Found: Alexander Horne: Once upon a time when Gordon Brown was looking at reforming this, I am pretty certain

Found: I adopted the Gordon Brown method by stacking books on the Dispatch Box, but that did not work for me

Found: I adopted the Gordon Brown method by stacking books on the Dispatch Box, but that did not work for

Found: I can barely imagine what former Prime Ministers like Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown think, let alone

Found: I can barely imagine what former Prime Ministers like Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown think, let alone

Found: statement regarding spousal employment: When the Command Paper was introduced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Found: In 2007 Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a ‘British jobs for British workers’ policy, which

Found: The British governments of Edward Heath (1973), David Cameron (2014), Gordon Brown (2009), Tony Blair

Found: of SOPs to help the crisis in children’s social care was recognised by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Found: essence of wanting a low debt ratio, which umpteen people have laid out many times, including Gordon Brown

Found: I was part of the setting of the $100 billion goal, along with Gordon Brown, in 2009.

Found: different options available to government in terms of reform. 3 The 2010 work was launched by Gordon Brown

Found: : Let me ask you this almost philosophical question: you referenced you were a Minister under Gordon Brown

Found: At the time of Gordon Brown, it took a turn and became a tax and benefits system, and what we are seeing

Found: Q22 Lord Thomas of Gresford: Gordon Brown, when he produced his report, suggested a council of the

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the portrait of Baroness Thatcher by Richard Stone, commissioned by Gordon Brown in 2007, is part of the Government Art Collection; and if not, who owns it.

Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The portrait, which was moved in August, continues to hang in 10 Downing Street. It is owned by the Cabinet Office of which the Prime Minister’s Office is a part.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department consult former Prime Minister Gordon Brown on policies to reduce levels of child poverty.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Tackling child poverty is at the heart of this Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity.

The Child Poverty Taskforce, co-chaired by the Work and Pensions and Education Secretaries, has started urgent work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy in Spring and will explore all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty.

The Taskforce will engage external experts throughout the strategy development process including through a rolling programme of meetings, with sessions built thematically to bring together a broad range of experts on specific topics.

The Government also recognises the importance of capturing the experiences of those living in poverty which is why the Taskforce will also draw on findings from wider external engagement events in all regions and nations of the UK. These events will convene a broader range of voices, including bringing in the perspectives of families and children themselves.

We will also consider the record of previous administrations, not least during 1999-2005; the period in which official statistics recorded the fastest reduction in relative after housing costs UK child poverty rates.

Found: Paymaster General) replied: Under reforms introduced in 2007 by the then Prime Minister, The Rt Hon Gordon Brown

Found: spending with investment budgets When the 1997 Labour government took power, then Chancellor Gordon Brown

Found: 2010 Budget, and included the abolition of the FHL regime.22 However, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown

Found: report was prepared by the Commission on the UK’s Future, led by former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Found: In his Pre -Budget Statement on 25 November 1997 , the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown

Found: March 2007).83 2004: The new film tax relief is announced At the 2004 Budget, then Chancellor Gordon Brown

160th anniversary of SeeScape

I think Labour government must better 2010 before what they did ..tony Blair and Gordon brown amazing.. Labour government back to shinning country again and I would say they should bring 15 years long living in the UK .. right to live permanently this country..and pay tax and insurance..good future

Found: I think Labour government must better 2010 before what they did ..tony Blair and Gordon brown amazing

In 2006 the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced Veterans Day, in 2009 it was renamed to Armed Forces Day and it is held annually on the last Saturday in June. I am asking the Government to fund celebrations of Uniformed Services in the month running up to Armed Forces Day.

Found: In 2006 the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced Veterans Day, in 2009 it was renamed to

Found: Paymaster General) replied: Under reforms introduced in 2007 by the then Prime Minister, The Rt Hon Gordon Brown

Found: report was prepared by the Commission on the UK’s Future, led by former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Found: Barrons & Mr Ayaaz Nawab To discuss MoD's Strategic Defence Review 2024 Darren Jones 2024-09-04 Gordon Brown

Found: Anneliese Dodds 2024-09-23 World Bank Group, IMF, UNICEF Dinner hosted by Gordon Brown (former UK PM)

Found: Rt Hon Sir John Major 1 15,000 1 15,000 The Rt Hon Sir Tony Blair 1 15,000 1 15,000 The Rt Hon Gordon Brown

Found: Jeremy Hunt 2024-02-28 Gordon Brown To discuss UK tax policy.

Found: 2008-2011), Deputy Director of Environmental and Transport Taxes (2005-07) and Speechwriter for Gordon Brown

Found: 2008-2011), Deputy Director of Environmental and Transport Taxes (2005-07) and Speechwriter for Gordon Brown

Found: In doing so, they not just powering growth and better jobs for our communities…  But as Gordon Brown

Found: the role, having previously served as Head of the No10 Policy Unit under former Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Found: Conflicts in Gaza prompted Gordon Brown to suspend five licences in 2009 … …and Vince Cable chose not

Found: In 2009 the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced an Inquiry to identify the lessons that could

Found: In 2009 the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced an Inquiry to identify the lessons that could

Found: James Douglas-Hamilton wrote in identical terms to Gordon Brown on 29 February 1996.

Found: She was pollster to Gordon Brown, firstly as Chancellor of the Exchequer, then as Prime Minister and

Found: Office and the Scottish Office, including as senior advisor on devolution to both Prime Ministers Gordon Brown

Found: Office and the Scottish Office, including as senior advisor on devolution to both Prime Ministers Gordon Brown

Found: 2008-2011), Deputy Director of Environmental and Transport Taxes (2005-07) and Speechwriter for Gordon Brown

Found: 2008-2011), Deputy Director of Environmental and Transport Taxes (2005-07) and Speechwriter for Gordon Brown

Found: You know, it was Gordon Brown…  Who pioneered government funding of your world-leading programme… Lessons

Found: Katy Radford MBE (Chair) Gren Armstrong End: 08/08/23 Mike Brennan (ex officio) End: 05/12/23 Gordon Brown

Found: James Douglas-Hamilton wrote in identical terms to Gordon Brown on 29 February 1996.

Found: Richard Campbell , Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation (SNIPEF) Gordon Brown

Found: Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation (SNIPEF) Fiona Stewart , Skills Development Scotland Gordon Brown

Found: Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation (SNIPEF) Fiona Stewart , Skills Development Scotland Gordon Brown

Found: Scotland Lauren Pennycook, CITB Peter Reekie, Scottish Futures Trust Cameron MacIver, AECOW Gordon Brown

Found: Hall Non-MSP Group Members Present Grahame Barn , CECA Scotland Raymond Baxter , NHBC Gordon Brown

Found: 2021 (Present: 4 MSPs; 4 non -MSPs) Scottish Horses, Trainers and Jockeys successes in 2022 Gordon Brown

Found: This will be the first time that a UK PM attends the BIC Summit since the Gordon Brown premiership (

Found: She was Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice and Government Equalities Office under Gordon Brown

Found: Stakeholders are clear on the need to abolish the two child limit: • Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Found: Taxation • Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged Petrostates to pay a small percentage of

Found: Taxation • Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged Petrostates to pay a small percentage of

Found: & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) brief from June 2007 until May 2010 under the then Labour leader & PM Gordon Brown

Found: Redacted - Section 38(1)(b)] [Redacted - Section 38(1)(b)] Subject: RE: URGENT: Response required to Gordon Brown

Found: Taxation • Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged Petrostates to pay a small percentage of

Found: Stakeholders are clear that UK Government policies are exacerbating poverty : • Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Found: He refers to Gordon Brown ’s work in that regard.

Found: As well as yourself, previous year’s keynote addresses have included: Gordon Brown, Dame Susan Rice,

Found: problem with the UK economic model.Ed Balls, the former Labour Cabinet minister and adviser to Gordon Brown

Found: FM Wales highlighted proposals for constit utional reform made by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Found: Under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Labour Government also published the ‘An elected second chamber

Found: sometimes they used it to help find seats for rising stars such as John Smith, George Robertso n and Gordon Brown

Found: for The Championships, WimbledonStuart NicolsonRBSOver £3014th August 2019Branko Milanovic with  Gordon Brown

Found: 2019Discussion with David Skilling and dinnerRoss IngebrigtsenRBS>£3014th August 2019Branko Milanovic with  Gordon Brown

Found: In much the same way Gordon Brown proposed our entry into Euro under Tony Blair and how Ireland has

Found: Under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Labour Government also published the ‘An elected second chamber

Found: In his Pre-Budget statement in November 1999, the then Chancellor Gordon Brown stated: 7 Mr Brown announced

Found: ’r cyfryngau/Media Briefing Macmillan Tea Party Recording 2021-09-23 00:00:00 Cyfarfod/Meeting Gordon Brown

Found: Energy Europe Keynote speech & Neges Radio Ysbyty Glangwili 2021-12-01 00:00:00 Cyfarfod/Meeting Gordon Brown

Found: Finance • Rhodri Williams KC • Rt Hon David TC Davies MP, Secretary of State for Wales • Rt Hon Gordon Brown

Found: Cwtch Mawr is run by Swansea-based charity Faith in Families, with support from Gordon Brown and Amazon

Found: Mawr, Wales’s first ‘multibank’, was officially opened today by First Minister Mark Drakeford and Gordon Brown

Found: In addition, Gordon Brown would be delivering the latest in the series of Welsh Government constitutional

Found: initiative was modelled on a Multibank created in Fife, with the support of the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown

Found: Item 2: Rt Hon Gordon Brown and Professor Jim Gallagher 2.

Found: sub-group and by the full Commission in 2023, and evidence from Lord Thomas, Dr Rob Jones and Gordon Brown

Found: Yet the report of t he Commission on the UK’s Future (2022), chaired by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Found: The Gordon Brown Report recommended devolution of Probation and Youth Justice and neither is controversial

Found: The Commission on the UK’s Future, chaired by Gordon Brown, set out a series of radical proposals for

<p>I thank Mick Antoniw very much for that and echoing some of the points that Adam Price made earlier. I think the Gordon Brown report has a three-stranded answer to the Member's question. It does refer to the need for a fair funding formula, and we've rehearsed that extensively this afternoon, but beyond the formula itself, you need to have that formula entrenched in two ways. First of all, it needs parliamentary oversight, both at the UK Parliament but in the other Parliaments of the United Kingdom. And then, it needs a way of being justiciable. The problem with a formula and a convention is that when attempts were made to go to the Supreme Court to have the Sewel convention looked at, the courts concluded that there was nothing that the courts could do, because this was merely a convention despite the fact that it had been honoured for 20 years. So, what Gordon Brown says in his report is: reform of the formula, proper parliamentary oversight of it and a legally binding part of it, which means that if you believe that things have not been done properly, you have recourse to independent redress, rather than it simply being in the hands of the people who made the decision in the first place.</p>

<p>Thank you to the Member, Llywydd. The operational basis of the Barnett formula is set out in the UK statement of funding policy. The case for strengthening the constitutional basis of this and wider inter-governmental arrangements is&nbsp;persuasively set out in the Gordon Brown report on the United Kingdom's future.</p>

<p>Well, Llywydd, thanks to Joyce Watson for that. The first thing to say is that we don’t yet have a figure of the share of that investment that the Chancellor has announced—the share that will be spent in Wales. Of course, I do support any actions that can be taken to make the social security system more helpful to people who do wish to return to work. We know that one of the huge problems of the benefit system is that it traps people into that dependency when they would themselves far rather be in work. But if you have a universal credit system, for example, where you have to wait five weeks before you get any help at all, then taking the risk of leaving benefits and going into a job, where you don’t know whether that job will suit you, you don’t always know whether that job will last, that is to heap all the risks on the shoulder of the individual and none of the risks into the system. And I believe very firmly that those risks should be shared, and that we need, as Gordon Brown used to say, to create a social security system that is a springboard for those people who wish to overcome a temporary difficulty and find themselves back in work again.</p>
<p>When the Chancellor comes to look at the detail of what she intends to do, then I hope very much that she will look to Wales.&nbsp;The First Minister yesterday referred to the success of the young person’s guarantee here in Wales. If you look at what has happened to the year ending September of last year, youth unemployment in Wales was 6.5 per cent, down 3.6 percentage points compared to the previous year. At the same time, youth unemployment across the whole of the United Kingdom was 11.4 per cent, and rose over that previous year. There are things we are doing in Wales already that demonstrate that, when you use the system to stand alongside people and offer them the help they need, those people can make that journey from being out of work to being in work, and that’s the sort of system we would like to see in Wales.</p>

<p>Darren, you haven't got a single MP in Wales. You know, wake up and smell the coffee. You need a radically different approach to the one that you've been pursuing here in Wales, let alone what your UK colleagues did over those long years of austerity. We thought, actually, on this side that your leadership might bring a change of approach, but I'm afraid all we've heard so far is more of the same, more that we'd got used to from your predecessor. It's not going to wash, it's not good enough, Darren, and you really need to rethink.&nbsp;</p>
<p>What I really wanted&nbsp;to address, Dirprwy Lywydd, was Gordon—[<em>Interruption</em>.] What I really wanted to talk about, actually, was Gordon&nbsp;Brown's report, which I am very keen to see implemented here in Wales, because I think it offers us real possibilities in terms of addressing the terrible inequality that we still see—regional economic inequality, social inequality—across the UK. Countries like Wales need real support and assistance and partnership from the UK Government to build our economy and deal with those inequalities, and Gordon Brown's report offers us a blueprint for some of the most important ways forward—things like bringing more public sector jobs here to Wales, relocated from elsewhere in the UK, mainly the south-east of England.&nbsp;</p>
<p>We want to see more investment in infrastructure, for example in rail, and we do really need to address the historic lack of proper investment in our rail industry in Wales that we've seen over very many years. And we need support for our clusters: for us locally in Newport, for example, cyber security, the semiconductor industry, and the transition that we need to see to green steel. There are many important aspects to that Gordon Brown report, Dirprwy Lywydd, and, of course, they're not all economic; some of them are about dealing with the imbalances of power in terms of our constitution, and where responsibility lies for service delivery and strategy and policy development. So, there are many important aspects to that report. It was a serious piece of work—[<em>Interruption</em>.]—and I hope that we will see early progress in taking it forward. I give way to Sam Kurtz.</p>

