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Found: s interests were secondary considerations, if even that, for previous Prime Ministers such as Boris Johnson

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Found: There used to be regular Contract Reviews at NHS England - until Boris Johnson did away with procurement

Found: In 2018, the then Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Boris Johnson, announced

Found: parliament in 2019 was ‘dead’ and had ‘no moral right to sit’, and from former Prime Minister Boris Johnson

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Found: The Oakervee Review, which then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, commissioned to assess whether and how

Found: September 2021: The Health and Social Care Levy On 7 September 2021, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Found: On 29 September 2020, the then-Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, gave a speech in which he announced a

Found: for trade in goods.75 Lord Frost (Conservative), chief negotiator for exiting the EU under Boris Johnson

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Found: Ambio, Vol 48, 2019 245 Boris Johnson, 16 June 2016, “Talking to the fishermen and the workers at the

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Found: proportionality principle in appointments to the House of Lords, violated by David Cameron and Boris Johnson

Found: “In November 2021, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson about the Scottish

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Found: Ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 23rd March 2020.

Found: of correspondence: On the 2 June 2021, the First Minister wrote to the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson

Found: during COVID it was clear to see that Mark Drakeford didn’t completely agree with everything Boris Johnson

Found: allowed Mark Drakeford (and Nicola Sturgeon) to deal with the Covid pandemic more effectively than Boris Johnson

Found: Lockdown Eng&Wales 23/03/2020 With the UK death toll hitting 335 deaths and 16 in Wales, Boris Johnson

Found: The actions of the government led by Boris Johnson, particularly as it dealt with the outcomes of Brexit

<p>Well, the short answer is, 'It hasn't worked.' As set out in the ICDR's report, the self-policing model we've witnessed, and even when the administrative model was introduced to the self-policing model, we've witnessed a decline in public trust in politicians to historic proportions. The Full Fact data, I think, shows that politicians simply don't—. And, obviously, I can't talk about the Senedd, because we don't have data for the Senedd, but certainly my view so far is that everyone I've dealt with in the Senedd has held themselves to a very high standard, and so I complement you on that. According to the data we do have, which relates to Westminster, politicians simply don't respond to requests to correct the record, even when those requests are detailed and from an independent organisation like Full Fact. An 11 per cent success rate is very low, and I think there seems to be justification for the public's general and historic distrust of politicians.</p>
<p>But the reason for that is not because&nbsp;I think politicians are inherently bad people or anything like that; it's a structural reason. It's because there is no incentive to comply with the existing rules around truth telling because those existing rules are not enforced. The data for that is set out in the ICDR's paper. But let me give you a fairly clear example, which is that I think Peter Oborne has categorised every time that Boris Johnson made a false or misleading statement. He was only ever sanctioned for one of those false or misleading statements, and it took over two years to get the job done. I don't believe that Boris Johnson is reflective of most politicians, but that's sort of the point. It's not fair that most politicians should be tarred with that brush. And I think the public should have trust in politicians, but they will only have trust if (a) we can cut down on political deception, and (b) politicians show that they take this very seriously, and show us that they take this seriously by taking action such as that which is proposed here.</p>
<p>For me, the fundamental thing is to ensure that the rules are policed by an independent body, and that's why I favour the courts. And I would say I'm very much in line with public opinion on this. According to University College London polling—I think it was conducted by YouGov, but I can provide the precise polling data—the vast majority of the public trust judges and believe judges should be responsible for enforcing the rules of the political game, not that politicians should be in charge of enforcing their own rules upon themselves. And so the model is based on ensuring that we have an independent body that enforces the rules.</p>
<p>The reason that we have proposed the model that we have is simply that when a traditionalist criminal offence was proposed, a lot of politicians in the Senedd were very concerned about the intention element, and they were also concerned about being accused of things without having the chance to correct the record. So, what the ICDR model does is provide a chance for politicians to formally correct the record. Now, this isn't a sanction. It is about protection of the public, because the public is harmed whether or not a politician intends to make a false statement. The public is misinformed, regardless of whether the intention is to misinform or not. So, we have created a model where statements can be verified, and if they're not true, they can be corrected, and then everyone can go home. Only if someone actively refuses to correct the record will this sanction be in place. So, this answers the big concern that Senedd Members raised with me when the last amendment was proposed, which was that the intention element was not clear, was difficult to prove. Now, the intention element will be very clear. It arises where you've been told by a court that your statement is factually incorrect, you've been asked to correct it, and you've actively chosen not to do that.</p>
<p>Now, that is deception. That is certainly deliberate deception. I would say the bar code of conduct very clearly states that we consider it deceptive if a barrister knowingly fails to correct the record. So, I think that avoids the problem or adds a welcome additional bit of clarity to the situation, and also provides for a model whereby politicians can correct the record in a neutral way.</p>

<p>Thank you, Hannah. First of all, there's no doubt that trust in politics and&nbsp;politicians in recent years has been on a downward trend. In&nbsp;Unlock Democracy, we would argue that there a variety of reasons for this. We've seen the expenses scandal, we've seen a tendency of&nbsp;politicians to overpromise and underdeliver, we've seen a series of sexual&nbsp;misdemeanours in the Westminster Parliament, we've seen our former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, over partygate, lying in Parliament, and most recently we've seen freebiegate in relation to freebies under the present Government. So, there are a range of reasons why trust in politicians is at the low level that it is.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In terms of solutions, at Unlock Democracy, we are going to be publishing, hopefully this week, what we've called a democratic integrity White Paper. Bearing in mind some of the evidence that was given last week, maybe we should refrain from calling it a White Paper, but what the paper does is sets out 54 recommendations of ways in which we think trust in politics could be restored. Some examples of those would be, for instance, setting a £200 cap&nbsp;on any freebie that any politician can accept, and anything above that they have to decline. It would include, for instance, drawing up a job description for Members of Parliament.</p>
<p>When we sought to press the standards commissioner in Westminster on Nadine Dorries's apparent unwillingness to perform her role as a Member of Parliament, the parliamentary commissioner's response was that there isn't a job description against which she can be held to account. So we are suggesting that maybe an alternative would be to produce a job description, and then the code of conduct, and in Westminster the Recall of MPs Act 2015, would then reflect that in terms of a Member of Parliament not following their job description and not doing what they were expected. So there are various solutions there that we would propose.</p>
<p>We do have concerns about the idea of creating a criminal or civil offence of deception, with some of the problems that might be associated with that, particularly around, for instance, the risk of vexatious complaints, something that I think we will probably return to later. And we also have concerns that that sort of legislation might make it quite hard for, for instance, the candidates, particularly candidates from perhaps the smaller parties, or independent candidates who don't have access to legal advice. It might actually deter them from standing as candidates in elections to the Senedd in the first place. So those are some of the concerns that we have.</p>
<p>Therefore, we think that there is a strong place for the Senedd to look at the existing code of conduct and look at the role the current standards commissioner plays. To echo something that Rose said earlier, if, for instance, there are concerns about Senedd Members marking their own homework, then I have some personal experience when I was on the House of Commons Commission of the role of lay people on the House of Commons Commission. It was very clear that they brought a completely different perspective and on occasions stopped, perhaps, the groupthink that politicians of all parties on the House of Commons Commission adopted in some cases. That may be a model, for instance, that the Senedd might want to consider in relation to the standards committee in the Senedd. But those are just some proposals. Thank you.</p>

<p>He's from Hong Kong Watch. I'd like to thank him also for providing briefings for this specific petition. I just want to pick up on the word that Peter used: 'unjust'. This just feels unjust to me. I'm old enough to remember watching the handover on television. I can remember the promises made, and I can remember the concerns expressed by Hong Kongers at the time. But promises were made.</p>
<p>Boris Johnson, as Prime Minister in 2021, offered the visa to people from Hong Kong due to the clampdown on protesters in Hong Kong. So, in a way, we encouraged these people to come to the United Kingdom, to come to Wales, to make this place their home, to stay here. And then we put a huge burden in front of them, to carry on with their education. We are talking huge amounts of money, with no student loan to support them. They are ineligible for student loans. I genuinely do believe that we are cutting off our noses to spite our faces, because these are people who want to contribute to our society and to our country.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I wrote to the Minister back in September on this issue, and she mentioned 2026-27 to me in that reply. I'd like to know, as Peter has already said, why two years? I would also like to know the numbers we're talking about. Because I would imagine that the numbers in Wales are much smaller, probably, than the numbers in Scotland. They're probably smaller than the numbers in Scotland. Scotland has already managed to do it. Why can't we do it in Wales?</p>
<p>There's no point in us describing ourselves as a nation of sanctuary and boasting about that fact, if we don't welcome people who have left their homes for specific reasons, because they felt they needed to. They have left their homes, and they have settled in Wales, and they cannot carry on with their education. I genuinely think it's a scandal, and I would like a strongly worded letter to the Minister, and perhaps us as individual Members seeing how we can continue with this cause in other ways. Diolch.</p>

<p>Right. I've got a few supplementaries, but maybe I'll cast my eye over the notes in due course.&nbsp;Just taking our minds back to the Boris Johnson case, isn't it, in a sense, though, still indicative of the general rule that, in a self-regulating parliament, politics will always win in the end? Because the actual initial move that led to the creation of that Committee of Privileges inquiry was an opposition motion referring the case,&nbsp;and the reason that it won is that the Conservative whips realised that they had a huge rebellion on their own side on their hands, and so the Tory party was split, effectively; they weren't going to come to the defence of the Prime Minister. So, in a sense, doesn't it actually prove the point that—not in any way questioning the integrity or objectivity of the committee—the process was still very much a political one, rather than a judicial one, in that sense?</p>

<p>Yes, digital connectivity is one of the essential enablers, not just for economic life, but for lots of things we now take as standard. So, it’s not just about the economy and public services, it is about how people expect to live their lives in their own homes. We know that, I think it was in 2014, in rural Wales, 50-odd per cent of properties had broadband access. That’s now at 96 per cent or 97 per cent, and that is because of the programmes that we have run. And the challenge with that is that it’s provided real benefit to people, but it’s come from devolved budgets in an area of reserved responsibility. We could either have said, 'We’re not doing anything', and then we’d have lived with the problem—and I say ‘we’, but, actually, people in more rural communities would have lived with problem—and we chose not to do that because it’s an enabler of so many things we want to see.</p>
<p>What we will do, though—. And I’ll just give you an example of some of the genuine frustration in the conversations we had with the previous Government. Conversations with Ministers responsible for digital roll-out and the headline announcement made by the previous, previous, previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, about wanting superfast broadband to be everywhere, and then that came into an 80 per cent requirement, and actually you could deliver that without touching most of rural Britain. What we now have is, there was an additional programme and there’s been a conversation with the previous Government about whether that would be delivered by the Welsh Government, as, if you like, agents to deliver that—because we have a great deal of understanding and we have established relationships with different people—or whether the UK Government would do that. And the UK Government then said it would do it, and for the simple reason that it both wanted control, and, after all, it’s a reserved area of responsibility, but it’s also about the fact that the deal they were offering would have meant that Welsh Government's time and resources would still have been soaked up into that in a way that wouldn’t have been recognised in the funding model.</p>
<p>Now, I’m still not convinced that the programme that the current UK Government is inheriting will deliver for all of our communities. So, there is a window of opportunity to talk about that, but it’s the challenge of how quickly you can put right what’s gone wrong. So, yes, there will be conversations. The Cabinet Secretary for the economy is the lead Minister on this still. I think that’s the right place for leadership across the Government on this. And I am expecting now to get deeper into all of the challenges under the bonnet, and digital connectivity will be one of those, and I think there is a level of ambition and recognition that this is an important—[<em>Inaudible</em>.]—urban or rural Wales or urban or rural Britain.</p>

