We move on to item 6 on the agenda, which is a debate on the Standards of Conduct Committee's report 01-18 to the Assembly under Standing Order 22.9, and I call on the temporary Chair of the committee to move the motion—Paul Davies. 

Motion NDM6710 Paul Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Considers the Report of the Standards of Conduct Committee—Report 01-18 together with the Report from Sir John Griffith Williams QC under paragraph 8.6 of the procedure for dealing with complaints against Assembly Members—laid before the Assembly on 18 April 2018 in accordance with Standing Order 22.9.

2. Endorses the recommendation in the report that a breach has been found and resolves that the Member, under Standing Order 22.10 (i) and (iii) should be censured and excluded from Assembly proceedings for the period of seven calendar days immediately after this motion is agreed.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and, as temporary Chair of the Standards of Conduct Committee, I formally move the motion. 

The committee considered the report from the commissioner for standards in relation to a complaint made against Michelle Brown, the Member for North Wales, for bringing the Assembly into disrepute, which is a breach of the code of conduct. The facts relating to the complaint and the committee's reasons for its recommendation are set out in full in the committee's report. 

The Standards of Conduct Committee gave the commissioner's report careful consideration, and the Member concerned took the opportunity afforded to her through the complaints procedure to provide oral evidence to the committee. Our report sets out the committee's judgment that a sanction is appropriate in this case. This is the first time that the committee has recommended a sanction like this, and it was not a decision we took lightly. In coming to this decision, we took account of all the mitigating circumstances but nevertheless concluded that the breach was such that it warranted a significant sanction. 

In light of the circumstances of this case, the Standards of Conduct Committee also wishes to remind Assembly Members that the code of conduct is a 24/7 code, and it is incumbent on us all to adhere strictly to it at all times. 

Deputy Presiding Officer, I would therefore urge Members to support this motion.  

I'd just like to ask Members to consider one very simple question: how can a Member of this Assembly who has been found to be racist safely represent people of colour in her region? And the answer is that she can't, and I believe that that is a problem. Now, the leader of UKIP and the UKIP Member on the panel have accepted that their Member was racist, and no amount of letters quoting other people who might be racist will overcome that. Racism is racism. It's unacceptable. It has no place in this institution or, indeed, this country.  

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I regret that I'm not able to approve the motion before the Assembly this afternoon. It troubles me on several levels. In particular, we are not a self-selecting club in this Assembly with complete freedom to impose terms of membership upon it. We derive our right to sit here not from the approbation of our peers. [Interruption.] Kindly listen to what I'm going to say before you start heckling. We derive our right to sit here not from the approbation of our peers, but from the votes of the people, and excluding any Member is a serious interference with the democratic rights of the people who are to be represented by us, depriving North Wales, in this particular instance, of one of its Members. 

Now, all parliaments, of course, have rules to exclude unruly Members to maintain order in proceedings, without which we can't function properly. But very few other institutions around the world seek to exclude Members for using objectionable words outside the relevant assembly, let alone, as in this case, in a private telephone conversation between close friends never intended to be made public. And in this case, the position is even worse—[Interruption.] Well, Members, if they don't listen, are not going to be able to reach a rational decision on this, are they? So, I'd just kindly ask them to afford me—

Will you take an intervention, then?

—the courtesy—

Would you take an intervention?

—of listening to what I have to say—

Are you taking an intervention?

—particularly as nobody else is likely to make these points.

In this case, the position is even worse because the conversation was clandestinely recorded by somebody who was at the time a close personal friend, but in due course became Michelle Brown's chief of staff, who was then subsequently sacked for gross misconduct, including breach of confidence, and he maliciously published the recording as an act of revenge.

Now, in a world where surveillance technology is everywhere, admitting this kind of evidence in disciplinary proceedings creates obvious dangers of entrapment and prejudice, and not only in relation to words. Such material would not be generally admissible as prosecution evidence in a court of law, and indeed it may breach rights under article 8 of the European convention on human rights, the right to privacy in your private life, and AMs deserve the same protection, I believe, under our rules of procedure here as the law would afford them outside.

The House of Commons claims no right to censor the private conversations of MPs. Indeed, it doesn't even claim the right to punish MPs for the most vile and disgusting public utterances, like John McDonnell, who joked apparently about Esther McVey, saying, 'Why aren't we lynching the bastard?'—that was a joke. Emma Dent Coad, the Labour MP for Kensington, who described Shaun Bailey, a black Conservative member of the London Assembly as 'a token ghetto boy' and a 'freeloading scumbag' and who has very cheerfully put on the internet—[Interruption.]—a redesign of the Tory tree logo with a black person hanging from it. 

Are you taking interventions? No. No, the Member's not going to take interventions.

I don't think it would be profitable, Madam Deputy—I nearly said 'Deputy Speaker'—Deputy Presiding Officer, if I were to give way at this point.

I believe that what the temporary Chairman of the committee said is a serious matter: that the code of conduct applies to Members at all times, in their public and their private lives, in all circumstances. This, I believe, is a startling and sinister development that the Assembly seeks the right to police the private lives of Assembly Members, to censor them and, indeed, ultimately, to punish them for bringing the Assembly into disrepute. I don't regard the Assembly as being brought into disrepute by anything that anybody says outside this place. We all have responsibility for our own words and actions elsewhere, and I don't believe myself to be tainted by the actions or words of anybody else in this Assembly, and I think everybody else should take the same general view. After all, what does bring the Assembly into disrepute is a matter that must be regarded as highly subjective.

