Diolch yn fawr iawn, Lywydd. This today is not about coalition. Today is a one-off vote to allow Labour’s nomination to go through. If that party thinks that their bullying last week will stop Plaid Cymru from voting in a similar way in the future, to hold you to account, then think again. I’m not sorry for what happened last week and I will do it again if I have to make Labour realise that they are running a minority Government.

What we saw last week from that party was arrogance, it was complacency, and what we saw was a sense of entitlement on display. That vote happened because they refused to delay proceedings for just one week so that meaningful talks could take place. Well, we did get our week to talk, but it took some drama to get there.

Labour’s smearing against us last week will not be forgotten. Those MPs, Assembly Members and Labour-affiliated organisations that tried to make out that we had done a deal with the right and the further right were wrong. Today’s election of a First Minister proves that there was no deal and I look forward to the retractions. Are you big enough to admit that you were wrong?

The arrangement that we have arrived at today does not mean that Plaid Cymru endorses this minority Government or its leader. We are allowing his election as First Minister, but it is not support. We didn’t have time to consider and negotiate on the most difficult issues. There was no progress on policy areas like the M4 black route or blue route, detailed measures to save the steel industry, fair voting or student finance, for example. I would have liked for us to have been able to secure commitment on a steel innovation centre, a Bangor medical school, a vet school in Aberystwyth and a green skills construction college in the Valleys. Again, the time constraints didn’t allow for detailed proposals on those projects to be considered.

As the lead opposition, we will be returning to those matters through the budget and the other vehicles that are available to us. I ask the First Minister and his party to take the time between now and the first budget vote to consider how these priorities, for us, where there is disagreement between our parties, can be resolved.

During the recent Assembly elections, Plaid Cymru stood on a platform of change: change that would deliver not simply a new political make-up for our country, but a transformational change that would deliver tangible improvements for communities in all parts of this country. The Party of Wales has agreed to withdraw my name now and allow Labour’s nomination through today in exchange for a number of concessions for people. We are not interested in ministerial cars or seats at someone else’s Cabinet table. We are interested in implementing our programme, which was designed to improve people’s lives. We’ve secured the beginning of the end of the postcode lottery for new health treatments and medicines. Plaid Cymru’s actions will result in a national infrastructure commission that will help to rebuild our economy. It will also provide the means by which we can support the steel industry, through the procurement policy that we argued for strongly during the election. There will be affordable childcare for all from the age of three, returning what has been cut from families in places like the Rhondda, and this will happen because Plaid Cymru secured it. There will be extra apprenticeship places.

These policy gains, among others, have been achieved in parallel with our insistence on the establishment of a new political culture. From the Party of Wales’s perspective, this agreement shows that we intend to be an opposition clear in our goals and in our priorities. Events last week show that we are prepared to use our mettle if and when that is needed. Plaid Cymru has never, and never will contemplate doing a deal that allows UKIP into power. Under my leadership, the same goes for the Tories. I’ve always said that, and that position has not, at any stage, changed.