Mark Reckless: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, in particular, for your consideration. Can I also congratulate the Minister on his appointment? He knows he has big shoes to fill. From my own part, I have to say I have great confidence in his serving the Government in Wales as ably as he did the UK Government previously. I welcome the report from Sally Holland, the children's commissioner, and thank her...
Mark Reckless: Surely, a fundamental principle of our legal system is that a client should be free to choose their own legal adviser? Why would Plaid Cymru deny that right to the Welsh Government?
Mark Reckless: I'm afraid I didn't really catch the Member's response to my point earlier. I think there was a sedentary intervention you may have been replying to instead. But my fundamental point is: the Counsel General is the chief adviser to the Welsh Government, and surely it's a matter for the Welsh Government to choose who their chief legal adviser should be.
Mark Reckless: But isn't this a hangover from when we, perhaps, were more of a spoon-fed baby Assembly, as the Member puts it, and there was a Welsh Assembly Government and there was no legal distinction between one and the other? Now the Government is accountable to the Assembly and the Counsel General advises the Government, so surely the Welsh Government should decide. I am as keen to defend the rights...
Mark Reckless: Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an estimate of the hours worked, including the value of those hours, by community health council volunteers?
Mark Reckless: First Minister, as well as Wales ageing as a nation, the trends are quite different within different parts of Wales, and the Valleys, for example, have a much greater demographic ageing trend than the nation as a whole. Are you confident, First Minister, that our provision of dementia services is sufficiently decentralised, and also that the resourcing of it is sufficiently aimed at those...
Mark Reckless: 1. What assessment has the Counsel General made of the effect that the development of a separate legal jurisdiction would have on the size of the legal profession in Wales? OAQ51315
Mark Reckless: May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Member on his appointment as Counsel General? It gives me particular pleasure personally to have done so having attended university with him some quarter of a century ago now. As lawyers, we might see it as a good thing were the size of the legal profession to expand, but I wonder: speaking on behalf of the Government, does he have a view on...
Mark Reckless: With the UK budget today, I think some of the implications of tax devolution, perhaps, hit home rather more clearly than they did before, because the implications for Wales of decisions made on tax don't just reflect those that are made in this Siambr, but also those that are made in Westminster. I served on the Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Bill committee...
Mark Reckless: Will the Member give way?
Mark Reckless: He talks about not engendering uncertainty, but those first-time buyers, particularly in the higher value areas, who may be rushing in because they fear he's going to increase their tax rate next April, as he said before—would they be wise to do that or should they hold off?
Mark Reckless: 5. What assessment has the First Minister made of the prospects over the next four months for first-time buyers in Monmouthshire? OAQ51388
Mark Reckless: First Minister, the average Help to Buy house price for first-time buyers in Monmouthshire is £240,000, similar to Gloucestershire across the border. Are you not concerned that, if your Government fails to match England's approach to first-time buyers, some of our young people will leave Wales and buy over the border instead?
Mark Reckless: 8. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of the difference between world food prices and EU food prices? OAQ51360
Mark Reckless: And that monitoring shows that food prices in the EU are substantially higher than outside the EU. Once we leave the EU, does the Cabinet Secretary agree that it will be for the UK Government to determine the extent to which we apply World Trade Organization tariffs against imports from outside the EU, and it's up to that Government whether to apply those at all or whether to negotiate free...
Mark Reckless: I agree with Nick Ramsay. I think we should all cheer up. I think Adam Price looked a little too much on the negative forecast that we had from the Office for Budget Responsibility. The Plaid motion refers to the UK Government budget announcement of downward revisions for economic growth and productivity. But, of course, it's the independent OBR that's come up with those changes to its...
Mark Reckless: First Minister, you say you support the principle of universal credit, and the aim of universal credit and the UK Government's wider welfare reforms is to help people get in and stay in work. Given that unemployment in Torfaen is historically low and has fallen further in the past year, isn't that something you should be supporting constructively and trying to work with the UK Government?
Mark Reckless: If I could initially respond to Steffan Lewis, who chose not to take an intervention from me earlier. When I was listening to him, he was speaking with great confidence about what will happen in 2020, or what will inevitably happen in 2021. I just think he needs to consider he was referring to forecasts, and however august those bodies are, whether they're the Treasury or the OECD or the OBR,...
Mark Reckless: Will the Cabinet Secretary give way?
Mark Reckless: I wonder if he can confirm whether the Welsh Government's position is that the United Kingdom should remain within the single market, as the First Minister said in Welsh earlier?