I regret that, in the course of the report, there is no detailed rebuttal or indeed any rebuttal of the arguments that I put forward on Michelle Brown's behalf as her advocate for the committee. I'm grateful that the committee allowed me to do that. I don't seek to defend the use of the word 'coconut'. It does appear to be in wide use, but the document that I distributed earlier on shows the huge number of highly offensive uses of the word 'coconut' by members or supporters of the Labour Party. I don't know whether the Labour group, which made this complaint against Michelle Brown, not as individuals but as a group, have made any complaints about the racism in the Labour Party, the anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and the vile and disgusting things that are said, not in private conversations, but in public and gloried in—

Can I ask the Member to wind up please?

—by pretty senior members of that party. Yes, the word 'coconut'—

Can you wind up, please?

—can be disparaging and offensive—

Can you wind up now?

I will wind up, Deputy Presiding Officer. But is it any more disparaging and offensive than Joyce Watson, for example, in this Chamber describing UKIP Members as rabid dogs—

I've asked you to wind up. Please do so.

I'm on my last couple of sentences.

Well, no, it's not a last couple of sentences. One please.

Is it any worse than Leanne Wood falsely describing me as a Holocaust denier—a most grotesque libel upon me? It seems to me that the indignation of the Labour group is highly subjective, and on those grounds I would urge the Assembly not to approve this motion.

An Assembly Member: Disgraceful.

An Assembly Member: Absolute disgrace.

We're all entitled to our view.

I will take a point of order after the debate. I can't take a point of order during the debate. Neil McEvoy.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I speak as somebody here today who has dealt with racism at the sharp end, growing up and to this day. I get judged. I have been judged because of the way that I look, because of my mum, my dad, my grandparents, my ethnic make-up. I loathe racism. Loathe it. Today, we're here to take a decision to throw out a democratically elected Member of this Assembly. Michelle Brown did make a racist comment in private. She was speaking in private on the telephone without knowing she was being recorded, with a person who liked what she said enough that he decided to work for her. I don't think it's right for me, as a representative of South Wales Central, to vote to ban an Assembly Member for North Wales. We have a decision for deciding who should and should not be an Assembly Member, and that's called an election. 

Will you take an intervention? 

I will.

Yes. Thank you very much. Are you, therefore, suggesting that she's only guilty because she was caught?

I'm going to speak with some restraint here, because I've witnessed racist behaviour in this Chamber and I've corresponded with the Llywydd at times. I've been appalled by some of the behaviour that I've seen in this room. So, let's stop with the virtue signalling, shall we, just for a moment? Maybe you'd like to correspond with the Llywydd and see what we've been speaking about in private.

Now, Michelle Brown was caught out. She was recorded, as my colleague across the Chamber said, and I think it really is a question of 'let he or she without sin cast the first stone' because I can imagine—I can imagine—if everybody around this Chamber was recorded in private exactly what could be dug up. I am speaking as a person of colour who has been through racism—. I've dealt with racism all my life. All my life. What I'm saying here is we have a democratically elected politician; the way to deal with these people is at the ballot box, and I firmly, firmly believe that. I reject virtue signalling. If we look at the real scandal in this building—[Interruption.]

Just carry on with your contribution, please.

If you could give me the respect of listening to what I've got to say, then I would very much appreciate it. Will you give me that courtesy today?

Respect is earned. 

Just carry on. I'm in the Chair, and I have given you the permission to carry on. So, please carry on, your time is running out.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. You give respect to receive respect.

Now, not long ago, Labour Members on the benches here were voting to keep their own—the Government's own behaviour a secret and, for me, that's a real scandal. What Michelle Brown did was disgraceful in private. The way to deal with those people is at the ballot box, and I firmly, firmly believe that.

Thank you. Can I now call on the temporary Chair of the committee to reply to the debate? Paul Davies.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I note Members' contributions in this debate this afternoon. I particularly note the Member for Mid and West Wales's contribution, and I would remind him that this report was unanimously agreed by a cross-party group of Assembly Members, including a Member from his own party. I would also remind Members that the Assembly Members' code of conduct should be adhered to 24 hours a day, and is applicable both in our private and public lives. Deputy Presiding Officer, the committee's report is absolutely clear and it sets out the committee's judgment that a sanction is appropriate in this case. I would, therefore, urge Members to support this motion.

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Thank you. Business Committee decided that any vote necessary on this motion would be taken immediately, so unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will proceed directly to a vote. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the motion 38, one abstention, three against. Therefore, that motion is carried. Thank you.

NDM6710 - Motion to endorse the recommendation in Report 01-18 of the Standards of Conduct Committee: For: 38, Against: 3, Abstain: 1

Motion has been agreed

Point of order, Joyce Watson.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I want to raise a point of order that I have an entitlement within this Chamber to be respected as an individual Member of this Chamber and not to be disabused by lies that come from another Member, accusing me of things that I clearly have not done or have not said.

In an aid debate last year, you described us as rabid dogs.

Thank you. We have heard that, it's on the record. Thank you.

Item 7—

Can I have a point of order? A point of order under Standing Order 13.9. I heard an accusation made a few minutes ago that there had been behaviour tantamount to racism in this Chamber. Now, we don't know who that is targeted at, but it tars all of us. Could we have a judgment from the Llywydd on that, please?

Okay. If you'll allow me to go and look at the record, I'll return to this at a later date. Thank you.