Adam Price: I apologise.
Adam Price: I understand why the Cabinet Secretary doesn’t want to set out clearly her views at this point in time. But I think it’s important to note that a number of fishing clubs—in my constituency, and across Wales—have expressed concerns about these proposals, particularly the proposal to have a complete ban on bait fishing, and the 100 per cent catch-and-return policy, and the impact that...
Adam Price: 2. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the proposals from Natural Resources Wales to introduce new controls on fishing for salmon and sea trout? (OAQ51045)
Adam Price: 9. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of local support services available to unaccompanied refugee children? (OAQ51046)
Adam Price: As a Member of this National Assembly, and being frequently on the receiving end of Government strategy documents—and they do come thick and fast—you’re often oscillating between a state of confusion and a state of despair. I have to say, having speed-read this document this afternoon, I feel a mixture of both. Confusion because I think I was under the misapprehension that this was...
Adam Price: You didn’t answer the question.
Adam Price: Well, Cabinet Secretary, your Government did ask for a provisional ruling from ONS when you made a decision in principle on your own Government’s mutual investment model in October 2016. Furthermore, isn’t it true, Cabinet Secretary, that ONS has also got provision for policy proposals that are not at a near final stage? Their classification guidelines, which you yourself referenced in...
Adam Price: For the record, Members are asking which autumn of which year we’re talking about. So, maybe the Cabinet Secretary might want to put that on the record. Now, maybe one of the reasons for it being delayed was because you had to rewrite it following the fall-out of your decision over the Circuit of Wales. Now, on 27 June, Cabinet Secretary, you told the Assembly that you could not have a...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, in November last year, you told the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee that the First Minister had said that he expects the economic strategy to be with him by the spring of 2017. Earlier this year, you said in Plenary that you had to wait until the UK’s industrial strategy had been published in January. On 8 February, a Government amendment to...
Adam Price: Yes, of course.
Adam Price: Well, I am absolutely delighted. ‘Hallelujah’, is what I would say, of course. We all look forward to that and it’s a pity that we have to wait until after the summer recess to undertake that scrutiny, but certainly I look forward to seeing the outcomes of the other negotiations that are ongoing between the Finance Committee and the Cabinet Secretary in terms of restructuring the whole...
Adam Price: I will be very brief, Llywydd. We will also be abstaining because that is in accordance with what we did on the budget that this supplementary budget changes, of course. I know that I do have some previous with supplementary budgets, but I thought I should tell the Cabinet Secretary that we are going to allow this supplementary budget to go through. I think I’ve upset him once today...
Adam Price: I was wondering if the Cabinet Secretary could just help us in explaining the arc of policy development here, because we had a couple of access to finance reviews—they were both over a period of six months—and many of their key recommendations you haven’t followed, and in fact you’ve done the opposite. You, for example, have allowed Finance Wales currently to operate investment funds...
Adam Price: Many people feel that the Circuit of Wales was a massive missed opportunity for the Ebbw Vale enterprise zone. Last week, referring to a pre-arranged meeting with the company, you said that ‘the company accepted the issue with regard to the issue of being on balance sheet and the risks that that posed to us—they did not argue with it.’ The chief executive of the company, Martin...
Adam Price: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am very grateful to the two Members for their comments this afternoon. Just to respond first of all to Bethan Jenkins’s comments as Chair of the committee, I’ll cover as much as I can, but if I do forget anything, I will write to you. With regard to the equality impact assessment, I think that we did say in the letter that we would be content for...
Adam Price: It’s very appropriate for us to have this debate, of course, following the statement that Simon Thomas has just made. It’s true what he says, of course: the Hughes-Parry commission report, I think it was, was the basis for the Act, and that commission, in a way, was the Wolfenden commission for the Welsh language. And the Act didn’t achieve the highest aim we had that was set by that...
Adam Price: The strategy does emphasise the regional dimension in terms of economic development, and it’s important to the traditional Welsh-speaking heartlands because of economic and demographic similarities. But, again, the Welsh Government is suggesting a map of economic regions that places those Welsh-speaking areas in with majority non-Welsh-speaking areas. Is the Government in favour of the...
Adam Price: I want to echo some of the initial points made by Jeremy on the importance of the economy in terms of the prosperity of the Welsh language. I have been strongly of the opinion that you can’t separate economic prosperity from linguistic prosperity. Alun Davies will recall that we both occupied a house that is now in my constituency in Carmel during the Newport eisteddfod of 1998, and the...
Adam Price: It’s interesting as well that, in an exchange with me on 8 February 2017, when I asked the Cabinet Secretary whether the two sets of criteria you will recall that he set down to take the project to the final stage—the 50 per cent level of guarantee of the debt and the risk met, and also the investor term sheets—he said to me, according to my officials, it does appear that the...
Adam Price: Llywydd, once in every generation a specific case comes to light that points to a deeper and more difficult truth about a governing party, often—particularly—when that party has been in power for many years. I’m thinking of the beef tribunal, for example, in Fianna Fáil-led Ireland in the early 1990s, the Scott inquiry in the Conservative Government, and probably too many examples to...
