Mr Neil Hamilton: But of course the Circuit of Wales was more than just speculative because there was a fully worked out business case, which I understand was not undermined by the Welsh Government. The objection of the Welsh Government’s support for the project was based upon internal accounting conventions, in its opinion, in any event, set by Her Majesty’s Treasury. So, the Circuit of Wales project...
Mr Neil Hamilton: It’s always a pleasure to listen to the Cabinet Secretary, but I’m afraid I can’t be quite so complimentary about the contents of the statement itself. I’m going to introduce a certain diversity into the proceedings this afternoon, as might be expected. I want to question the assumptions upon which the statement is made. I’ve got three points to make altogether. First of all, the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As my maternal grandmother was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, I’d like to welcome our distinguished guests in the gallery as well. It makes me quarter a New Brunswicker, I suppose. [Interruption.] We’ve missed the cheery presence of the Minister for lifelong learning this week, because he’s at the Labour Party conference, where I see he said...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I fully acknowledge that the record of the Welsh Government is far better than the UK Government’s on PFI contracts. Indeed, the total percentage of the unitary charges, the annual repayments, that are going to be made is only 1.7 per cent of the UK total. So, that’s a very good thing. But there’s still a substantial debt that is in gestation for repayment over many years, and reducing...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I’m very pleased to hear that answer from the Cabinet Secretary. Does he agree with me that the Blair and Brown Governments have a great deal to answer for, for the profligacy with which they entered into such contracts with abandon during those locust years, that although the Welsh Government can pride itself on its performance relatively speaking, the performance of Labour Governments at...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. This afternoon—[Interruption.] I knew that the Chamber was circular, Llywydd; I didn’t realise it revolved as well. This afternoon, we shall hear the outline budget from the finance Secretary, but his room for manoeuvre is obviously limited by the nature of the funding of the Welsh Government. Ninety-two per cent of the money that Welsh Government spends currently...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I don’t want to debate economic history with the First Minister, but, immediately after the war, we did, of course, have the Marshall aid programme and actually there was a very substantial reduction in the proportion of debt to GDP during the course of the Attlee Government from 1945 to 1951. When Tony Blair came to office in 1997, the national debt stood at £359 billion and, in his first...
Mr Neil Hamilton: You would think, from what the First Minister just said, that there hadn’t been a Labour Government from 1997 to 2008 and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not Gordon Brown, in charge of banking regulation, whereas we know that he believed in a light-touch regulation of banking, so he was a contributor to the financial crisis, which ultimately engulfed him. Jim Callaghan knew what it was...
Mr Neil Hamilton: 4. Will the First Minister make a statement on the rail network in Mid and West Wales? (OAQ51114)
Mr Neil Hamilton: I thank the First Minister for that response. We welcome the Welsh Government’s funding for a feasibility study to reopen the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen railway line. I’m sure he’ll agree with me that the best way to revive railway lines that were closed largely in the 1960s under the Beeching plan would be to produce low-cost opportunities for the trains and carriages that would work on...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Perhaps I’ll try and calm things down a little in my usual way. I would like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for the courtesy that he has shown to me, also, in telling me the broad outlines of the statement this afternoon when we spoke this morning. I agree with my new neighbour, Adam Price—[Interruption.] I don’t know whether I should now call him my honourable friend or...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I agree with the point that Adam Price made with such passion a moment ago, that it is right for parties in this house to work together for the benefit of Wales. So I was a bit surprised, actually, when the Cabinet Secretary did ring me this morning, because on the radio on Sunday morning, he said he has little limited contact with the Conservatives and can’t ever imagine having...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Yes, it has. I’m glad to have that reinforcement of the point that I am making. It’s as a result of profligacy in recent years that the Government has lost its AAA rating. I gave the figures in my questions earlier on to the First Minister. We now have a national debt of £2 trillion a year. It’s costing us nearly £60 billion a year to finance it. The money that we are spending on debt...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I don’t think I shall get tempted, Llywydd, to go down the byways of Brexit in the budget debate. I want to deal also with the point that comes out of the statement and the outline proposals in the budget about what the Cabinet Secretary says about the deal between the UK Government and Northern Ireland. It’s inevitable, in these circumstances, that a price is going to be extracted for...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I’m sure the Cabinet Secretary will accept that you can’t borrow in unlimited sums indefinitely, and, therefore, a judgment has to be made, sometimes, as to when the rake’s progress has to stop. Interest rates have been at historic lows. They’re already on the rise in the United States; they may well shortly be on the rise in this country. How do we then pay the bills at a time when...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I can be even briefer than Simon Thomas, considering that there are fewer unanswered questions left by the time you get to me. But I welcome the statement, and I would also like to put on record my opinion that the Cabinet Secretary has been very constructive in the way in which she has developed policy in this area and the farming community is very appreciative of the openness that she...
Mr Neil Hamilton: My party broadly supports the approach that the Government takes to the promotion of the Welsh language and we strongly support the Cymraeg 2050 proposals. I believe that the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh language’s approach is the right one—it’s a consensual approach, and that is the only way in which we will, I think, be able to succeed in the objective that everybody in...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, it might be. It’s not something as yet I’ve been convinced on. I would like to consider that in greater detail. I do think that there should be some sort of de minimis test, whether that’s by reason of the size of the company, whether that’s measured in terms of number of employees or turnover or whatever. I don’t personally believe that the Government has any intention of...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I am grateful to my now neighbour, Simon Thomas, for initiating this debate today. We’ve crossed swords on related issues many times in the year or so I’ve been a Member of this Assembly and I thought that where argument has failed possibly osmosis might have a better chance of arriving at a consensus. I’ve no particular objection to personal carbon accounts and I certainly agree with...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Academics accept that the temperatures have risen by 0.9 degrees centigrade since the mid-nineteenth century. We’re not talking about game-changing figures here.
