Mr Neil Hamilton: ...different parts of the house, and I offer my own party’s word that we will play a constructive role in this Chamber. I should secondly like to congratulate Kirsty Williams on her appointment as education Secretary. I’m sure she will do an extremely good job. She’s clearly a very, very capable person. I know that she has taken a great deal of interest in education and made...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I commend the First Minister on his statement. In particular I endorse warmly his remarks about Roger Maggs, the chairman of Excalibur and a school friend of mine from many, many years ago at Amman Valley. And I endorse all that Adam Price—another distinguished product of my old school—said in his response to your statement also about the pension fund at Tata. You mentioned, a moment...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...possible closure of 11 branch libraries. Will the First Minister join me in regretting this sense of priorities, because libraries must surely be regarded as a vitally important part of the wider education service of this country?
Mr Neil Hamilton: 1. Will the Minister make a statement on the shortage of school places in Wales? OAQ(5)0011(EDU)
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...to exudes because there is a significant difference between different parts of Wales where there are significant shortages in some places and surpluses in others. For example, in Cardiff High School this year there were 635 applications for 240 places but in our own region in Powys 25 per cent of secondary places are empty. Across the border in Shropshire, there are one third of schools...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ..., they’re going to build a shared understanding of the challenges facing local government and wider public services; develop wider conversation about the reform needed on further and higher education; prioritise support for enhanced links between education and industry; better utilise our existing relationships with Welsh universities; consult further on the specific recommendations of...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I applaud the sentiments that Hefin David brought in his speech, and I feel very similar to him, because I had the misfortune, when I was in school, back in the 1960s, to be faced with an unpalatable choice at the age of 14: to carry on studying Welsh or to switch to German. I took the decision then to switch to German. The result is that I could make a very passable speech here in German,...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...sent in coded messages to the committee of public safety by the speed of her knitting to identify those who were to be condemned to the guillotine. So, it shows at least that she has had a decent education that she understands the point of my barb. But, we started the debate with the entertaining spectacle of my friend, Darren Millar, standing on his head. It is difficult to see why the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, there is a problem, obviously, with Welsh-medium schools—[Interruption.] Of course there is, simply because, at the moment, and this goes back to the earlier debate that we had on the Welsh language—maybe, in certain parts of Wales, it wouldn’t be such a problem, but, in other parts of Wales it certainly would, being able to provide this provision. So, ultimately, it can’t be...
Mr Neil Hamilton: .... It obviously worked. But what I want to say is that all parents ought to have that kind of choice. They are the ones who should decide for themselves, as she does for her children, the kind of education that she wants for them. That’s what this is all about. Of course, we can’t replicate that in a state education system. There has to be some kind of administrative decision-taking...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...as a family. My daughter wasn’t diagnosed until much later in life, at seven and a half. I had to take the local authority to a tribunal before they would carry out a statutory assessment of her educational needs, even though by this time she had been diagnosed with Asperger’s. A battle also ensued over support worker provision, and eventually she was awarded two hours a week, with no...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...that. That’s the background to this report. As the commissioner says, progress has been made, and certainly Wales today is a world away from where it was 50 years ago when I was growing up and at school. But she says that provision of Welsh language services is making no further progress, and for some time performance has reached a plateau. Well, Welsh-speaking people should not have to...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Aberfan: 50 years ago today, an obscure pit village barely known beyond its physical horizons, but within 48 hours known throughout the world for the dreadful cataclysm that engulfed the village school and rendered its name immortal. The tip slide not only crushed the bodies of 116 children and 28 adults but temporarily crushed the heart of our nation too and it touches yet the heart of...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...improvements that he mentioned in the course of his speech. Angela Burns made some very important points in her speech as well, about the necessity for earlier screening, greater awareness through education et cetera, and very importantly made the point about the postcode lottery that still does, unfortunately, exist in diagnosis of stage 1 cancers. So, whilst we commend the Government...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...in Knighton to consider the proposal by Powys County Council to close the leisure centre in Knighton. This will be very bad news for the town, of course. Mary Strong, the headteacher at the primary school, says that the school uses it every single day; that it keeps the community together, which is important, as communities like Knighton have lost so much over the years; and also that it...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...that they’ve taken, and which are enumerated in the statement: the package of support and the various other things, like the armed forces employability pathway and Supporting Service Children in Education Wales in particular. It’s very important that we help service families and those who are ex-service, particularly, to reintegrate into civil society. They often have very specific...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...old, then moved to Carmarthenshire. I was 11 before I had any instruction in Welsh at all. Two years later, I had to choose between Welsh and German and I opted for German. So, in the course of my school career, I learnt French and German and Russian, and I did German and Russian at university as well, but unfortunately I didn’t take the opportunity to use Welsh when I had it. But I’m...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...is the opportunity to improve my Welsh skills. But that’s enough reminiscence from me. I agree with everything that’s been said in this debate so far. It’s certainly true that Welsh language education is the main source of new Welsh speakers, as the Welsh Government’s Welsh language strategy says. It is vitally important that Welsh should be acquired as early as possible in life...
Mr Neil Hamilton: ...Presiding Officer. What an interesting debate this has been, and I’d like to congratulate Lee Waters on adding this intellectual veneer to our proceedings. It shows what a credit he is to our old school, and I’m sure Adam Price will agree on this what a great contribution it is making to the proceedings. Of course, my own contributions tend to cater for the rougher end of the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: 2. Will the Minister provide an update on the challenges facing the newly built Tenby Church in Wales Primary School? OAQ(5)0058(EDU)