<p>Well, there are&nbsp;two points where I simply disagree with the Member. The first is about trying to give a different meaning to what has been said by the business Secretary, in that Tata up to this point had been unmovable. The conversations that are now taking place are about whether it's possible to move them, not just with the prospect of a different Government, with different resources and different ambitions for steel, but the reality of that Government being in place.</p>
<p>And actually, when you generously claim that the previous UK Government found Tata unmovable throughout its time, that simply isn't true. It is simply not true. When I met Kwasi Kwarteng as the business Secretary at the steel council in Cardiff, the conversations that were already taking place with Tata made clear that a different and a better deal would have been possible. The challenge was the occupants of 10 and 11 Downing Street at the time, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, could not agree between them about whether they wanted to take that deal and to get to a space where a different level of co-investment, with a different outcome for steel making and steel communities, would actually have happened.</p>
<p>We are where we are now, Mark, because the previous Conservative Government did a deal that&nbsp;Kemi Badenoch described as 'good news'. She went to Port Talbot and said it was good news. That's what happened. So, the idea that this has been the only immovable result possible is something that I reject completely, and if you went to a steel-working community and tried to claim that, I think you'd get a pretty industrial response.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>Inter-governmental relations have not been very good during the last few years. I'm sure that the Conservatives here would be ready enough to admit that. Since Brexit, Westminster has worked hard to undermine devolution. There was no consideration of the Welsh Parliament when passing laws such as the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. There has been no communication either. We all remember Mark Drakeford on S4C, saying on the documentary programme</p>
<p>'Dear me, he really, really is awful'</p>
<p>about Boris Johnson. Liz Truss never called at all, and Rishi Sunak didn't get in touch about important issues for Wales, such as Tata. I'm genuinely pleased that Keir Starmer, during his first days, did visit the Governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and met with the mayors of England. That's not difficult, it's a matter of courtesy. But that courtesy has been absent in recent times. Now, it is action that matters.</p>
<p>As the comments about clear red water showed, the fact that the same party is in power in Westminster and in Cardiff Bay does not necessarily lead to agreement. We have already seen this.</p>

<p>Thank you for noting that the Prime Minister, just a few days into office, has come physically to Wales. That is a really positive statement. I didn't have the opportunity to meet the previous Prime Minister in Wales. I did see him briefly in Normandy. When people have been asked, of course, what they wanted at that election, I'm delighted the people of Wales chose to implement a blanket ban on Welsh Tory MPs, and we then have an opportunity to deliver on the manifesto on which 27 out of 32 Welsh MPs were elected. And&nbsp;Tata is a significant part of that.&nbsp;We are dealing, though, with a legacy of the previous deal offered by the Conservative Government, that Kemi Badenoch celebrated as being good news—that's essentially the plan that Tata are working too—with eye-watering job losses within it, and we are very much at the very end of the line on this.</p>
<p>And I do have to reflect yet again that, several years ago, when I was first appointed as the economy Minister at the time, Kwasi Kwarteng, as the business Secretary, attended a steel council in Cardiff, and there was a deal to be done that would have delivered significant co-investment and a different and a better future for steel at the time. It was the occupants of 10 and 11 Downing Street at the time who wouldn't sign up to that, and it's no surprise that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have left us in no better a position now. We are, though, engaged in good-faith negotiations with the company. That is engagement from the Welsh Government, me and the economy Secretary, engaging directly with&nbsp;Jonathan Reynolds, as the new Secretary of State for Business and Trade, and conversations with the UK and the Mumbai leadership. Those negotiations are on the back of a manifesto that can now be delivered. The £0.5 billion that has not been spent, the £2.5 billion that is available to transform steel across the UK and those negotiations have a limited window over a period of weeks to succeed. We can't undertake those negotiations in public, and I don't think steelworkers or steel communities would expect that. What they do expect is that both Governments, here in Wales and across the UK, will fight for a better deal for steel and for steelworkers, and that is exactly what we are doing.</p>

<p>I think the debates we've had on this issue have been a good example of the parliamentary process in action and the consensual way that we can work across party lines in this Senedd. There is now a consensus across the Chamber that deliberate lying undermines public trust in politics and is a danger that needs to be firmly addressed. I think the outstanding point of difference has been whether dealing with lying is best done by a standards-led process within this Parliament, or whether, in addition, a criminal sanction for the most egregious cases of deliberate deception is justified in order to rebuild trust in politics.</p>
<p>I acknowledge the view of many of my colleagues on these benches that this should not be a matter for the courts, but one for the ballot box. I think that's where, now, the focus of our arguments should be. I was elected here in 2016, before the Brexit referendum, before Donald Trump became President, before Boris Johnson lied his way to Downing Street and lied his way out again, and there is no doubt that politics in this country has become darker in those eight years. I worry that we're adjusting to it, and I've seen it at first hand in the last 12 months in Llanelli: lying, manipulation, racist abuse, arson, mobs whipped up by the visiting far right descending on the homes of those who put their heads above the parapet. It has been an awful, upsetting experience seeing this ugliness becoming quietly normalised. It's had a profound impact on my community and is something that I've personally found very difficult.</p>
<p>On Thursday, one of the ringleaders of the misinformation campaign in Llanelli is standing for Parliament in our town with the support of the far-right leader Tommy Robinson. It's naive to think our democratic traditions are sacred—they're not. We have to stand up for them; we have to fight for them. We've had a glimpse of the ugliness, but there could be worse to come. I've spoken here before about the erosion of normal standards of behaviour and the perils of letting them slide, and, by default, accepting a lower standard, and how we mustn't allow this dilution—this norm spoiling—in any form.</p>
<p>Later this week, we may well have Members of Parliament from the radical right in the House of Commons. Just 250 miles from here, the far right stand at the gates of power. In just a few months, a norm-spoiling President could well be back in the White House. I've seen the future, and it's worse. We need to get out in front of it to clearly say that corroding our democratic values is not okay and we will not stand for it. The public needs to know that they can trust what's being said, and that's what the amendment to this Bill passed in committee, section 64, is about: not just the standards of those who get elected to the Senedd, but those who seek to get elected too. That, for me, is the key point of the debates that we've been having. It's simply not okay to tell blatant untruths, and there should be consequences if you do it. Lying cannot become the norm.</p>
<p>The Counsel General has set out his arguments and concerns in letters and in articles, and Adam Price and I have responded. There are differences, and people can judge those, but I'm pleased to say that we've worked really well and hard over the last 24 hours with a number of Ministers, and we've tried to focus on what we do agree on. There is agreement that lying should be sanctioned, and the question that remains is should the sanction come from fellow Senedd Members. I don't think it should. Alun Davies has made a cogent argument that a parliament should govern its own affairs. In my view, it should be for our independent institutions to uphold the norms and standards of democracy, because what are we trying to do here? If we're trying to rebuild trust, well, people don't trust politicians to regulate themselves.&nbsp;We've had recall petitions in Westminster where people who are bad eggs get resubmitted to the electorate and that has not rebuilt public trust. The public should have confidence that these breaches have been tested by an independent tribunal, underpinned by the safeguards and fair processes of the justice system, and are subject to the high bar of the criminal standard of 'beyond reasonable doubt', not the lowest civil test.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I know the Government and colleagues have concerns about that, and particularly about the fact that not enough consultation and thought has been given to understanding the potential unintended consequences of this, and I understand that. I do think a number of the concerns can be allayed. I do think a number of the things that James Evans has said, when worked through, are not as he fears, and can be addressed. But, as he said, this has come fairly late on in the parliamentary process—as is proper, and I think that's a good thing. We should be able to amend legislation, not just take what is given to us by the Government and be told, 'It's too late to change it.'</p>
<p>But people do feel the scrutiny has been rushed, and I respect that, so I do accept the need to decouple the detailed implementation of prosecution of deception from this Bill. I think we've had very constructive discussions about how to do that, and I'd love to hear more from the Counsel General. And I thank him for the spirit of compromise that he's been willing to engage into, to&nbsp;Vikki Howells, as the Chair of standards, who's been willing to align with us the work the Standards Committee are doing with the objectives here, and, of course, to Adam Price who's led the argument on this, and the team at the campaigning group Compassion in Politics for their advice and experience in supporting these efforts.</p>
<p>I think it is important to be of consensus on things of such gravity. I don't think the normal ways of doing things meets the level of the challenge that we already face to our democracy, a challenge that is going to get more fierce and more perilous. Simply thinking we want the good chaps to obey the good chaps approach is not fit for the danger of our times. I think the criminal standard, far from meeting the fears that many here have, actually provides more protection than is commonly thought, because it sets the bar very high. There are significant get-outs, if you like, from the legislation, where people who are genuinely caught up in this are able to find a way out. So, I don't share the concern about large moneyed interests trying to dominate this and to shut down debate. But the point is, these things need to be tested further in a way that builds the confidence of colleagues, and I don't think that has happened from this process. So, I think it's right that we step back and we take it into the standards committee. The commitment that Government have given is to work in good faith with that effort, and I look forward to being part of that.</p>
<p>Just in closing, Llywydd, as we have this debate, we need to recognise the darkness that is there before our eyes. I've seen a particularly ugly side of it in my constituency, but let's not kid ourselves that this is not going to become more widespread. We should act now while we can to get in front of that and build safeguards for our democracy and the fabric of our political culture.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for the opportunity to come before you, and I do apologise that I wasn't able to join you last Monday, but thank you very much for rescheduling. So, my name is Jane Dodds. I'm the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats. I guess my commitment to a form of recall came about from my personal experience in what was the constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire in 2019, but I've maintained that commitment, seeing the importance of a recall process for our residents to be able to hold their MSs, their political representatives, to account. I can see a mechanism of this happening within the proposed new changes in 2026. I've also been lucky enough to be on the reform committee as well, so we've thought that one through from that angle. There are some issues that I think are important to consider as well. So, if I can outline those quickly now, Chair, and then I'm very, very happy to answer any questions.</p>
<p>Just looking back to my own experience in 2019, as you'll recall, for parliamentarians, the system for Westminster is that 10 per cent of the electorate needs to trigger a by-election. So, the recall petition is lodged, and then, in 2019, there was a six-week window to campaign, in order to persuade voters—at least 10 per cent—to call a by-election. My experience was that we were lucky enough to get 19 per cent to support a by-election. But I think the challenges of a six-week campaign were really clear. Six weeks is a long time in politics, and it's a long time to campaign, when, actually, you're trying to get activists as well to look ahead to, potentially, a by-election, where they need also to be campaigning. The public were definitely fed up here in Brecon and Radnorshire with such a long campaign.</p>
<p>The second very pragmatic issue was that voting—that is, when people had the opportunity to go and vote—actually was, if I'm right, over a very long period of time. I think it was two weeks or four weeks that people were able to go into a recall polling station in order to register a 'yes' or a 'no', whether they wanted to support a by-election or not. Now, the very pragmatic nature of that was that we couldn't use schools, we couldn't use facilities where normal activities happened—because, obviously, on a polling day, which is literally one day, then of course those facilities can offer that and cancel or reschedule arrangements—so, I do know that the electoral registration officer here in Powys struggled to find venues for people to go in to register their vote. Now, if you're thinking ahead to what that would look like—and I'm sure you'll take evidence from electoral registration officers—then actually condensing that time of people being able to go in and express their view seems to be pragmatic. But I do think it needs to be more than one day. A balance needs to be struck. So, those are some of the challenges.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But if I go back, I guess, to the principle—. Do stop me, sorry, Chair. If I go back to the principle, if I may, for me, if we look back, not only was I lucky enough to be elected following a recall petition, but we know that, in Westminster, there have now been four recall petitions that have resulted in by-elections. We know that Boris Johnson would have been prone to a recall petition, but he stood down. For me, it's about democratic accountability. It's extremely important to people, I feel, to have that democratic deficit addressed. That is, if their MS has committed serious misconduct, they should have the right then to express a view as to whether they want that person to remain in the role. And really, we need to be more transparent, I think, about the way that we do it, and much, much clearer, because we're at an all-time low with people's trust in us, and this, for me, is a step in the right direction. Diolch.</p>