<p>Be sensible and realistic, Sam. We've already heard from our Cabinet Secretaries here: there's been a sea change in relationships between the Welsh Government and the UK Government, and that is very welcome. You really shouldn't try and dismiss that lightly, because we had terrible relationships and a lack of true partnership for so many years under your colleagues at Westminster. Already we've seen a sea change, and that is delivering and will deliver.</p>
<p>What I'd like to say, Dirprwy Lywydd, in closing is that work that Gordon Brown and his colleagues did is a serious body of work. It really does need to be implemented, and if it is implemented here in Wales, we'll see badly needed progress in dealing with those regional inequalities that we see across the UK. It's not just about Wales; it's also about Scotland and the north of England, for example. I hope that we do see that implementation in short order.</p>

<p>Thank you. We're obviously commemorating six months of Starmer's leadership. You mention the Gordon Brown report. Can you point to one thing within that report that's progressed in that six months of Keir Starmer's premiership?</p>

<p>Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. As we've heard many times around the Chamber this afternoon, there was a new Government elected for the United Kingdom in July of last year, and thank goodness, Dirprwy Lywydd, for that—a Government elected with an overwhelming House of Commons majority, and with the support of 27 of 32 Welsh Members of Parliament—27 of 32; a result that the leader of the opposition, with the analytical grasp that he showed during the whole of his contribution, described as 'lacklustre'. How much he must dream of a lacklustre performance by his own party, even though he sees exactly such a performance every day all around him.</p>
<p>Now, the overriding ambition of that newly elected Government was, and is, to restore growth to the United Kingdom economy. Of course, it’s possible to take issue with individual strands in the policy of any Government, and we have heard some of that this afternoon. But what surely is not up for negotiation is the ambition itself—the ambition that we should restore to the UK economy the levels of growth that we were able to enjoy for that long, golden boom of more than 40 years, from the end of the 1940s through to the end of the first decade of this century.</p>
<p>I agreed very much with John Griffiths’s contribution, Dirprwy Lywydd—that alongside the ambition for growth must go the ambition for reducing inequality in the United Kingdom economy. That is the Gordon Brown prescription: to make sure that we have growth, but we have growth that is spread to all parts of the United Kingdom, not concentrated in just one corner of our geography, but available to everybody, wherever people may live.</p>
<p>Now, the urgency of that ambition was highlighted by a series of contributions during the debate, because we have suffered through more than a decade of austerity, combined, as Heledd Fychan said, with the economic disaster of Brexit. That has left the United Kingdom economy trapped in a cycle of falling investment, struggling public services, real-terms reductions in wages, taxation at a 70-year high—and all of that combined with the lowest growth rate since the industrial revolution. Now, the political amnesiacs of the Conservative benches try to pretend that none of this ever happened. They've forgotten that any of this had ever been part of what they, themselves, were responsible for. But if they'd listened to Joyce Watson this afternoon they would have learned exactly what their record had meant for the people who live here in the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>While the legacy of the outgoing Conservative Government will be that national network of food banks, this week we have heard of the Labour Government’s success through the national wealth fund. What a contrast in just the six months that we've seen that Government. That is why the Chancellor’s October budget was a bold and necessary break with the failures of the past—a budget designed to set this country back on the path to growth.</p>

<p>Thank you,&nbsp;Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to thank all Members that took part in this very important Welsh Conservative debate, even though the Cabinet Secretary doesn't think this is a very important debate this afternoon.</p>
<p>The debate was opened up by Darren Millar, and he highlighted that we were told that two Labour Governments working either side of the M4 would benefit Wales, but we're seeing none of the benefits. Let’s talk, as Darren Miller did, about the cut to winter fuel payments: 4,000 pensioners would die. That's what your own party said before the last election, that 4,000 pensioners would die. Your party said that. You promised the public you wouldn't do it. You betrayed them and went back on your promise.</p>
<p>Darren Miller talked about WASPI women. Welsh Labour Members and Labour Members in Westminster promised they would support WASPI women. You all queued up for pictures, as Darren Millar said. When you got into power, you turned your back on the WASPI women. And then there's the betrayal of our farming communities as well. You said in conferences, and so did your Secretary of State, that you would support farmers. You've not supported farmers at all. You've turned your back on them like you're turning your back on everybody else.</p>
<p>We've had the betrayal on HS2 funding. We went against our own political party here in Westminster and stood up for Wales. What have you done? You've talked the talk, but you didn't walk the walk. You did nothing and you said nothing, and when it matters, you say nothing at all.</p>
<p>John Griffiths then talked about Tory sleaze. I want to talk about free-gear Keir; an anti-corruption Minister who, before she was sacked, walked away; all the free concert tickets; line skipping. There's plenty going on in the Labour Party about sleaze, you don't need to look over here. I think you need to look a bit closer to home, John Griffiths.</p>
<p>The Gordon Brown report, John Griffiths mentioned. Gordon Brown, the man who almost bankrupted the country and sold gold at the bottom of the market. I don't think we'll take advice from Gordon Brown. You also mentioned constitutional issues. The people of Wales don't want to talk about constitutional issues. They want to talk about fixing the NHS, fixing our education system and fixing the economy.</p>
<p>Heledd Fychan talked about HS2 funding and how Plaid Cymru have stood up for Wales on this, and we joined you in that, demanding HS2 funding. It's a shame that the Labour Party now have turned their back on the people of Wales. You also talked about national insurance pressures, and the pressure that is going to put on our GP services and our third sector organisations across Wales. I totally agree with you there. This Labour Party supports them on NI rises, but they didn't look at the unintended consequences of what they were doing.</p>
<p>Peter Fox talked very eloquently about the support for our farming sector and how the UK Government is attacking them. Family farms are there to protect our food security. No-one can forget that. Farmers are asset rich and cash poor, but yet again the Labour Government in Westminster sees them as a cash cow, don't they? Yet again attacking our rural communities because they don't understand rural Britain—never have and never will.</p>
<p>Joyce Watson started with the usual Labour rhetoric, unfortunately, that we don't support workers. And I can assure you that we support our workers. The difference with our party&nbsp;is that we don't roll over when the trade unions tell us what to do. Yes, I'll take an intervention; I'll save you asking.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Thank you very much, Mick Antoniw, and thank you for all the work that you undertook in your former role as Counsel General alongside me. Obviously, I've acknowledged those who've engaged with us, and I would say an important range of participants in that engagement were the justice unions. I'm pleased that just before Christmas the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs chaired a meeting, with me and the Counsel General, with the justice unions, who expressed again their support for the devolution of youth justice and probation. We're now continuing those discussions.</p>
<p>I have met with the Ministers for youth justice and probation—Sir Nic Dakin, responsible for youth justice, and Lord Timpson as well. It's clear that the UK Government manifesto had two separate commitments: to consider the devolution of youth justice, and explore the devolution of services to enable them to be more locally responsible as part of a strategic review of probation.</p>
<p>Obviously, we knew and recognised leading up to the election in July that this would be a phased approach in terms of devolution, but very much acknowledging the recommendations in the Gordon Brown report, which took us and, I believe, the new UK Government down this route to devolve youth justice and probation. I am actively engaged in supporting those moves, of course, with the Deputy First Minister—it's his responsibility. He responded very positively in the debate we had just before Christmas.</p>

<p>Can&nbsp;I first of all thank Plaid Cymru for tabling the motion, because I think it is important that we do discuss these issues, these constitutional issues? Paul Davies, you said that we haven't got time, why are we discussing this? Well, we've had 14 years of a Tory Government that has spent almost half of its time on nothing but constitutional issues, and there is a reason why that is. I don't actually necessarily condemn that, because the constitution is the contract between government and society and the people. It sets the framework within which powers are exercised, so it has to be important, and we would neglect that at our peril.</p>
<p>The reason it's important to us is because we do actually want to address all these issues—what we want to achieve, how we achieve it, the time over which it can be achieved, the complexity of achieving it, but also carrying people with you in order to support you to make those changes. I've often said that the Labour Party got it exactly right in 1997 when they introduced the referendum and the powers that were there, because there were many calls at that time that said, 'No, come on, this isn't enough. You've got to have more, you've got to be able to do more.' And I have to say—and I still remain of that opinion—that if they hadn't pitched it exactly where we did, if we had fallen into, I suppose, the mirage that was being presented by some on the Plaid Cymru side, we would have lost that referendum and we wouldn't actually be sat here now.</p>
<p>But the importance is that the constitution is important, and there clearly are things that need to change. In most of the debate that has taken place, I've actually agreed with quite a bit of nearly everything everyone has said. I actually don't really have a particular problem with the motion as it is, because Gordon Brown himself in his report said there's no reason, if it's what the people of Wales want, that Wales shouldn't have exactly the same powers as Scotland. There is a real downside in having asymmetrical devolution within the UK, and it is a destabilising factor, but the crux of it is how you actually make that change. We spent a lot of time—</p>

<p>How do small nations pay for themselves? How, across the world, do we have nations far, far smaller than Wales, but they make it work? And we, for some reason, according to your benches, cannot. I simply do not believe that, and that is a real difference in principle, in outlook and ambition for Wales between you and me.</p>
<p>But if the current UK, the status quo, is to prove its worth, if the union is to prove its worth—and you believe in it, Mike Hedges—then at the very least, surely, Wales deserves parity of status with Scotland. And regardless of our differences on the ultimate constitutional journey for Wales—and I'll try still to persuade you, Mike Hedges—it is inconceivable that any party purporting to represent the interests of our nation should not support this very basic principle. It is regrettable, therefore, that the Labour Government could not bring themselves to leave our motion unamended today and send the resounding message to their partners in power, their bosses in the UK Labour Government, what needs to be done to start placing Welsh devolution on a fairer and more sustainable footing.</p>
<p>Instead, we're once again confronted by this Government's frustrating tendency to talk the talk on pushing the boundaries of devolution but remaining resolutely passive when it comes to actually agitating for change.&nbsp;And this is typified by their amendment to our motion. Again, today, merely noting that the Government has accepted the findings of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales means little when they have been known for over a year and practically nothing—very little—has been done to progress those findings. And what's more, we already know that the UK Labour Government has categorically ruled out enacting the recommendations, rowing back even on the thin gruel offered to Wales by the Gordon Brown report prior to the general election.</p>
<p>I think that the explanation given by the deputy leader of Labour in Wales as to why she doesn't support the devolution of justice powers to Wales—'I just wouldn't' is what she said—typifies the underlying ambivalence of Labour to empowering Wales, to strengthening the constitutional foundations of a nation to which they owe so much of their existence and electoral success. No rhyme nor reason given as to the merits of the status quo, despite a wealth of actual evidence to the contrary, just a blunt message that Wales should be content with its inferior lot. The real danger is that any snail-paced incremental change—Labour's general state of constitutional being—is watered down even further to satisfy party orders.</p>
<p>In a recent interview, the First Minister said that decisions affecting Wales should be made in Wales. Absolutely. But by amending the Plaid Cymru motion today, she has demonstrated that this is just a soundbite with no substance.&nbsp;</p>

<p>During his Mansion House speech in 2005, Gordon Brown paid homage to the assembled ranks of bankers, noting&nbsp;'your unique innovative skills, your courage and steadfastness'.&nbsp;He thanked them&nbsp;'for the outstanding, the invaluable contribution you make to the prosperity of Britain'.&nbsp;When he returned in 2007 to deliver his final Mansion House speech as Chancellor before he moved into No. 10, he proclaimed that a&nbsp;'new world order has been created', that Britain was 'a new world leader', thanks to 'your efforts, ingenuity and creativity'.&nbsp;He congratulated himself for resisting pressure to toughen up regulation of their activities. The 2008 financial crash followed and, in 2010, Labour bequeathed the worst budget deficit in the G20 and austerity.&nbsp;In the EU, the UK deficit was behind only Ireland and Greece. Bail-out and bigger, imposed cuts followed for them after they tried to follow the economic policies advocated by Labour and Plaid Cymru.</p>
<p>In blaming the fiscal black hole Labour claims to have discovered after the UK general election on 4 July, about which the UK Treasury has refused to provide key details, she failed to mention either that when Labour left office in 2010, the UK deficit stood at 10.3 per cent of GDP, but when the Conservatives left office this year, the UK deficit stood at 4.4 per cent of GDP, despite having had to borrow billions to support people and the economy through the pandemic and the global cost-of-living crisis, or that a chunk of the claimed black hole is down to political decisions taken by the new UK Labour Government since 4 July. As Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank said, Chancellor&nbsp;Rachel Reeves&nbsp;</p>
<p>'may be overegging the £22bn black hole'.&nbsp;</p>
<p>When speaking to the Mansion House audience last month, Rachel Reeves described what they do as the jewel in the crown of the British economy. She then went on to explain why she felt it was time to relax regulations to provide the City with the opportunity to grow the economy as they would wish. Reeves should have learnt from Brown: such comments always come before a crash. In reality, a return to boom and bust is threatened by the 'grim Reever'.&nbsp;</p>
<p>As the head of the&nbsp;Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank stated, measures in her budget last October were likely to keep inflation and interest rates higher, resulting in slower growth in later years. The Confederation of British Industry's post-budget survey revealed that nearly two thirds of firms reported that the budget would damage UK investment, with half of firms looking to reduce headcount as a result. Overall, this will therefore mean lower tax revenues, lower Government spending, cuts to vital services and consequent additional pressure on public services.</p>
<p>One of the damaging consequences of the UK Government's recent budget was the national insurance hike on charities and third sector bodies. Office for Budget Responsibility figures show the average annual tax increase for employers will be in excess of £800 per employee. With approximately 134,500 people working in the Welsh voluntary sector, even with part-time work, this would suggest a total increase in the sector's national insurance bill of around £100 million a year. As the Wales Council for Voluntary Action states:</p>
<p>'Many voluntary organisations in Wales operate under tight financial constraints and play a vital role in delivering essential services alongside the public sector, yet only public sector employers are set to be reimbursed for these increased costs.'</p>
<p>This is&nbsp;a&nbsp;significant new cost, they said,</p>
<p>'that many organisations simply cannot absorb without a corresponding impact on their service delivery.'</p>
<p>The Welsh Government relies on these vital services, which will only be safeguarded if the Welsh Government supports the charitable sector and mitigates this short-sighted policy. This applies to bodies ranging from hospices in Wales, facing serious financial challenges and having to consider significant cuts, which would leave huge gaps in provision for the communities they serve that the health boards won't be able to replace, to Welsh Women's Aid, facing increasing costs, impossible decisions and tight budgets, to member-led charity Adferiad, providing help and support for people with mental health, addiction and co-occurring and complex needs, who told me last Friday that, on national insurance alone, the Chancellor's budget will cost them £600,000 a year, and without mitigation they will have to let staff go and reduce services. Unless the Welsh Government's budget enables the vital services provided by organisations such as these to continue and grow, the resource demand on statutory public services will grow&nbsp;exponentially. Diolch yn fawr.</p>

