Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:03 pm on 27 September 2017.
What’s that supposed to mean? [Laughter.] Thank you for that warm introduction. [Laughter.] I’ve had worse. [Laughter.] Could I first of all just start by thanking everyone who contributed to today’s debate this afternoon? I’ve got to say, I did particularly enjoy the response of the First Minister, a response mainly directed at Janet Finch-Saunders—well, for the first five minutes of his contribution anyway. To be fair, First Minister, you did then turn to Paul Davies and the problems of rural Wales.
But I have to say it is a bit rich to lay all of Wales’s woes at the door of the Welsh Conservative party and the Welsh Conservative group. In case you haven’t noticed, we haven’t been in power here for the last 18 years. In fact, let me think who has. Who could it be? Ah, of course, it’s the Labour Party, the Welsh Labour Party that have been in power. But I have to say things—. [Interruption.] And I have to say—. [Interruption.] In a moment. And I have to say, Mike Hedges, things didn’t get much better when Labour was in power in Westminster either for over 10 years, and we had a Labour Party in Westminster in power and a Labour Government here. Did GVA suddenly spiral up through the roof? Did it suddenly improve? Did we get electrification of the Great Western line? Did we get the tidal lagoon? All these wonderful things that apparently the Welsh Conservatives have not delivered. Well, actually, electrification is happening. Actually, a lot of these happening are in the process and far more than they were in the pipeline when Labour were in power in Westminster. And if the Welsh Government here wants to work with the UK Conservative Government to help deliver these projects, then we welcome that and we believe in being positive. And, you know, you might say that this has been a negative debate. Well, the reason why there’s been a lot of negativity is that we’ve been following a document that didn’t actually have a great deal in it.
I think it was Caroline Jones who spoke about warm words. And, yes, we have heard lots of warm words here in this Chamber over the last 20 years. We’ve marked the twentieth anniversary of devolution over the last couple of weeks. We have had lots of warm words and lots of strategies. And Adam Price said—. Wales isn’t suffering from a lack of strategies, is it, Adam? I think we’ve had so many strategies—more than we can count—and too many of them either haven’t been followed through, haven’t been enacted or, as Janet Finch-Saunders said, have just ended up being dumped, left on a dusty shelf somewhere not to be followed through. So, I think we do need you to get in perspective exactly why we’re in the situation we are.