<p>How many times have we in this Chamber agreed that the Crown Estate should be devolved to Wales? It's the settled will of this Senedd. We shouldn't have to keep making the point. The Welsh Government claims to agree with us. The only discussion we should be having is when and how—and that with more urgency—and not 'if'. And yet, in the context of this general election, here we are yet again. Would you like to know what Labour's manifesto for Wales says about devolving the Crown Estate? Nothing. The words 'Crown Estate' are not mentioned. Did Welsh Labour even try to get them in there? Once again, Plaid Cymru are the only ones making the case that we can and should have control of our natural resources in Wales and that these can and should be put to work for the benefit of the people and communities of Wales.</p>
<p>So, let's rehearse the arguments again. Control over the Crown Estate's assets in Scotland is already devolved, and in 2021-22, these directly generated over £15.7 million for the Scottish exchequer, and that's not to mention the investment and growth opportunities, around £25.5 billion in total, represented by Scotland's blue economy programme, which the control over Crown Estate assets makes possible. There is no reason nor defensible case as to why Scotland should have control over these assets and revenues, where Wales doesn't. The Crown Estate assets in Wales are worth £853 million. Control over them would give us the revenues that we need to create a Welsh sovereign wealth fund—something, again, that the Welsh Government claims to support in principle, but has done less than nothing to deliver.</p>
<p>We know that the Crown Estate has a central role to play in Wales's transition to net zero. Wales's seas are prime real estate when it comes to offshore renewables—again, we have heard all of this so many times, haven't we? The economic potential of the renewables in the Irish and Celtic seas offer opportunities for new green jobs and training, as well as sustainable energy production. But for any of these promises on community benefits, green and inclusive growth and job opportunities to come good, we need control of the Crown Estate; we need to be the ones setting the terms for awarding leases and development deals, baking in requirements on community benefits, skills and developing local supply chains. As it stands, I seriously worry that these opportunities will slip—perhaps already are slipping—through our fingers.</p>
<p>On Friday, during the BBC Wales leaders' debate, Vaughan Gething asserted that he had got everything he had asked for on further devolution for Wales. From this, I take it, therefore, that he didn't ask for devolution of the Crown Estate, never mind fair funding or HS2 consequentials. The UK Labour manifesto commitments on GB energy come straight out of the Boris Johnson playbook on levelling up. An ambiguous entity, it is an energy company or an investment vehicle, with a headquarters in Scotland and maybe a branch office in Wales. It will be providing finance for offshore wind developments, whose profits will ultimately flow back to the south-east of England. It promises nothing more than the continuation of an age-old trend of our natural resources being used to fill the coffers in London.&nbsp;</p>
<p>And that's the wider pattern that's repeating here, isn't it? Wales being taken for granted at best, with both power and profits flowing down and out of the M4. On his election broadcast for the BBC, Professor Richard Wyn Jones warned that Labour are looking to turn back the clock on devolution, returning power to the Wales Office and the Secretary of State in a way that even the Tories haven't done. I think that he's right, and what's worse is that I think the Labour Welsh Government is happy to sit back and let it happen. There's precedent there too, isn't there? In 2018, the Welsh Government voted against the Plaid Cymru motion of no confidence in the then Secretary of State Alun Cairns, after he vetoed the Swansea bay tidal lagoon.</p>
<p>The coming defeat of the Conservative Government should be a source of hope. But, in so many ways, it's just going to be more of the same for Wales: more of the same contraction from Westminster; more of the same economic stagnation; more of the same austerity, with perhaps as much as £935 million in public services cuts coming down the line. In this election, Plaid Cymru has made a positive case for greater fairness and ambition for Wales, for more control over our economic fortunes, and greater accountability in our economic decision making. It's a case that we will continue to make as we look beyond this election, as we take the fight to the new UK Government. We will not let them take Wales for granted. Diolch yn fawr.</p>

<p>Well, the truth is that, at the end of this Parliament, living standards have fallen for the first time on record across the UK. It is not a coincidence that the UK Conservative Government has been in charge through that time after the previous decade. As Carolyn Thomas reminded us, more than 14 years of austerity have had an impact on the economy as well as public services. And in this last term, the economy across the UK has flatlined, and other economies who've had the same international challenges have not had the same results. We are paying the price for Conservative economic mismanagement. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak—the villains of the piece for the position that we now face and it's why it's so important to turn a page.</p>
<p>And I will just deal with the point about taxes. It is manifestly dishonest to claim that taxes are planned to rise in the way the Conservatives have been going about it. Even the senior civil servant in the Treasury has debunked the outrageous and dishonest claims made by the Conservative Party. [<em>Interruption</em>.]</p>

<p>Again, I go back to reminding the Member that, on all occasions, I've answered truthfully and honestly about what happened, about the due diligence that was necessary and, indeed, the fact that no rules have been broken, the ministerial code has not been broken. And we come back to—. And I understand why the Conservatives have put forward a motion tomorrow—a non-binding vote, but a vote, nevertheless, in this Parliament. There is a formal method available. I understand why the Member puts the vote forward. I understand, at this time, when people are making choices, why he does not want to talk about his party's record. I understand the points being made about judgment. I understand what that means and looks like. Look at the judgments that I have made and compare them. Look at the judgments I have made on test and trace. Look at the judgements that I have made on PPE during the pandemic, with no corrupt VIP lane in Wales on my watch. Look at the judgments he has made: defending Boris Johnson to the hilt, backing Liz Truss to the hilt. When she made her speech to the Conservative conference, his response was, 'That's a cracking speech'. Ask mortgage holders what they think of her, ask people with business investment what they think of her. If you want to go into what's going to take place with people's judgment, I am very comfortable having any comparison between the two of us.</p>
<p>I am confident about tomorrow. I look forward to the debate, which I will attend. I could and should, in my view, have been elsewhere, but I will be in this Parliament to respond to the debate. And I say again, with the Conservative record of what you have done to Wales, who on earth would be prepared to stand with you? I do not believe the people of Wales will stand with you when it comes to 4 July.</p>

<p>Well, thank you for this ongoing issue. Of course, there has been a lot of comment on the recent council elections, particularly in England. Of course, the police and crime commissioner elections in Wales had very low turnout, because they were the sole elections, where actually the candidates have no support in terms of putting out publicity and material and information to electors. So, any analysis of how things happened in Wales will obviously be something of interest. We may learn more lessons from what happened in England, where we know, last time, there were at least 14,000 who were turned away from elections; others who were turned away and came back; and others, I suspect, who didn't bother going out to vote at all on the presumption that they didn't have the necessary ID. I do remember the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, of course said, of ID cards, that he would tear it up and he would eat it with his cornflakes. Well, he must have done that, because he turned up to vote, didn't have an ID card, and they sent him home.</p>
<p>More troubling, of course, is concern over people like the veteran who turned up with his veteran ID and it wasn't accepted, and of course there are many students who have ID cards, but for some reason—we can only imagine why—student ID cards are not acceptable. So, there is very real concern about that and the ID card system and the impact that it has. As you know, Welsh Government's position is one that is oriented towards removing hurdles for participation in elections. And we know, from the comments that were made by the former Conservative Minister Rees-Mogg, that this was a measure that was introduced with the objective of actually restricting ability to participate in voting—an idea that has come from the voter suppression tactics of America. But what I can assure you is that when there is further analysis from the Electoral Commission—I do meet with them periodically—this will be one of the issues we will want to consider. But also we will want to consider in respect of how, in devolved Welsh elections when they take place, there isn't confusion for people as to their entitlement and ability to vote in Welsh elections without ID cards.</p>

<p>I've been struggling to process my feelings about the issues before us today, and this is a speech I would rather have avoided. Immediately on the news of the donation coming out, I said I thought it was unjustifiable and wrong—that's a matter of record—and I've not changed my view. Two hundred thousand pounds is a staggering amount of money, unprecedented in Welsh politics, and over four times larger than the £45,000 spending cap the Labour Party set to ensure a fair contest. And the fact it came from a waste company with a conviction for damaging the Gwent levels, at a time when some of us were fighting hard to protect this sensitive area, really shocked me. Genuinely, it shocked me.</p>
<p>Now, the First Minister has said that the donations to his campaign were checked and filed properly with the Electoral Commission and declared to the Senedd and there is no case to answer. But I think the issue is not whether the paperwork was correct; the issue is whether the judgment was correct. Now, I welcome the appointment of Carwyn Jones to look at the rules for future elections, and the suggestion in Plaid's motion of a spending cap for each of us is worthy of consideration, but to agree to it today would prejudge the review. And I suspect he may well come up with something similar, but I want to give that process time to test the arguments properly and to consider unintended consequences. So, I won't support the Plaid motion. I will support the Government. But I hope the First Minister reflects on my concerns and takes them in the spirit that they're intended.</p>
<p>The Conservative motion, as Hefin David quite rightly said, is based on a false premise. As a former Minister in the economy department, I know that decisions on loans from the development bank are made at arm's length, precisely to avoid conflicts of interest. So, the First Minister is absolutely spot on about that. And the Tories, if I may say, would have more credibility if they had stood up when the last two Home Secretaries, the Chancellor, and even the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, were not just accused of breaking the ministerial code but were judged to have actually broken the ministerial code. But what did Rishi Sunak and the Welsh Conservatives have to say about that? Not a dicky-bird.</p>
<p>So, we can all see through their double standards, but the reason I'm speaking this afternoon is because we're meant to be better than that. The point about devolution, this place—a Parliament we have created from scratch—is that we set higher standards. Twenty-five years ago, we talked of devolution as the beginning of a new politics, but the reputation of politics and politicians seems to be lower than ever. The First Minister has said that he does not believe his approval ratings have been affected by the controversy, and I must say that surprised me and it troubled me. Whether the polls bear that out or not, it really isn't the point. Surely the question isn't what any of us can get away with; it's what is right. And the fact that some voters just shrug their shoulders—that's what should worry us. Far from being an endorsement, I fear it's a reflection that we are all tarred with the same brush. And we all get it: 'You're all the same,' 'You're in it for yourselves,' 'You're on the make.' Not only is it demoralising for many of us who see politics as a genuine public service, a sacrifice, but it is also dangerous to the fabric&nbsp;of our democracy at a time when it's already under huge strain. Academics call it 'norm spoiling'. They say that when accepted standards of behaviours—norms—are undermined, it lowers expectations, and that lays the ground for a new set of weaker standards to take hold. That's why we need to confront this situation, and I'm deeply uncomfortable the way I'm now, in effect, being expected to endorse something I just think is wrong, and I haven't spoken out since the donation came to light 10 weeks ago, because I wanted to give time for the issue to be addressed, but it hasn't been.</p>
<p>So, to be clear: for me, this is not an issue of confidence, but it is an issue of conscience. We look to our leaders to model behaviour we want to see, to reflect our nation and to set an example. It's an awesome responsibility, and it's especially important in a democracy as young as ours. The ministerial code says, and I quote,</p>
<p>'ministers remain personally responsible for adhering to the Code and the decisions they take'.</p>
<p>It doesn't need an independent arbiter to uphold; it's a code of honour. Nor is the ministerial code a legal contract. The test isn't how to find a loophole; it's a code of ethics. Now, this situation can be put right. I hope it is put right. But the first step to solving any problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem. And it would not be a sign of weakness to say that it was a mistake to take the donation and, now all the facts are known, to give it back. It can still be done, in my view it should be done, and sometimes doing the right thing is the hardest thing, but you rarely regret it in the end. Diolch.</p>

