Mr Simon Thomas: As we exit the European Union, an increasing number of people are concerned that we should retain the environmental laws that protect what you’ve just described—mainly the way that we have improved the environment here in Wales and in the UK. Now, on Monday, before the external affairs committee, you said that you had prepared a continuity Bill in case negotiations with the Westminster...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the fact that we are discussing regulations with regard to devolved taxes for the first time here. Of course, three Acts have been passed by now but Standing Orders have been amended to allow the Finance Committee to consider specifically regulations relating to devolved taxes, and it’s the committee’s intention to do that, certainly, as the...
Mr Simon Thomas: I can't understand you now. [Laughter.]
Mr Simon Thomas: Would the Member give way?
Mr Simon Thomas: I understand what the Member is saying. There is a fundamental problem with the Conservative position on this. From those benches, there is a constant advocacy of local decision making and local authorities being able to make these decisions for themselves. These six authorities have made their own decisions, have been elected to make those decisions, and have suspended the right to buy in...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I make the Cabinet Secretary very happy by saying I won't ask her about NVZs, but wait for her statement in a couple of weeks' time? But I'll make her less happy, perhaps, by asking her this: why has her department suffered the biggest single cut in the draft Welsh Government budget, and what does that really say about the commitment of the Government to...
Mr Simon Thomas: Nevertheless, her portfolio has suffered from the same 5 per cent cuts on local government grants, which have been recycled to help social services and health. She has confirmed, implicitly, that, in fact, her department has had the biggest cut of any department within the Welsh Government in this budget. We know that there are difficulties in the budget, but it's singular that this...
Mr Simon Thomas: You're quite right, we do have a budget agreement, and I'm very pleased with some of the things that we've got from that. Some of the things you mentioned, Cabinet Secretary, however, are important, but, on the whole, they're capital. You could be using the ability of the new much-talked-about but strange capital that's come to the Welsh Government, this transactional sort of capital, to look...
Mr Simon Thomas: One of the saddest things that one can do as a Member representing this region is to receive correspondence from farmers who are suffering as a result of TB on their farms and seeing what happens to their livestock. I received one such message over the past fortnight, talking about the herd being affected and six cows being destroyed on the farm, and they were about to calve too, and that was...
Mr Simon Thomas: In addition to the questions that have already been raised, I think it is important to underline that Caldey is a place of pilgrimage and sanctuary, which has been in the Christian tradition for over 1,600 years in Wales and people will continue to go there. And the current monks, although they're not directly involved in this scandal, are the inheritors of the tradition there and are...
Mr Simon Thomas: Would the Member give way?
Mr Simon Thomas: I wonder if the Member would also factor in the fact that whatever the decision of the First Minister to refer himself to an independent adjudicator very late in the day, we have an issue remaining about what the First Minister told this Assembly over several occasions—the inconsistencies between what he told the Assembly on several occasions—and the lack of answers that we've had to...
Mr Simon Thomas: Will the Member give way?
Mr Simon Thomas: I'm very grateful. I am listening with great interest to what he's saying, both in terms of his previous role and his current role. What I'm not clear about at this stage is whether he's saying that the mentioned committee in the motion, which is the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister—it has already been quoted that I've already said it is quite unwieldy for this...
Mr Simon Thomas: I'm grateful to the leader of the opposition for giving way just on this point, because one of the things that I think we've lost focus on in some of this debate is this holding a public parliamentary process by which key questions can be asked. One of the questions I would want to ask, which I will not get to ask now in such a public forum, it looks to me, because we're going to vote a...
Mr Simon Thomas: I also wanted to talk a little bit about the missed opportunity in this budget around energy and industrial strategy. It was quite disconcerting to hear Caroline Jones say some things that I would agree with, but there we are. We've got an agreement on some of these things, and this particularly turns around the missed opportunity, of course, around the tidal lagoon. At the beginning of my...
Mr Simon Thomas: Well, you've put your finger on it. It could mean lots of technologies. It's not yet identified for which technology, but I think it's reasonable for the Government, on behalf of everyone in Wales, to press for that to be accessible for a technology such as the tidal lagoon. We also got today a very interesting—and I fully support it—position paper on onshore wind and solar, which the...
Mr Simon Thomas: What steps can the Welsh Government take to reduce the use of plastic?
Mr Simon Thomas: As we seek the most transparent answer possible on some of the issues that are most important to the Assembly today, I return to the question asked by Andrew R.T. Davies, because, when you responded to Andrew R.T. Davies, you said very clearly that you weren’t dealing with any accusations of bullying, but a far broader question was asked of you. So, may I ask that question again? Did you...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, Presiding Officer. I seek your advice as much as anyone's as to whether Standing Orders can help us actually get the correct answers to questions in this Chamber. You will have heard my question was very specific to the First Minister about whether he'd received any comments about the behaviour of his staff from Leighton Andrews, to which he gave no reply—[Interruption.]
