Could I ask for two Government statements—or a Government statement and, I think, a Government debate, actually? First of all to the statement. The leader of the house will be aware that today is an important day in our fellow Parliament in Catalunya, when they have a very important decision to respond to a referendum that was disrupted by the Spanish police with aggression and violence, and they now have to plot a way ahead. It’s been very worrying that the Spanish state has not sought to enter into dialogue, or any meaningful dialogue. It simply threatened and used constitutional law to stop the free expression of the will of the Catalunyan people. It’s been particularly regretful, I think, that the position of this Labour Government has been so supine in responding to that, given the history of international brigades from Aberdare to Albacete, as the book tells us. In the context, I think of just waiting for some crumbs from the Chancellor’s table. That’s what makes it even more distasteful. It seems to be done for some very short-term realpolitik rather than a long-term view of how we develop within the European commonality in terms of our regional identity, national identity and the expression of free will.

A significant intervention this week has been that of the Elders, as they’re called—some six very senior international diplomats led by Kofi Annan—who have called for international arbitration and mediation in these circumstances. That’s been backed up by several European countries. Wales, with a strong connection to the Spanish peninsula, remains a country with its own Government and Parliament where the Parliament has said something about this but the Government has said nothing. Can I urge the leader of the house, even at this late stage, to make a public statement of support towards the need for international co-operation and mediation and for the Spanish state to enter into meaningful dialogue so that the situation in Catalunya can be resolved in line with the will of the people of Catalunya?

The second issue I’d like to raise—and I think this is where a debate could come in—is the publication yesterday of two White Papers by the UK Government on customs and on trade. They’re full of rhetoric; there’s no actual proposals in them. It’s very difficult to know what they will mean for us, but I think a debate in Government time would allow us to explore how we have an input into what the customs and trade arrangements will be as we leave the European Union. To my mind, there’s very little to engage with. I’m particularly concerned that the customs paper talks about the land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which is fine, but it doesn’t talk about the sea border that we have between Wales and the Republic of Ireland. So, if we’re going to see customs arrangements come into place, we need to understand what that means for our ports, Holyhead down to Fishguard in particular, and, of course, Pembroke Dock. There’s no detail there, but there is this—I was going to say ‘tantalising’ suggestion—it’s not very tantalising, but there’s a suggestion that we could have no deal, that we could suddenly find ourselves making customs arrangements. And yet we all know there’s no preparation, there’s no land set aside, there’s no buildings for this to happen: very practical things are not addressed in these papers, and yet we’re told that this could be a very real possibility. So, I think a debate would allow us to explore some of these issues, but I’m particularly keen, if possible, today, if the leader of the house could confirm: what input did the Welsh Government have to these two papers? In particular, the trade paper says that there will be input of devolved administrations—I think the use of the word ‘administrations’ rather than ‘Governments’ tells you what they think about us—but nevertheless, it says ‘input’. So what is that input? Can we understand what the ongoing process is for dialogue around these two papers, which I take it now form the backbone of what the UK Government will be doing, even though the flesh is very, very thin?