Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:43 pm on 19 October 2016.
Thanks, Lee. Thanks for that. But, if you add up the total that I am earning at the present time, it’s way under the £100,000 that we’re talking about. And what I’m actually addressing here, and have addressed for the last five years, six years, are salaries in excess of £100,000 a year. Now, the First Minister earns £140,000 a year. Should anybody really earn over that? I don’t think they should. In terms of further figures, let’s just go back to the Wales & West housing association: one person earning £133,000 a year, and in virtually every single housing association in this city and region the chief exec will earn in excess of £100,000. RCT Homes—I think it’s around £160,000 a year; I may be wrong, it’s possibly £170,000, which makes maybe the £12,000 there pale into almost insignificance really.
In terms of what we need to do, we need to legislate and, in terms of track record, what we did as a council when we ran Cardiff was phase out salaries of over £100,000 a year, because we didn’t feel that we needed to pay that kind of money. The irony is that, when Labour took control again and brought in huge salaries again—huge salaries of well over £100,000 a year—services got worse because of cuts at the front line. I pay one slight tribute to the council across the way, because they did introduce a living wage. But a little-known fact outside of the council is that, when they introduced the living wage, they then cut the hours worked by the lowest-paid on that council. So, what it really was was quite a cheap PR gimmick.
If we look at the wider picture in terms of the Welsh taxpayer, what we need to do is stop the gravy train of people earning, in my opinion, far too much: in excess of £100,000 a year. [Interruption.] I’ll take the points that I’m being heckled about in terms of my personal position. I do sit on Cardiff Council and I also sit here and, yes, I earn an excellent salary through that. But what I would point out is that, to arrive at this Assembly—[Interruption.]—to arrive at this Assembly, I actually went for 12 months without a full-time professional salary. When you go without a salary for 12 months, there are implications. What—[Interruption.]