Mick Antoniw
Welsh Labour · Wales
“Cabinet Secretary, thank you for the answer. There's quite a lot of excitement about this innovative proposal to streamline the operations on knee and hip surgery and other orthopaedic surgery at the former British Airways avionics site, which closed some time back.”
“Cabinet Secretary, I also thank all the emergency workers, council workers and all the volunteers who came out in Rhondda Cynon Taf to support residents and communities during the recent flooding.”
“We do have more lessons to learn and we must now focus on helping those who are flooded to get back into their homes. So, I welcome the £1,000 grants that Rhondda Cynon Taf will be making, and of course I have urged the Welsh Government to look at implementing a similar scheme for those residents and for local businesses.”
“We all recognise that climate change is here with a vengeance and there’s no absolute solution, but there are things we can and we must do to support and to mitigate in affected communities.”
“Thank you for that answer. Of course, our justice system is at a precipice after 14 years of disastrous Tory Government policy. Cabinet Secretary, considerable work has been done by Welsh Government in preparation for the devolution of youth justice and probation.”
“And it is for this reason that it is so important to commemorate the Holodomor, to remember the dead and to support those in Ukraine who to this day are fighting for freedom, and who I describe as the people who are really defending the front line of democracy in Europe.”
The complete record
Every one of 13 lines we hold for Mick Antoniw, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account.
“Cabinet Secretary, thank you for the answer. There's quite a lot of excitement about this innovative proposal to streamline the operations on knee and hip surgery and other orthopaedic surgery at the former British Airways avionics site, which closed some time back. But I'm just wondering what is it that can be done to actually speed up the development of this? It's obviously very much required, very much awaited, a very, very important potential investment. Can you outline what engagement you've had with Cwm Taf health board, what further stages are necessary, either in the design and also in terms of the investment side to implement this, and can you basically outline anything that can be done in order to speed up and ensure that it opens as quickly as possible?”
“We all recognise that climate change is here with a vengeance and there’s no absolute solution, but there are things we can and we must do to support and to mitigate in affected communities. So, will the Minister please outline again the package of financial support that will be made available to residents, but also whether there will be any financial support that will be considered for local businesses, and what support there might be for the local council in respect of ongoing capital projects and perhaps new capital projects that will be required from the lessons that we learn from the recent events? Diolch.”
“We do have more lessons to learn and we must now focus on helping those who are flooded to get back into their homes. So, I welcome the £1,000 grants that Rhondda Cynon Taf will be making, and of course I have urged the Welsh Government to look at implementing a similar scheme for those residents and for local businesses. So, I welcome your announcements of financial support so far. I’m very glad that most of Pontypridd avoided the scale of the flooding experienced last time, but not all. We do need to look at Mill Street in Pontypridd. We need a new flood wall along the river in Sion Street and Berw Road, and we need to look at what happened in Egypt Street in Pontypridd. Nantgarw avoided serious flooding, but it came close.”
“Cabinet Secretary, I also thank all the emergency workers, council workers and all the volunteers who came out in Rhondda Cynon Taf to support residents and communities during the recent flooding. Can I also thank RCT council for all the work and investment that they have they put in, some £100 million since the storm Dennis floods in 2020? I think investments in culvert renewal, monitoring, the new bridges and flood walls clearly had an impact, and I think were it not for that active investment and engagement, many more communities and homes would have been affected. Some 1,500 homes were flooded last time. In many of the areas, the improvements were effective, but sadly, this time, there were still 125 homes that flooded, and for them, this is no consolation and the impact has been devastating.”
“Thank you for that answer. Of course, our justice system is at a precipice after 14 years of disastrous Tory Government policy. Cabinet Secretary, considerable work has been done by Welsh Government in preparation for the devolution of youth justice and probation. The overwhelming elements to make those areas successful are devolved functions. The UK Government has agreed to explore the devolution of these areas. Bearing in mind the amount of work that's been done, do you agree with me now that the time for further exploration has now been completed, and we need to get on with the implementation of the devolution of youth justice and probation in order to deliver better justice for those impacted by those services?”