<p>Did the Brown commission come out in favour of putting it on a statutory basis—the Gordon Brown commission?&nbsp;</p>

<p>Thank you to Luke Fletcher for this important question. It's so easy for us to forget about prisoners. Trefnydd, I don't quite agree with your analysis that the early release programme has led to this problem. Perhaps it's brought the problem to the fore, but it's an old problem. The lack of support in prison, and then after release from prison, is a problem that goes back decades, and, indeed, is a problem that the previous Labour Government were involved with. There was a huge increase in the prison population under the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown administrations.</p>
<p>One key way of ensuring that people don't reoffend is that they get the right support in prison, that they get the mental health and the physical health support within the prison. The cost of health expenditure in public prisons in Wales is £7.1 million, but the block grant is £2.5 million, and this has remained static since 2004, without taking into account inflation or the increase in the prison population. It is crucial in terms of rehabilitation and reducing risk that people have the right access to the treatment and medicines that they need. I saw that when I was a criminal barrister—I saw that clients weren't getting the medicines and support that they needed.</p>
<p>This issue, in terms of the shortage in the block grant, has been raised a number of times by Dr Rob Jones and even by the Health and Social Care Committee here. So, has the Trefnydd spoken to the UK Government about increasing the block grant? Because the gap we have at the moment is simply not sustainable. Thank you.</p>

<p>Thank you. You've referred to a few historical budgets that I'd be happy to debate, but there isn't time. Gordon Brown ignored international warnings, including from the IFS, that if he continued to increase borrowing faster than the growth rate of the economy at a time of growth, there would be a day of reckoning, and he left the biggest deficit in the G20, which has since been defined as austerity, meaning not having enough money. Now, by increasing borrowing in the way we have, by removing headroom and risking bigger cuts in the future, we're risking—</p>

<p>Can I have an extra 10 minutes for that? I really respect Mark Isherwood; I don't want to devalue his comment. I do want to say that it was a global credit crunch that began as a result of the mortgage markets in America.</p>
<p>But I was actually in the House of Commons in 1997, sitting behind both Nigel Lawson and Jeffrey Archer in the gallery. I managed to get a ticket from Allan Rogers for the Lords gallery, sitting behind Nigel Lawson. I remember him, as Gordon Brown was announcing his budget, making a note on his piece of paper as Gordon Brown was speaking, 'Medium-term financial strategy, mark 2'. So, actually what Nigel Lawson was seeing was that the approach by Gordon Brown in 1997 was quite conservative. It was only later that extra money was spent, and that had the biggest ever boost to the NHS that has happened before or since. So, I'm not going to criticise Gordon Brown's budget. The later days of that Government were affected by a global crisis that affected economies across the world.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I also want to raise something I wanted to say yesterday: two Labour Governments working together. We've also got a Labour council in Caerphilly, and £88 million has been provided to unlock growth in Welsh towns and cities. This is benefiting towns in my constituency, like Caerphilly, Ystrad Mynach and Bargoed. We are seeing an anchor town strategy being introduced by Caerphilly County Borough Council, and that is benefiting those towns in my constituency.&nbsp;</p>
<p>So, just to wrap up—although I suspect I've probably been underdone for time today—I would say that this is a budget that fixes the foundations. But any budget that takes place in the first year of a Government needs to be put into the context of what happens next, and I'm confident that we're going to start to see some economic growth and classic Keynesian progress.</p>

<p>Counsel General, after 14 years of disastrous Tory Governments, the justice system is on a precipice, close to collapse. Access to justice is as much about the better delivery of justice, particularly in the areas of youth justice and probation, where the overwhelming majority of the functions of that system are already devolved. Can I just ask you: in accordance with the recommendations of the Gordon Brown report, the Thomas commission report, the independent commission and so on, what progress is being made in discussions with the UK Government over the devolution of youth justice and probation?</p>

<p>Thank you very much, Mike Hedges. Well, I’m hopeful that colleagues around the Chamber have seen the written statement that I issued earlier on today, to announce that £1.5 million for warm hubs. It is about funding warm and safe spaces in the community. It’s very much building on previous investment. If you recall, we announced this warm hubs initiative as part of our response to the cost-of-living crisis. And I think also it’s really interesting that Gordon Brown, only a couple of weeks ago, who heads the warm welcome centres initiative across the UK, urged people to support warm spaces, warm welcome centres—they’re called many things. The good thing about it is that the funding is being allocated to local authorities in the same way, in terms of the division of funding, as it was, because it was very successful when it was introduced.</p>
<p>In 2022-23, we saw over 800 spaces being developed. And we know, in all our communities, some of those kept going. You can see that already, but now this means that local authorities will be funding the third sector, communities, libraries, their own provision, faith groups and venues. And, of course, what’s going to be very important about those warm and safe spaces is that they’re intergenerational, they’re for all age groups of the family, and also families and older people as well can access services, advice and get a warm cup of tea, coffee and refreshments, but it’s also about company and breaking down isolation. So, I do hope that colleagues across the Chamber will welcome the warm hubs, as I’ve named them, open to all.</p>

<p>Of course, council-owned farms are vital for food production and educating our future generations. I want to put on record my thanks to all farmers in Wales, but our tenanted farms and our council-owned farms, they've faced a lot of difficulties over the last few months, especially with the nitrate vulnerable zones issues and things like that. They help in terms of food security, as Jenny Rathbone and others have pointed out, and I can tell you, I feel quite confident to say that if the late Brynle Williams was here today, he'd be thumping this desk and saying, 'You cannot.' Look, we know that Gordon Brown sold off the family silver. It would be a travesty to allow the Welsh Labour Government to support local authorities in selling off the family Welsh gold. Diolch.</p>

<p>Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. There are several important elements, I think, to the report that require the Government's attention, a number of them related to the impact of poverty and the way that children's rights are being undermined. I'd like to start by placing on record Plaid Cymru's thanks to the commissioner for the way that she has challenged those who hold the reins of power in such a robust manner, and for the way that she has kept a focus on the way that poverty continues, as she has said, to ruin the lives of children in Wales.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Although we agree with the substance of the Conservative amendment to the motion in terms of supporting the calls made by the commissioner for the Welsh Government's child poverty strategy to include clear targets and measurable outcomes, the Plaid Cymru amendment makes it clear that there is unquestionably a responsibility on the previous Conservative UK Government for intensifying child poverty levels in Wales. The austerity policies of the past 14 years have had a disastrous impact on public services and the health of our nation, leading to a national crisis—a crisis that continues to intensify.</p>
<p>The Conservatives introduced the cap on benefits and the two-child limit, which have exacerbated those high levels of poverty. The great shame is that Labour has refused to reverse this unjust and damaging step when it has the power to do so, and our Government here in Wales is too cowardly to ask for this to happen, too willing to put party interests before the interests of our children. Where are their rights under article 27 of the convention to an adequate quality of life?</p>
<p>Our amendment also regrets that the Welsh Government in 2016 abolished the target of eradicating child poverty by 2020. Many months since the publication of the child poverty strategy at the end of January this year, published, of course, without targets to set an ambition or drive delivery, the day before yesterday we saw the monitoring framework that has been created to measure progress. Although one of the greatest minds of their party, Gordon Brown, made the case less than six months ago for a&nbsp;clear vision and deliverable timetable from our Government to end destitution now, and poverty in 10 years, no such target is anywhere to be seen in this Welsh Government framework. Yes, it proposes methods of measuring the impact of the strategy's objectives, but there is no ambition here to drive this work. It is like having a signpost noting how many miles have been run in a race, but without having a finish line for that race. When the targets were dropped in 2016, the reason given by the Government was that decisions made by the Westminster Government of the day were working against attempts to hit the targets. So, my question today is: are we, therefore, to assume that this remains the case, despite the fact that Labour now holds the keys to No. 10?</p>
<p>I'd like to focus, to conclude, on two of the commissioner's priority areas, relating to inequality and lack of action on rights—namely access by children who are asylum seekers and refugees to services, and the discrimination faced by children who belong to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.&nbsp;Children who are asylum seekers and refugees are some of the most vulnerable members of our society. Establishing a guardianship scheme has been a clear expectation of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child since the early days of devolution,&nbsp;and, as a result of us declaring ourselves a nation of sanctuary, it’s disappointing that the Welsh Government has not committed to a service that could be of such great benefit to children in this situation and which would support them in navigating the asylum system, ensure that they understand and can exercise their rights, and advocate on their behalf when needed.&nbsp;The commissioner outlines and summarises the body of evidence that exists to support this call and underlines the fact that a lack of access to public transport has been noted as a barrier that prevents children from accessing and receiving their rights.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I'm pleased to hear the update that there is a new scheme that will replace the Welcome Ticket scheme, which was cut abruptly by the Welsh Government in April and without another scheme to replace it. But what's the timetable for that scheme, because 'as soon as possible' isn't good enough, I'm afraid?</p>
<p>I'd also like to ask the Government to look at the guidance on discretion for local authorities to provide free school meals to children whose parents or carers have no recourse to public funds. It's an issue I've raised several times in the Siambr, but there has been no action on this. This means, according to the commissioner, that children's rights are being linked to their parents’ status, which does not align to their rights under the convention.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Finally, I'd like to echo the calls made regarding the inequality experienced by children from our Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and the fact that progress on the steps outlined in the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' are far too slow.&nbsp;Absence levels have increased in these communities to an unacceptable peak, and the educational attainment within these communities are among the lowest of all ethnic groups across the key stages. [<em>Interruption</em>.] I'll conclude now.&nbsp;The commissioner’s report draws attention to the barriers that contribute to this situation. So, what is the Welsh Government doing to tackle the low attendance levels amongst learners from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and how&nbsp;is the Welsh Government’s attendance taskforce going to be addressing the barriers to education faced by these same learners? Thank you.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Diolch yn fawr. I think the report will be very timely. Because we’re a new Government, there is an opportunity in its early stages to put new ideas into the mix. There’s the whole Gordon Brown report—that’s where the council of the nations and the regions is drawn from—and there’s a wider range of ideas for inter-governmental relations in there. So, I look forward very much to seeing the report and to benefiting from the ideas in it.</p>

<p>So, the current systems aren't effective, and what's being proposed by Labour is at best ambiguous at the moment. The ideas emerge from somewhere in the Gordon Brown commission. The recommendations of that commission were quite weak in the first instance, of course, but now they've been diluted to a point that one can't even hope for, never mind deliver, real change. What we need now is a Government who will truly push the envelope in terms of how the relationship between different parts of these isles can work effectively, and stand up for the interests of Wales in those key discussions with the new Labour Government, and Plaid Cymru is asking for the opportunity to do that in a constructive manner. And without that kind of approach, the pledge of change is meaningless in reality. Would the First Minister agree with that?</p>

<p>Diolch yn fawr, John, and you've always been such a strong advocate for devolution and the power of devolution to be able to change people's lives for good. I think it's probably worth underlining, as you say, the Gordon Brown report, but also mentioning the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales. I think there are real opportunities for us to look at that and to make sure that we're driving forward with some of the recommendations in that.</p>
<p>You will know, John, that the absolute No. 1 priority of the new UK Labour Government is to grow the economy. We are very much on the same page as that, because we know, unless you grow the economy, you can't pay for your public services, so I do think that that is the right way to go about things. We've been through a really difficult time: we've had Brexit, we've had austerity, we've had COVID, we've had inflation. I do think that now is the&nbsp;time for hope, for people to look to the future, for us to grab the opportunities and to really drive forward a future that is bright and provides opportunities for the people in our communities. And those people in your community, John, really have some incredible opportunities now, particularly in things like the cyber cluster that exists in your area. These are cutting-edge jobs that are really transforming the lives of people and making sure that we stay safe, and we have that expertise within your community, and I think that's something we should absolutely celebrate.</p>

<p>Well, I think we can say that I think we were pleased to see that youth justice and probation were recommended as the next-step candidates for devolution in the Gordon Brown review, and then that was reflected in the manifesto for the new UK Government. So, it is now about taking the next steps to achieve that, and that's where already good, robust relations are there with our new colleagues in the UK Government. And also, I have to say we've been very fortunate to have a specialist adviser with Dame Vera Baird&nbsp;KC, who actually has been doing the work over the last year. We commissioned her to be an adviser, to work on particularly youth justice and probation. So, she has been very involved in the youth justice, with a whole group of people who are experts in the field—the centre for criminal and social justice. So, I hope that there might be some reflection on the importance of this in this inquiry. I mean, this is powers for a purpose. This is about, actually,&nbsp;that it makes sense.</p>

<p>I thank John Griffiths and I agree entirely with him. The work of Gordon Brown is fabulous—fabulous. I had an opportunity to take part in one of the sessions that he hosted. It was a virtual session. He mistook me—because my initials popped up as 'KS' for somebody that resides in Downing Street—at first, but it was a valuable exchange of views on how we can address regional inequalities in the United Kingdom, and, of course, transport infrastructure is hugely important in enabling people to access employment opportunities.</p>
<p>Now, I found it remarkable that, since the UK general election, I’ve met now with the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Wales, on numerous occasions, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade—I’ll meet with him and with the Secretary of State for Wales again next week—I’ve met with the Secretary of State for Transport, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, the rail Minister, the energy Minister, and the Wales Office Minister, and so far, I can point to a number of valuable outcomes as a result of two Governments working as one. We had the announcement over the summer that we will be increasing the number of services across north Wales by 50 per cent—by 50 per cent—from 2026, as a result of a decision by UK Government over rail infrastructure in north Wales. That’s a huge outcome in a very short space of time. Next week we’ll have an announcement in north Wales regarding job opportunities. We’ve had a commitment to co-create the industrial strategy, to play a full part in implementing the artificial intelligence action plan. We’re going to have a joint Wales rail board later this year, before Christmas—a rail board meeting that will bring together myself and the rail Minister from Westminster. And it won’t take place in London, it’s going to take place in Wrexham. We will then be forming our priorities for rail investment in infrastructure in the coming years. So, already we are seeing huge benefits of two Labour Governments working as one.</p>

