Neil McEvoy: Yes.
Neil McEvoy: Jayne Bryant, yes.
Neil McEvoy: Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. Lobbying in Wales—this isn’t something that we should talk about; it’s something that we need to talk about. My aim today is to reopen the debate that was started here on lobbying some years ago. For the health of Welsh democracy, we must regulate commercial lobbying and bring it out of the shadows. We must protect this institution of the Welsh Assembly....
Neil McEvoy: To some of my colleagues to my left—physically, but certainly not politically—you may have a surprise coming in the new year in terms of what I will be doing; I’ll be announcing then.
Neil McEvoy: Yes, I’ll give way.
Neil McEvoy: Thanks, Lee. Thanks for that. But, if you add up the total that I am earning at the present time, it’s way under the £100,000 that we’re talking about. And what I’m actually addressing here, and have addressed for the last five years, six years, are salaries in excess of £100,000 a year. Now, the First Minister earns £140,000 a year. Should anybody really earn over that? I don’t...
Neil McEvoy: Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I will speak more to ‘(c) introduce a nationally decided set of pay scales, terms and conditions to control senior and chief officer pay through a national framework’. I just wanted to quickly address the Labour amendment ‘(c) to continue to examine the case for a nationally decided set of pay scales’ and so on and so on. To ‘continue to examine the...
Neil McEvoy: Enthusiasm is one thing, but if the full funding of the south Wales metro isn’t guaranteed, nailed-on guaranteed, what’s plan B?
Neil McEvoy: Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I’ll be very brief, and thank you for taking me to speak. I’ve worked as a teacher, and I did work as a teacher for 23 years. So, I’ve done the job at the sharp end, and latterly I taught many, many children with this condition who were simply let down by the system. I saw the frustrations of families, I saw and experienced how badly these children were...
Neil McEvoy: God, these Labour AMs. Encourage the Government.
Neil McEvoy: Put pressure on the Government. It’s your Government. You have group meetings with them, surely. God. Anyway, empty units: clearly a problem in towns. It’s also a problem in this capital city. If you go down high streets, there’s empty unit after empty unit. It’s a huge problem. We need a strategy; we need local economic development zones, for example, and help with marketing; we need...
Neil McEvoy: Will the Cabinet Secretary consider the following: the Lisvane land deal, up to £40 million lost; land sold in Rhoose, £7.25 million lost; two shops in Pontypridd, £1 million lost; your Government being humiliated and fined over its dodgy procurement procedure, £1.52 million lost? Over £50 million lost, and many are saying that this is the most incompetent Welsh Government in history....
Neil McEvoy: Yes. You claim to have asked local authorities if they could provide potentially millions, but there’s no formal request to scrutinise that. I believe Tony Blair would be very much at home in this Labour Government. So, my question is: are you now in a position to provide me with the formal minuted requests between the Welsh Government and local authorities for financial support for the...
Neil McEvoy: Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I’d like to also congratulate our Welsh athletes who’ve made our nation so proud. This really is a golden age for Welsh sport and that shows again the winning mentality that we have in Wales. It’s interesting that there was a gap between the 1972 Olympics and the 2008 Olympics where not a single Welsh person won a medal. That was 36 years. But since Beijing, the...
Neil McEvoy: You’ve been First Minister for seven years, so every day you pass the dilapidated Cardiff Bay train station. You also pass the crumbling yet magnificent façade of the Corys building opposite the Wales Millennium Centre. Do you not realise how embarrassing it is for Wales that those buildings are the first things that many tourists see when visiting Cardiff Bay? A Westminster Government...
Neil McEvoy: No, I won’t. No. The whole thing about education in Wales is that, for me, it’s too politicised, and I think what I would like to see, really, is an all-party commission for education that is looking 20 years ahead, because everything in Wales today is very, very short term. If you look at Finland—. Well, the education Secretary is shaking her head; I don’t know why. Everything is...
Neil McEvoy: Some interesting turns of phrase then. I think the Labour Party did abolish grammar schools when the Labour Party was a Labour Party. I’m not sure what it is now. In terms of the debate, grammar schools are clearly a bad idea. They’re divisive; you write people off at the age of 11. The evidence is there that the system didn’t work, but that’s not to say that what we have today is...
Neil McEvoy: Is the Minister aware that many people in Cardiff think that we need an elected mayor? The city is run by invisible people at the moment, effectively elected by a handful of people. Now, I suspect they would prefer to keep it that way. And I understand that Llanishen Labour Party selections now take place in the constituency office of the Member to my left—she may want to confirm that, or...
Neil McEvoy: Will the Minister make a statement on the local government funding settlement?
Neil McEvoy: Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I’d like to start by congratulating our Welsh Olympians on the way they represented Wales, showing yet again the winning mentality of our country and, of course, I’d like to congratulate the Paralympians currently competing in Rio. I’d like to also congratulate the Welsh football team for their really impressive win over Moldova to get the World Cup qualifiers...
