Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Presiding Officer; I've had my reincarnation as rural affairs spokesperson. [Laughter.] I'd like to ask you, Cabinet Secretary, in light of the consultation that you launched yesterday—the very important consultation that you launched yesterday—what is your definition of a 'land manager'? One of the five principles that you've underlined is that, under any new schemes that...
Andrew RT Davies: I'm grateful for that interpretation, although, certainly, reading the consultation and reading some press speculation, it did seem as if the definition was slightly wider than that, and the interpretation could be given that large companies, for example, that might have land holdings—Tata Steel for example, or local authorities that might be looking to look after parklands or verges or...
Andrew RT Davies: I'm grateful for that explanation, and maybe I can give a bit of advice back to the Cabinet Secretary: actually, I took it from a one-on-one interview that was in Wales Farmer yesterday, in which you gave a series of answers, so they were your answers that I was deducing my questions from. Clearly, they did leave the door open to interpretation of what a land manager was and actually who...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'd like to draw Members' attention to the sculpture that's on the eastern side of the bay, called 'Pit to Port'. This was a lifelong ambition of Donald Ronald Harris, who was a lifelong resident of south Wales, and was a chartered ship broker and coal exporter. In a career spanning 45 years, he rose to become the south Wales area manager of Powell Duffryn...
Andrew RT Davies: Congestion straddles the whole of South Wales Central. Just a distance from this Chamber, the village of Dinas Powys exists, the largest village in Wales. On the one side you have Barry, the largest town in Wales, and the capital city falls the other side of it. For some 40 years, there's been a campaign to have a bypass built around the village of Dinas Powys, and successive campaigns,...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Cabinet Secretary, yesterday in First Minister's questions, we heard from the First Minister that, actually, the amalgamation of the three organisations that form Natural Resources Wales was a resounding success that the Welsh Government had instigated. You have highlighted a litany of failures on behalf of NRW here today, and we've heard from Members...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin—BAPIO—is a non-political national voluntary organisation. It was established in 1996 by its founder president, Dr Ramesh Mehta OBE, to support doctors arriving from India to work in our NHS. BAPIO Wales is BAPIO’s largest national division and, under the chairmanship of Keshav Singhal...
Andrew RT Davies: 3. Will the Cabinet Secretary outline the advice the Welsh Government currently provides to local authorities in relation to rural school closures? OAQ52595
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for that answer. Just before the summer recess, you issued new guidance in relation to rural schools—something that was welcomed. Obviously, that guidance will come into effect later on in the year. I'd be grateful to understand what weight local authorities should place on that specific guidance that you've put out there, at the moment. As I understand, it...
Andrew RT Davies: 2. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the availability of beds within the Welsh NHS? OAQ52594
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you for your good wishes—I'll take it as a backhanded compliment, Cabinet Secretary. [Laughter.] Cabinet Secretary, we know full well that one of the big issues that arrive in the winter pressure months in particular is access to beds within the Welsh NHS. I'm sure, through the summer recess, you and your officials have been working with health boards the length and breadth of Wales...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Cabinet Secretary, I appreciate the constraints that are placed on you with the impending court case, but if I could maybe put two points to you and seek an answer to both points: one thing that's come up time and time again with constituents is why this particular location was chosen to dump this mud, given that, as I understand it, there were various other...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Presiding Officer. I formally move amendment 1 in the name of Paul Davies in the debate that UKIP have tabled this afternoon in relation to stocking our upland areas and the general agricultural argument about the livestock sector here in Wales. I do regret that we are unable to support the motion because I do think it is a negative process when you are deleting motions in their...
Andrew RT Davies: Will the Minister take an intervention?
Andrew RT Davies: Could I just seek clarification on your GVA figure? Because there's an example the First Minister uses very often about how people work in Cardiff but live in the Valleys and so that's why the GVA looks low in the Valleys. I made the point to you about the processing sector predominantly now being in England for milk, for beef in particular, so surely that indicates that the value that we're...
Andrew RT Davies: First Minister, clearly, the offer isn't strong enough at the moment. When you look at the figures, there's a 7 per cent drop from non-EU countries and a 10 per cent drop from EU countries coming to Welsh universities. Yet, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland all saw increases in the number of students enrolling in their universities. Rather than focusing on the money, which is welcome,...
Andrew RT Davies: Minister, I think it's a deeply regrettable decision that you have taken. In many vulnerable communities, there will be redundancy notices served to many employees who rely on the shooting industry to provide employment where few alternatives are available to them. So, by your actions, you will be helping to serve those redundancy notices, Minister. But I'd like to ask you a simple question,...
Andrew RT Davies: I thank the Chair for his opening remarks on this committee report. Obviously, I'm new to the committee and played no part in formulating the report. I do commend the previous committee members—David Melding to my right and other committee members who have subsequently left the committee—on putting forward such a comprehensive report, and in particular the Chair's opening remarks about...
Andrew RT Davies: One thing that does strike me, and I'm sure other people who read this report, is the length of time that the targets are set over. You're talking 20, 30, 40 years to make those big impact changes that we're talking about here and, actually, keeping a constant monitoring exercise on progress—or not, as the case may be—surely is a critical role of any committee in this Assembly, and I...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Julie, for taking the intervention. I couldn't agree more with you that the planning system should be used to force developers to put more energy efficient mechanisms in place and eco-friendly homes, and in particular in rural areas. Do you not agree with me that maybe the Welsh Government should be far more proactive in giving guidance to planning authorities to allow...
