Mark Isherwood: I’m reliably informed that people have been unable to obtain the proper data despite asking for it, so it would be welcome if you could deliver it. And don’t tell me about the 1980s. I know what it’s like for your father to come home and tell you that the manufacturing company he works for has shut and that he’s become unemployed. That happened in 1978 because of the economic meltdown...
Mark Isherwood: So, you’re not going to tell us why that is. May I suggest that you and your colleagues have been running economic development and employability programmes in Wales since 1999, and that is the situation now? Your department, I believe, is responsible for the Lift programme, as part of your tackling poverty action plan, providing training and employment opportunities for people in households...
Mark Isherwood: Diolch, Lywydd. The Bevan Foundation’s July 2016 ‘Equality and Social Justice Briefing’ on poverty said that the latest figures from the Department for Work and Pensions’s households below average income survey showed that low household incomes continue to be a significant problem in Wales, with more than one in five people living on a household income below 60 per cent of the median,...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you. You referred to the local air quality and noise management consultation. How do you respond to concerns raised with me that the questions in that suggest that the assessment of air quality be done on the basis of averaging any impacts and benefits across the whole population of Wales, rather than focusing on the most vulnerable, and disregarding the critical weighting that should...
Mark Isherwood: 5. How is the Welsh Government monitoring noise air quality management in Wales? OAQ(5)0068(ERA)
Mark Isherwood: As the End Child Poverty Network Cymru states, official Government figures published in June 2016 show that 29 per cent of all children in Wales are in relative income poverty, equating to 200,000, which they said remains higher than the UK average and greater than that of the other devolved nations. How, therefore, do you respond to their calls to the Welsh Government, firstly to provide...
Mark Isherwood: I believe I may be the only Member left of the committee in the second Assembly that produced the three-stage report on which these proposals are based. It does go back a long way, and this does replicate many of the recommendations in that committee. We took evidence from Baroness Warnock, whose original recommendations led to the introduction of statementing in 1981. And she told us that...
Mark Isherwood: December the third was the twenty-fifth United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities, with the theme being achieving 17 sustainable development goals for the future that we want. In this context, could I call for, ideally, a debate, or at least a statement, on this year’s objectives under the international day, which include assessing the current status of the UN Convention...
Mark Isherwood: In 2012, which was when the standard was supposed to have been achieved by all social landlords, the Wales Audit Office said that the main shortfall in meeting the standard was in areas where tenants voted against proposals to transfer. Your then housing Minister subsequently stated that three authorities hadn’t got realistic business plans and had to resubmit new ones, which were approved...
Mark Isherwood: What assessment has the Welsh Government made of people living in fuel poverty?
Mark Isherwood: Had you been here, you’d have heard me warning in 2004 that we faced a day of reckoning, as somebody who came from the mutual banking sector and knew there was a ticking time bomb that wasn’t being addressed. The Chancellor has now been able to adopt more flexible rules for the budget deficit, but only because of spending discipline since 2010 and because we will no longer have to meet...
Mark Isherwood: Continuing the trend of recent years, the UK economy is predicted to be the fastest major growing economy in the world this year with 2.1 per cent growth forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility. The OBR also forecast that the deficit will fall to 3.5 per cent of GDP this year and 0.7 per cent in 2021, the lowest in two decades, and that debt as a proportion of national income will...
Mark Isherwood: Given that the Welsh Government promised to cut taxes for small businesses and instead extended the small business rate relief scheme, which had been temporary, this was described by the North Wales Federation of Small Businesses, which represents businesses from Arfon right across the region, as you know, as ‘blatantly misleading and the worst form of spin-doctoring.’ How, therefore,...
Mark Isherwood: How is the Welsh Government combating the key challenges for health services in Wales?
Mark Isherwood: Six years ago, the Conservative-led UK Government inherited an economy on the brink of collapse, with the highest budget deficit in peacetime UK history. To rebuild shattered fiscal credibility, it had to take tough decisions. Austerity, defined as not having enough money, is therefore not a choice. As any debtor knows, you cannot start reducing debt until expenditure falls below income. If...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you for that, and I apologise. This surgery, the Ruabon Medical Centre, is only the latest to announce that it will be ending its NHS contract with the health board because it’s unable to fill two vacant doctor posts. Last month, it was the Rashmi practice in Colwyn Bay. Over the last year, we’ve seen the same in Prestatyn, Rhuddlan, Wrexham, Conwy, and the British Medical...
Mark Isherwood: I haven’t actually got the wording, but will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement in relation to the announcement of a GP closure in Wrexham?
Mark Isherwood: In a statement in October, you told the Assembly that you were ‘surprised and saddened by the recent and sudden demise of three local bus companies’, including GHA Coaches, providing services on school bus routes across north-east Wales as well as Cheshire and Shropshire. However, you were written to on your appointment in May—seven weeks before GHA Coaches shut—by a range of...
Mark Isherwood: Although the future generations commissioner has said that the aim is to make public bodies think more about the long term, work better with people, with communities and each other, and seek to prevent problems occurring and tackle common issues by taking a more joined-up approach, something also reflected in duties required under the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, too many...
Mark Isherwood: Will the Minister make a statement on Ruabon Medical Centre in Wrexham, which has ended its contract with the NHS after being unable to fill two vacant doctor posts? EAQ(5)0095(HWS)