<p>Sure. Well, you could say we should put IGR on a statutory footing and make it legally mandated or constitutionally mandated that these can happen; it doesn't mean they're going to be effective. So, you have inter-governmental forums in various countries. I'll use Spain as an example here where, when the Catalan referendum happened in 2017, the Catalan Government just removed themselves from every inter-governmental forum and said, 'Well, we're not going to engage. Whether you think we should or we ought to, we're not going to.' So, I think individuals and personalities do matter, and I think this is quite interesting with the finance forum, or 'FISC', as I think we've come to be calling it, that we—. From what I see, we have a Treasury Minister that is quite keen on this forum taking place, and that may change, if there is a change of Government or a ministerial churn, as has become fairly common in Westminster/Whitehall. But I think collaboration is important. It is taking place, and I think, actually, the finance forum is quite a success. It's quite a good story to tell here. It's got a good narrative that it is meeting regularly, that they are working together, they're discussing. Issues remain, for sure, but they are working together.</p>
<p>There is not, I don't think, within many of these forums, parity of esteem, necessarily. It is helped by rotating chairs and rotating locations, because I think this checks the dominance of any Government. But, you know, we have a mismatch here in the UK. We have a UK Government that thinks it's at the top of the chain, and we have devolved Governments that think everyone is equal, or want everyone to be equal. And you don't have that, for example, in a federal system; sovereignty is divided. So, the federal Government in Washington is just as equal as any of the state Governments. It may not be in terms of what we think of, but they are, constitutionally; we don't have that in the UK. So, that parity of esteem is a bit more difficult, where you have devolved Governments wanting to be seen as equals, and then a UK Government that certainly doesn't see it as equal, and I think the quote from Boris Johnson shows that, that, 'I'm the Prime Minister. Why should I be meeting with the devolved heads? We are not on the same level.' So, I think that impedes more collaboration between the different Governments.</p>

<p>I think I'm just going to say half of what I was going to say, because it’s great to hear that your committee will be looking at this. Diolch yn fawr iawn. And I’m really pleased to support Darren’s amendment. Thank you for the work that you’ve done on this; it’s really important. Just to say we all agree that there are particular issues facing us as politicians around trust and legitimacy, and this is one process where we can actually start to restore that trust from the public.</p>
<p>In 2023, citizen assembly groups convened concluded that there exists an embarrassing political culture of dishonesty and lack of serious consequences for bad behaviours. As one participant said, ‘They get away with it, there is no reprimand’. Therefore this amendment represents a pivotal step forward to address this issue of eroding public trust. While the power of recall should be exercised judiciously, with proper safeguards against potential misuse, it does remain a critical mechanism for upholding the integrity of our democratic institutions, and so I’m really pleased to hear that steps will be taken to look into how this can work. I would urge it to be as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>Just to finish on a very personal note, several politicians have gained and lost from a system of recall. We’ll start with one who’s not in this Siambr: we must remember that Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned at the threat of a recall petition after he was found to have deliberately misled Parliament. And I myself was elected for a very short period of time on the back of a recall petition. There are many, many other examples, and there are very recent examples as well, but that’s about the public being able to take the decisions that they feel are right in terms of democracy. I very much hope that, as we move this forward, we’ll see that that will be strengthened in terms of the steps that are taken. Diolch yn fawr iawn.</p>

<p>Our devolution journey has progressed markedly over the course of those 25 years. This is now a law-making, tax-raising Parliament, as successive Welsh Acts have expanded the devolution settlement. What was once an Assembly is now a Senedd. We are currently debating—and, I believe, are on the verge of passing—the first substantial reforms to our membership and electoral system since our inception. Reform will make this Parliament truly representative of modern Wales, and able properly to respond to all the changes in our devolution settlement. A clear and strengthening majority of people in Wales support devolution and want to see it further developed and entrenched.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this respect for devolution is not universal. Since the election of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, the fragilities and shortcomings of our settlement have been exposed. Constitutional norms and conventions have been casually ignored. Powers and funding have been wrestled back to London, and the Sewel convention has been trampled over. This was the background against which the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales was established.&nbsp;</p>
<p>There are Members in this Siambr who have previously dismissed the report, and no doubt will today, but the commission is a serious attempt to take seriously some of the most serious questions of our time. It carried out its own extensive research based on conversations with and feedback from thousands of people, and those conversations vividly illustrate just how well people have understood the way that Wales and the way it is run has a direct bearing on their own priorities and on the life of communities and individuals in Wales.</p>

<p>Like others this afternoon, I'd like to thank the commission for their work. I'd like to thank the co-chairs and the staff who supported that, and everybody who took part in the work of the commission. I'd also like to thank the First Minister for the way in which he has pursued constitutional policy over his time in office. There are those people, of course, who will sneer at constitutional law and constitutional politics. They'll tell you it's not important, that it's never been discussed down the Dog and Duck and various other hostelries. Well, to those people, let me tell you this: you need to read Aneurin Bevan. It's no accident that the first chapter of <em>In Place of Fear</em> was all about constitutional law. It was all about power. It was all about where political power rests, whether it's in Bedwellty House, the House of Commons, or the boardrooms of the City of London. Because Nye understood that, unless you're able to use political power, then you will never, ever be able to change the condition of the people that you seek to represent. And it's political power that a constitution should describe—where it is held, how it is held and how it is used. And there are three points that I would like to make in this debate this afternoon.</p>
<p>We are approaching a period of change, both in the United Kingdom with the change of Government here, but also with elections taking place on the European mainland for the next European Parliament. The place of Wales and how Wales is represented in the institutions of the EU is going to to be up for grabs over the coming years, and I hope that a Welsh Government, in the next two years, will play a full role in the review of the trade and co-operation agreement and ensure that the institutions of Wales are represented in the institutions of Europe.</p>
<p>Now, there are two other areas that I believe we need to debate and discuss. The report and the Government response focuses in on those functional areas of policy that should either be reserved or held in our national Parliament here. I hope that we'll be able to do more than that. The points that were made by the First Minister in opening this debate were absolutely fundamental about the way in which the Sewel convention has been upended by successive Acts of the current United Kingdom Government. The Sewel convention and the way in which our Parliaments and our Governments work together have been completely eroded to virtual extinction by not just the work of Boris Johnson, but the work of successive UK Parliaments over the last few years. We need to go somewhat further. When I look at how we re-establish a democratic structure in the United Kingdom, I look back to December 1931 and the Statute of Westminster, when the Westminster Parliament, voluntarily and collectively with the dominions that existed in the British empire at the time, handed all residual powers from that Parliament to the Parliaments of those dominions. It's a different circumstance, but the principle is important. What section 4 of the Statute of Westminster said was this:&nbsp;</p>
<p>'No Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the commencement of this Act shall extend, or be deemed to extend, to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion, unless it is expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof.'</p>
<p>Very, very clear. A clear statement that the Westminster Parliament will not legislate without the consent of the Parliament, either here or elsewhere. And we need to ensure that we do have a democratic structure, a new statute of Westminster, a new democratic relationship between Westminster and ourselves to ensure that we are able to work together collectively without the sort of conflict that we've seen in recent years.</p>
<p>But we also need financial structures to ensure fairness across the United Kingdom. And this is something that has dogged our relationships since the beginning of devolution. I think we all recognise that Barnett is past its time, but we've also seen decisions that have adversely affected Wales made time and time again, and to whom do we appeal those decisions? The Treasury—the very institution that makes those decisions in the first place. And this isn't simply something that's happened over recent years; we remember what happened with the Olympic funding as well. I look to Australia for my inspiration here. The Commonwealth Grants Commission in Australia ensures what they call 'horizontal fiscal equalisation' across the states of Australia to ensure that every Australian, wherever they live, can expect a similar level of services from the state and federal Government. That is what we should have here. It isn't too much to expect that somebody living in Wales can expect to have the same quality of life and level of services as somebody living in Surrey or elsewhere. That doesn't seem to be ludicrous, too radical and impossible to achieve. That should be the minimum that we want, and we need to create, I would say, acting Presiding Officer, more UK structures—[<em>Interruption</em>.]</p>

<p>I would say that it is significantly better than it was. It reached its nadir, I think, under Boris Johnson, and I think it was very damaging in terms of trust. I think this is the cause of the problems now. Rishi Sunak, I think, to his credit, has recognised this and the very fact that the Windsor framework agreement was agreed, and also the revisions to the Windsor framework, which led to the Stormont Assembly getting back into office, has been incredibly positive, both at the highest level to show that the UK can be trusted and can deliver, and at a more micro level in that the EU and the officials in the UK and in Northern Ireland are having to work together on a day-to-day basis over data sharing and over the operation of some of these provisions. All of this is very positive.</p>
<p>Less positive is the fact that the EPC, the European Political Community, which was meant to be hosted by the UK has not actually met and, although it's not an EU-UK body, it would have shown commitment by the UK. And of course, as I just mentioned, the PPA, the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, has just been cancelled.</p>
<p>Again, on a more positive note, the numerous working groups and specialised committees under the TCA are also meeting, and again, that's officials talking to each other. So, things are much better than they were, but it is bumpy because there is still a legacy of mistrust for those who've been around the Commission for a long time and saw what happened during the negotiations over the withdrawal agreement, and then the possible reneging on our commitments under the withdrawal agreement. But there is a recognition that Rishi Sunak is being much more pragmatic. And the very fact that there was a deal over the rules of origin of batteries for electric cars—very important for the sector—not a sexy issue, but nevertheless shows that things are better.</p>

<p>When we talk about the limitations of the UK inquiry, we don't seek to demean its work. Rather, we are simply reflecting the practical reality that a finite inquiry of this nature covering four separate nations that dealt with the pandemic in their own way will never be able to analyse every issue in full, something that Heather Hallett, the chair of the UK inquiry, readily acknowledged from the outset. And from the perspective of Wales, this is underlined by the fact that of the hundreds of hours of public hearings that have already taken place, only a single afternoon has so far been devoted to the testimonies of Welsh Government officials and Ministers.&nbsp;</p>
<p>It's also worth considering the wide range of Welsh organisations that would undoubtedly have valuable insight into the handling of the pandemic, but have nevertheless been denied co-participant status in the UK inquiry, which is primarily due to the inherent constraints of the UK inquiry's scope with respect to Welsh-specific matters. The response to the representation made by the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board for co-participant status, which mentioned that the health board would not receive the degree of focus they initially believed, illustrates this point perfectly.</p>
<p>The Scottish Government, of course, recognised the potential for the UK inquiry to overlook devolved matters early on, and therefore put the interests of the public firmly before their own by establishing the Scottish COVID-19 inquiry. This is what proper accountability and responsible governance looks like. The Welsh Government has since belatedly addressed concerns over gaps in the UK inquiry by creating the special purposes committee, and we await its findings with great interest. But by its very nature, the committee can only perform a reactive role with respect to the course of the UK inquiry, rather than analysing the Welsh dimension of the pandemic in a proactive manner. It may be many years before even a partial verdict of how things were handled in Wales starts to emerge, by which point some, if not all, of the principal decision makers will have departed the political arena.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I stated at the start of my contribution that there is both a democratic and a moral case for establishing a full Welsh inquiry. The former cuts to the very heart of the integrity of the devolution settlement. Throughout the pandemic, the Welsh Government asserted its right to do things differently and they were correct to do so. By utilising the devolved powers at their disposal, they adopted a distinctly evidence-based approach to public safety measures, tailored to the particular characteristics of the Welsh population. This, of course, contrasted markedly with the disastrous bluster, inconsistency and recklessness of the Boris Johnson administration, and which earned the First Minister some praise.</p>
<p>But it would be completely disingenuous to pretend that major mistakes were not made here in Wales. The delay in testing residents at care homes springs immediately to mind, and the Welsh people deserve honest and frank explanations as to the circumstances that led to these mistakes. It is completely hypocritical, therefore, to insist on diverging from UK policy to strike a tailored approach to Wales on the one hand, while ducking tailored scrutiny for the consequences of those actions on the other. Moreover, it does the cause of devolution a considerable disservice by creating the impression that this Senedd cannot hold itself accountable for the laws that are passed here.</p>
<p>If we want Welsh devolution to come of age a quarter of a century since its fledgling beginnings, enabling systematic introspection and self-evaluation of the decisions that are made in our national Parliament is surely a prerequisite. But even if the democratic case for a full inquiry does not resonate with all Members here today, then surely you must recognise the strong moral case of listening to the voices of those who suffered the most during the pandemic.</p>
<p>At this point, I'd like to pay tribute to the tireless campaigning of the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group. Anyone who has seen their meticulous and forensic work will know there are few other voices better qualified to pass judgment on the merits of the UK inquiry. And they have been clear it cannot give them the answers, nor the closure, that they have been seeking for several years. The time to correct this injustice is long overdue. We owe it to the people of Wales, and especially those who lost loved ones, to reflect on the legacy of the pandemic openly and honestly through a full independent inquiry in Wales. That is why I urge Members to support this motion.</p>

