Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:35 pm on 6 October 2020.
I'm very grateful for the opportunity to speak. I wasn't planning to today, but I'm absolutely fed up of the claptrap and cobblers that's being peddled by the First Minister in this Chamber today, and indeed other Members of the Labour Party regarding the statement that was made by Members of Parliament and Members of this Senedd on the Conservative benches.
In no way whatsoever—let me make it clear to everybody today—in no way whatsoever did any member of the Conservative Party encourage people to break the law and to disregard those coronavirus restrictions. It makes me very angry to listen to people suggesting that that was the case. What we were raising were legitimate concerns on behalf of the people who we represent who are not persuaded by the proportionality of the response of the Welsh Government in terms of the local restrictions that it has now imposed upon a huge swathe of people in north Wales, including those in my own constituency.
And I request that the First Minister comes to this Chamber and apologises at some point in the future for putting that hare running about a misleading comment that he has thrown arbitrarily onto the floor of this Chamber this afternoon and which I ask and urge him to take back and do the decent thing, because it was an absolute fabrication to suggest that we had encouraged people to break the law.