Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Rent is rising higher in Wales than anywhere else in the UK, except London. Rent in Cardiff alone has increased 36 per cent in just two years. A quarter of private tenants in Wales are worried they will lose their homes in the next three months. Shelter Cymru, echoed in England by the Kerslake commission on homelessness, are calling for the reintroduction of a temporary ban...
Adam Price: Sorry, will the Minister—? [Inaudible.] I was referring to an imposition of a rent freeze in the private sector. That hasn't been imposed by the Welsh Government yet, has it, and it wouldn't have any fiscal consequences, but it would have huge, beneficial consequences for families.
Adam Price: There is one important lever that has been referred to that is in your control, which would make immediate, direct impact upon people's situation, and that would be imposing a rent freeze in the private sector and imposing a moratorium on evictions in the private rental sector. That wouldn't have any fiscal consequences to the Welsh Government but would have huge consequences for many, many...
Adam Price: The Scottish Government has recently announced a set of proposals as part of its response to the cost-of-living crisis, and I was wondering if I could ask you, Prif Weinidog, if you also have plans to introduce measures that they have announced in relation to housing, particularly a moratorium on evictions similar to the one that was introduced in the pandemic and an associated rent freeze...
Adam Price: There are a number of things to be welcomed in today's statement, particularly, of course, the agreement that we've come to in terms of the provision of free school meals during school holidays. That will help very many families that are facing hardship at the moment. And, particularly, the warm banks that the First Minister referred to. Although it is regrettable that we do have to refer to...
Adam Price: I have to say that the argument you're making is directly in contradiction to what Labour-affiliated unions like ASLEF are saying, that, actually, a substantial reduction could help us increase a modal shift that will create a new habit of using public transport, which will actually have benefits in terms of revenue generation. Let's move from rail to buses. The Labour mayor of the north-west...
Adam Price: Reductions in prices for public transport fares actually don't automatically, inevitably lead to that kind of revenue reduction. It depends on the elasticity of demand for public transport. This is the case that the rail unions have been making, that, actually, if you reduce fares, you increase patronage, and of course you have a situation at the moment that, still, train journeys have only...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Prif Weinidog, Governments all over Europe are asking urgently what more they can do to help their citizens with the cost-of-living crisis, and with the rising cost of fuel, making public transport more affordable has become a key theme. Spain has announced free rail journeys from September until the end of the year. In Germany we've had the highly successful €9 a month...
Adam Price: The eternal unity of earth and heaven.
Adam Price: MacLeod talked about thin places where there was just a thin tissue dividing the material and the spiritual, where heaven and earth seemed to touch. But, there are thin moments too, liminal moments, thresholds between the life with a loved one we have lost, and the life we are about to begin without them. It's in these moments of profound absence, as we stand at a crossroads of change, that...
Adam Price: Llywydd, on behalf of the Plaid Cymru group in the Senedd, I stand to express our sadness and to extend our deepest sympathies to the royal family, following the death of Queen Elizabeth.
Adam Price: The tributes paid to the late Queen Elizabeth over the past number of days have been legion, but one comment by a former royal courtier, quoted in a piece by Alastair Campbell, stood out for me: that the Queen understood 'the communism of humanity'. Now, that is a startling claim; its substance, its subject and its source. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was, by definition, by royal...
Adam Price: Will you take an intervention?
Adam Price: Will you take an intervention?
Adam Price: Do you realise that the reason that we are introducing this package of measures urgently is because we are facing a housing crisis in these communities? And we make no apology for recognising the urgency of the crisis that young people, in particular, in our communities are facing.
Adam Price: Thank you for your statement, First Minister. Starting with the context that you set out, it has been very challenging recently, partly because of COVID, but also the impacts of Brexit, as you explained. But, there is another a dimension that is also challenging, of course, namely the broad range of—the 27—Bills in another place—in another Parliament—that have, more and more,...
Adam Price: With respect, we had this debate, didn't we, when we jointly presented the White Paper, where, yes, the phrase that we landed upon in the end was 'unfettered access to the single market'? That is not the position that Keir Starmer has now set out. One example of how Wales loses out from being outside the single market, which is now Labour Party policy, is what's happened at the ports of...
Adam Price: You've answered the first part of my question, but can you specifically say whether you support the Labour Party's position now not to rejoin the single market or the customs union? Yesterday, Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, said that there are times when he's prepared to disagree with the leader of the Labour Party, when he thinks that to do so is in the interests of the people whom he...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Yesterday, the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, said that the United Kingdom would not rejoin the European Union, the European single market or the customs union if Labour returned to power. Do you agree with that policy, First Minister, and is it the best policy for the people of Wales?
Adam Price: How is the Welsh Government supporting agricultural businesses in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr in the face of rising costs for essential supplies like fuel and fertiliser?