<p>It is disappointing to hear the Minister blame London for everything. While Boris Johnson and London were certainly to blame for a number of things, here in Wales the Government decided to introduce mask wearing at a later date than in England, for instance, and it was the Welsh Government that decided to release or allow elderly people to go back to care homes. So, those are entirely Welsh Government decisions. We also have best practice in Wales. Look at the test and trace in Ceredigion, which then rolled out to other parts of the UK. So, we've got things that we need to learn, and lessons to learn, here in Wales.&nbsp;</p>
<p>A creation of a Welsh-specific inquiry would not only give the thousands of bereaved individuals across Wales the answers and the closure they richly deserve, it would also ensure that the experiences of the pandemic can effectively inform future preparedness and resilience measures, so that we're never again in a position where we're not as prepared as we could be. And since the impact of climate change is increasing the likelihood and frequency of future pandemic outbreaks, this process of a constructive retrospection has never been more important.</p>
<p>One of the key issues to have emerged since the last set of legal restrictions were lifted is mask wearing by healthcare workers in Wales. Following the spread of a new sub-variant of the Omicron strand of the virus in December, the World Health Organization recommended the reintroduction of mask wearing in health and social care settings. While the risk posed by this new variant was ultimately deemed low, it, nevertheless, highlighted the need for vigilance and caution in how we manage the post-pandemic approach to COVID.&nbsp;</p>

<p>So, changes, post-pandemic, which we were aware you might be interested in as well: there are two main aspects that have come since the pandemic. One is a series of integrated reviews by Boris Johnson, and also Rishi Sunak, and then that led to and informed the resilience framework. The resilience framework is something that goes beyond the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which was also reviewed in this period between the start and the World Health Organization declaring the end of the pandemic. Essentially, the review of that framework came back with that not many changes were needed, because the resilience framework was coming, and then, shortly after, the resilience framework was launched.</p>
<p>So, this is looking at that whole ecosystem approach, and if we remember back to that emergency life-cycle, where I said, actually, there are things that go on before, things that go on after, of the resilience life-cycle, it tries to aim to implement and strengthen those wider perspectives. So, in there are things like how we understand risk and the transition in thinking from risk around a more probability-based aspect to including consequence management; responsibility and accountability, how our accountability lines are managed across the UK, and there was a particular English focus with the resilience framework, but I'll come back to the Wales resilience review in a bit. It also focused on partnership, so, how our community and voluntary partnerships are involved and included in our emergency planning, our civil contingencies planning, particularly our recovery. Traditionally, they were much more included in our recovery work, but, actually, involving them in also our response and also in that pre-work as well, we recognise, is good and leading practice. Also the investment within our structures—so, in the pandemic, for example, we were asking our local resilience forums to do quite a lot of work regarding things like securing and procuring PPE. Local resilience forums at that point in time were a partnership, so they had statutory duties that they were expected to deliver, but they actually didn't necessarily have a legal entity, and so all of those things became quite difficult and challenging for them to do, so that was trying to address that. And also skills—so, the skills and the competencies, things like standards of what good and leading emergency planning and emergency management looked like. The resilience framework tried to address some of those aspects as well.</p>

<p>Llywydd, I should also thank those senior members of all the parties represented in this Senedd for their help in identifying those commissioners who contributed the political perspectives that shape the constitutional debate of our nation.&nbsp;It is a remarkable tribute to the skills of the co-chairs that, faced with a commission full of individuals of robust and strongly held views, the final report is, to quote Dr Williams and Professor McAllister, the product of</p>
<p>'reasoned, inclusive debate based on data and evidence',</p>
<p>leading to unanimous conclusions. That a cross-party commission should come to so many shared conclusions lends a real extra weight and significance to the final report, and I thank once again all those who helped to make that happen.</p>
<p>Now, Llywydd, the genesis of the commission is to be found in Welsh Labour’s manifesto of 2021, when we promised that we would</p>
<p>'Work for a new and successful United Kingdom, based on a far-reaching federalism. We want to foster a national, civic conversation in Wales about our future. We will establish an independent, standing commission to consider the constitutional future of Wales.'</p>
<p>That is what we said in our manifesto. The final remit of that commission was set out in the programme for government and refined once again in the co-operation agreement between this Welsh Labour Government and Plaid Cymru.</p>
<p>The circumstances in which the notion of a commission was formed reflected the many stresses and strains that have been felt in the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom. The Brexit vote referendum in both Scotland and Northern Ireland had returned majorities in favour of remaining in the European Union, while Wales and England voted to leave. The Scottish National Party had won 56 of the 59 parliamentary seats in the 2015 general election, by which time it had already been in government in Holyrood for nearly a decade. In December 2019, the Conservative Party was able to form the first clear majority Government at Westminster since 1992, and the first since devolution. The Prime Minister of the time, Boris Johnson, told his supporters that he regarded devolution as the greatest mistake of the New Labour Government and proceeded to deal with legislatures in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh on that basis. The era of muscular unionism, as it was called in Downing Street, added new tensions and further widened fissures in an already fragile United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Here in Wales, in that 2021 Senedd election, it was clear that voters would have the opportunity, if they so chose, to support candidates dedicated to reversing devolution altogether—the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party—and candidates dedicated to leaving the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Now, Llywydd, there are those who believe that the constitutional turbulence of that period has come to an end, that the undoubted travails of the Scottish National Party mean that conventional unionism has triumphed and that rule from London has been reasserted. That, I believe, is a conclusion that is both foolish and dangerous. The constitutional challenges facing the United Kingdom, especially for those of us who believe in the continuation of the United Kingdom, are as real today as when the commission was established. By this time next year, there may be a Sinn Féin first minister in Northern Ireland—and I welcome the developments overnight to restore an Executive in Northern Ireland—and there may be a Sinn Féin government in the Irish Republic. Anybody who thinks the constitutional turbulence is over is simply indulging in wishful thinking.</p>
<p>The commission, by contrast, was established to provide thinking of a very different calibre, and it has done just that. The interim report decisively set out the 10 greatest challenges facing devolution: the instability of the devolution settlement, the fragility of inter-governmental relations, problems with the system of financing devolved nations, the absence of leadership on the union, and so on. Now the final report sets out some answers to these dilemmas. The commission advances a set of measures that can entrench and enhance the current settlement, making it less vulnerable to attacks from a hostile administration in Westminster. And, as well as deepening the roots of devolution in that way, the report explores the case for widening the responsibilities of this Senedd, and does so in six different fields: broadcasting, employment, energy, justice, transport and welfare. As a background to these specific proposals, the commission assesses the three broad constitutional futures available to those who share a progressive approach to strengthening Welsh democracy: an enhanced and protected version of the current settlement, a federal future for the United Kingdom, and an independent Wales.</p>
<p>Now, Llywydd, it was never the intention that the commission should come to a conclusion that instructed Welsh citizens on the model to be preferred from those it explored. Rather, the report offers each of us a serious analysis of the pros and cons of each possibility, allowing us to come to a better informed, evidence-rich conclusion of our own, both as individuals and as political parties. And, Llywydd, all of this is summed up in 10 recommendations. How often have we seen in this Senedd reports bristling with recommendations guaranteed to sink under their own weight? By focusing on a small number of key proposals, the commission has, I believe, gone a long way to ensuring that its work will go on being powerfully influential in the debates and the discussions that will flow from it.</p>
<p>One final point, Llywydd, if I may: in my first conversation with Dr Williams, asking if he would be prepared to consider help leading the commission, he told me that he would be willing to do so, but only if the work of the commission could be conducted in a way that involved as many as possible of those people who make Wales the country it is today. The result is that the authority of the report comes not simply from the intellectual rigour of its evidence and conclusions, but from the thousands of our fellow citizens who have been part of its conversation. Indeed, the very first of the final 10 recommendations urges both the Welsh Government and the Senedd to strengthen our own capacity for democratic innovation and community engagement in the work that we do.</p>

<p>Our report also drew attention to other issues with these sections. For example, on section 7, we noted that there is no guarantee the policy development work undertaken by a committee—work that, in the main, is a matter for Government—will be implemented by the Welsh Government, calling into question the use of Senedd resources that would be better utilised on scrutiny and holding the Government to account.&nbsp;We therefore recommended, Presiding Officer, that the Counsel General should consider the constitutional propriety of sections 7 and 19 and whether they should be included in the Bill. &nbsp;</p>
<p>The Counsel General’s explanation for retaining these sections, namely that they are akin to the Government of Wales Act 2006 placing a duty on the Presiding Officer to decide on whether or not a Bill is within the Senedd’s legislative competence, is, I'm afraid, not persuasive. The Senedd is a creature of statute. To pass legislation, the 2006 Act places permanent duties on the Senedd’s Presiding Officer so that the Senedd is able to perform its democratic role to legislate. That is in no way equivalent to what is proposed in sections 7 and 19 of the Bill.&nbsp;I also note the Counsel General’s justification for retaining section 19 on the grounds that the Bill emanated from a special purpose committee. However, section 19 itself is not based on a recommendation of that committee.</p>
<p>In our view, post-legislative scrutiny could take place without the need for section 19. For example, any relevant committee of the seventh Senedd could agree to undertake post-legislative scrutiny of the Act, setting its own terms of reference and time frame for undertaking that work. We have also concluded in our report that this is, in essence, a Government Bill, and that there is no reason why Welsh Ministers could not be placed under a duty to report on the operation and effect of their own legislation within a set time period, as often appears in other Acts of the Senedd.</p>
<p>Presiding Officer, you have allowed me to make some personal remarks at the conclusion of this contribution, and I'm grateful to you for that. Speaking, therefore, in a personal capacity, let me say this: I have listened to this debate and I've enjoyed listening and contributing to the conversations that we've had across this place. I've even enjoyed the contributions of Darren Millar. [<em>Laughter.</em>] I think, sometimes, we lose something in this debate. Do you&nbsp;know, I've listened and participated in these debates almost since Kilbrandon published his report in 1973? I was in Dukestown juniors at the time; I took a great deal of interest. But let me say this: we've debated these matters for perhaps too long. We've debated for perhaps too long about the nature of our democracy. We need to vote on these matters and we need to move on.</p>
<p>Let me also say: I sat on the Finance Committee examination of the costs of this reform. We heard Darren's view on some of these matters. I have to say that I was neither impressed nor persuaded by many of the arguments and the evidence of costs that were put in front of us. The scrutiny of the Finance Committee did not demonstrate that many of the costs put forward are costs that are, in any way, real, and I believe we do need to look again at some of those matters. But I also think, in attempts to measure the possible cost, we seemed to lose sight of why we are here.</p>
<p>I listen to what the Conservatives say on these matters. I listened to Darren speaking for an age about how much he had no wish to support additional politicians—we've got too many politicians, we don't need any more. What was running through my mind was, 'Has he had this conversation with Lord Cameron? Has he had this conversation with the family members of Boris Johnson? Has he had this conversation with all the donors and cronies and hangers-on that now populate the red benches in London?' And, of course, the answer is, 'No, he hasn't.' And he's sat there with all his friends who have supported—[<em>Interruption</em>.]—oh, here we go; give me a moment—who have supported the creation of the biggest legislature in the world in London, bigger than the Chinese Communist Party, without saying a word.</p>

