Mark Reckless: Thank you for that answer. I wonder why that is thought not to be within the scope. One Labour staffer who bravely spoke to BBC Panorama said investigators were undermined, when given cases, by people wanting leniency on anti-Semitism, then taking those cases away. Often, that was people from Jeremy Corbyn's office, but isn't it also what you did, First Minister? I hear the previous First...
Mark Reckless: First Minister, you spoke last week about your desire to commence the first part of the Equality Act 2010 in Wales, so this week I'll ask you about section 20 and Schedule 2 to that Act. They provide for statutory investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission when an organisation is believed to have unlawfully discriminated against people because of their ethnicity and religious...
Mark Reckless: Will the Llywydd give way?
Mark Reckless: I'm very grateful to the Llywydd. She said that Scotland and Northern Ireland were more fortunate than us by having more Members. Will she also recognise that the range given by the report that Professor McAllister chaired, even at the lower end of that—the 80—that would give us more Members per head than we see in Scotland?
Mark Reckless: I absolutely take that correction, thank you very much—fewer councillors. I'm very embarrassed by that. Fewer councillors, 11 fewer MPs, and four fewer MEPs—then perhaps the Member would like to come back with the argument then. But we in our group are not persuaded of the case for increasing the size of the Assembly and do not think other Members will be able to bring the members of the...
Mark Reckless: Diolch, Dirprwy Llywydd. I move the amendment in Caroline's name. I thank the Member for his speech. I thought he spoke in a very, very measured way. Others say that he may be playing politics. I think that phrase is often used either when groups are divided amongst themselves as to their position or when a Member’s own position diverges, perhaps, from those that they represent, and I...
Mark Reckless: We're not in favour of abolishing the Assembly. Now, on this language point, we had a consultation, and the Llywydd's explanatory memorandum tells us that 53 per cent thought that the name 'Senedd' described well what this institution does. The explanatory memorandum does not tell us that the consultation showed—or not that I have read within it, and I have looked reasonably...
Mark Reckless: I agree with the remarks the Member just made as regards being a Welsh Parliament and being Members of a Welsh Parliament. I only regret that he apparently said the opposite in the process that led to the Bill coming to us in the form it does today, because in the Llywydd's explanatory memorandum, it states, in summary: 'The purpose of the Bill is to: rename the Assembly to "Senedd".' It then...
Mark Reckless: Will the Member give way? No-one is suggesting a market—it's just parents having to pay merely being able to compare how well schools are doing, to inform their judgments of (1), where they want their children to go to school, and (2), then how to help those schools get better by holding them to account.
Mark Reckless: So surely, then, what we need is accountability, measurements, targets, ability to compare those, rather than rounded self-evaluation that might otherwise be termed schools marking their own homework?
Mark Reckless: I'd like to congratulate Suzy Davies for bringing this motion to annul today, and also for alerting me to this motion in the Chamber when I raised this, I think two weeks ago, at First Minister's questions, when I did bring it to the Chamber in another context. Generally, I support what Suzy has said about making it easier and more accessible for spokespeople and, indeed, other Assembly...
Mark Reckless: Thank you very much for that sedentary intervention. We often seem to find it easier to fund things from capital budgets transferring to revenue than vice versa. I think we'd invest money well. Of that £85 million, though, only £5 million, when we read down, is actually going to the network operations BEL in respect of trunk road and motorway carriageway. So, as rightly observed, there is...
Mark Reckless: We will also be abstaining on the substance of this motion on the supplementary budget. However, can I compliment the Government on its much improved presentation of the supplementary budget? I recall three years ago, having recently been elected to the Assembly, the first supplementary budget that I encountered. I had hoped that my experience, in terms of looking at UK Government budgets or...
Mark Reckless: Could I thank the First Minister for his statement and also for the advance copy, and also say how refreshing it is to see how many of his ministerial statements he stays for? It's not something I ever recall having seen at Westminster. I've got three areas I wanted to ask him about here. The references—. He started by praising our model of social partnership and made quite a lot of...
Mark Reckless: Perhaps, First Minister, he could run on a manifesto, promising to deliver a relief road for the M4 and then do the opposite, as you are. You strongly oppose any UK Government role, yet you never objected to the EU role in how these amounts were spent. Last week, you told us that unionists were imperilling the union, after the Foreign Office denied you the use of a car in Brussels. Isn't the...
Mark Reckless: The leading contender to be the UK's next Prime Minister said on Saturday that the decision to cancel the M4 relief road needed to be reversed. He also said, as you said earlier, First Minister, that there should be a strong Conservative influence on how the shared prosperity fund is spent. First Minister, you said that lack of money stopped you proceeding with the M4 relief road. Would you...
Mark Reckless: Will the Member give way?
Mark Reckless: Could I just clarify that, when she's making generally negative conclusions around the Welsh bac, is she referring specifically to the skills challenge certificate, or is she referring to the umbrella, because all these other qualifications for the umbrella are being studied anyhow, so in what sense would you want to get rid of them?
Mark Reckless: I was on the committee at the beginning when it was decided to do this report and some of the initial scoping was thought through and picked up on what the Chair described as some of the concerns that motivated the committee to do this, but I haven't had the benefit of sitting through the evidence, which, at least for some members of the committee, seems to have mitigated at least some of the...
Mark Reckless: Will the Member give way?
