee a report recommending pay rises of more than 20 per cent for the chief executive and other chief officers. If you were to talk to the hundreds of trade union members at...
Dawn Bowden: No, I’m not taking an intervention. I can’t imagine that anyone would disagree—
Dawn Bowden: [Continues.]—that the gap between the highest-paid officers and the lowest-paid workers in local authorities and in other public services in Wales is regrettable, and that is the issue that we should be addressing here today. Unfortunately, the motion only focuses on one aspect of that pay differential, and that is the relationship to the pay of senior and chief officers. There’s...
Dawn Bowden: Can I say I was very much looking forward to speaking in this debate? As a long-standing trade union official who was dealing with these issues over many years in the public sector, I very much welcomed the debate coming forward. So, I do think it’s a shame that the Member had to stoop to the kinds of comments that he was making—the cheap kind of political jibes. Because we all know that...
Dawn Bowden: Will you take an intervention?
Dawn Bowden: Can I just ask the Member if he can confirm that, although the daily rates for parking in Merthyr are £3.50, there is actually a monthly parking rate of only £29, which is a considerable reduction for anybody having to use those car parks on a regular basis?
Dawn Bowden: Thank you for that statement, First Minister. I recently met with the Bevan Foundation to discuss ideas and strategies for economic regeneration in my constituency. Part of those discussions focused on the Cardiff capital region and the metro. The Cardiff capital region will undoubtedly bring significant benefits to the south Wales area, but there is a danger that areas like Merthyr Tydfil...
Dawn Bowden: 9. Will the First Minister make a statement on the prospects for economic growth in the south Wales valleys? OAQ(5)0289(FM)
Dawn Bowden: Thanks to Steffan Lewis for raising this very important issue and for bringing the motion to us today, which I fully support, and I also fully support the comments of the majority of colleagues who have spoken already in this debate. As Steffan said, the issue does date back to 1994 when the John Major Conservative Government put in place the new arrangements that would underwrite the future...
Dawn Bowden: Can I thank Plaid Cymru for bringing this debate before us? Because it is a very important issue that we need to be dealing with at this moment and it’s very immediate, of course. In my previous life as Unison’s head of health here in Wales, I had a high level of engagement with the Welsh NHS as an employer, and my experience in that position made me acutely aware of how crucial to the...
Dawn Bowden: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your response on the question. I certainly welcome this initiative as yet another example of the Welsh Labour Government delivering on its manifesto commitments. We’ve heard, increasingly in recent years, of the adverse impact of the Government’s austerity measures and welfare cuts for many in our society. I talked about, yesterday, the in-work poverty...
