Mike Hedges: Can I remind Members how overwhelmingly the alternative vote form of proportional representation was rejected in the referendum, and how the single transferable vote is based on 'guess how many seats you can win'? Will the Welsh Government legislate that a supermajority vote by councillors and councils of two thirds will be necessary if councils want to change their voting system?
Mike Hedges: Can I just remind you, and perhaps everybody else, that I did congratulate you when you came to committee? So I will add a further congratulations in here, but it has already been done. What I was going to ask is: what progress has been made towards the target of getting all peatlands in Wales into restoration management by 2020, and do you expect that to be done on a linear basis, or do you...
Mike Hedges: 4. What action is being taken by the Welsh Government to protect peatlands? OAQ51359
Mike Hedges: Do you not accept that the problem could be solved overnight if the Treasury allowed local authorities to borrow against the value of their housing stock in order to build houses, which they did in the 1950s and the 1960s, but the Treasury and the Tories don't let them do now?
Mike Hedges: I intend to examine how two European cities, Aarhus in Denmark and Mannheim in Germany, promote entrepreneurship. People often talk about some of the great cities of the world—and sometimes about Cambridge and sometimes about areas around Harvard—but these are two medium-sized European cities. I'm going to talk about barriers to growth for medium-sized businesses, because Wales is very...
Mike Hedges: Can I ask for two statements? Firstly, a Welsh Government statement providing an update on developments in the Swansea city region, and Welsh Government support for the city region, and further confirmation of what the Cabinet Secretary for Finance said earlier this week: that the money would be made available for the city region within the budget. The second question I would like to ask is...
Mike Hedges: Yes, certainly. I've supported a tax on disposable expanded polystyrene packaging, especially that used for food trays in takeaway restaurants, for a very long time. On the tourist tax, it's common around the rest of the world. I actually paid a tourist tax when I was in Dubrovnik; I just didn't know I was paying it. I only discovered it when I looked at places that had a tourist tax. If...
Mike Hedges: Since being elected in 2011, most of the discussions I’ve heard in the Senedd regarding taxation have been about reducing it—although not quite as extreme as Neil Hamilton this afternoon—rather than the need for taxation to pay for public services. When you look at the cost of private education and private healthcare, it puts into perspective the value for money we all get from our...
Mike Hedges: So, you're saying that the cost of alcohol in this country is higher, due to taxation, than that in Scandinavia.
Mike Hedges: Can I also congratulate the new Counsel General on his appointment? Simon Thomas is again concentrating on the banning of fracking. Simon Thomas and I don't disagree on a lot of things regarding this, but I think it's far more important to have the power to ban test drilling. As you are well aware, in an area near where you used to live and near where I live, there is substantial test...
Mike Hedges: Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on developments taking place on the SA1 site in Swansea?
Mike Hedges: Can I also add my congratulations to Dafydd Elis-Thomas on his appointment as a Minister? I'd also like to thank him for the statement he's made and the clarity of the decision to keep Cadw as part of Government. I am, however, disappointed that the opportunity to examine what it is for and what it has achieved in respect of protecting the historic built environment was not taken. There are...
Mike Hedges: Will you take an intervention?
Mike Hedges: Would you not accept that the commission of this Assembly cannot be immune from the austerity that the rest of the public sector in Wales is facing?
Mike Hedges: Can I nominate Mick Antoniw?
Mike Hedges: It doesn’t matter on this vote, but mine isn’t showing on the screen. Whether it’s showing with you or not, I don’t know. It’s not going to matter on this vote, but I think it may matter on others.
Mike Hedges: Just to ask you: who was in Government in 1986?
Mike Hedges: Can I say, firstly, that anyone who thought a £30 million-a-year programme would eradicate poverty was somewhat hyper-optimistic and delusional? This is echoed by the evidence of Caerphilly council. Can I just say that to expect a single programme to singlehandedly reduce poverty is naïve and unrealistic? You will never eradicate generational poverty by a single anti-poverty programme. It...
Mike Hedges: Isn’t it more important, to start with, to ban the test drilling? Because people aren’t test drilling because they’re bored or looking for something to do; they’re test drilling because at some stage in the future, they think they’re going to be able to frack.
Mike Hedges: Public sector workers in Wales deserve a pay rise. Public sector workers in Wales need a pay rise. They’re still paying the price for the casino capitalist bankers who took us into an economic crisis. Does the Cabinet Secretary agree that Westminster needs to end austerity and increase the budget allocation to Wales so that we will be able to give workers in Wales the well-deserved pay rise...
