Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It’s a pleasure to present this motion on 1 March, St David’s Day, and it’s a pleasure to wish everyone a happy St David’s Day—here in the Chamber and outwith the Chamber.

Some may ask what role there is for patron saint days in the twenty-first century, but across the world, people and nations do use these days to celebrate and promote their nations and nationalities, and long may that continue. It’s an opportunity to celebrate successes and also to consider the state of the nation. Today, we are using our St David’s Day debate to look to our past, our present and our future, and to particularly address the areas of the economy, health and education.

We need honesty in terms of how things are today. Of course, we’re not looking back with a sense of nostalgia in terms of how things were for many Welsh citizens over the past century or two. And to distance ourselves from another recent political slogan, it’s not about ‘making Wales great again’—that’s not our theme here today. We are, rather, looking at where we are as a nation, clearly stating that we believe that Wales can do better.

Wales has a very proud history. There may be a divergence of opinion among Members on the significance of various elements of our history, but certainly, as a modern nation, we can turn to chapters in our history in order to inspire our future. On St David’s Day, we can tell the people of Wales that this is the story of our nation. Our predecessor generations innovated; they created anew, they devised things; and they responded to the situation of Wales and the world as it was at that time. In health, we are talking about a Welshman creating the NHS and doing so within a British context in those years after the second world war, just as the industrial revolution was nurtured here in Wales, again, in a British or imperial context, even—these aren’t contexts that you will hear Plaid Cymru celebrating, necessarily, but that was the context at that time.

That context has now changed. Perhaps I should add that it has changed to a great extent as a result of the response to those contexts of the past. We are partially self-governing now as our nation continues on our constitutional journey. That journey, I’m proud to say, is continuing, and I’m sure that St David himself would agree that it’s an exciting journey, and a journey full of possibilities.

Our motion today mentions our contribution as a nation to the industrial revolution. We were one of the first industrial economies in the world. That experience of industrialisation was traumatic for many workers, and citizens more generally at the time. Poverty, ill health and environmental damage were clear characteristics of the period, but ultimately that was the start of the journey to a more prosperous future. It prepared the way for innovation and for technological developments and innovation. Those difficult circumstances of the time actually engendered battles for workers’ rights and for the right to vote—battles that laid the foundations to an extent that allowed us to build the democracy that we currently have, and the fact that we here today are in our own national Parliament.

There were challenges for the Welsh language also, naturally, although Gwynfor Evans noted that it wasn’t industrialisation that killed the Welsh language; it was the policies of central governments that were responsible for that through the education system and the psychological condition of the people of Wales. Gwynfor noted that the Welsh language had disappeared from the rural areas of the south-east way before the urban areas, with the language alive in areas such as Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare, and similar towns across Glamorgan and Gwent, for decades after industrialisation.

Today, of course, it’s good to see Welsh medium education prospering again in those areas. Policy is crucially important to drive that growth. I hope we all here do welcome that growth. There’s been a change in psychology, the psychology that Gwynfor mentioned, although there are still some people who find it difficult to find that new national confidence that we all need.

I’ll move on to health and education. As the industrial revolution was nurtured here in Wales, the national health service was also born here. We know how Aneurin Bevan got the vision and the courage to develop the NHS—yes, a prominent member in the history of the Labour Party and the Labour movement, but one of the giants of our history as a nation in terms of the development of healthcare. We in Plaid Cymru believe that that vision can now truly be achieved through our National Assembly and through the Welsh Government. But that vision by Bevan from our past must continue to inspire us now.

In education, we have a long tradition of high rates of literacy among our population, and an education network that, a century a more ago, England was envious of. More recently, Wales innovated in secondary education and Wales was the home of the first comprehensive school. I’m very proud that that was in my constituency, and that was Holyhead High School. Very appropriately, I will take this opportunity to congratulate that school and other schools in the town, and everyone else who were part of the event, for the first St David’s Day parade to be staged in Holyhead—I’m very sorry not to be able to attend today.