<p>Llywydd, the leader of Plaid Cymru makes a number of important points there. I'll just take a moment, if I could, Llywydd, to rehearse a small bit of the history of this.</p>
<p>Back at the start of July 2022 the Minister for Economy and I came into Cathays Park on a Saturday morning to meet the chair of the Indian board of Tata, and he made to us then a series of points that Rhun ap Iorwerth has echoed this afternoon, about the unfairness of energy costs here in the United Kingdom and of the need for investment in green technologies that would support the steel industry of the future. I was sufficiently concerned about what we heard that day to arrange a call with Michael Gove, and I put a series of the points that had been put to us by the chair of the Tata board to him, because most of what we were talking about were actions that lay in the hands of the UK Government, and negotiations between the company and the UK Government had already been protracted. I wrote to the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, on 22 July 2022, setting out all these points for him as well, and he replied to me in mid August saying that these were all points that he recognised, that his Government was committed to supporting high-quality steel making across the United Kingdom, but that decisions about investment in Tata would have to await his successor. Well, it by-passed his immediate successor, and it took from July of 2022 to September of 2023 before there was an actual agreement between the company.</p>
<p>And if we're making these points, I'll just make this point as well, Llywydd, that, on Thursday of last week, when it became clear that the company were to make their announcement on the Friday, I wrote immediately to the Prime Minister asking for a telephone call with him on Friday so that we could jointly discuss how we could best respond to the emerging picture, and by eight o'clock, half-past eight in the morning, on Friday I'd had a reply from the Prime Minister saying that he couldn't find time to meet me or talk to me that day. I do think that is genuinely shocking. It contrasts very much—[<em>Interruption</em>.] It contrasts very much—[<em>Interruption</em>.] I hope you're—. I do hope you're not defending that. I do hope—[<em>Interruption</em>.] No, I think—[<em>Interruption</em>.]</p>
<p>Well, Llywydd, nobody outside this room will hear Members of the Conservative Party shouting at me, but let me make sure that people do know that they're shouting at me to defend the fact that their Prime Minister was unprepared to talk to the First Minister of Wales on that day. That contrasts, for me, very vividly with the actions of his predecessor, Theresa May, on the day that Ford announced that they were leaving Bridgend. My office contacted the office of the Prime Minister that day, and before the end of that day I was in a conversation with the Prime Minister about what we could do together to help people who were affected. That's what I was looking for from the Prime Minister and I am genuinely baffled that he did not feel it was a priority for him to find the small amount of time he would have needed that day to have that conversation. That conversation is necessary because if we are to attend to the points that the leader of Plaid Cymru makes, that will have to be a joint effort between the responsibilities that remain at Westminster and the responsibilities that are devolved to this Senedd.</p>

<p>Llywydd, Members of the Senedd will remember very vividly the promises that were made here on the floor of the Senedd—how Wales would not be a penny worse off as a result of leaving the European Union. Although, in fact, of course, as we know, we are £1.3 billion worse off, and will be worse off every single year as a result of that broken promise. Jayne Bryant, Llywydd, referred to frictionless trade, and, of course, she is right that, in that Canadian case—. Do you remember the days when Liam Fox used to go round telling us that these would be the easiest trade deals you've ever seen, how we would strike them round the world? Well, here we are, with a Canadian trade deal, where, on 31 December, the ability of Welsh exporters to deliver into the Canadian market stopped. We were part of the EU cheese quota; now that is no longer available to Welsh exporters. We have to rely instead on the rest-of-the-world quota—a far smaller quota, and far more difficult to sell. Only yesterday, cheese producers in north Wales contacted the Welsh Government to point to the fact that, as of 15 January, they will need new animal health certificates in order to be able to export their goods on to Northern Ireland. Do you remember what the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson said—how over his dead body would there be a trade barrier down the Irish Sea? He said that, as I remember, several weeks before he then concluded a deal doing exactly that. And the consequence of that will now be felt amongst Welsh food producers in the north of Wales. Of course Jayne Bryant is right, Llywydd—the so-called Brexit bonus has been exposed time after time for what it is: new barriers to trade, fewer opportunities for Welsh businesses, and an economy that is, for every single household, worth less than it would have been had we still been part of the European Union trading arrangements.</p>

<p>Well, can I say how surprised I am that the Member is so concerned about turnout and hasn't spoken out when we had the discussions here on the introduction of ID cards, which were essentially about voter suppression and actually restricting entitlement to vote? I notice that the Member has not spoken up yet—[<em>Interruption</em>.]—has not spoken up yet in support of our proposals for automatic registration, which would increase the number of people—the 4,000 people who are not on the electoral register, giving them the opportunity to vote. And when you talk about trust in politicians, I think what you should really be concerned about is your Government's record of 13 years in office, which, it seems to me, year on year, have undermined trust in politicians. Your former leader, Boris Johnson, was a serial liar who was found to have misled Parliament.</p>

<p>Well, Llywydd, of course I agree with Alun Davies. Nothing that we heard in the autumn statement last week will help us with any of those recommendations in the report focused on looking at how we can best help those people at the sharpest end of the cost-of-living crisis. Instead, we're plunged back into the austerity policies that we were promised had been left behind. Here is Theresa May telling the Conservative Party conference in October 2018 that 'austerity is over'. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told <em>The Mail on Sunday</em> in July 2020, a pledge that the Tories would not go back to the austerity of 10 years ago. And yet, that is exactly what we heard on Wednesday of last week—a return to those austerity policies, where those who need the most get the least. As Alun Davies said, £3 out of every £100 in tax cuts going to the least well off, and £46 in every £100 going to the people at the top end of the income distribution. It tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of the UK Government, and why it is so challenging here in Wales to be able to do the things that we would want to do, with the advice of that fantastic expert group, to make a difference in the lives of those who need it the most.</p>

<p>So, broadband is not devolved, but we have many areas across Wales—north Wales is the area I represent—that can't access broadband still. And we have areas of expertise like the Digital Signal Processing Centre of Excellence in Bangor, who have actually looked at great technology, but they need that funding to back it up. I remember that Boris Johnson announced £5 million for infrastructure projects, so how do we ensure that Wales also manages to get some of that funding, that there's equality of funding across—? We've got the experts, we need it desperately for that parity of access, so how can we make sure that we get that access to funding as well?</p>

<p>When the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, addressed the recent Labour Party conference in Liverpool, he confronted head-on the concern that for too long the voice of the working class has felt undervalued, dialects unheard, and 200 years on from the charter of our Chartists in representational politics, in 2023, the Westminster Cabinet of Etonian millionaires has not changed either. Keir Starmer stated</p>
<p>'many people here will have heard a nagging voice inside, saying no this isn’t for you. You don’t belong here. You can’t do that. Working class people certainly hear that voice.... In some ways—it’s the hardest class ceiling, of all.'</p>
<p>And he was spot on.</p>
<p>So, today, I bring this short debate to&nbsp;look through a Welsh perspective on how devolution impacts on the working class and how a socialist Welsh Labour Government has sought, with the levers it has, to aid people breaking through that class ceiling. Once I've finished my contribution, I'm going to cede a minute each to my following colleagues: Carolyn Thomas MS, Mike Hedges MS, Joyce Watson MS, and Hefin David MS.</p>
<p>As the Member of the Senedd, then, for Islwyn, one of my greatest pleasures and privileges is to regularly visit schools across the communities that comprise my constituency. And to break the class ceiling and to create an egalitarian Wales, we must first look to the youngest in our society. Cefn Fforest is a village that sits on the western fringes of the large Gwent town of Blackwood. It is one of the smallest communities in Wales, with a population of approximately 4,000 people, and I recently visited its primary school. It is a strongly working-class community, where affluence is conspicuous by its absence, but the sheer warmth and constructive co-operation of the community spirit is unrivalled. The primary school age children here have lived all their lives under successive Tory Prime Ministers: David Cameron, privately educated at Eton and Oxford University; Theresa May, privately educated and at Oxford University; Boris Johnson, privately educated in Eton and then Oxford; Liz Truss, Oxford; Rishi Sunak, a private education at Winchester College and Oxford University; and on and on. Our present multimillionaire Prime Minster famously once stated in a BBC TV documentary that, 'I have friends who are, you know, working class' and then he stopped, and he actually said, 'er, perhaps not working class.' He's famously known for never having used a cashpoint machine, so perhaps that's what he means.</p>
<p>Let none of us, then—let none of us—be under any illusions that all of the children of Wales have an equal start or have the same chances in life. Very few of my young people are dropped off to school in a Rolls-Royce, wear £800 school uniforms or take global school trips or play silver flutes. What they do have, though, is communities, and teachers who care and a Government that wants them to realise their potential. The staff, children and community of Cefn Fforest Primary School can be so very rightly proud of the glowing Estyn report that they received. The inspectors stated the school is a school where:</p>
<p>'Every individual is made to feel important and shown that they belong'.</p>
<p>But, at the root, even the fabric of that school building that those children are educated within is a symptom of a wider societal malaise. In this case, it's a post-war building that contains asbestos, as do so many of our education and wider public buildings, which has to be very carefully managed. Stickers denote where asbestos can be found. In some classrooms, no new drawing pins can be inserted into the walls to display the children's work, and, instead, a carefully agreed way of displaying their work has to be signed off. The school caretaker begins his day with a 6 a.m. inspection of the areas where asbestos is located to log any sign of deterioration. And it's utterly impossible to believe that the same thing happens at Eton or Winchester, with influential overseas and private donors and fees as high as a Welsh mortgage.</p>
<p>So, it's because of our ethos in Wales and our principles and belief in response and recognition of such inadequacies that this Welsh Labour Government instigated the largest ever investment programme, twenty-first century schools, the largest strategic investment in education infrastructure in Wales since the 1960s. And so, despite Wales only receiving this year £1 million in capital investment for our needs, our twenty-first century schools programme has continued at pace, because it is the right thing to do. Band A has delivered £1.4 billion and 170 education projects; band B, 200 schools and colleges, £2.3 billion of investment; and I can go on. This is a strong socialist statement that Wales will give its children the tools they need, and we will grow our nation from a proud industrial heritage into a more equal and equitable society. Education Minister for Wales Jeremy Miles is building further on this work with the Government’s community-focused schools programme—that all schools are to build a strong partnership with families, respond to the needs of the community and collaborate effectively with other services, that all children and young people should be well-prepared for their future lives. And it is also the aspiration of our education, Curriculum for Wales enabling them to become ambitious, enterprising, ethical, healthy, supporting their careers, relationships, health and well-being. There must be equity in education and all children and young people should be supported to overcome barriers and fulfil their potential—from the Welsh Government 2022 ‘Children and young people's plan’. This means supporting children and young people to deliver a wide range and develop a wide range of skills, experiences and dispositions that enable them to thrive. The commitment of the Welsh Labour Government to aid working-class communities to break the class ceiling can be further witnessed in the fact that, from April this year, the education maintenance allowance increased from £30 per week to £40 for eligible further education students in sixth form or college, and that’s obviously paid every two weeks.</p>
<p>Deputy Llywydd, you will know that I have spoken many times in our Senedd Cymru about the need to ensure that access to musical education remains open to all Welsh children, and I believe this as a socialist, as an educator, as a musician, as a representative in my community. So, I was determined that we as parliamentarians would do all that we could to influence Government policy to ensure music for all, irrespective of wealth; it is not just for the elite. And so I place on record my thanks to Labour Ministers and the First Minister of Wales, who enthusiastically committed to the will of this Senedd, and, from September 2022, school access to music teaching and our new national music service has meant that funding in music education has trebled by the Welsh Government in a bid to ensure no child misses out due to financial reasons, and to deliver equitable access to music and musical opportunities and, overall, the culture and economic development of Wales. The Minister for education has confirmed £13.5 million will be invested over the next three years.</p>
<p>And so these are all real, practical examples and real actions that are aimed at building our egalitarian Wales, and breaking the class ceiling. And to conclude, I began looking at Wales’s youngest citizens, so let me end my contribution by looking at Wales’s eldest citizens. Welsh Government data, entitled the ‘Wellbeing of Wales, 2023', by Dr William Perks, says:</p>
<p>'Analysis (based on 2018 to 2020) shows that the gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived has remained wide but relatively stable, closing slightly amongst males.'</p>
<p>And this is after all of the effort and the endeavour and the co-operation and the co-construction. It is a simple, mundane sentence, but it still has the power to shock, and so it should: the gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived has remained wide, despite everything that we are doing. It is our mission for an egalitarian Wales where there is no class ceiling, and it is a mission that I will continue to devote my entire life of public service to, to narrow those gaps.</p>
<p>And finally, to conclude, Deputy Llywydd, I want to urge all Members of the Senedd Cymru Welsh Parliament to stick with it, to stick with the journey, and help make a better Wales, and let’s do all that we can to crack that class ceiling, so that maybe one day we can see one of my pupils from Cefn Fforest Primary School in this Chamber, or as the First Minister of Wales. Diolch yn fawr.&nbsp;</p>

