Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 13 July 2021.
Well, Llywydd, any message that could go from Members of this Senedd to those who are participating in that debate as we speak here and to strengthen the arguments of those many Members of the Conservative Party who have spoken out against the cuts in aid, anything we could do to strengthen their arguments, many of us here would wish to do exactly that. I was able to meet Jenipher of Jenipher's Coffi here in the Senedd in February 2020—one of the very last visits to be made here before visits have become so much more difficult. She was a remarkable young woman, I thought—and others, I know, will have met her as well—both in her commitment to her cause, but in her ability to articulate the difference that the investment—. The small investment that we make from Wales; we make small amounts of money available, but we are lucky to have partners in Wales and beyond whose enthusiasm and dedication makes that money work so much harder than otherwise would be the case. And the coffee farmers in the Mount Elgon area of Uganda, through the Coffee 2020 project, are a very practical demonstration of the difference that we can make, and the fair-trade arrangement here in Wales, involving my colleague's constituency, involving the Fair Do's fair-trade shop in the Cardiff West constituency as well, I think is a really striking and practical example of how money invested from a rich country, by any global standards, in a place where people struggle to get the very basics of everyday life, makes such a difference. And the debate in the UK Parliament this afternoon, Llywydd, is that very rare thing in any Parliament—it is a debate that is genuinely about the difference between life and death for many, many other people.