Mr Simon Thomas: Just on that point, could you therefore confirm that all your Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers have signed the ministerial code? Did the Cabinet Secretary for Education give her views to you on the ministerial code?
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m pleased we had this debate. It was short, but sweet, and I think Sian Gwenllian set out extremely well in a very concise but well-targeted and focused opening speech the reason why we brought forward this debate. Of course, when we did table this debate, we didn’t know that the Assembly itself would be voting today using a kind of proportional...
Mr Simon Thomas: Will the Member give way?
Mr Simon Thomas: I just want to elicit a little bit of information at the start. You said you don’t have a line. Do you nevertheless accept the recommendation of the Richard commission that STV should be used for local government in Wales, even if you haven’t made a decision around the Assembly itself?
Mr Simon Thomas: The likelihood, under the proposed timetable for Brexit, is that institutions in Wales—the Swansea campus being one of them—will still have loans from the European Investment Bank as we withdraw from Europe. Have you had discussions, therefore, with the Treasury and the EIB as to how the current loans are going to be managed? Will those loans have to be shifted to another bank, perhaps on...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, Llywydd. I will move it formally, but just to add to it and draw the attention of the Assembly to the fact that we passed earlier Standing Orders that allow this to go ahead. In those Standing Orders, we didn’t make it clear—and it isn’t in the Standing Orders—that a Member has to be present here in order to be nominated. Therefore, it is conceivable that somebody gets...
Mr Simon Thomas: I thank the First Minister for his statement. I personally welcome the fact that we have an annual statement; I don’t know if this is an admission that the previous Government had legislated too much and had governed too little, and, if we do see more governance and less legislation, that may be no bad thing. In light of last week’s decision also, it is true to say that the Government...
Mr Simon Thomas: There is no mention in the statement of any legislation that may be required as a result of the Diamond report. Is that because the First Minister believes that anything that emerges from Diamond is likely to happen in the second legislative year, as it were, or does he have some other means of dealing with Diamond? In light of the fact that a decision to exit the European Union has been...
Mr Simon Thomas: Move formally.
Mr Simon Thomas: Formally move.
Mr Simon Thomas: Formally move.
Mr Simon Thomas: May I thank the business manager for her statement and thank you for changing Government business to allow us to discuss the referendum results of last week? I’m sure that all Members will respect that and be grateful for it. As a result of that, you have deferred the debate on the renaming of this Siambr—not the Siambr, but the renaming of the institution the ‘Welsh Parliament’. Can...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you, First Minister. Would you agree with me that the only way forward that would respect the decision made by the people of Wales in last week’s referendum, and also gives the Welsh economy and Welsh businesses and communities a decent chance, is that we remain members of the single market, that we remain members of the European economic area, and that we then proceed along those...
Mr Simon Thomas: I’m sure, First Minister, that you, like me, regret the fact that so many farmers voted to leave the European Union and that there’s no doubt that that did happen. One of the reasons that they gave me for considering that, when I discussed the issue with them, was not that the payments were late but that penalties and fines would follow minor disagreements or minor errors, as were...
Mr Simon Thomas: 6. What assessment has the First Minister made of the European Union referendum result? OAQ(5)0081(FM)[W]
Mr Simon Thomas: What do the experts know?
Mr Simon Thomas: I am pleased to return to what I hope will be a positive debate on the health service. Over the past weeks, I, like many other people, have been dealing with constituents who are greatly concerned about the fact that there is increasing pressure on the local surgeries, that they have to wait for 10 days or a fortnight for an appointment with a GP, and that the services in the local hospital...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you for that response, Secretary. You will know, from the experience that we had in the last Assembly, when I believe the majority, across parties, wanted to remove this defence, that that wasn’t achievable in the way the Government went about it and the way in which legislation works here. Whilst I accept entirely that the Government has to—well, not has to, but that, in this...
Mr Simon Thomas: Can I introduce you to some facts, Minister? Can I refer you to an article in the ‘Agricultural History Review’, entitled ‘Measuring Regional Variation in Farm Support: Wales and the UK, 1947-72’? The conclusion of this article was this: previous pre-EU farm subsidies penalised Wales when farm size was smaller on average than in the UK as a whole. The fact is that the Welsh farmer has...
Mr Simon Thomas: Thank you for that confirmation, but I do think that we need to keep these targets under review, because an 80 per cent reduction target may not be enough in fact to contribute to that overall Paris ambition. But one of the key ways in which we in Wales could contribute to our own targets and world targets is through better developed renewable energy. We’ve already heard a little about that...
