In his opening speech, the leader of the opposition—although I’m not sure I can call him that again; Neil McEvoy is no longer listed as a Plaid Member, I see. He said that he expected to see a new Government with new energy and new impetus. He even went so far, I think, as to say for 18 months he anticipated a blaze of energy. But of course this, to all intents, isn’t a new Labour-led Government. It’s not the first 18 months. It’s the fag-end of 18 years and, frankly, it shows.

We have the Welsh Government’s eight key economic indicators that they set themselves, and the first—I think the most important—of those was GVA per capita. We’re twelfth out of 12 of the English regions and the three nations: Wales, £18,002; UK, £25,351. We go down these and we’re tenth out of 12; eleventh out of 12; twelfth out of 12; ninth out of 12; eleventh out of 12; tenth equal out of 12. There is one, actually, where we’re a bit better, but not all the data are available on that one. I don’t think there’s anything more important that the two major public services that are devolved: the health service and education.

We look at urgent GP cancer referrals. We set ourselves the target of 95 per cent to be seen within two months, yet it’s only 86 per cent. The A&E four-hour waiting time: only 82 per cent in Wales are seen within that. In England it’s 86 per cent, compared to the 95 per cent target they set. We see it for waiting times: three times as long for hip replacement or hernia; nearly twice as long for cataract operations; and, actually, the only reason we’ve got those numbers is because of the Nuffield Trust. The reality is that when Labour aren’t hitting their targets, they stop collecting the data. But one piece of data that is available in the health services in mortality, and for avoidable deaths in Wales we have 240 per 100,000 people, compared to 221 in England. In just one year, that implies 600 extra and avoidable deaths in Wales, and potentially over the period of devolution 10,000.

Turning to education, the leader of the opposition said that the PISA results were going backwards, and I heard muttering from a Labour Member, ‘No we’re not.’ But look at them. I mean, maths, the Wales number is 478 compared to 493. That gap’s getting wider, and it’s fallen in Wales compared to the previous numbers. On reading, we have in Wales 477 compared to 500 in England. That gap has doubled in the past decade, and the Welsh number has been going down. And then, in science, we have Wales on 485, compared to 505 back in 2006; again, the gap has doubled with England. So, that’s the record on the key public services.

But then we also look at the constitutional issue, and we have no settled devolution settlement. The First Minister has instead set Wales on an uncertain journey by saying Scotland should be our model. Now, I don’t wholly blame the Labour-led Welsh Government for the unsatisfactory nature of the Wales Act 2017, but I think, also, Labour frontbench and Labour Welsh MPs, who are the majority, also bear some responsibility for that, as I think does Sir Humphrey and his pernicious influence on the Conservative Government at Westminster. But we had only, I think, pretty marginal changes in the drafting, yet we had these speeches from so many Labour Members, including the frontbench, that, ‘Ah, it’s not great, there’s all these problems with it, but, on balance, and it’s very much an on-balance decision, there’s this great thing that the Sewel convention is going to be codified in law and that will then be judged by the courts, and, on that basis, we should vote for it.’ Yet, within a couple of weeks, the rug was pulled out from under them, and, following the Counsel General’s intervention, we’re told by the Supreme Court the fact it’s in law makes no difference at all and it remains a convention.

And then, on leaving the EU, we see how the Welsh Government position has evolved. I don’t want to be too critical for this; this is something I’ve been obsessed with all my life. The First Minister has led on it and he’s mugged up over the past nine months and his understanding has developed. But he’s had three separate positions on freedom of movement. At one point, he very sensibly said that we couldn’t be members of the single market—indeed, he voted down a Plaid motion on it—because we needed to deal with freedom of movement. Unfortunately, that position now seems to have gone back, and free and unfettered access to the single market is, I think, something that would get a consensus. But then, when that then becomes full participation in the single market, as I’ve said before, what on earth does that mean? I saw that Jane Hutt, the leader of the house, adopted a new formulation in taking questions yesterday—she referred to ‘participation’ in the single market. But, ultimately, are we going to do what the people of Wales want? They voted to leave. Are we going to come out of the single market? Are we going to restrict freedom of movement? Are we going to take a sensible approach to this and back, actually, what the people of Wales decided, or are we going to try and hug the Scottish Government? All the Scottish Government cares about is independence.

The idea of the future UK framework as something that the Wales relationship with England or with UK Government, and the huge importance of that for us—the idea that that should be based on whatever Nicola Sturgeon fancies stirring up or having as a precept in negotiations on the UK framework I think is wrong. We need to see the Welsh Government lead in finding a settled model of devolution, not the independence supported by 6 per cent of the country, yet, however many Members there now are opposite, and we look to the Government to lead on that. Unfortunately, it’s not doing so, and I’m delighted to support the Conservative motion today.