Presiding Officer, I’m sure you will agree with me and Members across the whole of the Chamber that the deliberate, I assume, leaking of the name of any individual who applied for this post, as happened yesterday, is to be regretted and is entirely contrary to the standards we expect of the public appointments process. It is a gross infringement of their personal privacy.

At the same time, it is clear from media reports that the United Kingdom Government and their sources have sought to undermine this Government, undermine me as a Minister, and to brief against decisions that we have taken, all done unanimously. Let me say this: however we seek to conduct inter-governmental relationships within the United Kingdom, this is a textbook example of how not do it. The Welsh Government reached an agreement with the United Kingdom Government on the appointment of this person to represent Wales on the board. The Welsh Government was represented on the recruitment panel. Interviews for the post took place in Cardiff on 14 February. It was clear from those interviews that there were a number of very well thought of candidates and a number of appointable candidates. Not all of these were unanimously agreed upon, and some were judged to be stronger than others. Their relative merits were set out very clearly in the panel report, which was seen by both the Secretary of State and me. I was confident of being able to make a good appointment. I was therefore shocked to receive a letter from the Secretary of State on 27 February, where she said she was minded to recommend a candidate who was not one of those unanimously agreed stronger candidates. I was also shocked that I was given 24 hours to respond to this letter. I was even more shocked to discover that the Secretary of State was unwilling to even discuss the other candidates with me. She insisted that we either accept her choice or, in her words, we veto it, forcing a rerun of the competition. This, Presiding Office, despite her own Permanent Secretary accepting via e-mail that there were other stronger candidates, and despite my assurance that we would be happy to agree a choice from those other stronger candidates.

Presiding Officer, at no point have I expressed an opinion as to who I believe the strongest candidate for this post would be. What I’ve said very clearly is that Wales deserves the best, and the candidate that the appointment panel believes is the best candidate. And I will not be told by any Secretary of State that I have no choice in this matter, and I will not be told then by anonymous UK Government sources that I have the temerity to exercise the power available to me. I have the right to exercise that power available to me, and whenever the UK Government behaves in this way, we will exercise that right.

Presiding Officer, I am profoundly disappointed with where we are. I am profoundly disappointed with the actions, the attitude and the tone of the Secretary of State, and I am profoundly disappointed that the United Kingdom Government is not willing to act in the best interests of Wales in this matter.