Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:51 pm on 27 June 2017.
Well, the DUP are obviously better negotiators than their counterparts in those days. We have to remember that the Barnett formula itself, of course, is a product of those negotiations, something that is inherently unfair to Wales, quite regardless of these negotiations, because, on a per capita basis, of course, Wales, as the leader of Plaid Cymru very rightly pointed out, gets a very raw deal indeed.
But why are they not entering into negotiations with the United Kingdom Government to get a better deal for Wales? They’re in opposition to the Government, as indeed are the DUP, technically, and they could be doing a deal to get exactly what she claims to have wanted on behalf of the people of Wales. But because of her bigoted and blinkered refusal even to contemplate talking to, let alone negotiating with, a Conservative Government, she denies the people of Wales the benefits that she claims to want.
Therefore, that speech was pure humbug and hypocrisy, because she does have power, through her four Members of Parliament at Westminster, to influence the negotiating process, because the Government only has a bare majority anyway with the votes of the DUP. So, if she really wants to say, for example, on the Circuit of Wales project, we could make a change to the accounting conventions—that appears to be the only reason that the deal has been scuppered by the Welsh Government—in exchange for their votes, why doesn’t she do that? Answer—[Interruption.]