Mark Reckless: Diolch, Llywydd, I appreciate that. After my positive comments in my initial contribution to the First Minister, I wanted to ask him whether he regretted the decision at the end of the firebreak period to focus on enforcing a border with England, while restoring complete freedom of movement, pretty much, within Wales, compared to the strict travel restrictions we had before. I asked him at...
Mark Reckless: I made some general comments earlier, but on the specifics of the regulations, I welcome broadly things that are moving in a liberalising direction. I do struggle a little understanding why, trying to connect the pace of opening to the pace at which the data is improving. It strikes me that data has been improving beyond our best expectations in recent weeks, but that doesn't seem to feed...
Mark Reckless: I speak to oppose this Order. We've already got 19 official statistics providers specifically for Wales, as the Minister described, and we're now seeing Digital Health and Care Wales added to them. As the Minister rightly says, some of its tasks are coming from the NHS Wales Informatics Service and Velindre NHS trust, but as far as I'm aware, neither of those organisations are being...
Mark Reckless: I thank the Minister for her statement. We regret that these lower rates of LTT can't carry over until 30 September, because, if they were to, we would have a three-month period where we had a threshold of up to £250,000 that was, again, the same in England and Wales, which of course we would wish to have. However, I would like to thank the Minister for doing the extension at all, because I...
Mark Reckless: I'm pleased that we're debating these many items on Standing Orders separately. I didn't request that by signifying an objection to their grouping in order to extend the fifth Assembly unnecessarily—we want to see the Assembly abolished, not continue artificially and unnecessarily. So, I do though believe that a lot of these Standing Orders are very substantive, and there are a range of...
Mark Reckless: I think this may be my favourite of the items we're discussing today, amending our Standing Orders to reflect our departure from the European Union. It's a relatively short report that went to Business Committee. It says, 'Had the committee'—and this is the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee— 'Had the committee consider that it did not, it could make written...
Mark Reckless: We were told in the Business Committee paper regarding withdrawal of a nomination neither the First Minister nomination or Presiding Officer election procedures make specific provision for a nomination to be withdrawn, and both Standing Orders use mandatory language in requiring further rounds of voting in the event of no candidate being successful in a particular round of voting. So, of...
Mark Reckless: These are also, I think, potentially quite important amendments and I'm not sure why they're being made, entirely. Some of them I think are sensible, like the references to the commissioners and ombudsman. Removing those and having a general provision rather trying to update for each specific commissioner or ombudsman seems sensible. But at the moment, we have a rule that allows the Presiding...
Mark Reckless: I think these amendments are broadly sensible. Currently, we're only able to have a recall at the request of the First Minister, subject to the Presiding Officer's decision. It's her decision, but as it reads currently, I believe it can only be taken at the request of the First Minister. To preclude any recall of the legislature unless the head of the executive desires it doesn't seem to me...
Mark Reckless: Again, I think, on balance, this is a change to Standing Orders that I support. I think it's regrettable that we've lost the underpinning of the UK legislation that provided that if we couldn't reach agreement by two thirds on the constitution of our committees, then D'Hondt should apply. I think that gave an underlying backstop and security to the process, which to a degree is lost. But I...
Mark Reckless: It's good to see at least one other Member engaged in the process to the extent of objecting, even though I seem to be alone in speaking to these debates. This section on miscellaneous changes I thought was particularly interesting. There's a range of different Standing Order changes, in actually quite disparate areas, but on these I'm afraid I'm not able to insist on separate debates, so I...
Mark Reckless: So, we have a range of temporary Standing Orders that this applies to. I think it probably is appropriate on this occasion that they are taken together, and firstly, the extension on proxy voting for parental leave; I think that was brought in as a temporary provision. My view has been that proxy voting—and I speak really in circumstances without considering COVID where there is an...
Mark Reckless: It's good to have some colleagues to debate with on this one. Thank you to Mark Isherwood and Caroline Jones for their contributions; I suppose I should also thank Rebecca who was kind to me in her remarks. I'd also like to apologise to the Welsh Conservatives because when I first heard of this extraordinary proposal from Business Committee, I was misinformed that the Conservative business...
Mark Reckless: We've also lost some of the extra proposed guidance that was initially proposed. We were told that it could also stipulate that the Llywydd can take into account whether a group has a significant and demonstrable democratic mandate for formation and whether it shares a political philosophy that would be clear to the electorate. I'm not sure how a Presiding Officer is meant to determine those...
Mark Reckless: It is hard to grasp the sheer span of Prince Philip's lifetime. I read that he had done 22,000 engagements, and then heard somewhere else that he had done 300 a year. My first thought was that it must be more than that—how could it otherwise be 22,000? I actually had to calculate and multiply it through by 70 years to understand, gosh, that that's actually about right. It is amazing what he...
