Rhun ap Iorwerth: —here, and it should be a decision taken by the person who replaces the current First Minister.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you, Llywydd. I won’t speak for too long today, because the point that we have made by presenting this motion is quite simple. We will have opportunities to discuss the case for and against the M4 black route over the next few weeks and months. For the record, I will note my own view and my party’s view on the proposals that are being discussed and that have been subject to a public...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Firstly—and I speak not as a member of the committee, but as somebody who takes a keen interest in our positioning as a nation—certainly, we welcome the report. It includes very valuable advice going forward, and, of course, what we don't quite know as yet is what Wales's context will be. It looks as if it will be outside the European Union, but, whatever happens next year in terms of our...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I’m not sure if I should declare an interest here, because so much of my professional career is held in the BBC archives—[Laughter.]—but I do consider your response to this topical question to have been very positive indeed—that this funding is still potentially on the table. Can you give us an assurance that that funding is available to be released now in order to also release that...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: You do provide these reasons, and I'm no rail engineer, so I can't question those details. What I can question though is: what monitoring, what scrutiny, was going on of what Arriva was doing when it was holding the franchise in Wales by Welsh Government? Will you be pursuing Arriva, for example, for the state of the trains as they were left to you as Transport for Wales? And, listen, I want...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, and we've heard that explanation and we know that there are problems with the trains. Let me ask you this question, though: as a partner in the delivery of rail services in Wales, when Arriva Trains Wales was the franchise holder, did Welsh Government take its eye off the ball in terms of not gauging and not monitoring properly the state of rail in Wales, if it's as bad...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Diolch yn fawr. I'm sure you don't need me to update you on the situation on the railways in Wales this morning, but I'll run through some of the latest problems of Transport for Wales lines: Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury trains cancelled again; Blaenau Ffestiniog to Llandudno, all trains replaced by a bus; Wrexham Central to Bidston, services affected; Swansea services to Pembroke Dock, Milford...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much for that reply. It is Small Business Saturday this Saturday, and I encourage people in my own constituency to show their support for small businesses in Ynys Môn, and to their local high street this week, but also to make a commitment to do that year round, because small businesses and the high street are so crucially important in terms of the strength of our economy, but...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: 1. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the support that is available for small businesses on Ynys Môn? OAQ53006
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you. If our nation was one that was genuinely civilised, then the statement by the UN rapporteur for extreme poverty would be seen as a moment of awakening once and for all, I think. It should be seen as an appalling situation that a state as rich and wealthy as the UK is put on a list of nations that can’t look after its poorest. I'm afraid that the clear suggestion from the response...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I think the point I made about that, and I'll make it again, was that these are decisions that, yes, we can look at in the context of today, but we should be looking at in the context of years. We've been talking for a long, long time about the need to think transformatively about how we spend money on health and social care—it hasn't happened. Now, as a result of the parliamentary review,...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Will you give way now?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much for taking an intervention. I agree wholeheartedly with you, as I said in my comments earlier on, about the devastating effects of Tory austerity, but isn’t the reality this time that we have a 2.4 per cent increase in the overall budget coupled to a 2 per cent decrease in local government budgets?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Will you take an intervention?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: There are particular grants, and I certainly welcome any additional funding that finds its way into local government budgets, but unless we look at the overall local government budget and give them the freedom to make spending decisions themselves, they will not be able to face up to that overall squeeze on them, and that will end up putting more pressure on mental health services, on care. ...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Welsh local government can only see this as Labour's austerity here in Welsh Government, compounding a decade, almost, of deep and, to me, unforgivable Tory austerity cuts. Cutting spending by nearly 2 per cent when overall revenue funding is up by over 2.4 per cent—or 2.4 per cent—is about local government not being given the priority we on the Plaid Cymru benches say it...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you for this opportunity to reply and to make a few comments about the Plaid Cymru amendments. I agree with the content of the motion, and it’s our intention to strengthen the motion with our amendments today. In terms of the Government amendment, we are going to hear from the Minister, without doubt, about the effect of the austerity policies of the Conservative Government, and,...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Will you take an intervention?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: But you will add to that that, in a subsequent submission to Welsh Government, Anglesey council made it clear that they supported the code.
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I wear several hats today. I live in a rural village where the school has been under threat recently. I am a former member of the Petitions Committee. And I am the Assembly Member of those who arranged this petition, parents and supporters of Ysgol Gymuned Bodffordd, who are sincerely battling very hard to save their school. There were 31 children in my first primary school. In the second,...
