8. Plaid Cymru Debate: COVID-19 special support areas

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:43 pm on 18 November 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Rhun ap Iorwerth Rhun ap Iorwerth Plaid Cymru 5:43, 18 November 2020

A few words on the amendments. We reject the rather illiterate but predictable delete-all amendment of Gareth Bennett and Mark Reckless. If they can tell us how they, as taxpayers in Wales, haven't contributed towards the Treasury funding that's come to Wales during this crisis, maybe they can tell others who may wish to avoid paying taxes. Not so much pork-barrel politics as scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel politics on their British nationalist insistence that you should never do anything on a Wales only level. Surely, if the response to COVID has to be identical in all parts of Britain, surely you'd argue the case to have a uniform approach across Europe too. I seem to recall we had a union for that.

Darren Millar for the Conservatives isn't quite delete all, it kindly leaves the point about some areas having higher prevalence of COVID than others, but it's up to them to reason why wanted to erase some of our suggestions. But after that, they reject more financial support for those who need it to self-isolate, even a rejection of the mass testing that we ask for, and which Government today, I'm pleased, has agreed to.

If there's ever been a time for constructive engagement, perhaps we could really see all, across all parties, putting some ideas together to try to seek better outcomes for the people of Wales. Huw Irranca-Davies, just to respond to your comments, I'm interested in knowing which of the elements in our motion you believe are not worth while, because, to be honest, what I'm seeing is that you're rejecting our list of things that could be good ideas and voting instead for the Labour ideas. I understand why you're doing that, but it isn't really helpful.