5. Standards of Conduct Committee Report: Report 02-19

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:15 pm on 2 October 2019.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 3:15, 2 October 2019

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I rise as a member of the standards committee and speak to the report, obviously, that's laid before the Assembly this afternoon. It is, without question, unparliamentary language that the report refers to. I have a huge amount of sympathy for the situation that Leanne presented to the committee—that she and other Members across all parties face here. Only this week, for example, in the renaming of this institution, I've been told to go back to England, the place where I'll feel more at home than Wales, because I'm not Welsh because I don't speak Welsh. There's a mute button on my social media. I can mute people. I do not use unparliamentary language on social media. That's not to say it might not happen in the future, because that spark might go on and, one night, one day, something might be said that will really enrage me.

But it is a fact that this report, and I think the Member agrees with this fact—that none of the facts are contested in the report, and the report is accurate. Each Member in this process is afforded that opportunity. It is a fact that it is a cross-party committee that has brought this report to the Chamber, and Plaid Cymru's Member on that committee supported wholeheartedly the report. So, it is a little surprising to see that, as a group, now, you are dissenting from the Member's position, which she took in that committee meeting. That is a statement of fact. [Interruption.] Well, if I could just finish, I'd be grateful, as I didn't interrupt when you were standing.

I think the points you made on the wider issues of trolling, and also the abuse that politicians and members of society across the board face, is something that is a phenomenon in the modern age. Twenty or 25 years ago, there wasn't social media, there wasn't the intrusion into our homes, where you can switch your phone on and get that abuse in your home. No-one should have to put up with that. But it is a fact that this institution set up a standards procedure that is clearly defined and that has a commissioner at its heart, who presents a report. That report then comes to the committee with the outcome of the standards commissioner's investigation. That's what we're discussing here this afternoon. I appreciate the Member used the term that is in question here—the word—and I am trying to avoid using it because I do not believe that it is right to use it in this Chamber. Frankly, if it isn't right to be used in this Chamber, then clearly it's not right to be used on a platform when engaging with members of the public.

It is a fact that the complainant in this particular case is not the blogger that you referred to—I don't know whether there is an association with the blogger—but a third party. The Member cited the blogger in this particular instance, whom the word was used against, but the complainant was a third party—it was not that individual. I don't know who the complainant was because we weren't privy to the name; it was not released.