<p>Yes, Cabinet Secretary, after some 14 years of wasted opportunity with a lack of true partnership between UK Government and Welsh Government, we are now into a new era, which I'm sure will, and already has, I think, deliver transformed relationships between our new UK Labour Government and our Labour Government here in Wales. One aspect of delivering on that new reality, Cabinet Secretary, is around our transport infrastructure. I think we have a very good piece of work by Gordon Brown and others looking at the regional disparities in the UK and the need for Wales, Scotland and the north of England to have a lot more investment in all sorts of areas, including transport infrastructure. So, now, Cabinet Secretary, will you work very closely with our UK Labour Government to ensure that we see delivery? We’ve been grossly underfunded for so many years in terms of rail infrastructure. We need to move to an integrated transport system, so I look forward—I’m sure you do—to seeing the results of that new partnership, and a truly integrated transport system in Wales.</p>

<p>Insisting on fairness for Wales: that’s what’s at the heart of our debate today, and being ambitious for Wales, and I very much hope that every Member of this Senedd would agree on that principle. It’s very disappointing, given the theme of this debate and the fact that we’re at the threshold of a new chapter in Westminster, how few Members are here from other parties, because this is an important debate; it’s a debate on issues on which we are agreed. Most of us are agreed that Wales should have fairness and that we should have further powers.</p>
<p>Fairness for Wales means an equal opportunity for everyone living in Wales, and every community in Wales, and the means to prosper, fairness so that decisions on the future of Wales are made here in Wales and decisions of this Senedd are respected, not ignored, by the UK Government.</p>
<p>Asking for fairness and respect should not be contentious, but again, time and time again over the past 25 years, and even in recent weeks during the Westminster election campaign, we’ve heard MPs representing seats here in Wales, including the new Secretary of State for Wales, refusing to act on some of those issues that would secure fairness and respect for Wales. After all, after 14 years of the destructive Conservative Government, Wales desperately needs a Government that will respect this Senedd. We’ve seen Brexit used as an excuse for Whitehall to take decisions away from us and to undermine our Parliament. The deserved demise of the Conservatives therefore gives us a crucial opportunity to put devolution back on track, to move forward rather than being held back.</p>
<p>Over recent years, we’ve heard many Labour Members in Wales talking lyrically about the possibility that their party will take the reigns in Westminster. The former First Minister provided us with an assurance at the end of last year that a Labour Government at the UK level would deliver the investment needed for our public services. He made some bold statements about the firepower that a UK Labour Government could deploy on behalf of Wales. His successor was strongly of the same view. Responding to questions as First Minister for the first time, he told us about the great pledges made by Keir Starmer in terms of restoring powers and funding stolen from Wales. But it became very clear during the electoral campaign that a change in Government at Westminster wouldn’t definitely lead to the change that we desire or rather insist upon here. Pledges on further powers, which were already weakened by the Gordon Brown report, were even more diluted in the manifesto, plans for the resetting of inter-governmental relations put at risk immediately, and a manifesto that has a complete lack of ambition on any of the issues that we are already agreed on as a Senedd and have been for many years. 'Change' has to be more than an empty slogan. It has to mean something. And with Keir Starmer now in 10 Downing Street, we must insist on that change that Wales so desperately needs, not just hope for the best.</p>
<p>Real change for Wales would mean restoring Wales’s budget to what it was during the 2021 spending review—an increase of £700 million to overturn the economic mismanagement of the Tories. Real change for Wales means devolving Crown Estate assets to Wales. Real change for Wales means devolving powers around policing and justice fully to Wales. And real change for Wales means honouring the long-established pledges on returning to this Senedd the powers to make decisions on structural funds. It is not representatives from Wales who should decide, but rather the Government of our nation. This is the true meaning of change and fairness, and that’s why we ask today our fellow Members to vote in favour of the motion unamended, and to commit to work with us in order to deliver for our communities, our people and our nation.</p>

<p>Well, something like that. Anyway, I apologise for interrupting you.</p>
<p>I think that whilst it's convenient for Plaid Cymru to be personalising the resistance to devolution on the remarks made by one individual, namely the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, I think we need to move beyond that, because we need to start creating alliances. We all agree in this Chamber that designating HS2 as an England-and-Wales project is an outrageous distortion and misuse of the English language and an affront to the structures we need to create to have a more coherent and agreed set of rules, not just for Wales but for the whole of Britain. The regions of England are just as badly served by the current arrangements as Wales is.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Andy Burnham called for a new codified constitution for the UK to wrench power out of Westminster, as he hit out at a tiny clique running British politics. And a new book by Professor Paul Collier of the University of Oxford blames the widening inequality across the UK on stale economic orthodoxies that prioritise market forces to revive left-behind regions of our country and beyond. Above all, he denounces the arrogant hands-off, one-size-fits-all approach of a centralised bureaucracy like the UK Treasury, where most of the 50 most powerful people in the UK are to be found. We cannot go on like that. It simply isn't the way forward and it doesn't reflect the depth of the political crisis in our country.</p>
<p>I'm sure we've all met levels of apathy and indifference on the doorstep amongst people who feel they are never listened to, so why bother voting when they foresee no change in their lives and their struggle to survive. We all need to take seriously the numbers of people who won't bother to vote or who have encountered deliberate barriers to voting, which discriminate against those who don't drive, never travel abroad and are yet to be eligible for a bus pass. This, in itself, is an absolute disgrace and an affront to democracy.</p>
<p>We also need to pay heed to the numbers falling for the populism project headed by Nigel Farage. Farage is absolutely adept at drilling down into the distress and despair of left-behind communities. That is why he is standing in Clacton; that’s why he launched his—I think it was called a ‘project’; it certainly wasn’t a manifesto—in Merthyr Tydfil, although that didn’t work too well, because the people of Merthyr Tydfil were just as affronted by him as he is by us. And Clacton itself is a good example of a left-behind community, despite being in the generally wealthy south-east of England. It shares many of the common features with shrinking seaside communities across Britain.</p>
<p>No change is not an option and the constitutional changes that we require are what we need to reach out to other people across Britain to try and endeavour to get some consensus. I was particularly keen on the report of the commission on the UK’s future headed by Gordon Brown, and I think he is an ally in trying to resolve a constitutional settlement that will give Wales the powers it needs to have a more coherent approach to all the issues that we face. As Andy Burnham says, a written constitution would codify relationships between national, local and regional government so that democracy functions properly. It’s not functioning properly at the moment, and decisions have to be made with due consideration of different perspectives from wherever you happen to be living and representing. So, we must join in common cause with the Greater Manchester mayor and all the other regional English leaders, whether they are mayors or whether they are heads of local authorities.</p>
<p>We must back the overhauling of the scandal-ridden unelected second Chamber. We want to see proportional representation for the House of Commons. We could have a really disturbing outcome for the first-past-the-post arrangements on 4 July, whereby we have an unhealthily large majority for what would be the party that I also have the pride to represent, but to have such a large majority would be very bad for democracy. So, we are going to have some really serious thinking to do and we need to reach out to other communities and make common cause on the constitutional changes we need.</p>

<p>Thanks very much, and thank you, also, for drawing attention to the fact that it's not just Bangor in north Wales where we're training people for healthcare; Wrexham is really quite significant, and we've got to be absolutely clear that training people in the allied health professions and others is absolutely critical. What we're interested in in the NHS is getting a team. It's got to be a team approach, not just all about doctors and nurses; it's got to be about the broader team.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I absolutely endorse what you say around flexibility, so I'm really pleased that that's happening. I'd be interested to hear some feedback, if that's not happening. So, obviously, there will be times when it'll be really difficult to offer that flexibility, but there is an assumption in favour of flexibility. That's what we've asked health boards to take on board now. But you're quite right. At the end of the day, it's about funding—how much money do you put in? It's not just about funding, though, because, to be honest, I'm absolutely focused on getting much better efficiency into the system, as well; getting more for what we put in. So, we're doing a huge amount of work on productivity and efficiency and I think we need to go a bit further on that, as well.</p>
<p>But, you're right, if you look at the amount we put in compared to the EU average—. And if you remember, under Tony Blair, he said, 'I'm taking the country up to the EU average'—Gordon Brown was a bit upset, he stole his budget, do you remember that? He used a big word in there, as well. But that's exactly what happened; we came up to the EU average. We are now way below the EU average and that makes a difference. If they don't spend the money in England, we do not get a consequential in Wales and there is a result to that, there is a consequence, and the consequence is that we can't provide the kind of quality that they can provide on the continent, simply because we've seen that erosion over 14 years of a Tory Government.</p>

<p>It's a pleasure to take part in this debate this afternoon, and we should be quite frank that the Welsh economy is in a sorry state, unfortunately. And that's not playing down Wales; it's just a reality. Today, after 25 years of Labour Government, Wales lags behind the UK on a whole range of metrics. Achieving growth is difficult with high interest rates, but Wales's economy has shrunk by 1 per cent since 2018, while England's has grown by 2 per cent since then, and Wales's productivity rate still remains lower than in most other regions. We have the highest economic inactivity rate in the UK, the lowest employment rate and the lowest median wages.&nbsp;</p>
<p>We've heard Labour Members reference their favourite scapegoat, Liz Truss, for Wales's struggling economy, but a 2022 mini budget&nbsp;is not to blame for these depressing statistics. Our economy is in this state due to 25 years of Welsh Labour's economic illiteracy, and you only have to look at examples from the last time Labour were in Government in the UK, when Gordon Brown sold our gold off at cut-price rates, and Liam Byrne's letter when Labour left Government in 2010, saying there is no money left, and the issues that Mark Isherwood mentioned about Labour having foresight of the Northern Rock issue as far back as 2005. I remember when that started in January 2008 and people queueing outside banks down the street to try and take their money out because the banks defaulted on the people. That is a sorry state of affairs to be in, when the banks default on the people, because people put trust in banks to act on their best behalf. That was the sorry state under Labour, and we should remember those recent turn of events in terms of deciding who your next Government should be.</p>
<p>Regardless, my constituents are not interested in whataboutery, they're interested in what the Welsh Government are doing to ensure their pay is rising, to ensure they have access to high-quality employment in their area, to ensure that they see businesses in their community thriving. Of course, COVID-19 lockdowns led to a severe global recession, with an unprecedented drop in GDP. But some ships weathered the storm better than others, with slow improvement in growth, productivity and investment, and the UK weathered the storm better than most EU countries—remember Italy, for example. Only seven countries bounced back with regard to the foreign direct investment that is key to growth, and the United Kingdom is one of these, ahead of the United States, Germany, China and Japan.</p>
<p>UK growth has also consistently been higher than Germany's since the pandemic, but, under Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething's captaincy in Wales, our economy is still drifting into the doldrums. The wind is taken out of our sails by the poor economic decisions. Gross value per head in Wales currently comes in at under three quarters of the UK average; economic inactivity is 28 per cent, compared to the UK average of 22 per cent; employment is 68.9 per cent, to the UK average of 74.3 per cent. The Welsh economy, like our motorists, is moving at a snail's pace, and these disparities are growing evermore. People in this country deserve better.</p>
<p>The Welsh Government need to set out the economic conditions for our economy to thrive, and levelling up north Wales by investing in infrastructure, like the Welsh Government have done with the south Wales metro, is vital. A PricewaterhouseCoopers&nbsp;report showed that productivity in Wales is buoyed only by Cardiff, with the figures in north Wales being particularly dire. The UK Government has had to pick up the tab, with £2.5 billion of levelling-up funding for Wales, where communities like mine in north Wales have been neglected by the Welsh Government.</p>
<p>This topic could be debated for days, but I'd like to conclude my remarks by repeating my call for the Welsh Government to reinstate business rates relief to 75 per cent for retail, hospitality and leisure, and abolish business rates for small businesses, which would go some way to give a leg up to struggling businesses, reverse the trend of higher comparative unemployment and improve our rates of business survival, which are the third lowest among all the UK nations, so that we can begin to turn this ship around.</p>
<p>I would just add a footnote to my remarks in saying that the biggest issue that we had when we were members of the European Union was, on the issues of foodbanks and sanitary products, that, under EU legislation, we couldn't drop interest rates below 5 per cent, and they are freedoms that we've gained through Brexit,&nbsp;which enabled the United Kingdom to operate within a free economy without the burden of European legislation, which stopped VAT rates being lowered. That was the reason for sanitary products rate relief not materialising pre 2016, and that's the reason why prices have dropped over that time, because we have released ourselves from the economic burden of the European Union in voting for Brexit in 2016, and we must embrace that and make the best of it for Wales. Thank you.</p>

