Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 21 November 2017.
Yes. Well, Members will, I hope, understand that if I seem to choose my words carefully, or appear over lawyerly in my answers, it's not to be evasive; it's because these are extraordinary times, these are awful times. It's a moment in our political life that's full of hurt and anger. People are grieving and the last thing I want to do is to make matters worse. But I do understand the need for questions and scrutiny, and I have no difficulty with that.
Let me set out as best I can what my explanation is for the perceived discrepancies, as people see them, between the answer in November 2014 and the answers I've subsequently given on the issues of bullying. I am aware of the comments that have been made in the press. All I can say about those comments is that, in relation to them, no specific accusation of bullying was ever presented to me, either formally or informally, no evidence was given to me, nor was that word 'bullying' ever used in that way. But if you want me to be clear about what the issues were, I can say people were sometimes unhappy with the way things happened. Were there competing priorities and complaints of that nature? Of course there were. Did people sometimes feel others were more favoured? Of course they did. That happens in any organisation. And in politics, where these matters are felt even more intensely than in most other places and people are very passionate about what they believe in, then that will be the situation. At the heart of our democracy is the notion of competition. There'll always be tension, and everyone in this Chamber will recognise that, particularly my fellow party leaders. I will continue to deal with those tensions in as fair a way as possible, and, regardless of our political differences in here, I hope that when people look at my political record they see somebody who has always tried to be fair. But I do reiterate the point and the offer I made over the past two weeks, that if people think there have been incidents of bullying, either historic or current, then my door is open. If they prefer not to approach me, they can, of course, approach the Permanent Secretary.