<p>I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer, for this opportunity to comment on this LCM. I have to say—I may as well be absolutely honest with the whole Chamber—when I made the speaking request, I did assume that the Government would be asking us to vote against it. So, I place myself in a somewhat invidious position of having to both speak against it and vote for it—[<em>Interruption</em>.] I've done it before, the Member says, and it is a tradition in this place, I hope; I've tried to create that. But I think it's important that we do not simply accept these legislative consent motions, but we actually debate the issues that are around them. When levelling-up was launched by I think it was Boris Johnson, when he was making up with Michael Gove, he was very clear. 'Levelling up', he said,</p>
<p>'is a moral, social and economic programme for the whole of government.'</p>
<p>and he was very clear about that. It's interesting that he used the word 'moral' programme; it's not something you associate easily with Boris Johnson. And he was very clear that it was something that united Government, both in its actions and decisions, but also in what it does, how it thinks and how it takes those decisions.</p>
<p>So, the Bill that we're debating this afternoon isn't simply about a programme, but it's about how decisions are taken on that programme, and I commend the Minister on the work that she's done in negotiations with the UK Government about ensuring that Welsh Ministers are involved in those decisions. I accept the points that have been made by both committee Chairs that this place also needs to be involved in those. But there's a more fundamental point at play here, isn't there? If you read the White Paper on levelling-up, published some years ago, it starts off with an executive summary that says what a successful place the United Kingdom has been, and then it gets to the heart of the matter. It says that there are more geographical disparities within the United Kingdom than in any other country that would be in any way comparable with the United Kingdom. And then it lists what those disparities are, and it goes through almost any demographic comparator that you can use, whether it's on health or the economy or social indicators. Every single one of them has a range of disparities, and we all know that, in some parts of the United Kingdom, we have concentrations of wealth and that the policies of the United Kingdom Government are there to generate not only more wealth, but to maintain wealth in that place, and that levelling-up was a means by which crumbs are deposited from that table into other areas. I'll take an intervention.</p>

<p>Well, I must say, I think, hearing Janet Finch-Saunders's contribution, I'm very glad I took my blood pressure tablets this morning, Chair. I don't wish to get too distracted by them, but it's complete poppycock what she said, and it's a shame because we've had a really reasonable and consensual debate this morning and then she pulls out the notes from the culture warriors upstairs, and we go back to type. The idea that we've decided to charge people to drive where they work is deeply disingenuous. We already charge motorists to drive—we charge petrol tax; we charge car tax. When electric vehicles come in, there will be no petrol tax, will there? So, there's going to have to be a change to the way that taxation is levied, and that is something the Treasury—her Treasury, in the UK Government—accepts. It was Boris Johnson as mayor of London who extended the charging zone in London to deal with clean air, and it worked. So, the in-principle opposition she has stands no scrutiny at all; this is simply a way just to create a wedge issue that they can campaign about and try and get relevance as a political party.</p>
<p>She says that we've done nothing in the budget to reduce transport poverty, and that's an outrageous claim in itself. We are spending more on active travel this year than any other Government in the UK. At a time when the Conservative Government in England has slashed the active travel budget in England, we are spending £23 per head. We are also safeguarding bus services to a far greater degree than they are in England, when the market has collapsed, as well as investing heavily in the metro and in train services. So, that is—. It does her no service to trot out this nonsense that has no basis in fact and is simply designed for push-button partisanship, and that is outwith the spirit of the discussion that we've been having this morning. So, I deeply regret her intervention on that, not least because the First Minister was very patient in explaining to her in First Minister's questions the other week that we have to, as a result of the judicial ruling, after a review was brought by Client Earth, produce a compliant plan for containing the nitrogen dioxide limits in the shortest possible time. We are obliged by court ruling to do that. Clean air zones are listed in the plan as what are called precautionary retained measures, which could be introduced if other measures prove insufficient to meet our obligations.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Now, whilst we are taking action that we hope will mean that those measures will never be required, without the powers in sections 19 and 20 of the Bill, we would be unable to give effect to those commitments should it be necessary to do so in the future. So, what she's asking us to do is to go against the court ruling that we are obliged by law to follow. So, I realise that acting within the law has become less of a norm amongst Conservative Governments at Westminster, but we don't want to follow suit here; we have to act within the law, and the law requires us to have that as a retained measure just in case, but this Government has no plans to exercise that at all. So, I'm deeply disappointed by her intervention on this point.</p>
<p>In terms of amendment 79, tabled by Delyth Jewell, we will of course consult with the local authority before any scheme is brought in, though, of course, it's worth saying that this only applies to trunk roads, which are not local authority roads. The points she's making are about local roads, which don't fall within the scope of the Bill. So, I'm afraid we're not able to support that.</p>
<p>In terms of hypothecating funding, I'm very attracted by the principle. There is a general Government view that hypothecation is problematic for a whole host of other knock-on consequences reasons, and Government Treasury generally resists hypothecation. So, I'm afraid the Government isn't able to support that amendment either.</p>
<p>In terms of the—. We will be providing an assessment, as it says in the clause, to look at the effect of proposals on air quality, and this will ensure air quality is a key feature in decision making whilst allowing much wider consideration to be given to other factors that can help avoid unfairly disadvantaging communities.</p>
<p>So, I'm prepared to consider at Stage 3 whether we can expand the assessment provided for within the Bill to include active travel. In the meantime, I do not support amendments 82, 83 or 84, and ask Members to oppose them.</p>

<p>Diolch, Delyth. Who would have thought that you and I would be on the side of Boris Johnson and George Osborne and Janet would be against them? In what world has that come to pass? But that is where we find ourselves, because it turns out that Janet just agrees with whoever the current Prime Minister is, regardless of their policies or their commitments. I really regret that that's what's happening on the Tory benches opposite us, because actually we did have a consensus in this Chamber on the need for climate change action, and it looks like that's unravelling, which is very unfortunate indeed.</p>
<p>It is absolutely imperative that we have certainty in the transition process for our businesses and for our investors. We will hold fast to ours. We need investment in the grid, which I really hope the Government is not going to water down—fortunately, it wasn't in this investment—and we need that investment to come fast, because we need—Janet even mentioned it herself—the free ports here in Wales to be able to take advantage of the opportunities in the Celtic sea. Unfortunately, Llywydd, we've already seen a watering down of the proposals for Celtic sea opportunities, so I really hope they can be accelerated again.</p>
<p>The one that really, really bothers me is the switch from gas heating. We will have to do some analysis of that, Delyth, but we really hope that we will be able to continue to invest in air-source heat pump manufacturers here in Wales, so that they will have an order book that means they can accelerate their investment, because without that, the price will not come down, as is the projected curve. You know how that works: you put the investment in upfront, the order books go up, the cost of each individual unit comes down, the cycle continues. You have the adoption of a new technology, and that technology becomes cheaper over time, as has happened with every other technology. What this does, in a frankly illiterate economic policy, is elongate the investment for that and therefore the probable curve. But I haven't done that analysis yet. We will hope that we can hold fast to ours.</p>
<p>We need to help society come to terms with changing. The aviation one is a classic example. If you do an analysis of the cost of travel by air and the cost of travel by rail, you can immediately see that we have a Government putting its subsidies into the wrong part of our transport network, because it's rich people who fly and it's poor people who use the train, by and large, and this is a Government that's for millionaires and not for the normal people. We will continue to do what we can. I will do a further analysis and bring it back, probably to the climate change committee, but, Llywydd, there'll be another statement here in the Senedd once we've done it. So, I hope we can hold fast, but there's no doubt at all that this is very disheartening.</p>

<p>Can I thank the Member very much for, certainly, agreeing to some of the proposals, the four-year terms, also the residency requirement that will be introduced by this legislation? Just in response to his comments about scrutiny and so on, the issue of scrutiny and the capacity to properly scrutinise legislation, to properly ensure best value for money and so on in the way in which this Senedd has developed and will operate, can I just take him back to 2014, to the Silk committee recommendations, which had, as far as I can see, cross-party support at that time? This is what that report said in 2014:</p>
<p>‘The National Assembly is small in relation to the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and its international comparators. We are clear that this causes problems for effective governance. What may have been appropriate before the National Assembly had a full legislative role…is certainly less appropriate now. There is simply not sufficient strength in depth, given the number of Members on more than one committee. Specialism is difficult and the scrutiny that keeps governments on their toes is less easy. This problem will grow substantially once the National Assembly begins to scrutinise tax legislation, and will grow even further if the important additional responsibilities we are recommending…are given to the National Assembly.'</p>
<p>Can I just say that it is absolutely no surprise to me you’re opposing it—and you’re entitled to oppose it as part of your role within this Senedd—but I do think there is a certain amount of hypocrisy? You’re right, there is hypocrisy, but the hypocrisy is when you talk about the costs of improving and developing our democracy. Over the period of time that devolution has existed, 800 unelected life peers have been created. Boris Johnson created 105 life peers during the three years of his Prime Ministership. Liz Truss is recommending two for each of the six weeks she was in Government. And at the same time, you've reduced—without a referendum, with no referendum when you reduced—the number of Welsh parliamentary Members from 40 to 32. The Scottish Parliament has 129 Members, and the Northern Ireland Assembly has 90 Members. We are the most unrepresented part of the United Kingdom. And if you want to talk about cost, you didn’t bat an eyelid when you spent £120 million across the UK to introduce ID cards, which had the main objective of actually stopping people from voting.</p>
<p>Aneurin Bevan was right. He said many things about the Welsh Conservatives. The one that comes to me immediately is that you know the price of everything but the value of nothing. This really is a test of the value that we place on Welsh democracy and our ability to play a proper part in the parliamentary democracy of the United Kingdom. Our ability to do this comes from the 2017 Wales Act. Any legislation on this to go through will have to have a two thirds majority of this Senedd. And yes, my party, the Liberal Democrats, and indeed Plaid Cymru, do have a mandate for this reform. It’s a debate that’s gone on. We need to get on with it and seize this opportunity.</p>

<p>What I want to see in the short term is those things that we were hoping to see after the Windsor framework that have not been delivered. When the Windsor framework was agreed, I, as it happened, was in Brussels on that very day, and I met many people in Brussels and they were all so enthusiastic and they believed, 'Something important has commenced here. Now we can move forward to do more and to do better than the agreement made by Boris Johnson.' They thought that there was a new energy where we could make progress and do more, and we've seen last week that, at last, there is agreement on Horizon. But there is quite a lengthy list, I think, of things need to be dealt with, and, if we adopt the same spirit that underpinned the Windsor framework, then we can do better in future.</p>
<p>To go to that short list that Adam Price requested—.</p>

<p>Well, you see, I think there are hesitancies on the part of at least three of the four component parts of the United Kingdom. I think Wales is the only part, really, that unambiguously would commit to these arrangements. Our Scottish colleagues—. Let me say that my experience of our Scottish colleagues is that while they have a different political ambition, when there is an issue to be resolved in the here and now, they turn up and they commit themselves to doing so, but in the end, their political purpose is not to make the United Kingdom work better. So, there is an inevitable limitation on the extent to which they would be prepared to make the running in getting these arrangements to happen. We haven't had a Northern Ireland Executive throughout the whole of this period. That's a real loss. I really feel we miss having them there. So, there's no impetus from there. The United Kingdom Government—during the days of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, there was no incentive for them to make these things work, because they view the United Kingdom very differently. They don't regard it as an equal partnership of four nations in a voluntary association. They very much regarded it as the UK Government being in charge and everybody else being expected to fall in line. I don't think the current Prime Minister is quite in that position, but of all the many struggles that he has, most of them as a result of the difficulty of ever creating a coherence in the group of people who stand behind him, this issue just never makes it up the list of challenges with sufficient significance for him to invest political capital in this issue when he has so many other things that it's hard for him to secure consent for from his own party.</p>

