Nick Ramsay: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. The Welsh Conservatives will be supporting the passage of this Bill at Stage 4 of this legislation. As you yourself have indicated over the weeks and months of this process, landfill tax, as the second tax to be devolved, may not be the talk of pubs and clubs across this country but it is nonetheless an important tax, an important tool in the often talked about...
Nick Ramsay: Thank you for giving way. You’ll recall, Cabinet Secretary, that members of the committee did consider an amendment at stage 3 that would have considered implementing a review process of landfill tax. We discussed that with you and you believed it would be more appropriate to have a review of LTT and landfill tax, for all taxes, rather than just an independent one. I wonder if you could...
Nick Ramsay: Leanne, thanks for giving way. You make some good points about the need for Wales to be a self-confident, forward-looking nation, and I don’t disagree with you there, but you do have to accept that there has been significant progress made on many of the areas you’ve mentioned. You mention electrification, but this afternoon we’ve been talking about tax devolution—that’s happening....
Nick Ramsay: I’m grateful to Hefin David for keeping the focus on this issue this afternoon. Cabinet Secretary, last week I attended a ‘fly the flag for our armed forces’ event at Monmouthshire County Council’s headquarters just outside Usk, and it was a very well-attended event. It goes to show how many not just Assembly Members but people across Wales want to honour our armed forces and...
Nick Ramsay: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I thank everyone who has contributed to today’s debate, and thank the Minister for her comments? A debate that, as Russ George said, is about breaking the circle, and, as Darren Millar—our resident student—said in opening this debate, this is about social mobility. Many people want to pursue education at a later stage in their life, and there...
Nick Ramsay: Apart from Mike Hedges. I even remember one debate where poor old Ken Skates was wheeled into a debate to defend Jeremy Corbyn. The look on his face said it all at that point. I mean, goodness me, I’m probably closer to Jeremy Corbyn than Ken Skates is. [Laughter.] Those were the days, but how things have moved on. Now, they want to talk about leadership, don’t they? So, that is a welcome...
Nick Ramsay: 2. What plans does the First Minister have to recognise the additional challenges of delivering public services in rural areas in the distribution of local government funding? OAQ(5)0697(FM)
Nick Ramsay: Thank you, First Minister, for that answer. As you know, a large percentage of Wales’s area is rural. I remain particularly concerned that the Welsh Government has not gone quite far enough in recognising rurality in its funding of local authorities over the last few years. Delivering services such as social care in a rural setting is always going to face additional costs when compared to...
Nick Ramsay: Diolch yn fawr. I'm pleased to contribute to today's thought-provoking debate, Cabinet Secretary, and to move the amendments in the name of Paul Davies. As the Cabinet Secretary has himself said, these are times of change for this institution and for Wales. We're about to see the introduction of the first new Welsh taxes in 800 years—how many times have we heard that in this Chamber over...
Nick Ramsay: Thanks for giving way. I suppose you shouldn’t be surprised that a Conservative would appear slightly conservative. I wouldn’t have said that I was talking about an argument of inertia; I would have preferred the word ‘caution’. I’m not going to put words into the Cabinet Secretary’s mouth, but in terms of that maxim, ‘Not having change for change’s sake’, I think that...
Nick Ramsay: Thank you for giving way. You just mentioned a diesel tax. Is that diesel tax a typical example of a type of tax that would encourage tourism near the border? So, you would end up with a load of flows across the border of people in their diesel cars to go and get it cheaper elsewhere, so that would be a very difficult one to implement.
Nick Ramsay: Leader of the house, two things, if I may. Firstly, I attended Monmouth School's speech day on Saturday—a school that is achieving increasingly good results. Meanwhile, just up the road, Monmouth Comprehensive School's new school building is under construction, partially funded by Welsh Government’s twenty-first century schools programme. Two excellent schools, and schools that work...
Nick Ramsay: 9. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to improve access to healthcare services in Monmouth? OAQ(5)0730(FM)
Nick Ramsay: Thank you for that answer, First Minister. It was a pleasure to join the health Secretary yesterday at the new Grange University Hospital site—a much better name, I think, than the old ‘SCCC’ that we’ve been calling it for so long. It’s been a long time coming. I think it was 2007 when I first attended a meeting about the construction of the new hospital. Back then I remember a...
Nick Ramsay: I’m pleased to contribute to today’s debate, and to have taken part in the scrutiny of the supplementary budget by the Assembly’s Finance Committee that was mentioned by the Cabinet Secretary earlier, the conclusions of which are in our report, quite a succinct report, well worth the read—short, yes—well worth a read when Members get a chance. This is the first supplementary budget,...
Nick Ramsay: Cabinet Secretary, it was a pleasure accompanying you to the turf-cutting ceremony at the new critical care centre, now known as the Grange university hospital, on Monday in Cwmbran. I did tweet a nice picture of us, with you with a shovel digging the foundations. This new hospital has been a long time in the pipeline, as we know, and you have the virtue of being the Minister who actually got...
Nick Ramsay: Can I thank the Chair of the Finance Committee for his statement today? As one of the three members of the committee who visited Edinburgh, and the only one who unwisely took the train and ended up taking a lot longer than everyone else, I found it extremely useful when I got there, particularly the meetings with the Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Constitution Committee, the Scottish...
Nick Ramsay: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today about the Public Accounts Committee inquiry arising from the Natural Resources Wales annual report and accounts 2015-16. As Members will be aware, the Public Accounts Committee has a crucial role in ensuring the efficient expenditure of public money. As part of this role we routinely scrutinise the annual reports and...
Nick Ramsay: To assist us with our inquiry we took evidence from NRW on two occasions and from the timber industry sector, represented by the United Kingdom Forest Products Association. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our witnesses for assisting us with our work. Having carefully considered the evidence, we found there to be a number of issues regarding NRW’s handling of the awarding of...
Nick Ramsay: Will you give way?
