Mr Neil Hamilton: I thank the First Minister for that response. A constituent who is a keen off-road cyclist has written to me from Kidwelly to complain that a large area of land near Merthyr Tydfil that is owned by Natural Resources Wales has been leased to a private company and trades under the name of BikePark Wales, as a result of which there's been a restriction on public access to that land. And I...
Mr Neil Hamilton: 3. Will the First Minister make a statement on how the Welsh Government facilitates outdoor leisure activities in Wales? OAQ52509
Mr Neil Hamilton: It is also a failure of Government. The Government has something called the Crown Commercial Service, which is part of the Cabinet Office, which is charged specifically with looking at major suppliers to Government like Carillion where a collapse might pose a systemic risk. It's not clear why nothing was done by that organisation in this particular instance to try to stave off the possibility...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I commend Lee Waters for bringing this motion before the Assembly this afternoon and for the succinctness and accuracy of his speech and its diagnosis. I agreed with everything that he said. This is a grotesque case. Carillion, which is what I want to concentrate on in particular, is a company that on its collapse has left £7 billion in liabilities, £2 billion of that to suppliers and...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I'm sure the Cabinet Secretary will agree with me that no sensible person wants to see tariffs on imports and exports of cars between Britain and the EU. In the unhappy event that the European Commission continues to block proposals for a free trade deal, it would be the EU that would come off worst because they export £3.9 billion-worth of cars to us; we export only £1.3 billion to them,...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Yes, certainly.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, Pembrokeshire lobster is extremely palatable, I can tell you. But, yes, I realise that the industry is very dependent upon exports, but there's a massive opportunity for us here, because we have a massive imbalance in our trade in foodstuffs with the EU and if tariffs are idiotically imposed by the EU—not because the British Government won't be interested in doing so—then, we have...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch, Llywydd. Well, I'm very pleased that the Government has brought forward this debate today, and I find it difficult to disagree with many of the things that the Cabinet Secretary has said. I was particularly pleased to hear her say, in the course of her speech, that she will concentrate on getting a fairer deal for small-scale fishers and a fairer deal for Wales. That's what we all...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I welcome the statement. It's perfectly reasonable, I think, that the Counsel General seeks to intervene in this case brought by the Lord Advocate of Scotland. Devolution is an evolving process and there are inevitably going to be uncertainties and ambiguities that are created by the legislation that is the means of bringing it about. We moved from a conferred-powers basis to a...
Mr Neil Hamilton: So, I believe what we should be doing in schools is teaching children that there are different views on things, even highly controversial topics where people sometimes see them in terms of black and white, encouraging argument, encouraging disputation, but at the end of the day teaching them to be critical. That's the most important thing that we can do, I think, in school: teaching children...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Yes. Normal people, real people. Let's say ‘real people’ then. [Interruption.] Well, I don't recognise many faces around here of people who've followed, in their own private lives, a hair-shirt austerity programme. We all enjoy very comfortable—[Interruption.] Well, we all enjoy extremely comfortable lives, earning very large sums of money compared with the average and I think it is...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Now, there is one item in this course called 'ethnocentrism': 'Ethnocentrism is where a person sees a grouping which they identify with to be superior to other groupings.' It goes on to say that this is because they judge another culture solely by the values and standards of their own culture. Of course, seeing other cultures as different doesn't necessarily mean that we see them as...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This is an important topic and I'm grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for detained here this afternoon on a nice, sunny day. She and I have many political disagreements, but no-one can deny the spirit and commitment that she brings to her office as Cabinet Secretary for Education, and I certainly pay tribute to all that she has achieved in the years that...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Yes, sure.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I have great respect for minority opinion, because I'm in a very small minority myself in this house, but I think those who hold that opinion will be in an even smaller minority than the one in which I normally find myself. But whilst I support the office of Secretary of State for Wales, I don't think I can support the current occupant of it. Of course we must continue to have a...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm very glad that we're having this debate today, and I'm afraid I don't share the constitutional objections that David Melding voiced earlier on. I think that this Assembly is entitled to express a view upon the competence of United Kingdom Ministers where their responsibilities touch directly upon Wales and the interests of its people. That seems to me...
Mr Neil Hamilton: To take up one point that the Cabinet Secretary mentioned in his remarks a moment ago about the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders joining Airbus as prophets of doom, 14 per cent of every single vehicle produced in Germany is exported to the United Kingdom. If they had to face a 10 per cent tax upon imports to this country as a result of doing the same to us exporting to the EU,...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, it's hard to stifle a yawn at the latest example of fake news from project fear: the latest in an interminable line of such prognostications over the last three years. This is a political statement, more than anything else, in the propaganda war by the remainer establishment that—as the Cabinet Secretary just let the cat out of the bag in his final words—refuses to accept the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Will the First Minister make a statement on how the Welsh Government facilitates recreational activities?
Mr Neil Hamilton: I thank the leader of the house for that statement, and I'm very pleased to hear what she says. The UK has a long history of resettling those who've fled persecution in their homeland, and this is something of which we should be proud and must continue to do. But there is a big difference between refugees fleeing war and persecution and economic migrants, and it's vital that this distinction...
