Mr Neil Hamilton: I regret also that my friend, Lee Waters, spoiled what was otherwise a very good speech, with which I largely agreed, by making some caricature points about UKIP wanting to go back to the 1950s. It’s not even worth responding to that. I just wish that Members in this place would live up to the qualities of respect that they keep urging upon us but, so often, they don’t live up to...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch, Lywydd. I’m pleased to respond to this debate and I welcome the contributions made by Angela Burns and Janet Finch-Saunders in particular, which added to the points that Caroline Jones made in her opening statement. I do deprecate the manner in which the Plaid Cymru spokesman began his speech today, which certainly subtracted from the sum total of human knowledge by misrepresenting...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Not yet, but I will give way later. Because UKIP in its manifesto in May in Wales, and in the general election in England last time, stood firmly on the principle of a national health service funded from taxation and free to the user at the point of delivery. It was a calumny and I’m afraid he demeaned the quality of debate and demeaned himself by the way in which he opened his speech....
Mr Neil Hamilton: Can I welcome the statement and, in particular, thank the First Minister for the amused courtesy with which he greeted my presence at his press conference yesterday? From the thunderous look on the face of the leader of Plaid Cymru, I don’t think she was quite so pleased to see me. It was important, I think, that I should be there, because it was an opportunity in addition to today to probe...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I welcome the Counsel General’s statement, in particular the paragraph where he talks about respecting the people in this context and a ‘full and frank debate’ taking place in Parliament on the issues, as if we haven’t already debated all of these issues to death. Nevertheless, will he confirm, therefore, that respect for the people in this context means that we should respect the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: The First Minister will also know that, in some areas of Wales, patient pressure, in terms of numbers, on doctors’ surgery sessions is now excessive. Can he give us any idea what he thinks is the maximum number of patients that a GP can reasonably deal with in a working day? Particularly in relation to home visits for patients who are housebound, the Royal College of General Practitioners...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing, but, in the case of the First Minister, I’m happy to say that isn’t so. [Laughter.] But it’s no answer to the question I posed a moment ago that things are worse in England than they are in Wales. It is true that there is a pincer movement here of increasing demand on GPs, and with GP numbers not keeping pace with those rising demands....
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. First Minister, you’ll be relieved to know I’m not going to ask you about the European Union today, as I don’t wish to appear typecast. And, anyway, I had the opportunity to do so yesterday, and will do later on today. I’d like to ask about the health service, in particular in relation to GPs. He will know that GP numbers are broadly static, yet there’s a...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Denmark is, of course, a much smaller country than the United Kingdom—
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, not smaller than Wales, but the landscape is very different in Denmark from what it is in Wales and they’re surrounded by a good deal more water, proportionately, than we are in Wales. Denmark has enormous agglomerations of windmills in the sea, whereas we have, relatively speaking, fewer. There are 88,000 pylons throughout the United Kingdom. I don’t know what the figure is for...
Mr Neil Hamilton: This has been a very interesting debate, and I was particularly interested in what Llyr Gruffydd has just said about a hub-and-spoke method of electricity distribution. I’ve got a great deal of sympathy with the Plaid Cymru motion, although I think my friend Michelle Brown also had some important things to say in her contribution to the debate—points that are often, perhaps, ignored. I do...
Mr Neil Hamilton: UKIP applauds the social partnership approach of the Welsh Government, because no sensible person wants to see confrontation in industrial relations. The Cabinet Secretary and I are old enough to remember a time when there really was confrontation in industry and in public services in this country. That’s why the trade union reforms of the 1980s were brought in. In the 1970s, there was an...
Mr Neil Hamilton: The Counsel General, and, indeed, the Welsh Government in general, consistently say that they respect the judgment of the Welsh people in voting to leave the European Union on 23 June last year in the referendum. Will he accept that the purported use of the royal prerogative to trigger article 50 in this case is qualitatively different from all previous exercises of the royal prerogative...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Exactly. Mark Reckless, I think, is absolutely right. All lawyers are told never to ask a question unless you know the answer, in cross examination, and I’m sure that that is so in this case. So, just to conclude my remarks today, we broadly welcome the provisions that are in the Bill, with the exception of that one, and it’s with a really heavy heart that we shall be voting against it...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Yes, of course.
Mr Neil Hamilton: I think it’s a different question altogether. The point at issue in relation to the autism Bill was, and the points that’ve been raised today by Andrew R.T. Davies, for example, were just about why have a trade union Bill rather than an autism Bill. That is a choice that has been made. In relation to what Lee Waters said—[Interruption.] I’m not going into the merits of that decision,...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I’m delighted to follow old uncle David, because he was quite right in saying that my party has made a journey, and probably is still in the process of making that journey. I was, like him, originally opposed to the devolution settlement, but I’ve grown over the years to appreciate its wisdom. Not everybody in my party takes the same view as I do, and I hope I’m helping to nudge it in...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, the First Minister is talking about all sorts of transitional points, which, inevitably, have to be considered. We had similar difficulties when we entered the EU 40-odd years ago. There were problems with the transition; these can be dealt with. But, what I'm concerned with is that the First Minister is always looking on the black side of things and imagining the worst. He did this in...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Thank you for your protection, Llywydd. As a result of Theresa May's speech at lunchtime today, she has clarified a number of issues—not all, I accept, and what the First Minister said about the customs union certainly needs further clarification—but she has clarified the Government's position. Can the First Minister now clarify: what exactly is the Labour Party's policy on managed...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Sorry, I missed that.
