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Former Wales Office minister David Hanson has called for a ban on people who live outside Wales being able to stand in the Assembly.

The call follows the election of Ukip’s Neil Hamilton to the Assembly. Mr Hamilton, whose home is a manor house in Hullavington, Wiltshire, is considering buying a mobile home so he can stay in different parts of his sprawling Mid and West Wales constituency.

Mr Hanson wants a clause inserted in the forthcoming Wales Bill to ensure that only people who live within the borders of Wales can stand as an AM.

Read more: The Hamiltons' home in Wiltshire

He said: “I believe that we should be applying the same principles applied when people stand for council elections to the Welsh Assembly. This is an argument of localism.

“People who live in the area or region should be the only ones allowed to stand.”

'Only people living in the area should be able to stand for the Welsh Assembly'

The Delyn Labour MP continued: “For example, I have discovered that in this year’s Welsh Assembly election at least 21 candidates stood for election to either constituencies or regions who didn’t live in Wales. The most high profile of these candidates was Neil Hamilton...

“I strongly believe that only people living in the area should be able to stand for the Welsh Assembly. Living in a region or area is the link that enables you to understand the challenges and opportunities facing an area.

“That is why I will be calling on the Government to include an amendment to the Wales Bill that will bring elections to the Welsh Assembly into line with other elections and more importantly ensure that localism underpins the Welsh Assembly.

“If the Government refuse to add the amendment on their own accord I will table the amendment into the Bill.”

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Mr Hamilton, who was born in Fleur-de-Lis and now leads Ukip in the Assembly, said: “This is the latest attempt to try to restrict competition because the Labour party – whose quality of whose candidates is so low – [dare] not expose them to the cold and mighty winds of competition from people like me...

“The position at the moment is there no residence restriction at all for being a candidate for the Assembly; you could live in Outer Mongolia and still qualify...

“I think that the only thing that matters is British citizenship and owing allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen and once you’ve said that then I think it should be a free for all for anybody. It’s up to the electors to decide who they want representing them, not political apparatchiks like David Hanson.”

Mr Hamilton added: “It’s no good having a base in Pembroke or Criccieth because that’s no use to people living elsewhere. Given that the Assembly doesn’t give me an office in different parts of the region, there’s going to be an enormous amount of travelling and we don’t know how the logistics are going to work as yet so we’re going to explore the possibility of a caravan or mobile home or something of that kind.”

He joked: “We might get a horse-drawn caravan... Christine says we really need a helicopter... We’ll make that suggestion to the Assembly.”