Jenny Rathbone: Last week, Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England, gave various interviews, including on the fact that we still haven't cracked the ongoing moral hazard of organisations that are too big to fail, which is why the Bank of England had to intervene in the markets following Liz Truss's disastrous mini-budget, to rescue pension funds that had dabbled in risky investments to...
Jenny Rathbone: What is Welsh Government's policy on tackling antimicrobial resistance?
Jenny Rathbone: First, I'd just like to declare that my partner is an adviser to Bute Energy and I'm a shareholder in Awel Aman Tawe community renewable energy scheme. We really do have to step up to the plate here, because the crisis that had just started when we started taking evidence gave us—it's a crisis, but it's also an opportunity. We have to focus on this and really accelerate the pace of...
Jenny Rathbone: I can't understand Janet Finch-Saunders's argument that this is emergency legislation; we've known about the spike in energy prices since the end of February, so this is not an emergency. Now, nobody would argue against the proposal to give immediate relief for the massive spike in energy prices for both households and businesses, but the legislative framework proposed by the UK Government is...
Jenny Rathbone: One of the most effective ways of getting people out of their cars is to persuade people to walk or cycle short journeys, as I know, Minister, you agree. Obviously, the quickest wins are going to be eliminating car use for travelling to work and travelling to school. This isn't just about creating a better cycling infrastructure on our roads. We also need loan schemes for families who can't...
Jenny Rathbone: I thank Luke Fletcher for bringing this debate. I think it's really useful to remind us that the EMA hasn't been uprated since 2004; it clearly buys a lot less than it used to that long ago. It is a vital—. Even the reduced amount that it currently buys, is still a really, really vital way of enabling young people to stay in education who otherwise might be pushed into going into a job that...
Jenny Rathbone: —as well as giving those services the workforce, the productivity and efficiency savings that such systems can and should deliver. This will make for a much more interesting and less stressful job and therefore will impact positively on our retention systems. So, I look forward to hearing exactly when we're going to have it out across the whole of Wales.
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you for pointing that out, because that was something that was picked up by Audit Wales as well, in their report. They said that less than half were recording whether the discharge was complex or simple, and less than a third of hospitals were recording when the patient was actually fit for discharge, as opposed to when they actually got out. I'm glad to say that, today, at the Queen's...
Jenny Rathbone: I recall about 10 years ago the then chief executive of the Cardiff and Vale health board telling me that in the Heath hospital—our tertiary hospital—the average age of patients was 84 years old, and I very much doubt that that age profile has changed. So, I don't think we should be blaming hospitals for the situation we're in. Everything tips up in the hospital because the other services...
Jenny Rathbone: What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on the number of school leavers continuing their education in further and higher education?
Jenny Rathbone: As Delyth Jewell has already said, we now know that there are plastics in breast milk in about 70 per cent of the cases. So, this is obviously just the latest iteration of the problems we've created for ourselves, because it will also be in powdered milk, it'll be in cow's milk, it'll be in our bread because of the grain that's grown on land that has got plastic on it, and it will be in our...
Jenny Rathbone: I just wanted to pick up on the earlier remarks by Jane Dodds today, because, having listened to the Iranian people living in Wales, on the steps of the Senedd, I think it was really clear the level of anger about the lack of action by the UK Government. Particularly, they want to see the freezing of Iranian assets in the UK until they stop killing their own people, particularly women and...
Jenny Rathbone: I'm all for scruffiness. As the species champion for the swift, I was delighted that you wrote to all planning authorities to instruct them to ensure that there were swift boxes in new tall buildings and that we're not closing up the swift boxes or cracks in the buildings that are being restored in some way. Have you any idea whether it's had any impact whatsoever on the 50 per cent decline...
Jenny Rathbone: Following on from the question from Natasha Asghar on vaping, I just wondered if it's possible to have a refreshed statement arising out of the new strategy on tobacco control, because we heard very clearly from the First Minister that the number of 11 to 17-year-olds vaping has gone up significantly, and that this has a major impact on brain development up to the age of 25. And if we're...
Jenny Rathbone: I recall, First Minister, that you endeavoured to control vaping when you introduced the Bill in 2015, but there was no support from the Conservative benches for this measure so it had to be withdrawn. So, I'm glad to see that the tobacco control strategy recognises that vaping is a gateway into smoking, and we now have a veritable epidemic amongst young people of vaping. I just wondered what...
Jenny Rathbone: Will you take an intervention?
Jenny Rathbone: I just think that one of the issues that nobody's mentioned that needs mentioning and putting on the record is the link between obesity and cancer. And we do have higher rates of obesity in Wales than in England, and that has to be one of the factors that we need to bear in mind when we're endeavouring to reduce cancer rates.
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you for taking an intervention. I wonder if you can just tell us if those are UK figures or Welsh figures, because Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust is a UK-wide charity.
Jenny Rathbone: —then it can be really problematic, and we clearly need to do way more work on this.
Jenny Rathbone: This could be a really important tool for ensuring that all women know about it. The elephant in the room, in my view, is endometriosis, and I appreciate that we're doing lots of work to improve the understanding of both GPs and gynaecologists on this issue. But, it really is a serious issue, and very difficult to disentangle from gynaecological cancer, because if you've got such problems—
