Can I thank you as well, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement today? We prefer statements in this Chamber, rather than written statements, particularly when we have matters that are, as you alluded to, rather controversial. I think we’re all proud of the institutions—you’re not unique in that—and I think we’re pretty proud, too, of the people who populate those institutions and make them the unique institutions that they are. I don’t even have a huge problem with your analysis of the four pressing issues that you raised in the statement. My issue is, rather, with your approach to finding an appropriate response to those.

You say that you don’t have all the answers, but it’s become clear that you already have a preferred answer, which is the last of the four options put forward in the PricewaterhouseCoopers report referred to in your statement. That was confirmed in your letter of 27 July to the director of the national museum, and, I understand, in response to a freedom of information request from Plaid Cymru, although I might be wrong on that. If this is indeed a manifesto commitment, as you said in September’s statement, I’d like you to point out where I might find it. If it’s hidden behind a Labour Party e-mail capture wall, I’m not sure that you can claim that the people of Wales actually voted for this, particularly as the PwC report, which offers alternatives, appears to have been confidential until this September.

So, my first question is: how have you personally concluded that an option 4 Historic Wales is your preferred outcome? You may cite the improvement in Cadw’s income generation as a result of the collaboration between Cadw and Visit Wales, but, as far as I can tell, you haven’t merged the functions of Cadw and Visit Wales. Any restructuring, you’ve just said, has been within Cadw.

My second question is: as the steering group knows your preference, how can we be confident that it can approach the evidence in the PwC report with a completely open mind? I want to make it clear that I don’t say anything about the integrity of the members of this group—I absolutely don’t—but you have sent a strong signal that, in your view, and despite the contents of the PwC report, an option 4 version of Historic Wales, representing significant merger, would, by implication, be better than the other options offered in that report.

My third question is this: your statement and evidence to the culture committee make it plain that you have a strong belief in the necessity for collaboration. I don’t think, actually, any of us disagree with you on this. Certainly we are happy, as Conservatives, to see stronger collaboration on commercial activities. But, just over a year ago—this is according to the director of the museum—Cadw, the museum, the royal commission and the national library came together and formed a looser, option 1 style partnership to collaborate on a number of issues, including commercial activity. In your view, where did this fall short to the extent that you consider a formal merger has now become necessary?

Finally, because I appreciate that there are lots of people who want to ask questions on this—there are a lot of concerns—I’ll just repeat two questions that I asked you a few weeks ago that you didn’t answer. The first was: what did you learn from the Welsh Government’s aborted attempt to merge Cadw and the royal commission? You say that there was support for structural change. What I remember is an awful lot of opposition to that structural change and, in fact, the Welsh Government capitulating on that. Secondly, if you get a steer from this Assembly, which is in balance, that an option 4 Historic Wales model is not acceptable, will you take it off the table? Because the First Minister is fond of repeating that, when it comes to Brexit, he expects the UK negotiation position and post-exit arrangements to be agreed by all the nations and not imposed by a UK Government, and I see no difference in the principle here. If the steering group reports in favour of transfer, rather than delegation, to a new body of a wide range of functions, despite the level of campaigning activity that we have already seen, then this suggests that an option 4 style Historic Wales will be a matter of imposition rather than agreement. Thank you.