I'm not pleased to have to take part in this debate this afternoon at all, and it's with a heavy heart that I rise to participate in it. I'm sorry that the previous speaker feels that this about political point scoring; it's not at all. This is about, in my view, a need to get to the truth about what happened, a need to understand the processes that the Permanent Secretary has been through, the scope of her investigation into the allegations of a leak of the information from the Welsh Government prior to the reshuffle taking place—and I don't think we have any answers at the moment. In fact, I think that the statement that was put out by the Permanent Secretary on conclusion of her work gave rise to even more ambiguity, actually, about what happened. I don't think that I can have confidence in the outcome of that piece of work because of the statement that was issued. I think that the Permanent Secretary owes it to the Welsh Government and owes it to all Members of this Assembly, and the people of Wales, to share as much as she can about the way in which her work was conducted so that we can have some confidence in those processes.

This has been the only time while I have been a Member of the Assembly—and there have been many reshuffles that have taken place—where I have seen information about Cabinet appointments trailed in this way; I have not seen it before. Of course we see speculation from time to time, of course we do, but I think the impression that is out there in the Twittersphere, and on social media, and, indeed, some of the comments that we've heard from journalists since this particular reshuffle took place, make it absolutely clear that there was not just speculation taking place, there was information being shared prior to the reshuffle, prior to that information even being shared with those people who were being appointed, and those people who were being dismissed from the First Minister's Cabinet. I think that that is a great shame and we need to understand precisely what has happened.

We know that the Permanent Secretary made it clear that there were no unauthorised leaks, in her words, but we don't know whether she considered the evidence from Twitter, which, of course, was dismissed by the First Minister rather flippantly, I have to say, because, let's face it, many people have been taken to court because of things that they have said on Twitter, and actually convicted of things. So, I think it's really important that we don't dismiss this evidence that is out there, and we need to understand whether the Permanent Secretary agreed with the First Minister that that was not evidence, or whether she actually incorporated it within the scope of her work. Like you, Lee Waters, I don't want people to be named and shamed, as it were, in terms of anybody who may have made allegations; that's not the purpose of today's debate at all. We simply want to understand how we can have confidence in something that has taken place, and at the moment, it's very opaque indeed.

Now, I do welcome the fact that the Welsh Government has made it clear that the QC-led inquiry will have a copy of this report. I think that's entirely appropriate, given the scope of the work that Paul Bowen and his team will have to do.