Andrew RT Davies: It could be something to do with that, I think, Mike. First Minister, today, the chair of the British Medical Association has come out and said that, as a profession, they could very often be criticised for maybe calling wolf on staffing numbers within the health service in Wales, but, actually, on reflection, and the current situation that they find themselves in, the wolf is definitely in...
Andrew RT Davies: Will you take an intervention, Minister?
Andrew RT Davies: I'm grateful to you for taking the intervention. It's accepted from across the Chamber that we all celebrate small business this Saturday, but sadly, today in the news—just reading it now—HSBC have confirmed 114 bank closures. If I think of my own local town of Cowbridge, one of the branches is there. There will not be a single high-street branch on the high street now, there won't be....
Andrew RT Davies: I'll take the intervention.
Andrew RT Davies: I will happily work with the Government to facilitate this. My issue with the offer that the First Minister made was that he doesn't want to see that committee start its work until the UK inquiry has completed all its streams of work. That is some considerable time in the future, and I believe that this Parliament that sits here today—which has memory, corporate memory, of those decisions...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'd like to thank everyone who's contributed to the debate this afternoon. A debate was tabled not because we lack faith in the UK inquiry—we do not—and that has been echoed by many speakers today, that the UK inquiry is an important vehicle for us to understand how decisions were taken, to test those decisions and to come to a conclusion on the outcomes...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Minister. One thing that has always perplexed me is driving along the M4 and seeing tanker after tanker exporting milk out of the west Wales milk field. I appreciate it's not the Government's decision that that happens—it has been a commercial decision that dairies over many decades have taken—but, surely, through any processing capacity that the Welsh Government is looking at,...
Andrew RT Davies: One of the legacies we know about COVID is that, obviously, a lot of people during the COVID pandemic took on a pet, and the responsibility of a pet. The welfare implications, as we've come out of COVID, have indicated that many pets have been left abandoned, and the charitable sector that tends to pick them up and look after them and try and rehome them has come under huge amounts of...
Andrew RT Davies: This one has been around the Chamber already several times this afternoon, Minister. We've even had Leighton Andrews's name used this afternoon as well—the ghost of Christmas past. But, if we could try and think of the use of these reserves, because, as I understand it and as previous questions have highlighted, there's been a 35 per cent increase in these reserves, and local taxpayers will...
Andrew RT Davies: 6. What discussions is the Minister having with local authorities about the use of local government reserves? OQ58793
Andrew RT Davies: 8. Minister, could you give us an update on the ability to increase processing capacity here in Wales? OQ58792
Andrew RT Davies: I accept that it's a joint responsibility, but when people are waiting 12, 17 or, indeed, as my colleague next to me Darren Millar from Clwyd West said, he met someone who'd waited 40 hours in an A&E department at Glan Clwyd hospital, it is a fact that the condition they might have turned up in has greatly deteriorated over the time they've had to wait in that waiting room, or in that...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you for that answer, First Minister. In one breath, it's pleasing to hear that the lists are in—I think that was your terminology—but, regrettably, anyone who looked at Twitter over the weekend would have seen the trail of experience that people were having at the Heath hospital's A&E waiting time room. On your way in, you were greeted by a pile of vomit on the floor, a mountain of...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Presiding Officer. First of all, First Minister, I'm sure that you would like to join with me in wishing good luck to the Welsh team this evening, taking the Welsh flag onto the football field and hopefully, putting the ball in the back of the net several times against the old foe [Laughter.] Because, ultimately, we want our fans and, importantly, our team to stay out in Qatar...
Andrew RT Davies: Counsel General, I hear what you say about your considered view. You will, obviously, sensibly read the judgment in its entirety. But, from your initial consideration of the judgment, are you able to confirm that the democratic will of Wales is not affected, and that no elections will be terminated by this decision in the Supreme Court, and that every time the independence question has been...
Andrew RT Davies: Has the Government formed a view on such an inquiry here in Wales? I know the economy Minister last week said that the Government was in the process of forming a view at his press conference. But, if you today, for example, live in the Gwent area and you go to the political control's website—i.e. the police and crime commissioner's website—there is no mention at all of what action is...
Andrew RT Davies: I can say it, leader of the house: I have no confidence in the senior leadership of the Gwent force, whether that be at officer level or whether that be at the police and crime commissioner level. These revelations are horrendous, to say the least. I commend the activities of the police force in alerting people in the area that 33 women a week face domestic violence for fear of their life or...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Leader of the house, one can't not be really upset by reading the reports in The Sunday Times about the activities of police officers in the Gwent force, and in particular in a week when we're highlighting domestic violence and in particular violence against women. It is traumatic, to say the least, that the accusations, shall we say, and the...
Andrew RT Davies: That is to be welcomed, but if you talk to the residents just up the road from here, there are wider implications around the orphan buildings that the Minister talks of that the residents themselves, through the Cladiators group and other pressure groups that have emanated out of this campaign, want to see enshrined in Welsh law. I accept the point that Mabon makes that we need Welsh law; we...
Andrew RT Davies: I'll gladly do that.
