I thank the Member for that intervention, and he's answered—[Inaudible.]

I would have thought that an independent approach, in fact, would be the most obvious way to meet that requirement, and, as he pointed out, he made that request in his own letter to the First Minister, stating that the appointment of an independent third party to conduct an inquiry was an honourable course of action when the First Minister of Scotland faced similar allegations. So, we may ask: what's changed his mind? I think he's tried to highlight that point just now, but if it was honourable on 14 November for Scotland, why isn't it now for Wales?

The motion asks for the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister to undertake this work and whilst the committee is independent of the Welsh Government, it is not, unfortunately, independent of this institution. Now, I'm aware of the arguments that have been raised this afternoon—that this should not be a reason for the committee not to undertake this work. And as the leader of the opposition said yesterday during FMQs, he believes in its integrity and objectivity, and I appreciate that, very much so. But, unfortunately, there are some outside this institution who would question that.

Now, as Lynne Neagle has already said, I hope Members also recognise that I often hold the First Minister and the Welsh Government to account on certain issues; I'm not afraid to be asking those difficult and challenging questions. But as we seek the truth through those answers, we must also be truthful to ourselves and recognise that questions will be raised about our independence. To that extent, I do believe that the leader of the opposition was a little bit naughty yesterday. I won't go into it further, because Lynne Neagle has already raised the points of what Jeremy Miles said, actually on the Sunday Politics Wales show, and I listened to it several times to confirm exactly that. It is important that you look at the context, and the context was that it is not hard to imagine that if the committee reached a different outcome, that would be criticised because it would not be seen as independent. That's the clear context—