I hope I can be perhaps a little more positive in my contribution to this debate than the two contributions that we’ve just heard. There is much in the legislative programme that UKIP can support. There are, of course, things that we will oppose. I can certainly agree with what the First Minister said at the end of his statement in relation to a continuity Bill and the Brexit settlement. It clearly would not in any way be supportable if, as the leader of Plaid Cymru has just said, there were to be any kind of power grab from the Westminster Government to reduce the powers that this Assembly already has. I don’t actually believe that that is in prospect at all. It’s another of the demons that the remoaners raise in order to try to continue the referendum campaign from last year, and much good that did them then and will it do them in the future.

As for Plaid Cymru being ahead of the curve, from the speech of the leader of the Plaid Cymru I think it’s more round the bend, as they’ve certainly never been able to explain how they would fill the black hole in the public accounts if Wales were to become politically independent of the rest of the United Kingdom. Because, as we know, Government at all levels spends something like £38 billion a year in Wales, but we raise in tax revenue of all kinds something like £23 billion, leaving a gap equivalent to 25 per cent of Wales’s GDP, which is very much larger than even the deficit that exists in Greece. So, everything that Plaid Cymru has to say in terms of their spending proposals has to be seen in the light of that fundamental flaw.

But we will certainly support the Government on the good features of this legislative programme, and I certainly support the proposal for greater collaboration between local authorities through mandatory and systematic regional working arrangements. I believe also that we do have too many local authorities in Wales, and it would be advantageous if we were to make some reduction in the number, although not as great as the Government previously proposed. We will, of course, support the proposals on registered social landlords, although we will not support the abolition of the right to buy, which seems to me to be completely irrelevant to the housing needs of Wales and would actually make it more difficult to fill the gaps that already exist.

And I am concerned, as is my party, over the proposal for minimum pricing for alcohol—not that we don’t think that there is a problem with excessive drinking amongst a part of the population, but that the proposal for minimum pricing will not address the problem. All indirect taxes are by their nature, as they exist in the United Kingdom, regressive and a minimum price for alcohol would be even more so than the average. It’s also likely to be ineffectual, because the people who are least likely to be bothered about an increase in the minimum price of alcohol are those who are addicted to it. So, this will be a tax upon moderate drinkers, like myself and the majority of the population, whilst doing nothing to address the public health needs of a small minority. There is no real drink problem in the United Kingdom compared with other countries. We are in the middle of the table. [Interruption.] Well, Simon Thomas can speak for himself, of course, on this, but what he gets up to in private I’m not aware of. But if you look at the table of nations’ alcohol consumption per head, the United Kingdom is in the middle of it. In fact, the figures show that alcohol consumption per head has significantly reduced in the last 20 years. In 1998, 75 per cent of men were recorded as having a drink once a week. By 2010, that had fallen to 67 per cent. [Interruption.] And I’m facing reality because I’ve got the figures in front of me. Amongst 16 to 24-year olds, those who drink once a week has fallen from 71 per cent to 48 per cent amongst males, and from 62 per cent to 46 per cent amongst women. Alcohol volumes per person consumed in 2004, per annum, were 9.5 litres; by 2011, that had been reduced to 8.3 litres. That’s a 12 per cent fall in the average consumption of alcohol per head. And alcohol-related deaths, of course, have doubled in that time, despite the figures for male drinking being flat or falling throughout the period.

So, a tax on moderate drinkers is not going to be the answer to the problem, particularly because all the evidence shows that alcohol consumption rises along with income, so the more money you’ve got, the more you spend on alcohol, and the more money you’ve got, the less likely you are to be inhibited from drinking by having a minimum price for alcohol. So, the whole concept to begin with is illogical. So, we’re proposing to target drinks that are disproportionately consumed by low-income people, because champagne drinkers are not likely to be too bothered about this proposal—certainly, Nick Ramsay is nodding in agreement with me over there—but beer drinkers at the lower end of the scale will have to pay more for their favourite tipple. There is no credible evidence to show any link between the alcohol problem and alcohol pricing, which I will certainly go into at greater length when this proposal comes forward for specific consideration. But also, this is the thin end of the wedge. We know that once a power to introduce a tax or to impose a minimum price on anything is introduced then there will be greater and greater pressure forever after to push that up.

So, there’s a bogus moral panic on this issue. If we’re really concerned about addressing the problem of binge drinking, which is, by the way, defined normally as drinking three pints a day—that’s a pretty boring binge as far as I’m concerned—but if we really are interested in introducing measures that are likely to be effective in reducing alcohol consumption amongst problem drinkers, what we should be doing is relating taxes to the strength of alcoholic drinks. This is the big problem that we have today: people preloading by buying supermarket drinks that have a higher alcohol content than the average drinker would consume in a pub. But a minimum unit price is too broad a brush measure to effect that, because it will not single out the source of the problem. So, it’s a very, very blunt instrument indeed.

Whilst there are significant parts of the legislative programme that is before us today that we will support, we will give strong opposition to some of the measures where we do not believe these to be in the public interest. But we wish the Government well in the year ahead and we will do our best to make whatever legislation is put before us in this Assembly as workable as possible insofar as it’s desirable to have it at all.