Mr Neil Hamilton: Unlike Darren Millar, I welcome these opportunities, because it gives us another demonstration of how out of touch this institution is—as indeed the House of Commons is—with popular opinion. The fundamental problem that has created this chaos and confusion is that we have a remainer Prime Minister, with a strongly pro-remain Cabinet, and a parliamentary party—the Conservative Party—in...
Mr Neil Hamilton: We've also been told that the pro-Brexit campaign was founded upon lies. Well, truth is many-sided, as we know, and all election campaigns on both sides or all sides are characterised by distortions, exaggerations, misrepresentation and, yes, by outright lies. What about the 3 million jobs that we were going to lose if we even contemplated the prospect of leaving the EU, or the Treasury's own...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Well, we've had a spirited and vigorous debate. We've heard complaints about the amount of abuse that is hurled around in this, and the loudest complainants seem to be no mean practitioners of the art of hurling abuse themselves—the Member for Blaenau Gwent, one of my favourites in this place, and the leader of Plaid Cymru, who has recently, of course, got into hot...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Will the Minister give way on that point?
Mr Neil Hamilton: Would she also accept that in that same speech Churchill said that Britain should not be part of that?
Mr Neil Hamilton: I'm not making accusations against any operators of slaughterhouses in Wales, but I'm just saying that, as a precautionary measure, it would be wise to move towards a situation where we do have CCTV and there is, therefore, incontrovertible evidence if mistreatment of animals does take place, and that's an elementary precaution. The Minister frequently says to me when I'm asking her about...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I accept that point that the Minister's just made, but I recently had a disturbing experience of watching some film footage from a supposedly non-stun slaughterhouse in England, where there were horrific images of animals being maltreated—kicked, stabbed, taunted—before finally being slaughtered in a most barbaric way without stunning. Now, that was caught on CCTV, so we were able to find...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd. Last July, I raised with the Minister the subject of non-stun slaughter and in particular representations that had been made to her by the British Veterinary Association, to which she said that she'd had a discussion with them a couple of weeks ago and asked officials to look at the information they'd brought forward in detail. It's now nine months since those...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Would the Counsel General agree with me that we are now in a crisis of democracy? He said at the beginning of this question today that it's incumbent now on the Government to carry out the will of Parliament. But isn't the problem here that Parliament is unwilling to carry out the will of the people? Seventeen point four million people voted to leave the EU in the referendum, but we have an...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I thank the Counsel General for a wholly uninformative answer, of course. But just to revert to the question that Lynne Neagle asked earlier on about the effect of a 'no deal' on the automotive industry in her constituency, as she alleged at any rate, has the Counsel General seen that today, in fact, Toyota has announced that it's going to begin producing a new generation of hybrid cars at...
Mr Neil Hamilton: What advice has he given to the Welsh Government on this point? Is it his legal opinion that if Britain's membership is extended beyond 22 or 23 May, we will legally be obliged to take part in those European Parliament elections that will be taking place in every other EU member state throughout Europe?
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. As the First Minister knows, the Prime Minister has now formally made an application to the EU to extend Britain's membership of the EU until 30 June, but would he agree with me that the decision to be made is not simply a political one, but also has legal implications as well, and that the advice that the European Commission has received is that, if the UK is allowed...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I enjoyed the First Minister's evisceration of the Prime Minister and the utter political shambles that she and the Conservative Party have created, but I think the greater shambles is that of the opposition, because, in spite of having what I believe to be the most incompetent Prime Minister in 250 years, the leader of the opposition has not profited in any way from what has happened...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I thank the First Minister for that reply. Is the First Minister aware that, in the period of July to December 2018, ambulances were waiting outside hospitals in Abergavenny and in Newport for over 5,000 hours and, therefore, they couldn't respond to emergencies. Given that the average ambulance crew is two on these occasions, that's 10,000 crew hours that have been lost. The handover time...
Mr Neil Hamilton: 2. What discussions has the First Minister had in order to improve hospital waiting times? OAQ53637
Mr Neil Hamilton: Does the First Minister agree with me that political insults come in many forms and a much more serious insult than any epithet that may fall from the mouth of the leader of Plaid Cymru is the insult that is being hurled at the British people by the House of Commons this week? The British people and the people of Wales, having voted to leave the European Union in an unqualified vote of two...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Object.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, it would have been up to the Assembly to decide whether the Chair would have been allocated to her. That is not the issue that we are currently debating this afternoon. This is about the allocation of Chairs to groups. That has nothing to do with the individual holder of the Chair. I'll come to David Rowlands in a moment. If we really do belive in respecting minority rights, which is...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I give way.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. It's a sad day, I think, for the National Assembly, that this motion is being brought before it, because we were all elected on the same basis two and a half years ago, and we are all proxies for the people here, and the Standing Order that establishes the distribution of Chairs of committees, in the aftermath of the last election, I think, did properly represent the...
