Mr Neil Hamilton: The Welsh Government may be leading, but nobody's following. That's the problem—that's what I'm arguing here. If this was going to make any difference at all and if people were actually going to be impressed by what's happening in Wales in parts of the world where it matters, if you were going to sort out the problems of global warming on the basis of the theories that you espouse, I...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch, Llywydd. Hendy windfarm is being built in an area of outstanding natural beauty. It's perfectly clear from the answer that you've just given, Cabinet Secretary, to Andrew R.T, Davies, that your mind was made up on this even before the planning inspector was appointed, because you've said, in effect, that the Government's policy on renewable energy outweighs any planning...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I think others will judge your actions rather than your words. But let's look at the decision that you've made and the reason that you've given for it. Yes, I understand that the Government has a commitment to renewable energy, but even if one accepts the Government's view of global warming and its causes, I cannot understand how the desecration of an important beauty spot in mid Wales can...
Mr Neil Hamilton: 6. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on strengthening local democracy in Mid and West Wales? OAQ52868
Mr Neil Hamilton: I, too, welcome the statement and, indeed, the report, which is a mine of information, which I’m sure we will, after full consideration, find is useful in many respects. I fully accept what the health Secretary says about targets, but I think we ought to acknowledge that, without the Government’s failure so spectacularly to meet the targets that it set itself, we’re unlikely to have had...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Will you please shut up and listen? [Interruption.] I'm trying to make a serious point here, which is—[Interruption.] I'm trying to make a serious point—
Mr Neil Hamilton: —of a non-partisan nature. It may be Gareth Bennett today, it may be anybody else tomorrow. Therefore, the procedure that we set up has to be fair and reliable and to be applied equally. Yes, by all means let us set up a process of appeals from a decision of the commissioner, but let us not do it in an individual case, where it might easily be said that this is a case of victimisation,...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I wholly agree with everything that Mark Reckless has said. I believe that this motion raises fundamental questions of due process in the context of our standards committee and the way it works. This is a quasi-judicial body and it does have the power to impose sanctions that are both financial and of other kinds. It has the power to exclude from this Assembly to which we've all been elected...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Will the First Minister make a statement on Welsh Government policy on field sports?
Mr Neil Hamilton: The key point here is that man-made carbon dioxide is actually only 3 per cent of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So, we're talking about infinitesimally small numbers here. The UK contributes 2 per cent of man-made carbon dioxide worldwide. That carbon dioxide itself contributes only 3 per cent of global carbon dioxide, which itself contributes only 5 per cent of the greenhouse gas...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well—yes, all right.
Mr Neil Hamilton: No, I fundamentally disagree with that. I'm just actually reading you figures from the climatic research institute, which is not a collection of global warming sceptics; in fact, they're quite the opposite. So, the data that I'm quoting at you is from those who support your viewpoint, but there is no obvious correlation in the figures between what's happening in the atmosphere on carbon...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Nobody has spoken today about the costs implied for ordinary people of the measures that will be necessary to attempt to reach the targets that are implied in the IPCC report. We know that, in 2015-16, environmental levies, as part of the Government's anti-climate change policies, amounted to nearly £5 billion, and, for 2017-18, that rose as high as £11 billion, and this is forecast to...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Formally.
Mr Neil Hamilton: I think it's quite right that the Cabinet Secretary should have an open mind about the future of agricultural policy and the opportunity that Brexit provides, but I think she has to recognise that farmers in Wales are far more reliant upon the common agricultural policy than farmers in England; it can make up to 80 per cent of farm incomes in Wales, whereas the average in England is only 55...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Stick to the question.
Mr Neil Hamilton: I thank the Counsel General for his very comprehensive response to Helen Mary Jones and I agreed with every word of it. It's lamentable that the United Kingdom Government has not taken the moral high ground in this respect. It would have been quite easy for the UK Government, unilaterally, to guarantee the rights of EU citizens lawfully living and working in the United Kingdom, regardless...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I want to start by being perhaps uncharacteristically generous towards the Cabinet Secretary for health, because I recognise, having been in politics a very long time, that the health service is not always benefited by the party political dogfight, and the constant change and reversal of change that I've witnessed in the course of the last 30 or 40 years has often been an impediment to...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Certainly, as far as north-west Wales is concerned, part of my region, Blaenau Ffestiniog and now in Porthmadog as well, we have a situation where things are actually getting worse, because patients do not feel that they have a personal relationship with an individual doctor, because they can't develop that sufficiently with a locum by definition, because they're not necessarily going to be...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Of course, there are improvements in some parts of the health service in Wales, but in other respects we seem to be going backwards. So, in spite of all the money that is spent and the fact that half the health boards are either in special measures or in targeted intervention—in some cases, like Betsi Cadwaladr have been, for many years—progress is, at best, painfully slow. So, this,...
