David Melding: And I very much welcome the St David’s fund. I think that is an innovative and imaginative way of improving the well-being of many looked-after children’s lives. I wonder how impressed you were also by the commissioner’s findings that social services, housing and education departments need to both co-operate and co-ordinate their work to improve the independence of care leavers, and...
David Melding: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for that. The national participation standards set out what children are entitled to expect from the services they are involved in. These standards, as I understand, were reviewed last year and, as a consequence, updated guidance was necessary to local authorities to improve their self-assessment. I wonder if that guidance has been issued and whether we are...
David Melding: First—First Minister? Cabinet Secretary—[Interruption.] Yes, that was a quick promotion. If everyone in the world consumed as much as we do in Wales, we’d need 2.5 planets. I was looking at the ‘Ecological and Carbon Footprints of Wales’ 2015 report by the Stockholm Environment Institute, which I’m glad to say the Welsh Government did commission, and about 11 per cent of our...
David Melding: Thank you for that, Cabinet Secretary, and welcome back, incidentally. This is my first opportunity to say that to you. We only produce about 10 per cent of what we consume, so the deficit is up to 90 per cent, certainly of fruit and veg that can be grown in our climate. With 2 per cent of Welsh agricultural land given over to fruit and veg, albeit 10.5 per cent of grade 1 to 3 land, we would...
David Melding: 2. What is the Welsh Government doing to address the fruit and vegetable deficit in Wales? OAQ(5)0150(ERA)
David Melding: 6. What is the Welsh Government’s strategy for improving the ecological footprint of Wales’s urban environments? OAQ(5)0144(ERA)
David Melding: 3. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on how the Welsh Government embeds in its work the principles set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? OAQ(5)0145(CC)
David Melding: 8. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of the Children’s Commissioner’s Hidden Ambitions report? OAQ(5)0144(CC)
David Melding: As chair of the Welsh Conservative party group and the only Member first elected in 1999, it is my sad honour to make this tribute. Devolution was a shaky structure when Rhodri became First Minister in February 2000. Only narrowly endorsed by the electorate, it lacked decisive leadership and had not created a stable Government. Rhodri provided the energy and vision that devolution needed to...
David Melding: Can I say that the Conservative group will also support the Plaid Cymru amendment because we do think that we need to have a unified expression, at least for the other parties? We interpret the call for a comprehensive international policy as one working through British institutions like the foreign office and the British Council, just in case people think that we’ve run away with Plaid...
David Melding: UK Government has phased out direct aid to Governments. It doesn’t happen anymore. We give aid to international partners like UNICEF, to organisations, to British charities that are working there, and to co-operatives and the like of other community bodies in these countries. We do not give money to foreign Governments as aid.
David Melding: Can I say I was greatly moved—I was still at school, actually—when the Brandt commission reported? I know this will not recommend it any further to a certain party but, of course, Edward Heath was one of its prime members. It established the 0.7 per cent target of GNP that should be devoted to international aid. As part of that report, it also emphasised, to respond directly to Neil...
David Melding: I haven’t had a change of view, and I’m slightly surprised that you’ve made this connection. What we need to agree on is that we need to build more homes, and many of those homes need to be in the social sector. There is no disagreement, it seems to me, in this Chamber about that, and that’s what we should focus on.
David Melding: I can say I’m in great sympathy with the Member’s proposal, and until I saw this on the order paper I didn’t know that it was as prevalent as we now learn. And I do congratulate her for bringing forward an idea that clearly speaks to a great need at the moment, and a way that we could change the law and make it much more fit for purpose and protective of the most vulnerable.
David Melding: If this practice is evident—and I think we did hear evidence of that even in Wales, and it’s certainly evident in other parts of the United Kingdom—and, sorry to say, growing, it is obviously a morally repugnant practice. I don’t think anyone could look at the facts of this matter and feel otherwise. As Dawn said, the law may be ambiguous in this area and therefore should be...
David Melding: Cabinet Secretary, you know that the vast range of new diagnostic equipment is very expensive and very, very effective, leading to more investigations sometimes, and using the new equipment as efficiently as possible is a key to reducing waiting lists—I mean in the evenings, for instance, and over weekends, which often provides more convenient appointment times for people who are in work...
David Melding: Cabinet Secretary, a recent survey by INRIX Roadway Analytics found that business in Cardiff was particularly badly impacted by congestion. I think we think we need to take these UK-wide surveys very seriously. Now, one way of relieving traffic at peak times is to invest in a Cardiff parkway railway station at St Mellons, and associated park-and-ride facilities. I think your decision to...
David Melding: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on NHS waiting times in South Wales Central?
David Melding: Well, I commend that study, because, if you look at Germany, clean air zones have been hugely successful in their cities, reducing soot emissions from exhausts by more than 50 per cent in Berlin, for instance. But these policies require behaviour change, encouraging cycling and the like, access to city areas and free parking for cleaner vehicles, and better use of existing infrastructure,...
David Melding: Minister, vocational education is very important to looked-after children, and can I welcome the very good news we had today about the number of looked-after children achieving the level 2 inclusive threshold, which now stands at 23 per cent? That’s still 37 per cent behind the peer group, and obviously we’ve got to get up to as close to the peer group as possible, but it is a 10...
