I'm delighted to rise to support the eloquent and moving plea of Adam Price, who opened this debate. I would like to think that David Melding's speech was purely for the purposes of testing the hypotheses of those who have spoken so far, and he's acting, therefore, as the devil's advocate, an honoured position in Catholic theology. But, sadly, I think he believed the sophistical arguments that he adduced. I will go straight to the question that he asked: what is a nation? Well, it's a matter of fact: a nation is a nation when it feels itself to be a nation. Yes, it may well be that we could have thousands of nation states in the world, should the peoples of the world determine their futures in that way. We do have city states, do we not, like Singapore, actually one of the richest countries in the world, as I never tire of pointing out to the finance Secretary in debates on taxation.

This debate is about one very simple principle, that of the right of self-determination, which is enshrined in the United Nations charter. For the life of me, I can't see why points 3 and 4 in this motion should be controversial to any democrat. So, I'm at a loss to understand the reasoning behind the objection to it. I certainly oppose the heavy-handed response by the Spanish Government and the detention of elected Catalan representatives in prison. It is true that, under the semi-Francoist constitution of Spain, they acted against the law of the land, and I'm afraid the behaviour of the Spanish state shows that the ghost of General Franco still hovers over the political system in Spain today, sadly.

What needs to change in Spain is the Spanish constitution, and there is no doubt that a very substantial proportion of the population in Catalonia wants to have independence. Whether it's a majority or not, I can't say. I take no view on the merits of it. I believe in the unitary state of the United Kingdom, and I want Wales to remain part of it, but I accept absolutely the right of the Welsh people to determine their future for themselves in constitutional terms. Should the people of Wales decide by referendum and a majority that they want to be politically independent of the rest of United Kingdom, I would say, 'Good luck to them', even though I would be on the other side of the argument. It must, at the end of the day, be for the people themselves to decide their own future, and no-one, I believe, has the right to deprive people of that fundamental right.

I read a very interesting article, which I wholly applaud, and recommend everybody read, by Mick Antoniw in WalesOnline this week, where he made a very prescient point. He said that

'The arrest and imprisonment of democratically elected government ministers for Catalonia has exposed a gaping wound in the European Union’s constitutional commitment to uphold human rights and the rule of law.'

'There is no doubt'— he went on to say—

'that the declaration was in breach of the constitution; but there can also be little doubt that failure of the central government on numerous occasions to support amendments to the constitution to allow the possibility of independence through a free and fair referendum was a breach of Article One of the UN Convention.'

I would go further than that, and I would say it's also in breach of article 11 of the charter of fundamental rights of the European Union, the right of freedom of expression and information:

'Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.'

So, Spain, in my view, is in flagrant breach of that obligation, which is enshrined upon it, which they all voted for as Governments in the European Union and which the Welsh Government has recently paid lip service to, as part of the argument about Brexit. I've no objection to many parts of that charter, although I do object to the way in which it has been interpreted, in some ways, by the European Court. But article 11, it seems to me, is totally unobjectionable to anybody who believes in fundamental freedoms.

And so, I believe that it is essential that this Parliament of Wales—another small people, as has already been pointed out—should express its solidarity with the people of Catalonia, and any small nation that is being oppressed by its centralised Government. The Spanish Government, I think, should hang its head in shame for the way in which they've behaved towards these elected politicians in Catalonia. Spain, obviously, must sort out its own constitutional arrangements for itself, but the way to do that is not by thuggish behaviour and the repression of people on the streets, but by the force of argument in democratic institutions and free and fair votes.