“9. Pa drafodaethau y mae’r Ysgrifennydd Cabinet wedi'u cael gyda Llywodraeth y DU ynghylch datganoli cyfiawnder ieuenctid a'r gwasanaeth prawf? OQ61871”
“And it is for this reason that it is so important to commemorate the Holodomor, to remember the dead and to support those in Ukraine who to this day are fighting for freedom, and who I describe as the people who are really defending the front line of democracy in Europe. So, I'm proud that Wales is the first of the UK Parliaments to declare the Holodomor an act of genocide, and I hope this is something that will be followed as an example by other UK Parliaments. Today is also the one thousandth day of the Russian invasion, and this Saturday a commemoration will take place in the Senedd and a 2 p.m. silence to coincide with remembrance at the same time in Ukraine, in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. I want to thank everyone in this Senedd and all the people of Wales for their solidarity until Ukraine obtains peace and victories.”
“Only a couple of weeks ago is a special day in Ukraine because it was the day when poets, artists, painters and writers were actually rounded up and mass executed for the sole reason that they represented the Ukrainian identity. And of course it is a policy that is being renewed by Putin in occupied Ukraine to this day, where museums are looted, Ukrainian books destroyed, the Ukrainian language banned in schools, where the population are subject to deportation, the children to re-education, torture, rape and murder. Russia has become a fascist country. Yet even in this country there are its apologists, those who deny the Holodomor, deny the genocide and perpetuate the Putin narrative.”
“It became an opportunity for Stalin to break Ukrainian resistance and identity, and it is for this reason that the famine, as it affected Ukraine, became known as the Holodomor, which translates as ‘death by famine’. It became known as an act of genocide, and has been recognised by many Parliaments across the world as an act of genocide. This is the area, of course, that is now the front-line resistance to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, by the sons and daughters of the survivors of the Holodomor, and also the sons and daughters of those families brought in to replace the millions of the dead. The Holodomor was succeeded with the intense Russification of Ukraine, the mass execution of poets, artists, writers, film directors, musicians—in fact, anyone who represented Ukrainian identity.”
“In Ukraine, the precise figure will never be known. In Russia, the records of the period continue to be destroyed, as do the records of the mass deportations and executions during the purges. In Ukraine, the estimate is between 4 million to 6 million people were killed. Many continued to die in the following years from famine-related illness, disease, and then the subsequent further Stalin purges. Grain was seized and it was sold abroad for foreign currency to fund industrialisation. In Ukraine, there were many uprisings. It was an area where there was little Bolshevik support, and it is clear from documents since revealed that Stalin feared losing control of Ukraine. For this reason, the suppression was exceptionally harsh. Villages that resisted were closed down—a measure that effectively amounted to a death sentence.”
“And just to follow on from Darren Millar’s comments, I think it was a great honour that we have now in the national library of Ukraine in Kyiv a plaque in English, Ukrainian and Welsh, which is a tribute to Gareth Jones, and also the intention to have a cultural delegation to Ukraine, to maybe present a similar plaque to go onto the street in Kyiv that has been named after Gareth Jones. It was once the Soviet Union broke up that the secrecy came to an end, and when the KGB and the Communist Party archives were opened up that the full scale of the horror of the Holodomor began to become better known and better understood. The famine was the product of Stalin’s forced collectivisation, which affected large tracts of eastern and central Ukraine, but also other surrounding countries. Millions starved to death.”
“I grew up as part of a Ukrainian refugee community where we celebrated, promoted and maintained our Ukrainian language, culture and identity. And among my friends were the children of Ukrainians from eastern Ukraine, from the Donbas, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Luhansk. Their parents were the survivors of the Holodomor, and we were vaguely aware of the Holodomor as children—Stalin’s artificial famine. We were aware that millions were starved to death, but it was not something that our parents talked about a lot. It was too painful amongst all the other painful experiences that they have lived through. And the world knew very little about this great tragedy, but what they did know was the result of journalism of people like Welshman Gareth Jones, Malcom Muggeridge and a few others.”
“Counsel General, after 14 years of disastrous Tory Governments, the justice system is on a precipice, close to collapse. Access to justice is as much about the better delivery of justice, particularly in the areas of youth justice and probation, where the overwhelming majority of the functions of that system are already devolved. Can I just ask you: in accordance with the recommendations of the Gordon Brown report, the Thomas commission report, the independent commission and so on, what progress is being made in discussions with the UK Government over the devolution of youth justice and probation?”