<p>Devolution was supposed to reinvigorate the economy and liberate the life chances of people in Wales. However, although Wales can be an agile nation with a thriving high-wage economy, its entrepreneurial spirit has been kept on a leash, and this has sadly not been the case.</p>
<p>A quarter of a century of a Labour Welsh Government has left our economy underperforming and the people of Wales losing out as a result. Rather than succumbing to the siren calls from Labour and Plaid Cymru to take actions that would have boosted inflation and generated bigger future cuts, making everyone worse off, the UK Conservative Government has taken the action necessary to cut inflation from over 11 per cent to near 2 per cent above the interest rates independently set by the Bank of England, with real wages growing for the eleventh month in a row, nearly 4 million more people in work, and youth unemployment down 370,000 since 2010, and economic inactivity lower than at any point under the last UK Labour Government. However, the deadweight of Labour Welsh Government has left Wales the lowest employment rate, lowest pay packets, lowest total GDP output per head, and highest economic inactivity rates in the UK—this despite Labour Welsh Government having received billions in temporary funding intended to close the prosperity gap both within Wales and between Wales and the rest of the UK.</p>
<p>In claiming that they've been short-changed since, the poor darlings struggle to understand that Wales and the Welsh Labour Government are not the same thing. They would, of course, be correct had Wales not received over £2.5 billion of UK levelling-up funding via a number of different schemes aimed at spreading prosperity and giving communities more of a say in how the money is spent, including over £440 million through three rounds of levelling-up funding and around £585 million in UK shared prosperity funding. They would also be correct had the UK Government not invested £2 billion for Network Rail and £340 million for enhancements in Welsh rail from 2019 to 2024, had Network Rail not published its £5.2 billion five-year plan for the railway in Wales and western that sees a £1.9 billion investment in the Wales and borders route, and had the UK Government not also announced plans for rail upgrades in Wales, including £1 billion into electrification of the north Wales main line and £700,000 for Transport for Wales to explore upgrades for Shotton and Chester stations, and increase north Wales main line capacity.</p>
<p>In order to deflect attention from their own gross failings, they present austerity as a policy chosen by the UK Conservative Government, although Blair and Brown were the architects of austerity. When Gordon Brown opened US investment bank Lehman Brothers's London headquarters in 2004, he told them:</p>
<p>'I would like to pay tribute to the contribution you and your company make to the prosperity of Britain.'</p>
<p>On 15 September 2008 Lehman Brothers went bust: the moment when global financial stress turned into a full-blown international emergency.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Years before, the IMF said that the UK banking system was more exposed to sub-prime debt than anywhere else in the world.</p>
<p>The National Audit Office reported that Mr Brown's Treasury was warned three years before Northern Rock nearly went bust that it needed to set up emergency plans to handle a banking crisis, but did nothing about it. Following the crash, the financial services authority reported that there had been instead sustained political emphasis by the Labour Government on the need for them to be light-touch in their regulatory approach. Well, the people paid the price. By 2010 the UK budget deficit was the worst in the G20, behind only Ireland and Greece in the EU.&nbsp;</p>
<p>If you have a big deficit, someone owns you and sets the terms, and would have imposed greater cuts had we followed the economic policies advocated by Labour and Plaid Cymru, as happened in Ireland and Greece, and as happened when the UK Labour Government was forced to borrow from the IMF in 1976. I'm old enough to remember that; my father lost his job a couple of years later. They seek to deflect blame onto Liz Truss's temporary tenure, dodging the reality that the pound, the cost of borrowing and markets rebounded as soon as Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt restored stability. Only a very silly-billy would claim that the current cost-of-living crisis was made in Westminster—as they do—and 33 European countries, the euro area—</p>

<p>We should celebrate, I think, this twenty-fifth anniversary with a gear shift, a shift in scrutiny that is enabled through the reform legislation that we'll be voting on tomorrow, but a governmental gear shift too. We need a Government that, instead of reacting to crises, shifts to more innovation in the delivery of public services, to creating a distinct and resilient economy, where devolution is a real buffer against the headwinds of Westminster and beyond, and on strengthening our own hand as an institution.</p>
<p>Plaid Cymru's been clear on how we see the way forward: a standing national commission should take responsibility for implementing and building on the work of the recent independent commission's recommendations, encouraging public involvement as much as possible in furthering the processes of constitutional change. The Welsh Government itself has a duty to prepare for and lead on further processes of constitutional change, not to step in line with the Gordon Brown convention, or any other Westminster body concocted with a view to keeping the Celtic nations quiet, I should say, but rather to carve a distinct path for Wales. And I encourage the current Government to do so.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Twenty-five years on from when our Senedd was created, it's being reimagined now. And the onus is now on the First Minister to ensure that his Government's ambitions meet those of the people of Wales for the next quarter of a century and beyond. As the Wales Governance Centre pointed out this week, all available data shows a majority shift towards wanting more powers, with support for independence almost tripling since 1999.</p>

<p>Do you think that, therefore—? You've heard our arguments for the devolution of criminal justice for exactly this reason. Do you see, therefore, that the piecemeal approach, suggested by Gordon Brown and that seems to be adopted by Keir Starmer, won't address this issue, and don't you regret that?</p>

<p>Diolch. I move amendment 1. Whilst the Welsh Conservatives are always happy to note a report, we cannot endorse this report. Although UK Conservative Governments have delivered law-making powers, tax-raising powers and a reserved powers model, turning this place into a fully-fledged Parliament, we recognise that further devolution of powers, now or in the foreseeable future, is both unnecessary and unsafe. Whilst the evolving constitutional settlement within our UK should not be determined by the transient policies and personalities of different Governments at any point in time, it should and must be built on the solid foundations provided by representative democracies with functioning checks&nbsp;and balances.</p>
<p>However, the democratic deficit in Wales is still alive and kicking, with many still not understanding where the decisions are taken, who's responsible and how much power the Welsh Government actually has over their lives. As a constituent put it, 'The activities of the Welsh Government are ignored by a large section of the population, and this concerns me because the Welsh Government could, in this way, get away with anything.' The electorate are not acting as checks and balances. This perpetuates the one-sided nature of Welsh politics, allowing the 'we know best' Labour Welsh Government to dodge accountability.</p>
<p>To be effective, the first requirement of any Government is to know that it could be kicked out, but after 25 years in power, this buck-passing Welsh Government no longer believes that this applies to them. Hopefully, the mass petitions and protests of recent times will change this, but unless and until they do, we cannot risk further concentration of power in their hands. The commission's report confirms that, in the event of independence, Wales would face a fiscal deficit, meaning big cuts for many years, and possibly longer, the extent of which would be dependent upon the terms negotiated, which would include decisions surrounding&nbsp;state pensions, proportion of UK debt allocation, what currency Wales would use, defence and overseas representation.</p>
<p>Weaknesses in the commission's report are exposed by its statement that its justice and policing sub-group took the report of the Thomas commission as its starting point. However, when I visited the north-west regional organised crime unit, a collaboration between North Wales Police and five police forces in north-west England, in early 2020, we heard that evidence given to the Thomas commission by the chief constables and police and crime commissioners in Wales was largely ignored in the commission's report, and that 95 per cent or more of crime in north Wales is local or operates on a cross-border, east-west basis. That was senior police officers; clearly, I can't identify them.</p>
<p>In fact, the Thomas commission only includes one reference to any cross-border criminality, in the context of county lines, and the solution it proposes is joint working across the four Welsh forces, but no reference to forces across the border. In the real world, for example, North Wales Police joined forces with Cheshire and British Transport Police to target cross-border criminals as part of Operation Crossbow last March. Only this month, Project Medusa, funded by the Home Office, saw joint operations between Merseyside, north Wales and Cheshire police forces to tackle county lines drug dealing and the criminal exploitation of young people.&nbsp;</p>
<p>As yesterday's Welsh Government-commissioned report, 'Preparing for the Devolution of Policing in Wales', quotes,</p>
<p>'the Thomas report talked about the jagged edge between devolved and non-devolved bodies, and I think if you look at some of the work we've done...we've got none'.</p>
<p>It also reports concern that the</p>
<p>'proximity of Welsh Ministers could lead to situations which may threaten the principle of operational independence'.</p>
<p>Further, given that Labour's shadow Welsh Secretary has rejected calls for the Welsh Government to be given control of policing and adult criminal justice, and that the chair of Labour's Commission on the UK's Future, Gordon Brown, fell short of backing calls for Wales's justice system to be run from Cardiff only two days ago, we must ask why the Welsh Government is devoting so much time and resource to devolution of these matters when it is cutting key budgets elsewhere. Perhaps intentionally, the obsessive-like pursuit of future powers is a distraction from the issues that matter to the people of Wales.</p>
<p>While, of course, there are some interesting aspects of this report that will require further consideration, and the First Minister referred to some of those, the work of the commission will not make ambulances arrive any faster, properly staff our schools or support Welsh businesses. Welsh Labour Ministers and their Plaid Cymru partners should instead be focusing on getting to grips with unacceptable waiting lists, on improving educational outcomes and on better pay for people in Wales, the lowest paid in the UK, after that quarter of a century that the First Minister referred to. Diolch yn fawr.</p>

<p>Well, if the Member were to come forward with a proposition to exclude any councillor in Wales who was elected on a plurality below a certain percentage, we would be able to listen to it, but, of course, he won't, because he makes a simply mistaken argument about the nature of our democracy. Of course, the report, as many other colleagues have said, is all about strengthening democracy in Wales, and we certainly want to see that. But one of the ways in which Welsh politics and Welsh debate could be strengthened would be by having an opposition party that genuinely offered the Welsh public a credible opposition, and they quite certainly do not do that.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Can I turn for a moment to the points that Rhun ap Iorwerth raised? I completely agree with him. Too often, debates on these matters in Wales have been evidence thin. That's why this report is so important, because it assembles that credible and depth of evidence behind the arguments that it puts forward. It says, as he said, that the status quo is unsustainable. There is money in the budget in the next financial year for us to take forward those recommendations at the start of the report that are about strengthening the way in which democracy can operate here in Wales, a deliberative form of democracy in which we engage people in debate, not a dipstick form of democracy, in which you ask people on a particular day what they think, but in which we engage them in the complexity of debate. That's what the commission did. They went out, they didn't simply hand people a piece of paper and say, 'Tell us the answer', they had a discussion with them and the more the discussion deepened, the more useful and interesting those ideas became.</p>
<p>We're not in favour of a piecemeal approach to criminal justice, we're in favour of a journey to the devolution of the criminal justice system, but one which allows the Senedd to absorb those responsibilities in an orderly way, which allows the people who work in that service to see that there is a pathway there, but doesn't mean that we take on everything in one big bang all on the first day.</p>
<p>I really enjoyed Alun Davies's contribution, as ever, Llywydd. I can't respond to everything that he said, but he reminded us of one of the towering figures of Welsh politics of the twentieth and twenty-first century, because it was Elystan Morgan who constantly argued that dominion status was an option for devolution in Wales that hadn't been properly explored, that ought to be put back on the table. I thought it was really useful of Alun to have reminded us of that debate this afternoon.</p>
<p>The Gordon Brown report, Dirprwy Lywydd, has a lot of useful things to say on the equalisation principle and the way in which resources across the United Kingdom ought to be dispensed in a way that gives every citizen a guarantee that certain basic citizenship rights will come their way as a result of their membership of the United Kingdom.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I wanted to thank Adam Price, Dirprwy Lywydd, for the contribution he has made to the wider debate about the nature of our democracy. He's right, of course, Senedd reform, it's a step that has eluded the Senedd for 20 years, but it's not the end of the debate about how we reinvigorate democracy here in Wales, reinventing it through innovation, to make it relevant, representative and fit for the sort of place we want Wales to be. I wish that I had had some better quotations available to me, as Members on benches have offered this afternoon, but it was wonderful to hear Vernon Watkins quoted once again on the floor of this Senedd.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Apologies to those Members whose contributions I haven't been able to refer to, but just to sum up, the constitutional commission in Wales has done us an enormous service. It has done us a service in the seriousness of the work that it has done, the depth of the engagement that it has had with Welsh citizens, and the fact that it has left us with just 10 recommendations to take into the future. How often my heart has sunk here to see yet another committee report bristling with 70 or 80 recommendations, almost all of them guaranteed never to be pursued because of the number of them. Here, there are only 10. That means the Welsh Government can be held to account, and we've made a start on that journey. As I say, there is money set aside for next year, there are practical actions that we will want to take, particularly in those early recommendations, and then we can use the rest of the report as the basis for the next step on a journey that many of us here have been involved in for the last 25 years. Dirprwy Lywydd, diolch yn fawr.</p>

<p>Just to be clear, for the record, that a contact from a Labour First Minister of Wales to the leader of the UK Labour Party will always be influential and will always be consequential. What you don't want to do is to devalue the currency of those calls by doing what the leader of Plaid Cymru suggested to me last week, that barely a day would go by when I wasn't on the phone asking Keir Starmer for something. I've always been very careful to make sure that in the many conversations I have had with the leader of the UK party, it's always been about something that is essential to the future interests of Wales, and I've always had—as I have had over this last weekend, and I know that both Jeremy Miles and Vaughan Gething will have had—very warm and engaged conversations with the leader of the UK party. Of course, funding is always part of some of those conversations. We know what the incoming Labour Government, if that is what it is to be, will inherit, but I think Gordon Brown, who has taken such a close interest in Wales in recent years, and where his report provides such an important blueprint for an incoming Labour Government, had some very interesting things to say about how financial flows through the United Kingdom might best be navigated in the future. This is a very live debate, and I'm quite sure that the Welsh Government will go on being a very positive and constructive contributor to it.</p>

<p>Again, Plaid Cymru want to be disappointed with a UK Labour Government that is yet to be elected. I look forward to getting out on doorsteps and in media studios persuading people to vote Labour in the next UK general election. I think it's essential for the future of the UK and the future of the people we represent. I also cast my mind back to when I was genuinely young and knocking doors in the run-up to the 1997 general election; we had exactly this sort of context, as well, from some of our critics: what would happen with the fiscal discipline that Gordon Brown was describing? And in the end, actually, what did happen was that within a couple of years, there was sustained investment in the future of public services and the economy. It made a huge difference. When I describe the improvement in productivity and economic activity rates through the period of devolution before the last few years, that happened because of the resources we had, because we had a stable environment to make choices here. And I look forward to us being able to significantly improve both public services and the economy in Wales with that stability.</p>
<p>I think, when you look at the Chancellor's recent statement, though, it does show that, if we have more of the same, it's a bleak future, because most independent commentators recognise that the cuts to public services are unachievable. Public services being decent is good for the economy. I was surprised to see the levelling-up mission providing £242 million to invest in Canary Wharf, which doesn't seem like the right sort of priority to me. I think we'll see entirely different priorities with an incoming UK Labour Government. I look forward to campaigning for that Government, to working with them and standing up for Wales to make the choices that we need to have a better economic future for all of our constituents.</p>

<p>Thank you. You've almost answered my final question, but obviously in terms of—you mentioned Smith, and the Gordon Brown report also concurred; I don't know if you've had sight of that—the authority there in Scotland being transferred equally in terms of the other devolved administrations.</p>
<p>I'm going to move on, then. I'll go through this question—some of it you've partially answered, but I'll do it anyway. The commission noted in its report that the Welsh Government’s scope to modify income tax is more limited than that of the Scottish Government, and there is no case in principle for this different treatment, as we've already discussed. Do you feel, though, that the reasons for the Treasury decisions regarding the devolved fiscal matters are transparent, for the record, and consistent, and would establishing more formal arrangements provide a fairer approach for Wales?&nbsp;</p>

<p>It would be useful if we kept in touch with the Counsel General on those Northern Irish matters, because I think they will have a significant impact on the operation of the inter-governmental relationships, if they are to mean anything.</p>
<p>I'll wrap my remaining questions into a single question, for reasons of time. Since you last appeared in front of the committee, Counsel General, you have published the report, the final report, of the independent commission on the constitution. It would be useful for the committee to understand how you expect to take that forward now. I think the last time you were in front of the committee, you mentioned that you expected it to influence the work that Gordon Brown was leading within the Labour Party, but I don't think you've outlined how else you would expect that report to be used in order to guide the approach of Welsh Government, and others, in the constitutional debate.</p>

