Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, what is there to apologise for?
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, in deference to you, Llywydd, I will apologise for whatever remark I am supposed to have made.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I beg to move the motion standing in my name. I hope this is going to be a constructive debate this afternoon—that’s certainly the spirit in which we put this motion down. As it makes clear in the very first clause, we support the Welsh Government’s objective of having 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050, and will support all reasonable measures to...
Mr Neil Hamilton: The Education Act 1996 says that pupils should be educated in accordance with parents’ wishes, and that the Secretary of State should have regard to the general principle that pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents. That legislation has, of course, been overtaken since devolution, but the principle behind it, I think, should be pretty non-controversial. I...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Yes, of course.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I started my remarks this afternoon, Llywydd, by saying I hoped that this would be a constructive debate, and we shouldn’t seek to make petty political points of that kind, and I will continue in that spirit—[Interruption.] Well, we can have a yah-boo debate if you like, but I don’t think that the public at large are going to be terribly impressed by the attitude of Plaid Cymru on...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I can assure you, Llywydd, that I will not be shouted down—
Mr Neil Hamilton: [Continues.]—by the intolerant members of Plaid Cymru opposite; not that all members of Plaid Cymru are intolerant, but some of them clearly are. Jonathan Edwards’s contribution to the debate has been to attack the Labour Party, saying that the Labour Party in Llanelli has run a nasty, divisive campaign against the plans of the local Plaid Cymru-led council. The institutional anti-Welsh...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch, Llywydd. Well, I approve of everything that the Minister has said in his speech this afternoon, and the note on which he ended is exactly right; that we have to get people to choose to use the Welsh language. They can’t be forced to use it if they don’t want to. And the kind of attitudes that we’ve seen from across the floor today are not likely to lead to that objective—
Mr Neil Hamilton: I will give way.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Yes, of course I accept that. I support the Government’s policy. All I’m saying is that in the implementation of that policy we should be sensitive to local opinion, in particular the opinion of those who are more intimately affected by educational decisions. What is happening in Llangennech is the opposite. Simon Thomas, in the course of his speech, referred to the school governors being...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Yes, sure.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Llywydd, I will, in the interests—
Mr Neil Hamilton: [Continues.]—of rational debate in this Chamber, ignore that comment. All I’m saying is that if Plaid Cymru were to see where the best interests of the policy that they claim to support lies, they would try to be emollient and understanding about the fears of the parents. They may be wholly unmerited. I agree absolutely with what Simon Thomas said about the merits of bilingualism. I have...
Mr Neil Hamilton: 4. Will the First Minister make a statement on paediatric care in Wales? OAQ(5)0553(FM)
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, Llywydd, it’s always a pleasure to make a non-controversial speech that is going to command agreement around the Assembly, and to agree with everything that’s been said by all previous speakers so far today. I speak from a completely different perspective, as somebody who is wholly new to this institution, and, indeed, all my group members are in the same position. And we have been...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. It's inevitable, I suppose, a certain amount of posturing takes place at the beginning of any negotiation and the current Brexit negotiations with the EU is no exception to that. The First Minister wants to play a direct role in these negotiations and there is, in fact, a useful role that he can play. He could write to Chancellor Merkel, for example, to say it’s a...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, it’s certainly true that it’s in the interests of both countries—Spain and Gibraltar—for that border to remain open because 40 per cent of the jobs in Gibraltar are filled by people who live in Spain. Given that the rate of unemployment in Andalusia is 30 per cent and in Gibraltar is 1 per cent then it’s massively in Spain’s interest to respect the existing status of...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I agree with the First Minister. He’s absolutely right: the border is of critical importance to Gibraltar. But it’s not as though we have no bargaining chips in our hand in this respect. If indeed it is the case that Spain has put its claim to Gibraltar’s sovereignty on ice and is prepared to live with Gibraltar, that’s well and good. But the idea that the European Commission suddenly...
Mr Neil Hamilton: The First Minister will be aware of the limitations on paediatric care at Withybush hospital and I have a particularly distressing constituency case that has arisen, where a child was taken out of hours to Withybush in June 2016, in pain that was diagnosed wrongly as a urine infection, treatable by antibiotics. Next morning, the child was taken to A&E with something that was suspected to be...
