Mr Neil Hamilton: I didn’t realise that the First Minister was an extremist. [Assembly Members: ‘Oh’.] There is no possibility of anybody being deported from Wales or the United Kingdom as a result of Brexit, because, as the First Minister well knows, the rights of those who are already here are protected under Britain’s existing treaty obligations that are not relevant to the EU. What matters is that...
Mr Neil Hamilton: No doctor is going to be deported. That’s an absurd thing to say. But they certainly wouldn’t be—[Interruption.] They certainly wouldn’t be—[Interruption.] They certainly wouldn’t be—[Interruption.] They certainly wouldn’t be deported under a Labour Government because it’s clear from the Labour Party conference that the Labour Party doesn’t believe in any serious...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. First Minister, last week at the Labour Party conference, Diane Abbott, the shadow health Secretary at Westminster, said that the people who voted for Brexit did so because largely they want to see less foreign people on the streets. Does he not think that this is a slander on the 62 per cent of people in Blaenau Gwent who voted for Brexit, the 60 per cent in Torfaen,...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I am coming to a conclusion. There are things in this document one can welcome. One million Welsh speakers by 2050—I hope I’m still here to see whether the Government is able to deliver on that deal, and I strongly support Alun Davies, one of my favourite Ministers, in this respect, and many other things as well. [Interruption.] But I’m going to bring my remarks to a close. The...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, it’s a typical contribution from ‘Joy-less’ Watson, but—
Mr Neil Hamilton: I respond—
Mr Neil Hamilton: I regret I gave way to Joyce Watson.
Mr Neil Hamilton: But I shall know better next time. The document says nothing about the solution to the TB problems, says nothing about the collapse of farm income, and says nothing about the overburdening of famers with regulation. On the health service, again, they ‘remain committed to the founding principles of the NHS, healthcare free and accessible to all at the point of need.’ But that comes as a...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, we’ve had a spirited debate this afternoon. I appreciate the way in which it was opened by Andrew Davies, and, although we’re in different parties, I think we have a lot in common. We’ve got one thing in common—we’re both against this useless administration that has dominated Wales for so long. When the First Minister gave his statement on this last week I dismissed this...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I commend Simon Thomas for bringing this debate forward and for the sober way in which he argued his case, in particular his conclusion, because that’s how I was intending to begin my speech, in any event, to point to the enormous cull of cattle that has taken place—with no conferring. Since 1996, nearly 120,000 cattle have been slaughtered as part of the control of tuberculosis in...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I’d like to welcome the Counsel General to his post as I’ve not had the opportunity to do that previously. I wasn’t able to follow his answer in its entirety, unfortunately, and I’ll look forward to reading it subsequently. Will he agree with me that the principle of Parkinson’s law obtains, which is that work expands to fill the time available, and therefore it would be better to...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I agree with almost everything that’s been said in this debate so far and I applaud the mellow and statesman-like preamble of the Minister in relation to the role of the BBC in the national life of our country. There is far too much focus, as everybody agrees, in the BBC on London, even though they have made some moves out in recent years. The success of moving the news department up...
Mr Neil Hamilton: The litany of closures that I’ve just read out shows that that’s merely an aspiration—what the First Minister has just said. People in Blaenau feel that they’re actually being discriminated against amongst all the well-being areas that are identified by Gwynedd county council. What is it that Tywyn has got, for example, that Blaenau Ffestiniog lacks in terms of the health needs of the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, each of the other six well-being areas has got a hospital that is open for 24 hours a day. The health centre in Blaenau will be open for only 10 hours a day. That is unacceptable. The aspiration is to meet the needs of the local population and ensure that services are provided as close to patients’ homes as possible. To get to Ysbyty Gwynedd from Blaenau Ffestiniog is an 80-mile round...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. In the Government’s document, ‘Taking Wales Forward’, the section on health says, ‘We are committed to helping improve health and well-being for all.’ But, as the First Minister will know, there are lots of parts of Wales where that remains just an aspiration. And, in Gwynedd in particular, in the area around Blaenau Ffestiniog, the record is exactly the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Kirsty Williams miss-takes the purport of my comment. I was in no way attacking her parents—I applaud them, actually, for the choices that they made. It obviously worked. But what I want to say is that all parents ought to have that kind of choice. They are the ones who should decide for themselves, as she does for her children, the kind of education that she wants for them. That’s what...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, there is a problem, obviously, with Welsh-medium schools—[Interruption.] Of course there is, simply because, at the moment, and this goes back to the earlier debate that we had on the Welsh language—maybe, in certain parts of Wales, it wouldn’t be such a problem, but, in other parts of Wales it certainly would, being able to provide this provision. So, ultimately, it can’t be...
Mr Neil Hamilton: We’ve had, I think we can all agree, a spirited and entertaining debate. I’m disappointed that Rhianon Passmore doesn’t see me as a Byronic hero, but that of course is only today. If she’d known me 40 years ago, she might have come to a different conclusion. But, I’m very happy to swap nineteenth-century literary allusions with her: she has reminded me, from the passion with which...
Mr Neil Hamilton: A very commendable brevity on the part of my honourable friend. [Laughter.] I’m not sure I shall be able to replicate it, but what one must do, I think, in all these debates on the single market is to keep matters in perspective. Exports to the EU amount to about—talking about the UK now—5 per cent of GDP and, of that 5 per cent, 65 per cent of the trade would be subject to a tariff...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I applaud the sentiments that Hefin David brought in his speech, and I feel very similar to him, because I had the misfortune, when I was in school, back in the 1960s, to be faced with an unpalatable choice at the age of 14: to carry on studying Welsh or to switch to German. I took the decision then to switch to German. The result is that I could make a very passable speech here in German,...
