Julie Morgan
Welsh Labour · Wales
“One of the great electoral reforms in recent years in Wales has been the reducing of the voting age to 16 and 17-year-olds for Senedd and for local government elections. In 2007, I introduced a private Member’s Bill in Westminster, when I was the MP for Cardiff North, and spoke to many different groups of young people.”
“So, I wondered what plans you had to engage more 16 and 17-year-olds in the political system, and whether the legislation that you've talked about today will have particular parts that will help involve young people.”
“I'm pleased that the Welsh Government has accepted this recommendation in principle, because these are very broad criteria and should be clarified and should be sharpened, because we do not want to leave any opportunity for more coal mines and for anything developing coal to be left there in the future.”
“I certainly felt that coal did bring wealth to south Wales, but we also know the huge damages of using fossil fuels, so we have to make this change, which is very difficult to make but is absolutely crucial for all our futures. We all saw the scars left by opencast mining sites, as we saw last week when the committee visited Ffos-y-fran.”
“I'm very pleased to have joined the committee in time to be part of this inquiry, although I wasn't present for all the sessions. The committee Chair, at the beginning, in his introduction, referred to the complex relationship in south Wales with coal.”
“And, of course, for many years, the people who lost their lives were not mentioned because of the collective trauma experienced by the whole community, and I think it's important to remember the huge sense of community that has always been there in mining communities.”
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“2. Sut y mae'r Comisiwn yn gweithio i wella hygyrchedd trafodion y Senedd ar gyfer pobl fyddar a phobl ag amhariad ar y clyw? OQ61897”
“7. Pa drafodaethau y mae Llywodraeth Cymru wedi'u cael gyda Llywodraeth y DU am fynd i'r afael â thrais yn erbyn menywod a merched? OQ61898”
“So, I wondered what plans you had to engage more 16 and 17-year-olds in the political system, and whether the legislation that you've talked about today will have particular parts that will help involve young people. Because I think it did show our support for young people, our commitment to young people to change that law, so I think we now need to do what we can to ensure that they use the opportunity.”
“One of the great electoral reforms in recent years in Wales has been the reducing of the voting age to 16 and 17-year-olds for Senedd and for local government elections. In 2007, I introduced a private Member’s Bill in Westminster, when I was the MP for Cardiff North, and spoke to many different groups of young people. And young people who were engaged in a cause or were passionate about an issue were desperate to get the vote. But when I went around talking to schools and different groups as part of a timetable, there was very little interest from the young people, and I wondered if that was reflected, really, in the vote in the last two elections that 16 and 17-year-olds have taken part in. Because the number who registered and the number who actually voted is obviously something that we need to do something about.”
“From what I've seen, I do not see that that is happening, so I think there has to be a really great effort to ensure that people who have really suffered through these developments are involved in the future planning. I support calls for stronger enforcement mechanisms in cases where breaches of planning controls have occurred, and I look forward very much to hearing the Government response to these recommendations.”
“I'm pleased that the Welsh Government has accepted this recommendation in principle, because these are very broad criteria and should be clarified and should be sharpened, because we do not want to leave any opportunity for more coal mines and for anything developing coal to be left there in the future. I think this is a very important report. I think it highlights the steps that need to be taken in order to secure the sites. We need to hold the companies to account and to follow their agreements. I particularly welcome the tightening up of the guidance, and also more support for the affected local communities. We had evidence given to us by people living in the area, local communities, and I think it's absolutely essential that any restoration plans fully involve the local communities, and I don't see that that's happening.”
“They told us about what they were planning to do in terms of making it safer and putting up barriers, but there's no doubt that they are saying that they will not be able to restore the area to what it was before. And looking at it, it's hard to imagine how it could be restored, I have to say. That's why I think recommendation 3 of the report is so important, because the closure of Ffos-y-fran should be the end of an era, but 'Planning Policy Wales' does still say that coal extraction can be permitted, in wholly exceptional circumstances, I know, but where the proposals demonstrate why they are needed in the context of climate change emission reduction targets, and for reasons of national energy security.”
“I certainly felt that coal did bring wealth to south Wales, but we also know the huge damages of using fossil fuels, so we have to make this change, which is very difficult to make but is absolutely crucial for all our futures. We all saw the scars left by opencast mining sites, as we saw last week when the committee visited Ffos-y-fran. I must say that this visit did have a huge impact on me, and I'm sure it did on the other members of the committee who went. I've really never seen anything like the scale of the destruction. The scale was absolutely enormous. It really felt like we were at the end of the world, it almost felt, and made much more dramatic by the thick mist and fog that came down as we were able to look down at the voids that the company acknowledged that they will not be able to remove.”
“And, of course, for many years, the people who lost their lives were not mentioned because of the collective trauma experienced by the whole community, and I think it's important to remember the huge sense of community that has always been there in mining communities. The fact that we do not want coal to be used any more, we do not want to extract coal, is a huge change in the make-up of south Wales, and I think it's important to remember that. Because by 1913, a third of people working in Wales worked in the coal mines and there was this great sense of community and culture in the region, and I think it's important to continue to remember the impact that the closure of mines still has on communities today.”
“I'm very pleased to have joined the committee in time to be part of this inquiry, although I wasn't present for all the sessions. The committee Chair, at the beginning, in his introduction, referred to the complex relationship in south Wales with coal. I think, if you were born in south Wales, it's very likely that you've got someone in the family who's got a big contact with mining, with coal, or there's some history related to coal. Rhianon referred to it in her contribution, and in my own case my grandfather was a miner in Senghenydd and miraculously not at work when the explosion happened. But it was a well-told tale in my family how the pictures on the mantelpiece shook when the explosion happened, and that was the first thing that the family knew about it.”
“So, I wondered if it is possible for the Cabinet Secretary to comment on this formula in his contribution to the debate. That is something that has been raised very strongly with me from the Cardiff North GPs. So, in conclusion, I welcome this debate very much, and I think that what we've got to do is shift to the preventative agenda, and I think the key to the preventative agenda is GP practices, and what we're able to do in conjunction with that. The expansion of what pharmacies are able to do is obviously a big step forward, the additional funding for community nursing teams, again, is a big step forward, and I think we've got to think of all that as a whole.”
“They are struggling to meet demand, they've all said the same thing, and they've all had to mostly reduce their staff, and this means that people are not receiving the service they need or that GPs want to provide. Now, there is this particular funding issue that has been raised with me about funding for GP practices in Cardiff North, and they maintain that they are in a particular position that they receive less funding per head than other practices throughout Wales, and one GP partner told me that North Cardiff is in the bottom 1 per cent of funded practices in the UK. And I'm told that this is because the Carr-Hill formula, which calculates the funding received by GP practices, is outdated and urgently needs reforming.”
“I'd like to take this time to briefly focus on GP funding in Cardiff North. Across the last year, I visited many surgeries in Cardiff North, in Llandaff North, Llanishen, Gabalfa, Heath and Birchgrove and others, and the story has been the same message from all of them: they're struggling to maintain safe levels of service and are worried about being able to continue. I'd like to pay tribute to their commitment to their patients and to their desire to improve their services, particularly including preventative work, which obviously they're in an absolutely ideal position to provide, but there's so much more that they would like to do and there's so much more that I think we would want them to do, but it's enabling that to happen, I think, is the key answer.”
“1. Beth y mae Llywodraeth Cymru yn ei wneud i hybu'r nifer sy'n dewis dilyn pynciau STEM mewn addysg bellach ac uwch? OQ61815”