Minister Lee Waters apologises for 'hysterical' remark about female Tory

Lee Waters said Natasha Asghar "comes up with hysterical labels to throw at me"

A minister has apologised for accusing a female politician of making "hysterical" comments.

On Wednesday, Lee Waters said Tory Senedd member Natasha Asghar threw "hysterical labels" at him, after she said he was "punishing drivers".

Presiding Officer Elin Jones called hysterical an inappropriate word which she did not expect to hear it again.

Deputy transport minister Mr Waters said: "I completely understand the point, have reflected and apologised."

In response Ms Asghar said: "Patronising, condescending, and misogynistic language like this has absolutely no place in today's society, let alone in the Welsh Parliament."

Ms Jones had told the Welsh Parliament there was a long history of the term hysterical "being used by men to demean women".

She said it was an inappropriate word to describe any contribution by any woman in the Senedd chamber and that, although the minister may have used the term "naively" at the time "I don't expect to hear it again".

Ms Asghar, the MS for South Wales East who speaks for the Welsh Conservatives on transport matters, had criticised Mr Waters for confirming in a television interview that motorists should expect to see road charges introduced in the future.

"People across the country are struggling to make ends meet with the rising cost-of-living pressures, whilst at the same time you are drawing up plans to squeeze even more cash out of them," she said.

"Deputy minister, will you finally stop punishing drivers at every available opportunity and go back to the drawing board and re-think your 50 mph and road charge plans?"

Natasha Asghar said the language the minister had no place in society

Mr Waters responded: "By definition, the [UK] Treasury's reliance on fuel duty to fund large parts of public services will have to be reassessed because people won't be buying petrol.

"So, some of form of road user charging is inevitable, and is, in fact, being actively worked on by her [Conservative] government in London.

"So, whenever she comes up with hysterical labels to throw at me, she really needs to think beyond the soundbite to what she's saying, because this is something all governments are doing, because, simply, the rules are changing."

After considered the exchange overnight, Waters tweeted: "I was criticised yesterday for my choice of language.

"I honestly didn't think of the gendered context and would have said same to a man.

"But I completely understand the point, have reflected and apologised.

"Change is achieved by calling things out, whether meant malignly or not."