<p>Well, we've seen the recommendations, both in the independent commission recently and the Thomas commission, and we've also seen the recommendations that have come from the report that was prepared for the opposition by Gordon Brown, which specifically focused on the devolution of justice, but starting with youth justice and probation. And it's fair to say that nothing substantive will change unless there is a change of Government. Now, that depends on the outcome of the general election, but it would be irresponsible of us not to actually be looking ahead and to seek to engage in that, and also to prepare the ground for it.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Well, can I say, firstly, that the social media clip you refer to was very much in response to a clip that came from the Rt Hon Robert Buckland, former Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Justice? The reason I did that was because the tone of what was being said was, 'Look at our justice system. We are so respected throughout the world. We are almost the cornerstone of justice et cetera. Who would really want to undermine that and then to devolve justice, because everything is as it is?' And my immediate response to that is, 'No, it isn't.' Our justice system is becoming a laughing stock around the world. Our legal aid system is far worse than in many other countries of the world. We are exposed to an onslaught of miscarriages of justice: senior individual cases, to the issues that we've discussed, with warrants of execution, to the issues we've had with the Horizon scandal, which goes on and on. We have a justice system with backlogs, and the legal aid system means that the majority of the population never have access to the justice system. We now have a Government that is passing unlawful legislation and that is talking about legislating to break international conventions. So, that's what I thought was actually delusional. Anyone who still believes that old mantra we had 20, 30 years ago of the mother of parliaments and the justice system we've given to the world—we have parts of the world that have now more effective justice systems than we have.</p>
<p>Can I say, in terms of policing—? Well, look, the first thing is that the Gordon Brown report was very clear that the starting point in terms of change was youth justice and probation. The issue of policing is one that we will continue to explore. We will continue to put evidence together. We will continue to engage for changes that I believe are inevitable. These are not things that will happen overnight, but I'm convinced that we will get there and that we will actually achieve the devolution of those areas—not because it's a battleground between whether Westminster controls it or whether we do, it's because it's better for the people of Wales. It's better for our communities, it's a better way. If I thought it would actually not work and it would be worse, then I'd say, 'No, leave it alone.' But I don't believe that, and the more I get involved in the youth justice system and in the justice aspects and in sentencing and so on, the more I actually realise that, the way that these are all integrated, it makes no sense, when you have so many devolved functions that really make up a big chunk of the justice system, to keep them separate.</p>

<p>Well, can I say, just taking that last point first, I think that any party that obtains a mandate for those reforms and those changes is entitled to see them put to the people? That has always been the case, in terms of my opinion. I think it's also the position that the First Minister has presented, and that must be right, in terms of our democratic system.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Turning to Sewel, of course, Sewel I've always described as being almost like the engine oil in a car engine—all of the different components that make up the four nations, the oil that enables them all to work together. Of course, the breach of Sewel begins to cause that process to seize, and that's where we are heading towards at the moment, with all the breaches of Sewel that have taken place.</p>
<p>I have to say that I'm very impressed with the contribution that Gordon Brown made in his report. I'm very pleased at the references to it within the independent commission's report, which recognises, I think, things that we have been saying consistently all along—and not just us, actually: inter-parliamentary forums of all political parties have actually been saying the same thing.</p>
<p>Can I also say that I was very pleased, in that same interview that you referred to, with what Jo Stevens said about Sewel, in terms of when she talked about the strengthening of devolution? She said, that, 'Well, it means that, for example, the Sewel convention, which means that what we have seen from Conservative Governments, where they ride roughshod over the devolution settlement—the internal markets Act—legislating on things that are the responsibility of the Welsh Government and the Senedd, you won't see that from the UK Labour Government. You'll see better inter-governmental relations. You'll see professional working, collaboration, trust and respect—and respecting not just the situation now, but in the future.'</p>
<p>Now, I think that that is a very important statement. I think that it leads on to the fact that we need to look at how we consolidate Sewel, possibly in line with the recommendations from the Gordon Brown report, but in other ways. That is its status. Now, of course, we used to have the Ponsonby convention on treaties. I'm sorry to sound like a bit of a legal nerd now. But, of course, that was converted into legislation to ensure that Parliament had an opportunity to actually scrutinise, and I think that we do need to head in the longer term into something that puts it on a solid and justiciable constitutional basis.&nbsp;</p>

<p>One of the difficulties with the terms—whether it's devolution, whether it's independence, whether it's federalism—is that it's very much open to pejorative interpretation as to what they mean. Quite often, I find that, when different terms are used, people are quite often talking about the same thing. So, we do have a difficulty in these debates with what is a common language.</p>
<p>I actually believe that the long-term constitutional structure is going to be best served by a form of federalist structure. You have to interpret what that might actually mean. Gordon Brown, in his report, basically sets out a number of principles. He talks about subsidiarity, that is that decision making should be taken as close to people as possible, and it is only those areas where there is common dependency that are the subject of broad cross-governmental and parliamentary structures and so on. That is a form of federalism. Subsidiarity is probably something we would all agree with, but what does it mean in terms of what that democratic structure might actually mean?</p>
<p>What I think is important in what the report has done is that it's set a framework for discussion in terms of what we need—which I think we do genuinely need in Wales, and, of course, in England, where devolution is becoming more of an issue—which is a discussion, really, on how that future will develop, how those relationships should develop, and also, how power should be exercised across the UK, particularly within the global environment we're in. So, I think it is a very valid basis for discussion.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In terms of setting a silver-bullet blueprint, the commission doesn't do that, but it does set, I think, an evidential base and a framework within which discussion on reforms can take place.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Thank you very much, Huw Irranca-Davies. I agree with you and recognise that key recommendation on justice and policing by the independent commission. It takes me back to a written statement that I and the Counsel General produced on 14 November, and perhaps we could recirculate that and share it. It is about the work that we're doing to pursue the devolution of justice and policing because it's a commitment in the Welsh Government's programme for government for 2021-26. It follows the unanimous recommendation from the Commission on Justice in Wales, the Thomas commission, which reported in 2019, and devolution of policing specifically was a recommendation from the Commission on Devolution in Wales, the Silk commission—cross-party, established by the UK Government—which reported in 2014. As we said in that statement, our ultimate objective is to pursue devolution of justice and policing in its entirety. We do recognise the phased approach is preferable. So, that is where we do respond to and we welcome, as the First Minister did yesterday, very positively, the Gordon Brown commission. And, of course, the devolution of youth justice and probation, we're not making the case for it; we're preparing for it. We're preparing for it. And we're preparing for it, indeed, with our colleagues in the co-operation agreement. We see this as a step towards devolution of justice. But it is important that, on the record, again, we have shown in that written statement that we are undertaking the research to prepare for the devolution of policing in Wales as well.</p>

<p>I thank Alun Davies for all of those points, Dirprwy Lywydd dros dro. He has made serious points and he is right to say that the report does make for serious and challenging reading. You would have expected no less, I think, when you look at the calibre of the people who populated the commission and the strength of the advisory group that they were able to draw on. There is a genuine depth of analysis and rigour in the way that a framework was applied to the evidence in order to come to the analysis and the conclusions that the report draws from it.&nbsp;</p>
<p>There's always a danger that, in the Labour Party, people will believe that because the Conservatives have been defeated, somehow the constitutional job is done. But I will just remind everybody that it was a Labour Government, in its very first year in 1997, after 17 years of Conservative Government, that decided that time had to be found for the constitutional reforms that led to the establishment of this Senedd. So, while there is often a tension, and there is an argument to be had, we have very solid evidence that devolution is the product of the Labour Party. We are here because of a Labour Government and the commitment that that Labour Government delivered.</p>
<p>How can we, in Wales, go on influencing that discussion? Well, here's my experience of being in the room with colleagues from Scotland and Northern Ireland and the UK Government. Scottish colleagues always have in their pocket the fact that they are elected as a Government with a mandate, as they would put it, to take Scotland out of the United Kingdom. That means that they are always listened to seriously. Colleagues from Northern Ireland come into the room with all of their troubled history, and the need for everybody to attend carefully to making sure that decisions are made that do not reignite those troubles. They come with the force of that in their pocket. What Wales has is simply the strength of our argument. That's our significance, and that's why I think that many independent commentators conclude that, where there has been serious thinking about the constitutional future of the United Kingdom, then, for the last 10 years or more, it is Wales that has contributed most to that debate. Whether it is the Thomas commission, whether it is the independent commission, whether it is the influence that Carwyn Jones and Paul Murphy had in the final report of the Gordon Brown work, I think that you can see Wales's contribution being there in our willingness to try to do the serious thinking, the lining up of arguments, the practical solutions that can be brought to bear. That's why this report, the final report of the commission, is so powerful: because it stands very solidly in that tradition.&nbsp;</p>

<p>I share the leader of the opposition's positive view of the Silk commission. I think for the job that it was asked to do, it was the right vehicle to do it. It's just that this was a very different job and needed a very different vehicle. To take his final point next, what Dr Rowan Williams said to me was that if he were to co-chair a commission, he wanted the confidence of knowing that the commission would be able to involve as many people as possible in its debates as could be managed. He didn't want a commission in which people went from here to a closed room in Cathays Park to decide what the outcome would be. It's a very different model because the purpose was very different.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I was very grateful to the leader of the opposition for putting names of people to sit on the commission, not because they represented their party, but because they would bring that perspective to the debates of the commission. And if I could say so, I think the contribution of Lauren McEvatt, the person who was from that Conservative perspective, had a real impact on the commission. She was a very active, very thoughtful contributor. I was in London last week at the Institute for Government; she was in the audience there, and she made some very important points there too. So, I was very grateful for the fact that she was there to contribute those views, not because she was speaking for the Conservative Party, but because she could make sure that the traditions, the ways of thinking, the approach that would be taken by that party would be heard around that table.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I don't agree, of course, with the leader of the opposition that the current settlement is robust. How could anybody come to that conclusion following the ways in which the Sewel convention has been so consistently disrespected by Governments in Westminster since 2019? It's a convention that was never broken by Labour Governments or Conservative Governments until 2019, and since that time, it is broken absolutely time after time after time. The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill, trade aspects of the Procurement Bill, the Illegal Migration Bill, the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, the Energy Bill—all of these were debated on the floor of the Senedd. Permission to legislate in devolved areas was denied, and in every single case that Government went ahead and legislated in the teeth of the refusal of this Senedd to give them permission to do so. How can anybody conclude that the settlement is robust when it turns out to be as vulnerable as that?</p>
<p>On policing and justice, I made my answers last week. I made clear the policy of this Government and the party here in Wales. The Gordon Brown report commissioned by Keir Starmer says that that process should begin with the devolution of youth justice and probation, and I look to my colleagues in Westminster to make sure that that happens.</p>
<p>As to devolving powers beyond the Senedd, we are signatories, for example, to the mid Wales growth deal, which his party did so much to try to damage in the Gilestone Farm example. We believe in passing powers to local government. The visitor levy—[<em>Interruption</em>.] I think it's a very good example indeed. We are signed up to the mid Wales growth deal. The Gilestone Farm proposal would have brought jobs to mid Wales. It would have produced jobs for young people in mid Wales. It was supported by other partners to the mid Wales growth deal. We believe in things being done regionally, and I don’t think you can say the same is true of the opposition here.</p>
<p>I believe in giving local authorities more powers to do things. That's why we’ll bring a visitor levy in front of this Senedd, to give local authorities the power to implement that where they choose to do so. You would deny them. Week after week after week you stand up here to say how much you don’t want local authorities to have that power. So, when you say to me that devolution doesn’t end at Cardiff Bay, I believe that, and we are doing things to make sure it happens. You deny it whenever you don’t like it. Your policy of devolution to local government is you’ll give them the power if you like what they’ll do with it, and you won’t give them the power if you don’t. That’s not devolution, Llywydd, at all.</p>
<p>And as to the COVID inquiry, I look forward to the COVID inquiry coming to Wales. It will be here for the last week of February and the first two weeks of March. It will apply to actions that were taken here in Wales the same robust scrutiny that you have seen it apply to the actions of UK Ministers and Scottish Ministers. I look forward to the opportunity to answer as best I can the questions that will quite rightly be put to us.</p>

<p>Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm grateful to Darren Millar for that thoughtful contribution and for the respect that he showed to the work of the commission and those who have contributed so much to it. I think the citizen awareness issue—I'm absolutely agreeing with him about the need for us to do more and to do more education. My own experience over, now, certainly more than 40 years of bothering people in their own homes, knocking their doors at election, when somebody comes to the door, in some ways, it's all Government, isn't it? I've knocked doors in community council elections, local authority elections, Senedd elections, parliamentary elections, European elections. The person who comes to the door, in some ways, they don't want to know about that, they want to know, 'Why can't I park my car?', 'When's that rubbish going to be collected?' It's the things that they see from their own doorstep, aren't they, that they want to talk to you about. So, while I'm in favour of us doing more so that people do understand the system better, know where responsibility lies, I think probably we all recognise that what people are most interested in, whatever level of government that you are involved in, are the things that they see, that matter to them, day in and day out.</p>
<p>Look, there's been some improvement in the tone of inter-governmental relationships since the arrival of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. He does have a greater willingness to recognise that the United Kingdom is made up of different component parts and deserve respect. But it has to be more than that. The inter-governmental relations machinery, which took five years to agree, commissioned by Theresa May, concluded, as I say, five years later, has at the heart of it a council of Ministers. It didn't meet once in the whole of 2023, despite the many challenges we know that we were facing—the cost of living and other crises. Not once did that council meet. And while the tone is better, the actual performance, it's hard to say that there has been the improvement there that is necessary.</p>
<p>I agree with what Darren Millar said as well, Llywydd, about inter-parliamentary, the strengthening of that, and there's a lot of work going on at a parliamentary level to do that. It's not for the Government to lead that or to try to influence it, but I myself am pleased to see it. What we need, though, is that more robust machinery that Darren Millar pointed to. It's there in the pages of the report. The Gordon Brown report proposes a new council of the nations and the regions, as a place where we can all come together and discuss and discharge those things that we know matter to people wherever they live in the United Kingdom. And I think if that council was meeting today, they would want to see this report, and there would be a forum where we would be able to take it forward. And I think that's also another very important part of this constitutional jigsaw. Dirprwy Lywydd, diolch yn fawr.</p>

