Alun Davies: Yes.
Alun Davies: I don't think we do have—that's precisely my point. I believe that we do need to ensure that we have greater participation from all sides of the Chamber in these matters, and I believe that we need to ensure that we're able to scrutinise the Government in a more profound way, not simply a line-by-line analysis of the budget, but overall priorities.
Alun Davies: I smiled listening to Mike Hedges's contribution earlier in this debate, saying how he'd participated in debates where very few Members had been present and very few Members had actually contributed. My notes here say 'thinly attended'. I think we need to think hard about how we manage our budget process in this place. The Finance Committee, I think, has produced some very good work on how we...
Alun Davies: The issue is, Minister, that you certainly won't be accused of rushing to legislation in this matter. Giving a cast-iron guarantee that you're going to read a report doesn't fill Members here with a great deal of confidence. We've heard these assurances before, and we've been disappointed. I think we've come to a point now, with something over a year left in this Senedd, where we want to see...
Alun Davies: 5. Will the Minister provide an update on progress towards the implementation of Lucy’s Law to regulate puppy farming in Wales? OAQ54979
Alun Davies: Like others this afternoon, Deputy Minister, I would also like to welcome the statement that you've made. I think, across the Chamber, despite many differences, we would all welcome the structured thinking that is now taking place within the Welsh Government about the future of our town centres. This is something that affects not only the economy of individual places, but it also deeply...
Alun Davies: I'm grateful to you, Minister. I will come in to support the comments made by my good friend from Caerphilly, because it does create a very much us-and-them environment between the hinterland and the city of Cardiff, and the one thing history has taught us is that if Cardiff succeeds, the Valleys succeed, and if the Valleys succeeds, Cardiff succeeds. Separation and division will not enable...
Alun Davies: Will you take an intervention?
Alun Davies: Yes, there was.
Alun Davies: I would say the first iteration didn't include any strategic hubs in the Valleys either, so it was a longer process than perhaps people think.
Alun Davies: Will the Minister take an intervention?
Alun Davies: Since I was the Minister who invented these things and they've been debated a number of times, it might be useful for me to actually say what lay behind it at the time. The strategic hubs were never a way of doing anything except focusing investment in particular places, because the criticism that we'd heard and the criticism that's been made—fairly, I think, in the past—has been that the...
Alun Davies: Well, that depends on whether you make it interesting. [Laughter.]
Alun Davies: You're a racist.
Alun Davies: Our common European home, so often the place where we fought our civil wars, became a place where we could reach out and not build further walls. It's no coincidence that those border posts also were marked by the images of warfare. Moving beyond those borders and looking at a world through the spectacles of, 'Are you indigenous? Am I indigenous? Is somebody else indigenous?', has led to one...
Alun Davies: I have been a strong supporter of freedom of movement for the whole of my adult life. I remember as a teenager being at the border posts that used to exist in our common European home. I have a stamp on a passport from France. I remember having to show my passport to cross the rivers and roads of our continent. One of the greatest gifts that the European Union gave us was to remove those...
Alun Davies: It's a crashing irony, Presiding Officer, to be lectured on democracy by Mark Reckless, but let me say this: the Conservative argument that has been given to them by their bosses in London is that we have no right to oppose this Bill, that we have to accept whatever Bill is written in Downing Street and driven through the House of Commons, that this Parliament has no right to a view, that...
Alun Davies: I would, business manager, like to ask for two statements, if possible, from the Government. The first relates to a matter that was raised during First Minister's questions, and that is the congestion charge that Cardiff county council has proposed as part of their work to improve transport within the city. Many of us will welcome the vision that Cardiff local authorities demonstrated in...
Alun Davies: I think it's right and proper that the use of borrowing powers that were conferred on the Welsh Government by the 2014 and the 2017 Acts is subject to some scrutiny. The investigation I believe has demonstrated that whilst the overall strategic approach that is being taken by the Welsh Government is a good and effective approach to maximising the public value of capital funding sources...
Alun Davies: Like others, I'd like to thank the committee secretariat and the committee Chair for the work that they did in supporting the committee in this investigation. I'd also like to thank the Minister for accepting all of the committee's recommendations. I think it's a very welcome thing to see Government accepting recommendations like this.
