Nick Ramsay: That's a very mischievous comment. I think you're misunderstanding what we meant by 'comprehensive'. We didn't mean a higher tax base, we meant a comprehensive tax base that takes into account all factors and provides a competitive environment for the economy. That's what we meant.
Nick Ramsay: Thanks for giving way. I've been privy to your tour around Wales—you've visited an area in my constituency and I know you've been very helpful with constituents of Trelleck Grange. Would you accept that part of their frustration was that the neighbouring village of Tintern was totally well connected, so even though they were in a rural area, actually, they were neighbouring an area that was...
Nick Ramsay: If I can just pick up on the last aspect of your answer there, Cabinet Secretary, on value, Adam Price focused very much on the overall cost of the scheme. I've had some experience recently within my constituency of the cost of the Clydach gorge part of the scheme, from Gilwern up to Brynmawr, and I attended a meeting of local residents and councillors who, though very supportive of the...
Nick Ramsay: I must also welcome the new Minister to his new role. I was going to refer to you as the Minister for fun, but perhaps Minister for joy, as Hefin David has described you, is more appropriate. I look forward to working with you in the future, Minister. As you may or may not know, my home village of Raglan in Monmouthshire is of course best known for its stunning castle, maintained by Cadw. And...
Nick Ramsay: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I also congratulate you, leader of the house, on your appointment—well deserved—and also congratulate Jane Hutt on her maiden speech in this Chamber as a backbench AM? I’m sure that you’ll have many more, and a long career as a backbencher. I’d like to support Mohammad Asghar in his comments earlier about the A465, specifically between...
Nick Ramsay: First Minister, you're quite right to say that the decision of Arriva to drop out of the bidding process and the franchise process does happen. We shouldn't get too worked up about a bidder deciding that it's not for them. At what point, however, did you know that they were dropping out? Was it sudden? Did they give advance warning? I'm wondering: did the Welsh Government receive any feedback...
Nick Ramsay: I remember the first time I met Carl: back in 2003 in a lift. He was newly elected, in a lift in Tŷ Hywel, and he greeted me with, 'Hi, comrade'. Following that, we became good friends. He never ceased to call me 'comrade' or 'mate', as was his way. We know that politics can be a cold business, but, in contrast, friendships go to the heart of what it is to be human, and Carl was one of the...
Nick Ramsay: We’ve had value added tax, we’ve had plastics tax—once again, the party opposite wants to talk about any tax but will not talk about the tourism tax. I haven’t even heard it mentioned yet. But, as I say, I look forward to your contribution later. So much for a welcome in the hillside. Will the introduction of a tourism tax send the right message of welcome to visitors? We don’t feel...
Nick Ramsay: And there we have it. Plaid Cymru Members will do anything to distract from talking about a tourism tax. Fiscal vision for Wales, landfill tax—you’ll talk about anything, but you don’t want to talk about this. Now, to be fair to the Member—not the Member who intervened, but Adam Price—he was more than happy to talk about and endorse a tourism tax in the draft budget statement only a...
Nick Ramsay: So, back to the tourism tax. Scepticism is not limited to Assembly Members. Even the Bevan Foundation, who have publicly supported, to be fair to them, the tax, at least in its embryonic form, have conceded that they simply don’t know what the impact of a tourism tax in Wales would be. I’m sure that even the Cabinet Secretary would say at this point we do not have an assessment of what...
Nick Ramsay: Diolch, Llywydd. Today’s motion is very clear: we simply do not want to see a tourism tax implemented in Wales. I imagine most of you will have worked that out by now. [Laughter.] Members are aware that Wales now has significant tax-raising powers under the Wales Acts of 2014 and 2017 and that, earlier this year, the Welsh Government consulted on proposed new taxation methods. That...
Nick Ramsay: Will the Cabinet Secretary outline how spending allocations are prioritised in the draft budget?
Nick Ramsay: That was a question. [Laughter.]
Nick Ramsay: Can I concur with the earlier comments of Janet Finch-Saunders in referring to the Auditor General for Wales’s report on procurement? I look forward, with the rest of the members of the Public Accounts Committee, to looking further into that. It’s clearly a very important issue for the Assembly to look at. Secondly, within the last couple of weeks, an application for a new hotel and spa...
Nick Ramsay: Will you give way?
Nick Ramsay: Thanks for giving way, Julie. You’ve been extremely good and diligent at visiting broadband notspots across my constituency and across deepest, darkest Wales over the last few months. Are you really willing to take this on? You might get invited to all sorts of parts of Wales to check electric charging point notspots as well. [Laughter.]
Nick Ramsay: Will you give way?
Nick Ramsay: Thanks for giving way, Gareth. You made some interesting points there. There is, of course, a flip side to that: that if you have driverless cars that are communicating with each other via computer, Wi-Fi or whatever it is, you can actually have shorter stopping distances, because you’re not relying on human reaction, so you can get far more capacity out of the existing road network.
Nick Ramsay: First Minister, I was delighted to take part in the first Pride march in Cardiff a couple of years ago. I wasn’t coming out, by the way; I was representing my party. It was a great event, as is the Pride movement itself. Following on from what Hannah Blythyn said, these events—and I welcome Flintshire Pride—do tend to be associated, or have been in the past, with cities and urban areas,...
Nick Ramsay: First Minister, the twenty-first century schools programme has probably been one of the most popular Welsh Government policies over recent years, due in no small part to the role played by progressive, forward-looking local authorities like Conservative-led Monmouthshire. Monmouth Comprehensive School is currently being rebuilt and, when complete, will have state-of-the-art facilities,...
