Leanne Wood: A year on from lockdown and a lot has changed. The beginning of 2020 saw many of us in the Rhondda and beyond fighting for consultant-led A&E services to be retained at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital. Your Labour Government centralisation plans are now, thankfully, off the table, and hopefully, this time, it's for good. The past year has shown how vital hospital capacity is and how important...
Leanne Wood: 5. Will the Minister make a statement on improving health services for people in the Rhondda? OQ56505
Leanne Wood: Systemic and systematic racism in Wales have long been rife. Inequalities have been shown up even more during COVID, through its disproportionate effects on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. I'm still staggered that we still have yet to have a woman from a black, Asian or minority ethnic community representing people here in this Senedd, so we do have an awful long way to go. The...
Leanne Wood: The final report of the Valleys taskforce has been published, and stakeholder views include saying that the taskforce, and I quote, 'had a fairly limited direct impact upon the Valleys communities.' It also highlighted a lack of resources. Another direct quote from the report's conclusions: 'The VTF started out with a very ambitious set of aims and objectives but lacked the resources and...
Leanne Wood: I didn't think that today could pass without saying something about the pandemic of male violence against women after the events of the past two weeks. The weekend before last, 16-year-old Wenjing Lin from the Rhondda was killed as a result of male violence. We then heard that the body of Sarah Everard had been found, and it looks like she was also killed by male violence. Our thoughts go to...
Leanne Wood: Over the last week, I've been inundated with complaints from parents in the Rhondda who've been unable to secure a place for their child or children at the school's breakfast club. Now, this is an issue that came to my attention towards the end of last year, when the last round of breakfast places were all snapped up very quickly, leaving many parents not just disappointed but in despair. At...
Leanne Wood: Like all Welsh public services, the police service has been subject to austerity since the banking crash of 2008, and every police service in this country has seen its front-line contact with the public diminish as police stations have closed and police bases placed further away from the communities that they serve. Everyone that I have spoken to who works in the police service wants more...
Leanne Wood: Concerns have been raised by charities working with people with cancer that many people throughout this country may have missed a cancer diagnosis. Now, people leaving it too late to get concerning and persistent symptoms checked out was a problem in the Rhondda before the COVID crisis. Too many people were getting a cancer diagnosis at a late stage, often when they turned up for treatment...
Leanne Wood: First Minister, when the Skyline project was first unveiled, it promised so much. As First Minister, you responded to a question I asked about creating jobs and opportunities in the Rhondda, arguing that the Skyline project was evidence that the Labour Party hadn't forgotten about the Rhondda. In October 2019, you said that you would be prepared to, and I quote: 'do whatever we can to help...
Leanne Wood: 9. Will the First Minister provide an update on support for the Rhondda Skyline project? OQ56421
Leanne Wood: I heard the First Minister's response earlier to a question about vaccination priority for unpaid carers. I've had a number of people in the Rhondda who have contacted me saying that they are either unpaid carers or that they have underlying health conditions but they haven't been put into the priority categories. We're aware that a form is on its way for unpaid carers to be able to register...
Leanne Wood: What is the Welsh Government doing to support mental health services in the Rhondda?
Leanne Wood: We are seriously lacking in charging points for electric vehicles in the Rhondda. The map of Wales shows that there is nothing in the Rhondda Fach or in the Rhondda Fawr, and the nearest charging points, depending on where you live in the Rhondda, are Hirwaun, Aberdare or just outside Llantrisant. Now, it's no wonder that only 0.17 per cent of vehicles used in Wales are currently electric. A...
Leanne Wood: What action has been taken by the Welsh Government to prevent flooding in the Rhondda since storm Dennis last year?
Leanne Wood: The Government will no doubt be aware of recent reports of care home staff having to take annual leave when they're required to self-isolate, and this is because the £96 per week statutory sick pay simply isn't enough to live on, especially when many people working in care homes have had to isolate a number of times. So do you agree with me that this is wrong, and that the situation needs...
Leanne Wood: What discussions has the Minister had with the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs regarding the safe disposal of PPE and other COVID-risk waste items by local authority workers?
Leanne Wood: It's not possible to overstate the pain, the hurt, the harm and the anguish that has been caused to every one of the families that has been affected by this scandal, and that is ongoing. It's not something that's in the past; it's something that people are living with every single day. The report says that, of the 28 episodes of care reviewed, in two thirds of these cases, different care may...
Leanne Wood: Can we have a statement on the number of pupils who are without either a device or internet access in order to do their home schooling? Does the Government have an idea of the number of children without the means to participate in online school lessons? Because if the Government is serious about eliminating the link between school attainment and poverty, then this issue should be a top...
Leanne Wood: We are all eagerly awaiting the outcome of the section 19 process, and that is imminent, but the council are leading on that, and, obviously, the council had a role to play, and have a future role to play, so that is why this process can't be independent. We in Plaid Cymru, and every single one of the people who were flooded who we surveyed, have said that only an independent inquiry will be...
Leanne Wood: Diolch. I'm returning to this question of an independent inquiry into flooding for a second time in just over a month, and I make no apologies for that. After the devastating floods in February 2020 and the flash floods that followed on later in the year, there are still homes in Rhondda Cynon Taf where people are waiting for them to be restored. Aside from some of the more concerning land...