<p>Thank you, First Minister. Of course, most people throughout Wales and across the United Kingdom support women's right to choose to take on that very difficult lifelong commitment to having a child. Women who attend these clinics are at their most vulnerable making that difficult decision, and it is quite appalling that we are winding back the clock to enable people to be harassed at that most difficult moment. It is seriously disappointing that this draft guidance has already been given to police forces and local authorities despite this vote in the UK Parliament banning this practice. How on earth can we trust the UK Government to obey the wishes of its own Parliament? Is this is not a prime example of why policing and justice need to be devolved to Wales, as described by the Thomas commission, the Gordon Brown report and the Williams-McAllister report?</p>

<p>The latest set of PISA results are a tale of two education systems. As Laura Anne Jones outlined, in a Conservative-run English education system, the maths, reading and science scores are all significantly above the OECD average as the best education scores in&nbsp;the United Kingdom. In the Labour-run Welsh education system, it's the exact opposite. After a quarter of a century of Cardiff Labour Government, Wales has the worst maths, reading and science scores in the UK, all significantly lower than the OECD average. Indeed, the Welsh PISA results have been the worst in the UK every time they've been measured. I'm not saying this comparison with any sort of glee. I'm actually pretty upset, because my children are in the education system here in Wales, and from my perspective it seems to me that they're going to have worse life chances than my nephews and nieces who are receiving an education in England, and that's just not on.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Now, I'd like to take you on a trip down memory lane, if you don't mind joining me for a moment or two, and we're going to go back to 2007, the wonderful year when Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister, Leona Lewis is dominating the music charts, and a certain Jane Hutt is education Minister. It's also the first time—[<em>Laughter</em>.] It's also the first time that Wales takes part in PISA, and gets below-average results in reading and maths&nbsp;and average results in science. And Jane Hutt said she wanted to, and I'll quote, 'learn from the best and most effective practice internationally.' Now, 17 years on, it seems as though somebody has not been doing their homework, because things are worse than ever.&nbsp;</p>
<p>And we've heard from the education Minister, and potential future First Minister, that schools are the best investment in social justice and a healthy economy, and I happen to agree with him on this. But the woeful education outcomes presided over by Labour in Wales have damaged the economy and held back the life chances of our children and young people.&nbsp;</p>
<p>If we look at the Conservative Government in Westminster, England has one of the most equitable education outcomes in Europe. It's better for children from poorer backgrounds and not at a cost to other parts of society. Indeed, the best and worst performers in Wales do worse than their counterparts in England. So, thanks to Labour, it seems that everyone loses out.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Now, what's the reason for this difference? It was alluded to by Laura Anne Jones in her opening statement, and we must give huge credit to the likes of Michael Gove and Nick Gibb, who grabbed the bull by the horns and implemented serious and evidence-led education reforms. They focused on a knowledge-rich approach to teaching, which, unfortunately, we haven't seen in Labour-run Wales, where Ministers are seemingly—[<em>Interruption</em>.] Is that an intervention there, Mike Hedges?&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>You make an interesting point, which you consistently make. But one thing I would ask you to reflect on, and for your thoughts on, is the track record of previous Labour Governments. Because the same applied when Gordon Brown came in in 1997 as the Treasury—. He said no guarantees; we have to look at the books first of all. The criticism that could be made, actually, of that Labour Government is that they did that actual transfer to Wales and transfer to the poorest in society by stealth, but they did it. So, there is a track record to look at. &nbsp;</p>

<p>I’ve got the advantage over the Member for the Vale of Clwyd because I’ve got a longer memory than him, and I remember Rab Butler saying something different on a different occasion. I also remember a Conservative leader who attended debates in this place called—. Nick Bourne. Nick Bourne. [<em>Laughter</em>.] I remember him—I do. He sat in the Chamber and listened to the debates, and he also contributed to those debates. And let me tell you, when Nick Bourne was leading the Conservatives, what you had was serious opposition, and you had serious alternatives being offered. During that time, we had the greatest financial crisis that the western economy has faced since the second world war. And what happened there was that the then Labour Government took action. And I remember the work of Gordon Brown in Gleneagles around the G20, saving the western economy. And what that did was to ensure that we had an economy in 2010 and 2011 for the Conservatives to strangle.</p>
<p>But let's just say this—and I won't test the Presiding Officer for too long this afternoon—you cannot pay for tax increases simply to pay for economic inactivity. The Truss budget cost the United Kingdom £30 billion—£30 billion. And we listen to the Tories saying that they want to spend more money on public services. Had we not seen that financial incompetence, then the money would have been available. [<em>Interruption</em>.] Oh, now we've got another intervention.</p>

<p>You make a number of very valid points. Of course, included within the Gordon Brown report is also the reform of the House of Lords, which is desperately in need of reform, and where I think the use of peerages is a matter that is increasingly of concern to Parliament, and particularly the abuse of appointments. I'll leave that point there at this stage.</p>
<p>You make a valid point in terms of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is about bringing decision making as close as possible to the people and the communities that are affected. I think this is something that we've discussed numerous times in this Senedd, but it is a fundamental part of the Gordon Brown report, and I think it is a very important basis for constitutional reform. Of course, Sewel is a convention. Sometimes, the status of a convention, and also a convention that is replicated in statute law in the Government of Wales legislation, is something that should be of importance, so it is of considerable concern that, constitutionally, it is increasingly breached and normalised. I would hope that an incoming Labour Government would want to ensure that the constitutional arrangements before the four nations of the UK are put back on a proper footing. I think the proposal in the Gordon Brown report whereby, in order for Sewel to be breached, there would be, say, a two-thirds majority in Parliament is something that has a lot of merit to it. It's a standard we apply here for constitutional reform. It would well be a standard that could apply in respect of Westminster and perhaps not conclusively resolve but actually go a long way to resolving the contradictions and dysfunction&nbsp;that already exist within our constitutional arrangements.</p>

<p>Those of us who believe in the principles of subsidiarity, and also good scrutiny, believing that good scrutiny makes for good government and actually saves money, will support proposals around Senedd reform, but I wonder whether the Counsel General has turned his attention at all back up the other direction, looking at the possible proposals of a future incoming Government after a UK general election. I wonder what his thoughts are on the proposals, for example, in what is now known colloquially as the Gordon Brown report, not only in terms of a senate of the nations and regions, reflective of the different constituent parts of the UK—smaller, slimmer, more effective, more representative—but also the wider changes included around things such as the Sewel convention. Surely, Senedd reform is a really good step forward. What we now need also is reform of the UK institutions.</p>

<p>Llywydd, I thank Alun Davies for that. He is right that Lord Cameron now swells the ever-bloated ranks of the House of Lords, and the Gordon Brown report, Llywydd, which recommends a very slimmed-down House of Lords, with direct elections to it, with guaranteed representation for the nations and regions and a new task in safeguarding the constitution, including safeguarding devolution here in Wales, would make a far better entry into any King's Speech than anything we saw last week.</p>

<p>First Minister, thankfully, the UK seems set fair for a badly needed Labour Government at the next general election, enabling a partnership with Welsh Government to address regional inequalities in the UK and Wales. Would the First Minister agree that the Gordon Brown report offers us a route to the sort of progress we need to see in Wales, with substantial investment and funding for rail and other infrastructure, together with green steel, with further redistribution of UK public sector jobs to Wales, and enhanced support for economic clusters, such as the semiconductor industry, which recently had a boost in Newport, with the Vishay&nbsp;acquisition of Nexperia?</p>

<p>I'm grateful to the Cousel General for his answer. It was good to see you, Counsel General, at the weekend, speaking at the Labour conference, and particularly at the Hillsborough Law Now event yesterday—an extremely important event, I'm sure all Members will agree. Counsel General, I'm proud that Keir Starmer has given his support to introducing a Hillsborough law in the early part of his term, when hopefully an incoming Labour Government will be in Westminster. I'm also proud of his support regarding the recommendations of the Gordon Brown report, in particular those regarding the justice system. Now, whilst we wait for a UK Labour Government, and whilst we wait to end the 13 years of Tory chaos in Westminster, what steps can the Welsh Government take to further prepare for further devolution, including justice?</p>

<p>In an attempt to improve accountability, a number of Parliaments worldwide have introduced a process where, in specific circumstances, it's possible to bring the term of office of a Member to an end between elections. For example, in Westminster, they have a recall system. In the context of the populism that the First Minister referred to, there is always a danger that systems such as this can be misused, and that has certainly happened in the United States. But, despite that, does the First Minister see the benefits of us discussing this way of improving accountability in the context of the reformed Senedd, perhaps investigating an alternative idea made originally by Gordon Brown, for example, of empowering the standards committee to exclude Members permanently in specific circumstances, bringing the public into the process too through having lay members as part of that committee?</p>

<p>Diolch, Llywydd. Wow, I've got to be honest, I'm astounded that Welsh Labour have the cheek to state that there has been mismanagement of public finances by the UK Conservative Government. [<em>Interruption</em>.] It was, after all, Liam Byrne, the Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury under the Rt Hon Labour Gordon Brown, who left a note for his successor saying,</p>
<p>'I'm afraid there is no money.'</p>

<p>Yes, we recognise that there is a trade-off there. If you look at the UK example, when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, he set up the planning regime so that it was independent of politics and, as soon as the coalition came in, they said, 'Well, there's no democratic accountability', and they got rid of that. I don't think that there's an ideal. I do think that having flexibility in the system allows for certain controversies, perhaps, to be taken out of issues.</p>
<p>One of the things that we see consistently with long-term infrastructure is that the 20 or 30-year view is not sufficiently taken into account, and so politics can often play a role in that. So, I'm fairly relaxed about the idea of a regulatory authority taking that decision. Equally, there's a role, clearly, for Ministers. From our perspective, I think that that allows sufficient flexibility, and I don't take a particularly strong view on either outcome.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Well, first of all, Chair, I think the Welsh Government makes strenuous efforts, and often uphill efforts, to try to reach a point where we can get an agreement with the UK Government on Bills where the UK Parliament will legislate in a devolved area. But the answer is much easier, I think, to Mr Evans's question: where the Senedd denies consent, the UK Government should not proceed to legislate for Wales. That's the whole point of the Sewel mechanism, that we are saying to the UK Government, 'Please take Wales out of that Bill; we don't want you to legislate in this way.' The problem is that the system, the Sewel convention, has broken down at that point, and the UK Government has gone ahead and legislated despite the denial of consent.</p>
<p>Now, Mr Evans might say, 'Well, you should have registered a dispute then, at that point', but, actually, I don't think that would have succeeded because the Supreme Court is clear that Sewel is not justiciable; it is a political convention. The UK Government is required to satisfy itself that circumstances are not normal and therefore that it can go ahead. And if you triggered the disputes mechanism in those circumstances, all the UK Government has to do is to self-certify its own belief; there would be nothing that you could do to disprove its own conclusion. The Welsh Government has set out a series of ways in which Sewel could be codified that would make that a more realistic way of proceeding, but in the absence of a codification of Sewel, or—to my mind, much, much better—an implementation of the Gordon Brown proposals, which would put Sewel in a completely different position, triggering a disputes mechanism over a failure of the Sewel convention would be doomed to fail, and I'm not keen to have our first experience of the disputes mechanism being one where the Welsh Government triggers it knowing that we could not succeed.</p>

<p>Well, I'm obviously very happy to continue to make that case with my own party colleagues. It would require a UK Government to define what it meant by 'not normally'; it would have to set out in a document the thought process it goes through in coming to that conclusion: what are the tests that it applies before it comes to that 'not normally' conclusion. It would then be obliged, in the codification that we have set out, to put that case to both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and the parliament whose views are being overwritten would have an independent right to put its point of view to the House of Commons and the House of Lords as well, so that a legislature there looking to see whether it wanted to proceed would have both cases in front of it. I think that would reduce the number of occasions on which a UK Government overrides Sewel by itself, just by shining a light onto that process. Of course, much better, as I've said, Chair, are the Gordon Brown proposals for protected constitutional statutes and a different level of protection through a reformed House of Lords. That would give us a very different way of entrenching the Sewel convention.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Absolutely. I entirely agree with that. My own account of this would be that for the most part of devolution we have lived with different Governments at Westminster who had a fundamental respect for the devolution settlement. Since 2019 what we have seen is that the devolution settlement was much more vulnerable than we had realised to a UK Government that didn't wish to operate in that way, that sought to row back some of the fundamentals of the devolution settlement unilaterally, despite the referendums that had been held and that endorsed it, and so on. What we need to see is a new entrenchment of the devolution settlement, so that it is not vulnerable, if I put it this way, to rogue governments taking a different view than governments over the bulk of the period of time of devolution have taken. That is where the Gordon Brown proposals would take us; they would create a very different fundamental set of arrangements that wouldn't leave us as exposed as we have been. That's what we've learnt in the last four years—that the system doesn't just need to be strengthened in terms of more powers and so on, but it needs to be entrenched in a way that doesn't allow it to be vulnerable, as we've found it to be.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Well, I thank Adam Price for that question. Just to say at the outset that I don't want to suggest that nothing will happen over the coming months. There will be things going on. There will be meetings held under the new agreement, the British-Irish Council will also meet in November, so there will be things happening. But what I don't anticipate over the next six months, or however long it is, is more energy, and any feeling of real development in the new inter-governmental system.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Now, following the general election, if there is a new Government elected, and if the Labour Party are to be in Government after the election, and before there will be an opportunity to make more fundamental changes, as suggested by the Gordon Brown report—. What am I looking for? Well, first of all, more reliable patterns in place. So, to ensure that those things in the current agreement are in place and are working properly. So, with things in the diary, people turning up to meetings, and taking advantage of the independence of the new system when we draw up agendas and so on. So, there's a lot more we can do under the existing agreement if people want to do more. And the second example I would give is how&nbsp;the new Government will deal with the Sewel convention. Now, of course, the recommendations that Gordon Brown suggests are already in existence, but we need to see a new Government with the respect that existed under the Sewel convention for the first 20 years of devolution. So, we just need to go back to the way that we dealt with Sewel in the first decade of devolution, and also when David Cameron and Theresa May were UK Prime Ministers. So, there will be a Sewel test for the new Government, I'm sure.</p>

