Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank the Counsel General for that answer, but I want to turn to another priority. On Question Time on the BBC last week and on Sunday night on the BBC Wales Live programme and in conversations in the streets and the cafes and the pubs and clubs across Wales and with families and neighbours and on anti-social media, there is often a harsher, brutal and sometimes a downright nasty edge to...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Indeed, staying ahead of the curve in technological innovation is critical for the success of businesses in Wales, and artificial intelligence is one of the emergent battlegrounds in business competition, and, on a global stage, companies like Sony recognise this. But here in south Wales, the award-winning Sony UK technology centre in Pencoed is leading the way in this and many other ways,...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 3. What are the Counsel General's key priorities in the run-up to Brexit? OAQ53597
Huw Irranca-Davies: It's a pleasure to take part in this debate, but I wish we didn't have to, in many ways. John F. Kennedy once said: 'If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.' I think that is the essence of what we are looking at here—it's how a society looks after those who face disadvantage. And by the way, disadvantage is not something that is a million...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Thank you, Mark, for giving way. Thank you very much. If we accept that there are high levels of disadvantage and deprivation in some of the communities and some of those on the lowest incomes are being most affected by minute little changes, I ask him to listen to the voice of Conservative MPs, and indeed Ministers, who've spoken out on this. When Esther McVey acknowledged that people with a...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Further to my recent request for a statement on rip-off prices for through train tickets via Bridgend, can I repeat that call? I had an interesting Twitter exchange yesterday between me, my constituent and, fair play, a very engaged Transport for Wales Twitter account operator, and it revealed that (a) the same ticket from Maesteg to London, compared to Bridgend to London is £31 more...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Well, thank you very much for that answer, Minister. I'm pleased that you've already—. You've pre-empted my question, because part of the delivery of the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013—brought through with laudable ambitions by my colleague John Griffiths here, before my time—sets out that Wales would become the country where it was the most natural thing to walk and cycle, it was the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 4. What recent discussions has the Minister had with other Government ministers on the role of active travel in promoting health and wellbeing for children and young people? OAQ53559
Huw Irranca-Davies: I welcome the fact that both the Minister in front of us and her Scottish counterpart have both now raised it directly with Liz Truss, the relevant Minister, in their discussions, but I'm very disappointed with the response. Back on 28 October last year, Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, made it clear in response to an interview that there would indeed be need for an emergency budget in the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 5. What discussions has the Minister had with UK Ministers on the need for an emergency budget in the event of a no-deal Brexit? OAQ53515
Huw Irranca-Davies: Diolch, Llywydd. Could I say to Andrew R.T. Davies, and to Bethan Sayed, if there was a mood to take forward an individual Member's debate on the future of rugby in Wales, include grass-roots rugby as well? Because the importance of the regional structure is also not to just the Welsh team, but it's downwards to grass-roots rugby as well. But could I ask for two debates, please? And I'm...
Huw Irranca-Davies: The impact of a series, a catalogue now, of failures of investment in Wales are many—the large projects that have been mentioned by my colleagues, but they also have local impacts. Within the Bridgend and Ogmore constituencies, the investment that we need in the mainline rail, but also in signalling, and so on, is a measure of, year after year, underinvestment by UK Network Rail. Now, we...
Huw Irranca-Davies: It's a really good point, and the disparity in expertise to enable these applications to be put in is stark. We were fortunate in Bridgend, we had a very active cyclist who also happened to be the active travel monitoring officer—Matt, he's moved on now into Welsh Government, good luck to him, he'll be doing good things there—but he drove it, with the commitment of the local authority and...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I will indeed.
Huw Irranca-Davies: Leaving aside the issue of the air quality improvements achieved by displacing car journeys, the simple physical activity of walking and cycling, as I did this morning, has profoundly beneficial impacts on the individual, but also on the nation's health. Wales has the lowest physical activity levels in Britain, resulting in obesity and a whole range of illnesses that are estimated to cost the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Having walked down from the highest hill in Maesteg this morning to the bottom of the valley to catch the train up here to Cardiff, and then cycled along the road here to work, I'm delighted to open this debate on active travel, supported by Members of different parties across this Chamber. Now, we know that Wales has some of the most groundbreaking and farsighted...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I want to approach this debate in something of a reflective manner—not to pre-empt the outcome of the committee headed by John Griffiths that I sit on, but I do want to, in opening, just thank both the prisoners and also the prison staff and officials of Parc prison, where we had a visit the other day. I was struck by how articulate, well informed and intelligent the discussions were with...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Neil, thank you so much for giving way. I just want to make the observation that, even under the ECHR determination, and their previous judgments, there are European countries who operate with no restrictions on voting rights—in effect, a universal franchise for prisoners. There are others who operate with restrictions. They've interpreted exactly the same determination in very different...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank the Minister for that response. We recognise that the Welsh Government has rightly been focused on mitigating potential impacts at Welsh ports, but isn't it true that Wales, like the rest of the UK, is actually critically dependent on the Calais-Dover route for medicines, food and other supplies? Now, I'm hesitating before I'm asking this question. What discussions has the Minister...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I do hope that the speculation on an overheard conversation in a Brussels restaurant or bar with Olly Robbins is correct and that, indeed, the Government has ruled out a 'no deal', it just isn't telling us that it has ruled out a 'no deal', because the chief executive of the Society of Motoring Manufacturers and Traders has said, in his words, that a 'no deal' ''would be catastrophic –...
