Historians often say that British rule, while it often was unfair, was almost always polite, and here we are in this Welsh Parliament presented with a consent motion that, effectively, is asking for our consent to be removed.

We are joining a very select club of national Parliaments, if we pass this motion today, that have voluntarily decided to cede their own authority. You have to cast about and think of the Scottish Parliament in 1707, the Irish Parliament in 1800, for examples in history—albeit, of course, we are ceding our authority for a time-limited period in certain areas. But the principle is there. Now, I was expecting the former honourable Member to intervene on me, and say, 'Well, isn't that what we did with the European Communities Act?' And, indeed, it was echoed, really, in David Melding's point. But an essential difference was there: we were joining a community of equals, and through mechanisms like weighted voting, et cetera, then the interests of small nations in particular were protected. That isn't the case in this unitary state. Effectively, the dominance of one nation in these four islands, it's almost a kind of Bagehot-like part of the dignified constitution of the UK; it's a principle that underpins everything, and, actually, it's now written into statute. And therein lies the problem. Indeed, this debate actually has laid bare, hasn't it, the fractures, the fault lines, of what is an entirely imbalanced and unstable constitution in these islands.

What we're asking for is parity for this nation. That is surely a principle that we could all actually get behind. Now, of course, the constitution is where politics and law meet, and I think that the note that we got from the Assembly lawyers, it's incredible reading:

'The words "consent decision" suggest that the Minister can only lay the draft regulations before the UK Parliament if either the Assembly has consented to their making, or the Assembly has done nothing about them for 40 days. But this is misleading.'

Those are rare words coming from any lawyer because, of course, as we know, as indeed Nicola Sturgeon, who was quoted earlier, I believe—as she said, if we say 'yes', UK Ministers will take that as consent, if we say 'no', they will take that as consent, and, if we say nothing at all, they can take that as consent. It is heads they win and tails we lose.

Now, I've heard the argument that this is actually—[Interruption.] Yes, certainly.