Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. Can I, first of all, thank the Assembly for allowing us to debate this no named day motion now? I think, in light of the events over the last week and the decision making of the Westminster Government, it is appropriate that we debate this motion. I understand not everyone will support the content of the motion, and there are amendments before us, but I think it is vital that we allow ourselves to debate the motion of no confidence in the Secretary of State.

When I tabled the motion, of course, I didn't think we'd be having two no confidence motions on the same day as regards the Conservative Party, but it seems that that is what has transpired. But we're here to judge one man's responsibility, and one man's responsibility to deliver on manifesto commitments, and that's what I want to judge the Secretary of State on—a commitment in 2015 to do two major pieces of infrastructure investment in Wales, worth over £2 billion of investment: to electrify the railway between Swansea and Cardiff and to support the tidal lagoon. More than that, there was a commitment in the manifesto that the Secretary of State for Wales stood on and was elected on to finish the job on electrification and to support the tidal lagoon.

Since that 2015 manifesto, yes, circumstances have changed, many of them created by the Conservative Government itself, of course, in calling the referendum on leaving the European Union, but neither of those major investments have been made, calling into question not only the good words of the Secretary of State himself but, I think, politics more widely—all of us who stand for election on manifestos. I've seen some of the response this week from my constituents around this, who now feel that they are not being listened to and that manifesto commitments and promises can be broken willy-nilly, not by oppositions, not by small parties, not by others, but by parties who have been in Government for several years.

That failure to deliver really has left us in a very invidious position in this Assembly, because we wanted these projects to deliver for us, the Welsh Government wanted to work with these projects, the Welsh Government was prepared to co-invest in these projects, and the Welsh Government had plans in place to benefit Wales as a whole when these projects went ahead, both in terms of rail electrification and the tidal lagoon. As a result of a decision made by the Westminster Government for which, yes, to a certain extent, in terms of this debate today, the Secretary of State for Wales is the figurehead—he may not have personally taken some of these decisions, in the sense that I understand it was actually the Prime Minister who decided to cancel rail electrification to Swansea—but he is our most direct voice in Westminster. He is supposedly Wales's voice in the Cabinet, the advocate for Wales in the Cabinet, and the person for whom this should be a matter of personal commitment and personal responsibility to deliver.

If there are two commitments in your manifesto for election for which you are then the Cabinet Secretary responsible, and you don't deliver on them, then do you carry on? Do you stand down? Do you say, 'I'm sorry, I failed to get it through'? Do you resign as a sign that you are unhappy with your own Government's performance? We have had resignations this week from members of the Government, for lesser reasons than this, actually—on principle to vote against a planning decision on Heathrow, not even as far advanced as rail electrification and the tidal lagoon. The fact that the Secretary of State has not seen fit to act in the spirit of what Wales wanted, and show his dissatisfaction with the decision making of his own Government—which, to be fair, some Members opposite have done over the last day or so—I think means that we should move a motion of no confidence in him here today.

Now, of course we are not responsible for the Secretary of State for Wales, he is not answerable to us, and he doesn't even come to the Assembly anymore to give his annual speech. [Interruption.] Just in a second, of course. We rightly got rid of that rather anachronistic approach, but he is our single voice in Westminster, and we are the voice of the people of Wales, so it is completely appropriate politically—maybe not constitutionally, but politically I think it's completely appropriate—that we debate the motion and pass it here today.