<p>Well, thank you for that comment. You make good points, and you made specific reference, I think, to the report that was commissioned by Sir Keir Starmer. It was his report, the Gordon Brown report; it was a report that he wanted. It is one that has been accepted and has significant consequence. We also have our own independent commission that will be reporting at the end of this year, which will also no doubt deal with a number of those particular points.&nbsp;</p>
<p>What is very clear is that there are different perceptions as to how inter-governmental relations are actually working. There is no doubt in my view that one of the consequences of the Energy Bill going through in the way it has, without legislative consent from Wales, is that it is basically yet another breach—significant breach—of Sewel. But a further breach because it goes beyond arguing that the changes are a consequence of leaving the EU or constitutional issues, this is just a matter where the UK Government has turned around and said, 'Well, we don't agree. We're going to do it anyway.'</p>
<p>And we talk about Sewel, but we should also be talking about the fact that the Sewel convention is in statute. It is there in legislation, and there are significant consequences I think to continual breaches of constitutional relations. None of this is really mentioned in the UK Government's report on inter-governmental relations. Their annual report is a bit like a brochure inviting you to join the British Airways executive lounge. In fact, it says at the end, on legislative consent mechanisms,</p>
<p>'a total of 18 legislative consent motions...across 13 pieces of legislation, were passed by the devolved legislatures on the advice of the devolved administrations.'</p>
<p>Welsh Government has published its own inter-institutional relations report on the agreement between the Welsh Government and on the inter-governmental relations. I'll just read one part of that, which I think summarises it:</p>
<p>'There have been areas in which constructive joint work and dialogue has been possible with the UK Government, for example in relation to aspects of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in relation to Ukraine.'</p>
<p>'However, the UK government’s attempts to undermine the devolution settlement and its continued disrespect for the Welsh Government and the Senedd during much of this period has impaired intergovernmental working and damaged the union of the United Kingdom.'</p>
<p>What I would hope with an incoming Government is that there will be an opportunity to refresh and put on a secure footing the constitutional convention to give it some status legally, so that it cannot be overridden at whim, which is what's happening at the moment, and that there will be also further developments in terms of the broader constitutional relationship between us. It's one that has to be respected and seen as being important to the future of the UK. At the moment, the fact that it is not being fully respected, I think, in the long term, is something that eats away at the unity that exists between the four nations of the UK.<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br></span></p>

<p>From a legislative proposal, we worked with the Government to deliver the social partnership and public procurement Bill to entrench fair work practices and ensure that Welsh businesses reaped the rewards of public procurement. And the agriculture Bill, of course, will secure the future of our vital farming industry in this uncertain post-Brexit world. And the soon-to-be-introduced Senedd reform Bill, of course—the most substantial package of reform to our democracy in a quarter of a century—will ensure that devolution in Wales finally comes of age. What this conclusively shows, I think, is that Plaid Cymru doesn't shy away from the big challenges facing our country—we confront them head-on with ambition in our veins and enthusiasm in our hearts to deliver for the people of Wales, regardless of whether they voted for us on these benches or not. Put simply, when Plaid Cymru has a seat at the table of Government, the whole of Wales wins.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But the co-operation agreement, for all its success in delivering far-reaching benefits for the people of Wales, can only take us so far, and it's an inescapable reality that there is much to regret about the state of the nation in 2023. With stubbornly high waiting times, acute staff shortages and perennial dysfunctionality at Besti Cadwaladr, it's no exaggeration to say that the NHS in Wales faces an existential crisis in its seventy-fifth year. The cost-of-living crisis, leaving so many households struggling to afford the bare essentials, shows no sign of abating 13 years of brutal Tory austerity later. The economic climate in Wales is also bleak—unemployment on the rise, persistently high inactivity rates, little or no improvement on rates of productivity, leaving us in the all too familiar position as the poor relation in this union of unequals. Meanwhile, the climate emergency continues to loom large over us as we edge ever closer to the point of no return for our planet.</p>
<p>And, do you know, the common thread that runs through all of these issues is Wales's fundamental lack of agency to shape its own future. I want to see a Wales that is fairer, that is happier, that is prosperous, that is self-confident, but we can't wait around for others to build this brighter future for us. We have to take our destiny in our own hands. And I'm sure the First Minister will agree with me that the first port of call is to rid ourselves of this Tory UK Government, whose catastrophic mismanagement of the economy has cost us so dearly. But, whereas the First Minister has pinned his faith in the restorative potential of a UK Labour Government, all the evidence so far points towards more of the same from Keir Starmer, seen in the proposals set out in the Gordon Brown report for constitutional reform—offering nothing for Wales beyond a significantly watered-down version of this Labour Government's position on the devolution of justice and policing. Red or blue, the hue of the governing party at Downing Street doesn't alter the fact that Wales will always be an afterthought for Westminster.</p>
<p>My plea to the First Minister is to be more ambitious for Wales. I want the best for Wales. To get the best for Wales, we need to expand the boundaries of our ability to govern ourselves, and the natural destination for that journey is to be an independent nation. And I ask all of Wales to join us on that journey, to explore the potential, even if you're not yet persuaded of that final destination. The Wales we want is within reach, but only if we have the will and the ambition to make it happen ourselves.</p>

<p>Well, I think, across the board, we're all concerned about the scale of LCMs, or the scale of UK Government legislation that requires LCMs. Because LCMs are not something where we really have a choice. By Standing Orders, if UK Government—. I think we've got 38 pieces of UK Government legislation, and we've had 86 LCMs or supplementary LCMs as a consequence. If UK Government doubled the number of UK Government Bills, then, presumably, those figures would double again, and we'd be talking about 160, 170 legislative consent memoranda, because our Standing Orders require that if there's legislation that does two things: (1) if it impacts on the powers of the Senedd or Welsh Government Ministers, it requires legislative consent; the second aspect, of course, is things that may be in a reserved area, but impact on the exercise of devolved responsibilities, the classic being the Illegal Migration Bill, which is a reserved area, but has a significant impact in a whole variety of other areas. So, we have to bring those in.</p>
<p>Of course, this committee is absolutely right, that is part of the nature of our constitutional structure at the moment. It takes up a high degree of time, but, of course, what it does do is, in the formation of that legislation, to some extent, limit the area of scrutiny. The scrutiny of the Senedd is, essentially, in terms of the extent to which it scrutinises a Bill that's taking place in Westminster, or scrutinises the legislative consent memorandum, or scrutinises Government Ministers in terms of the negotiations or discussions that are taking place inter-governmentally. So, it is a factor.</p>
<p>It's a factor that could be improved very significantly were there to be, firstly, a much stronger constitutional status for Sewel. I think that would change the nature of LCMs dramatically, and that's why I'm very supportive of the approach that's been adopted in the Gordon Brown report in terms of Sewel, but, equally so, in terms of early engagement, that is, proper engagement on a parliamentary basis, which should happen with properly thought-out legislation. It is not unfair, I think, to say that the UK Government's legislative programme, the way it has gone about it and the way it has been chopped and changed as it has gone along has been chaotic. You, obviously, heard evidence earlier today in respect of the Energy Bill. That is a classic, perhaps a more extreme, example of it, but there are others as well. The fact of the matter is the system is not working in the way that produces or should be able to produce good-quality legislation that is a product of proper engagement amongst all those legislatures that have an interest in it.</p>

<p>Thank you. Firstly, I very much welcome the fact that we have her services on board for 12 months. She's an individual with an outstanding legal record. She is a former victims' commissioner appointed by UK Government, a former Member of Parliament. But I think we have to see it within the context of the work that is going on with regard to the devolution of justice and probation and the work that's going on around the devolution of policing. As a Welsh Government, we've moved from a position whereby we are talking about the rationale and the reasoning behind the devolution of justice. Many of those were set out in the paper myself and the Minister for Social Justice launched, 'Delivering Justice for Wales', which set out a whole range of areas where Welsh Government is intricately involved within the justice system. We're now moving to a position where we are actually preparing for that.</p>
<p>I'll be frank: on the politics of this, we don't expect any changes to take place with the current Government. They've made it clear they do not see any prospect of change in respect of the devolution of justice. I was very disappointed in that, because it means, I think, a disregard for the arguments around the merits of that, and, of course, all the work that was done with the commission on justice chaired by Lord Thomas. That having been said, we've seen since then the Gordon Brown report. There will be a general election coming. I think it would be irresponsible as a Government if we did not consider what the possibilities might be in terms of change were there to be a change of Government. It's a perfectly responsible to thing to do. Oppositions do that when elections are approaching, and they get support from the civil service in ways that they might not have previously had.</p>
<p>The thing that concerns me particularly is that we have to almost prepare—. I hate to use the phrase 'oven ready', but, basically, to hit the ground running in terms of what do we mean by the devolution of justice, what do we mean by youth justice, how would it work, what would be the framework within which it worked, what would be the legislative changes that would be needed to enable that to happen. What would be the structure of such a devolution of youth justice, probation and, potentially, policing? So, what Dame Vera Baird brings is, I think, that practical expertise in terms of how that might actually happen if it were to be announced tomorrow that these things were going to take place. We need to be ready for it, we need to know exactly what we're talking about and how it will operate. It's not Dame Vera Baird on her own, of course; there's other work that's going on.</p>

<p>Before we even get to policing, you mentioned there that youth justice and probation, which do feature in the Gordon Brown report, which is what you explained to us you're anticipating, have a plausible expectation of, if there was a change of Government, being implemented, and that's why you're preparing. So, what's the expertise available to you in the work that you're doing? You mentioned in your statement two groups that are looking at these areas. What's the level of expertise that you're drawing on, and how is this being funded? Are we going to see when we analyse, for example, justice funding, as we now do, a line that identifies this?</p>

<p>We welcome the launch of the consultation on the White Paper on the new legislation to reform the Welsh tribunal system. As highlighted in the Law Commission's report of December 2021, the current system in Wales is complicated and inconsistent, and, in some instances, unfit for practice. We hope that the proposed legislation will result in a fairer and more accessible tribunal system for Wales that fully reflects the devolution landscape in which it now resides.</p>
<p>Of course, the Law Commission's characterisation of the current state of the Welsh tribunal system could equally be applied to the justice system in Wales as a whole. As we discussed in last week's debate, Wales's anomalous position as the only devolved nation without powers over justice and policing has been highly detrimental. This has led to poorer outcomes in terms of the criminal justice system and access to legal aid. The Minister's statement referred to the need to lay the foundations for a future where justice is devolved, and I'm heartened that the Welsh Government does envisage this legislation as part of a wider programme of much-needed reform. It's essential that the proactive approach to strengthening and enhancing Wales's devolved architecture is maintained across all policy areas.</p>
<p>As part of this process of laying the foundations for the future devolution of justice, it's incumbent on the Welsh Government to ensure that they get effective buy-in from the UK Labour leadership. Given the likelihood of the next Westminster Government being a Labour one, it is especially important. Unfortunately, the signs are not promising with regard to achieving that buy-in. We've mentioned before that the Gordon Brown report on the constitutional future of the UK actually rows back on the Welsh Government's long-held ambitions of justice reform. You've tended to respond to this by pointing to the fact that the Brown report references that there is no reason in principle why matters that are devolved in Scotland cannot be devolved in Wales. Whilst the sentiment is, of course, to be welcomed, it's important not to assign too much value to what is merely a non-committal statement of principle.</p>
<p>In terms of concrete proposals, all that is on the table for Wales from the UK Labour Party at present is the devolution of youth justice and probation services. This falls well short of what the comprehensive and compelling report from the Thomas commission recommended back in 2019. If we want to ensure that the foundations of a future Welsh justice system are robust, surely we should be pushing to get the commitment for full devolution now so that we can actually begin the process of preparing and planning in earnest. I'd like to ask the Minister, and bearing in mind the Minister's comments that the devolution of justice is inevitable, whether he agrees that the process of laying the foundation for full devolution of justice is best served by&nbsp;the UK Labour leadership actively committing to providing Wales with these powers as soon as possible, rather than kicking it into the long grass. Diolch yn fawr.</p>

<p>Thank you, Rhys, for those comments. In terms of the timetable, I think you heard the First Minister earlier today say that, not within the third year, but before the end, there will be a Bill that will be introduced. It's not for me to say precisely what year that might be taking place, but as you know with legislation, the ongoing development of policy work and the planning for legislation is stuff that goes on over a period of time ahead of the announcement and the actual decision to actually table specific legislation. What I am confident of is that, by the end of the term of this Senedd, we will have in place a reformed tribunal system and legislation will have been passed. And, of course, as you know, we have now a new president of tribunals, former appeal court judge, Sir Gary Hickinbottom, who I have met with and the First Minister has met with, and no doubt we will want to engage with in terms of proposals for the structural reform.</p>
<p>In terms of the issue of admission panels, well, you're right that it's an area where there have been differing views. During the consultations, there was certainly disagreement that admissions were something that were so local, that there were so many local features, that it was something that should stay where it is. And of course, this, again, is a White Paper, so there are opportunities for positions to be put in that actually say, 'No, the alternative should be the case and that these should be—'. I think it was felt with the White Paper that the exclusions were something that definitely had to come in. The significance of an exclusion from school had such a dramatic impact. Admissions in terms of choice into particular schools involves so many local features in terms of the school, the capacity, the geography, and so on that it was felt, certainly at least for the time being, that those were things that should remain where they are. But, as I say, within the system, we want a tribunal system that has flexibility. There may be other areas of legislation involving new Welsh law and new appeal structures which, again, we might want to look, in the future, to be incorporated within our tribunal system—a system that will actually grow and reflect, increasingly, Welsh law, and also the capacity to use Welsh and develop expertise amongst lawyers and those who participate within that tribunal structure itself. So, there are very important things there.</p>
<p>In terms of policing, there is work that is going on in terms of policing and in terms of policy development around that. That is still ongoing. But in terms of the Brown report, and any limitation, well, Gordon Brown made it absolutely clear—there are no limits. Subsidiarity is the key thing that as much should be devolved, apart from those things that are necessary in terms of the interdependency between countries. So, the principle is there, but he was absolutely right in also saying that, depending on what the independent commission on the constitutional future of Wales and the conclusions they come to, it is something where there should then be constructive engagement with the next Government. I suspect the only constructive engagement will be with the next Labour Government, and that's why it's so important that, as I know we all want to see, a UK Labour Government is in place as soon as possible.</p>