Adam Price: I certainly will.
Adam Price: It’s true to say, of course, that Wales has always been a nation where the need outstrips the resource that we have to meet that need. And that’s certainly true now for the reasons outlined by the Cabinet Secretary: austerity as a result of the policy emerging from Westminster. But it has been true for a longer period than that. Historians call Wales a ‘late nation’ in the sense that...
Adam Price: Isn’t it true, though, First Minister, that despite what you said about unemployment levels—and that is welcome; they dipped below the UK average for a period in the early 1990s as well, didn’t they? But the problem is in terms of income, in terms of prosperity. You can choose any number of a basket of indicators, whether it’s average earnings, household disposable income, gross value...
Adam Price: Would he accept, perhaps, that the decision made in the last administration to increase the number of priority sectors from six to nine, which actually then covered two thirds of all businesses in the economy, was a mistake, because that doesn’t really sound like targeting as anyone would understand it?
Adam Price: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I rise to support the two amendments in the name of my colleague. One of them expresses, once again, our sense of deep frustration, which I know is shared more widely, that we still haven’t got the new economic strategy that we were promised. I remember the Cabinet Secretary saying in this Chamber a year ago that the economic strategy would be presented in the new...
Adam Price: You raise another dimension: the creative asymmetry that sometimes, I think, characterises Labour’s policy position, sometimes saying one thing in Westminster or Brighton and another thing in Wales. We did have, I thought, a rather bizarre statement by the Labour leaders of the three largest councils in Wales, where they said they would support strike action by their own council staff...
Adam Price: Could we turn to the present, then? Because the Welsh Government obviously is involved in the use of public-private partnerships, yes, through the mutual investment model involving a minority share held by the Welsh Government, but the majority share, 75 per cent and above, is held by the private sector, using the Government’s own language, where ‘private partners build and maintain...
Adam Price: I’m very intrigued by this new broad front that’s emerging between John McDonnell and Neil Hamilton; I never thought I’d live to see the day, quite frankly. But, Chair, could I just delve a little bit deeper? I was very interested and listening intently to what the finance Secretary was saying. In the wake of the shadow chancellor’s announcement about bringing these projects back...
Adam Price: On that very point, I was wondering if it would be possible for the Minister to answer now or to have a word with her Cabinet Secretary colleague on whether open data, or a commitment to open data, will form a part of the commitment under the rail franchise, because there there is a very real gain to be had in terms of integration between bus and train services, if it is designed in such a...
Adam Price: I’m grateful to the Member for taking this intervention. The fundamental point, of course, is that the purpose of having an open data policy is that the data should be useful, particularly to citizens. One of the examples that is quoted by the Government on its website in terms of the open data plan is those tables that summarise grants over £25,000 per annum. The problem is that they are...
Adam Price: Will the Cabinet Secretary take an intervention?
Adam Price: You haven’t entered into the option agreement, then.
Adam Price: As you’ve specifically referred to it, have you entered into the option agreement with the MOJ that you just referred to?
Adam Price: I’ll tell you this: what the real motivating factor is—. I’ll send you the—[Interruption.] I’ll send you the evidence. The real motivating factor is this: it’s austerity meeting inhumanity. The Government’s own forecasts have shown that HMP Berwyn is going to be the cheapest prison to run in England and Wales. That’s effectively what it is. It’s a big box, but for people....
Adam Price: We’ve all seen the economic and social pain that Port Talbot has suffered of late. I have to say that turning Wales’s industrial heartland into an industrial-sized penal colony is not the solution to years of neglect that that community has suffered. I want to concentrate in my remarks on the economic dimension, but I would say to the Conservative Member: look, it’s not humane to...
Adam Price: Would you allow an intervention?
Adam Price: At the heart of this question, of course, is the fundamental right of nations to self-determination, which is indeed enshrined in the UN charter, and as the tectonic plates are shifting around us in these islands, in the European mainland, and across the world, it is increasingly under threat from a sort of irredentist power grab from the central state, as they themselves feel their supremacy...
Adam Price: In light of events in Catalonia, what discussions has the First Minister had with the UK Government as part of the UK-EU Brexit negotiations regarding the rights of sub-state governments to act autonomously without being restricted by the state government? (TAQ0042)
Adam Price: I’m grateful for the Cabinet Secretary’s response. I have passed him the details of Adam Bakhtiari, who is 17 years old, originally from Iran, living in my constituency, and is facing a very difficult situation if he were to be forced to move back to Iran for reasons that we don’t have time to go into here. But, in his case, he wasn’t given the support that one might’ve expected...
Adam Price: Of course, the Cabinet Secretary will share our opposition to the concept that the Government in London, as their Secretary of State has said already, are going to take all of the powers for agricultural payments. But would the Cabinet Secretary, in order to ensure that we do have the widest support possible in Wales to protect devolution in terms of powers, over agricultural payments, make a...
