Today, I will be joining my Labour colleagues and voting for this legislative consent motion on the Wales Bill. Indeed, as said by many, it is what it is. For this, we have a Conservative UK Government, which has once again let down the people of Wales in this stated imperfection—. In October 2015, the then Secretary of State for Wales, Stephen Crabb, stated that the Wales Bill was:

‘a once-in-a-generation opportunity to draw a line under this ongoing, endless debate…about devolution’.

We fast-forward to January 2017, and we have the leader of the Welsh Conservatives here in the National Assembly for Wales saying that this won’t be the last Wales Bill but the last one of this parliamentary session. Wales, as has been stated, required a Westminster Wales Bill that offered clarity, simplicity, and a recognition, as Eluned Morgan has said, of the Welsh devolution journey of the last two decades.

The present Bill, though, will indeed give Wales more constitutional certainty, and the accompanying stronger fiscal framework affords an important incremental step in the right direction. It does deliver a fairer deal for Wales and I wish to pay full tribute to the finance Secretary, Mark Drakeford, for his considerable efforts in this regard. Let nobody be in doubt, however: the present Wales Bill is not a Bill that the Labour Party would have authored in its imperfect entirety.

The tortuous gestation of the Bill from conception to birth might be the stuff of lawyers’ dreams, but, for the ordinary person in the street, it has been a complex procedure. There is a fear held by many that the UK Government have not come to this process with clean hands. Whilst Tory politicians have talked of ending constitutional uncertainty between Cardiff Bay and Westminster, their actions have led many to believe their intention is to stunt, as others have said, the growing maturity of this place.

Welsh politicians elected by the Welsh people, and not Whitehall mandarins, should be driving the orderly organisation of the separation of powers between the UK and the Welsh Governments. We know from Theresa May’s earlier speech today that Brexit is still going to dominate UK politics for the next decade. Westminster will, as others have said, have no time and no inclination or even interest to look to Wales. Therefore, the reality is that this small and in some ways very unsatisfactory step forward for Wales is all that is on the table. As such, for the good of the Welsh people, we will not place an obstacle in front of what is less than a perfect Bill.

I want to place on record my appreciation of the work of my friend, Baroness Eluned Morgan, who represents Mid and West Wales, for her sterling work here in the Senedd and in the Lords. She has sought to mitigate the worst aspects of this imperfection. This has resulted, in many areas, the UK Government conceding on positions and points that once were non-negotiable. But, as Eluned Morgan told the House of Lords, the Bill continues to be complex, inaccessible, unclear and will not settle the devolution issue for Wales, as was the intention.

With hard Brexit coming down the track, it is imperative that we here in the National Assembly for Wales do not allow uncertainty in Wales’s devolution settlement, and to offer any opportunity for the UK Government to retain powers in London that should rightly be repatriated to Wales once the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.

May I finally comment on the important achievements within the strongly negotiated fiscal framework, including partial tax devolvement, a fair Barnett reform, improved financial access and permanency in the funding floor? These are things that we have talked about for a very, very long time, and it is here. Wales will not be worse off relative to England according to our needs with this Bill. Indeed, with a Tory UK Government addicted to failed policies of austerity, everything—everything—that we can do here in this Chamber to strengthen the hand of the Welsh Government to stimulate the economy is to be welcomed. The additional £500 million borrowing permitted will be of use to the people of Wales and Welsh Government.

So, yes, this Wales Bill is indeed imperfect. It is what it is. It has shown and demonstrated the weakness of the Secretary of State for Wales in standing up for Wales. As such, I will support, however, the legislative consent motion today, but I deeply regret the missed opportunity of the Tory Government’s attempt to play politics with the devolution settlement at the expense of Wales. Diolch.