Jenny Rathbone: 4. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to improve disabled people's access to public services? OQ59000
Jenny Rathbone: I agree with the words of Lord Mann that tackling antisemitism goes beyond education about the Holocaust. However, it would be a mistake for us to think that there is not still an enormous job of work to be done to describe exactly what happened during the Holocaust and the things that were then subsequently suppressed. There was a deliberate policy after the second world war of drawing a...
Jenny Rathbone: In this very cold weather, I just wanted to highlight the situation of a constituent of mine whose boiler has broken down: a family of four with two disabled children, they absolutely don't have the money to replace this boiler, with a combined income of £19,000 and two disabled children. So, they've no savings to fall back on and Nest has told them that they can't help them, because he uses...
Jenny Rathbone: Would you be prepared to pay £1?
Jenny Rathbone: On this issue of equality, I just wondered if you'd picked up, in the report, the suggestion by Professor Barry that, perhaps we ought to get older people, who currently don't pay at all, to pay £1, and that would then give us more money to perhaps lower the fares of other people, particularly younger people under 25. Now, I know this is the holy grail, but there is very little extra money...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you for your intervention, and you're completely wrong. You're wrong because—
Jenny Rathbone: The park and ride system is absolutely excellent. It costs you £2 for the whole family and then you don't have all the sweat and bother of trying to find a car parking place. Those arrangements are available right around the city, so that is not an argument that I will accept. I think there's a lot more we need to do, but I also think we need to do a lot more to get people without cars...
Jenny Rathbone: I accept that argument, Alun, and I think it's a well-made point. But I think, clearly, we've got to develop more services, and we can't hammer people. I would be in favour of using those fiscal levers as soon as there are those alternatives. Clearly, if you look at the Cardiff population, people do not need to bring their cars into the city centre, and, happily, it's increasingly more...
Jenny Rathbone: Professor Mark Barry, who was one of our witnesses, and who's a transport expert, told us that Wales has been poorly served by the rail industry ecosystem for the last 30 to 40 years in terms of investment and enhancement funding. That takes us back to roughly 1980, so this is a problem of both Conservative and Labour administrations. However, the current UK Government seems to be very...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much for that reply, which is extremely useful to clarify that. I just wondered if I could probe you on what financial assessment you may have done on the different models that local authorities are using, as the rise in food prices is far higher than the 1.65 uplift local authority budgets are getting in total, and there's also a world shortage of chefs, not just in schools,...
Jenny Rathbone: 7. What financial assessment has the Minister made of local authorities' approach to investing in school catering? OQ58952
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much for your leadership on this in ensuring that all new projects are going to have to be zero carbon. I'm particularly interested to find out how South Point Primary School in the Vale of Glamorgan is sharing the learning from this project, or rather the Vale of Glamorgan Council or your officers, to ensure that we understand the strengths and weaknesses of this pathfinder...
Jenny Rathbone: One of the key strategic infrastructure projects that depends on UK Government support is making progress on the recommendations of the Burns commission to strengthen the east-west rail lines between Newport and Cardiff and beyond, which are the backbone of the south-east Wales metro. I appreciate that transport is not in your portfolio, but I’ve yet to see any progress whatsoever on such a...
Jenny Rathbone: Altaf mentioned the importance of looking at alcohol as a cause of liver cancer, and that’s absolutely right. But I also think that it’s important to realise why it is that alcohol is so endemic in our society. Last week, I was standing in a queue, waiting to pay for petrol, and the man in front of me was not just paying for petrol, he was also buying a bottle of spirits. He wasn’t...
Jenny Rathbone: Whilst Rhun ap Iorwerth and Altaf Hussain have produced some interesting differentials between different health boards in the way we successfully treat liver disease, I want to focus on the beginning of this story, which is the prevention and early intervention aspects of it. We only have one liver and the body can't survive without it. I had the misfortune to have hepatitis A in my 20s, so I...
Jenny Rathbone: What is the Welsh Government's strategy for reducing Wales's carbon emissions from food?
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much. As you say in your statement, the key levers for tackling poverty through the tax and welfare system all sit with the UK Government, and that includes the really scandalous situation where people have to wait five weeks for universal credit payments, which actually just pushes them into the hands of the loan sharks, because what else are they supposed to live off—fresh...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you very much, and thank you, Minister, for mentioning that we also heard from two other Ministers, the Minister for health and the Deputy Minister for Social Services, particularly in relation to the importance of the social services and well-being Act and whether it was being fully taken account of in addressing the issues of anybody who suffers from gender-based violence, regardless...
Jenny Rathbone: Unsurprisingly, women who are migrants often have limited understanding of what their rights are and the support available to them, simply because they're not familiar with any of the laws that we may have passed here or, indeed, in the UK Parliament. So, it's very important that we use the informal networks that people might—you hope—have access to from other people in their community,...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Research demonstrates that migrant women are disproportionately affected by gender-based violence. This is hardly surprising, as they face multiple forms of abuse and extra challenges when it comes to accessing support. This debate is not just about the position of asylum seekers; there are very large numbers of people living in this country, and including in Wales,...