<p>Diolch, Llywydd. I move the motion. I'm grateful for the opportunity today to move this motion on the UK Energy Bill, and to the Members for agreeing to suspend Standing Orders to enable us to proceed today. I fully appreciate the challenges this Bill has created for effective scrutiny from the Senedd. The Welsh Government is fully committed to doing all that we can to ensure our legislature gets the opportunity to properly scrutinise UK legislation that engages the Sewel convention and requires Senedd consent.</p>
<p>I want to set out from the outset the challenges demonstrated in the past week alone as reflective of our experiences to date. There were nearly 150 pages of amendments published last week, which UK Government pushed through Parliament in a single day session. Despite our request, the UK Government refused to reschedule the Bill's timetable to allow the Senedd to meaningfully consider these amendments. The supplementary legislative consent memorandum&nbsp;laid yesterday is the result of incredible efforts to ensure that those matters could be highlighted to the Senedd. However, I am under no illusion that this is an effective demonstration of the legislative consent process, nor of good law making. I have made that clear to the UK Government in no uncertain terms.</p>
<p>This has been an incredibly difficult Bill to develop a Welsh Government position on legislative consent. As introduced, the Bill was incomplete and then paused for several months as the UK Government responded to the energy price crisis. The Bill has been developed incorporating the views of various Secretaries of State and Prime Ministers. Boris Johnson resigned as Prime Minister the day after the Bill was introduced into the House of Lords, and we are now on the fourth Secretary of State for this Bill. I have made repeated requests to the UK Government to delay the progress of this Bill. This would have enabled the required scrutiny to take place, and would also have facilitated the much-needed inter-governmental working on the detail of this Bill as it was developed. While the provisions in the Bill are required to help achieve a net-zero energy system, there is no immediate risk to our energy security from delaying this Bill. This is a matter entirely at the discretion of the UK Government. We have always been playing catch-up on this Bill. The UK Government did not engage us in the required detailed policy work necessary for the Bill. The Bill was only shared with us the evening before it was introduced, and there was clearly no consideration for how the overall Bill would be delivered with the devolved Governments.</p>
<p>Llywydd, we have always been committed to working in a way to reach collective inter-governmental agreement. The Bill before us today is important in that it establishes the required regulatory framework for a number of key technologies that will play key roles for our energy security and for achieving net zero. Part 1 of the Bill establishes an economic regulation and licensing regime for the transport and storage of carbon dioxide, with the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, Ofgem, as the economic regulator. Part 2 enables the Government to implement and administer carbon-capture business models. However, the Bill as drafted, and Parts 1 and 2 in particular, provide for broad regulation-making powers for the Secretary of State. As a matter of devolved competence, concerning the matters of environmental protection and waste, which include decarbonisation measures such as carbon dioxide capture, transport and storage, the Secretary of State must seek the consent of Welsh Ministers before regulations should come into effect. This is not provided for, apart from in clause 2.&nbsp;</p>
<p>To be absolutely clear, I am in agreement that CCUS is likely to play a significant part in decarbonising industry in particular. On the need for&nbsp;appropriate regulations to support implementation, Welsh Government policies align with the UK Government. However, I am keen to ensure that the scale of CCUS in Wales is the minimum required, and that CCUS in not in itself deemed as a new industrial opportunity that could risk locking the UK into continued and avoidable use of fossil fuels. That is why we need to ensure new regulations support our policy priorities in Wales and that the Senedd has scrutiny of any new regulations coming forward. With the Bill we have before us, none of that is provided for.</p>
<p>Parts 4 and 8 of the Bill provide for new regulation-making powers with respect to low-carbon heat schemes and heat networks. Again, a number of the clauses in those parts make provision within the Senedd's legislative competence, yet the Bill provides for a requirement for the Secretary of State to consult or notify Welsh Ministers before new regulations come into effect. This is not an adequate reflection of devolution, and does not provide us with the necessary safeguards we have sought.</p>
<p>For Part 13, again, our policy is aligned. I agree we need to streamline and accelerate offshore wind consenting, and I'm committed to working in partnership to ensure there is a level playing field across the UK. However, on the matter of a marine recovery fund, we do have a disagreement on devolved responsibilities. We have set out our position that the Senedd has legislative competence to make a Senedd Bill for a fund for all energy infrastructure projects 300 MW and below in the Welsh inshore region. We believe this is a matter of environmental protection. It is important to highlight that, outside that one example, there is no disagreement between us and the UK Government on where the provisions in this Bill engage the legislative consent process.</p>
<p>In response to our recommendation that the Senedd withhold consent to this Bill, the UK Government offered the very limited consent processes we see in the amended Bill, specifically to clauses 2 and 293. If they agree that consent mechanisms are appropriate for those clauses, why not the other clauses in the Bill where broad regulation-making powers are introduced in areas of devolved competence? It is clear, including through my one-and-only meeting with the UK Government Minister then responsible for the Bill, that the UK Government are not interested in respecting the devolution settlement when it comes to implementing future policy on matters concerning the Bill. Their argument is that the only way to deliver cross-border regulation in a way that avoids regulatory divergence is through the UK Government regulating, even if those regulations are within the devolved competence of the Senedd.</p>
<p>Llywydd, this is, unfortunately, a UK Government that does not want to work with devolved Governments, and instead believes processes of consultation and notification are satisfactory safeguards of our constitution. I fundamentally disagree with that view. I could not be clearer that I want to work on a basis of seeking to reach agreement to provide appropriate cross-border regulation that our industry and our citizens need to help us achieve net zero. I've argued the case for the UK Government to work with us. I've asked for the Bill to be delayed so that we can agree a solution that respects this Senedd and our legitimate devolved responsibility.</p>
<p>Finally, I have reminded the UK Government of their own stated commitment to the Sewel convention and that under no circumstance would it be appropriate to pass this Bill without the consent of the Senedd. Such action would demonstrate a complete lack of consideration of the most fundamental principles of devolution. Llywydd, in drawing to a conclusion, I therefore recommend that Members withhold their consent to the UK Energy Bill. Diolch.</p>

<p>So, we do actually publish information on what we're doing on productivity, not just in relation to the UK overall, but in particular regions, and that's also published objectively as well, and we continue to invest resources that we do have in areas that we know will help to improve productivity, whether that's support for capital—my colleague Lesley Griffiths; there's a programme available for up to 40 per cent capital investment going to help to improve the productivity of business in the food sector. We continue, as the previous conversation has just shown with Paul Davies, to invest in the skills of individuals—that's perhaps the biggest lever we have available to us. But, actually, over the course of devolution, there has been an increase in productivity here in Wales, and it's actually been faster than most regions within the UK.</p>
<p>The confounder is actually in London and the south-east that significantly outperforms every other part of the UK. Boris Johnson hasn't always been straight with people in every statement he's made, but he did say, he did recognise at one point, when he talked about levelling up, he recognised that London and the south-east are significantly unequal with the rest of the UK. The challenge has been actually having a series of not just policy announcements but budget choices, working with people responsible for a number of these areas, to make sure that the resource follows the argument. That's what we still haven't seen, and I'm afraid we won't see that until we see a Labour Government with a Labour Prime Minister and Chancellor in Downing Street.</p>

<p>I don't think the economic record of the United Kingdom is a laughing matter, nor do I think that, when the leader of the opposition finds himself on such thin ice, simply shouting ever louder at me is a way of disguising the weakness of his position. He's shouting at me again. It's a way in which he seeks to disguise the thinness of his own argument. Here in Wales, people tomorrow will face new hikes in interest rates. People who are paying mortgages in Wales will find themselves worse off again because of the economic mismanagement of his party. Here in Wales, this Government goes on investing in the Welsh economy, investing in the skills that people will need in the future, investing in the infrastructure that supports our economic effort, investing in those new industries—in cyber security, in renewable energy, in those things that offer Wales a successful economic future. We do so against the headwinds of the irresponsible actions of the UK Government. How well we remember how the leader of the opposition supported first Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss. How will he explain that to people in Wales, when they find their economic futures destroyed by the irresponsible actions of a Conservative Government that he has gone—[<em>Interruption</em>.]&nbsp;</p>

<p>Last week, my Plaid Cymru colleagues described why devolving power over water was so important, and how disappointed we were that the Welsh Government wanted that transfer of power delayed. But, of course, I'm pleased that the First Minister agrees with us now on the basic principle around that particular issue. But I want to push him for more, and I'm sure he’d expect me to want to push him for more.</p>
<p>With the Conservatives, I get it. As a party, they can barely hide their contempt for devolution, just as they've shown that they hold basic principles of integrity and trust in contempt. It's incredible, isn't it, that a majority of Welsh Conservative MPs effectively sided with Boris Johnson last night by not voting on that Commons report. You'd have thought that that was the least they could have done to try to get some redemption.</p>
<p>But back to those powers. Where there's real convergence between the First Minister and myself—on water, yes, but on HS2 funding and other issues too—I welcome that genuinely. But it has to be more than words. Does he agree that, whilst Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, disagrees on so many of those issues, and won't promise to deliver, they really are just words?</p>

<p>Plaid Cymru opposes the use of LCMs as a matter of principle. We firmly believe that decisions on areas of devolved competence should be made without exception by this Senedd.</p>
<p>In terms of this Bill, tightening regulations to counter the influence of illicit finance and enforce corporate transparency is to be welcomed. It’s worth reminding ourselves, however, that, prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, this Tory Government oversaw a veritable flood of dirty Russian money coming into the UK economy. It’s with good reason that London subsequently acquired the moniker ‘Moscow-on-Thames’. And even now, almost a year and a half since the start of the full-scale invasion and almost a decade since the illegal annexation of Crimea, the apparent links between the Tories and Russian money have yet to be fully bottomed out. For example, perhaps the Tories could refuse any further donations from Russian sources and they could hand back the £243,000 that they’ve already received from such donors since the start of the Ukraine invasion. As highlighted by the investigative work of the Good Law Project, this includes donations from the wife of a former Russian deputy finance Minister and a company owned by a Russian oil tycoon.</p>
<p>We should also consider the Tory courting of oligarchs such as Evgeny Lebedev. Boris Johnson, in all his wisdom, nominated him for the House of Lords despite him deriving his wealth from his father, Alexander, who was recently sanctioned by Ukraine for his association with the Kremlin regime. Given their lamentable track record on this front, we’re highly sceptical that this Tory Government will be an effective enforcer of corporate transparency in this practice. Ultimately, the best way to ensure that our economy works fully in the interest of the Welsh people, rather than in the interest of shady oligarchs and tax-dodging multinationals, is through independence.</p>
<p>Turning to the specific provisions of the Bill on reforming Companies House, could the Minister reveal whether she has had any discussions with the UK Government on the provision of additional resources to the Welsh branches of Companies House to ensure that they are able to discharge their new responsibilities effectively? Diolch yn fawr.</p>

<p>I have to say I've rarely heard such nonsense from Conservatives in this Chamber, but Paul Davies has clearly not been watching or listening in the last 12 months where we've had a masterclass in economic incompetence and mismanagement from Elizabeth Truss, from Boris Johnson and now from the current Prime Minister. The only thing they have in common is that they don't give a damn about this place and they don't give a damn about the people who pay their wages.</p>
<p>Minister, what we have seen over the last few years has been slow economic growth, slow GDP growth across the United Kingdom—that's been slower than all of our major competitors. And in the last two years, GDP growth has almost come to an end. Since a hard Brexit was imposed on this country, we have seen GDP growth come to an end for the first time in decades, as a consequence of decisions taken in London. Do you agree with me, Minister, that the only way that Wales will benefit from the investments that you are making is if we return to the single market, we return to the customs union and we have a UK Government that believes in redistribution of wealth across the United Kingdom, and has the eradication of inequality as a core objective of economic policy.</p>

<p>—the Prime Minister, sorry, of Vietnam, back in the Conference of the Parties, along with the previous one but two Prime Ministers, Boris Johnson.</p>