Diolch, Llywydd. 

The sense of sadness and of loss is profound in the Assembly this afternoon, as we think first of Steffan's family and his friends, but we think as well of the loss to this Assembly and to the future of our nation. I'm very conscious that, unlike other Members—unlike Adam, who has just spoken—that I didn't know Steffan at all until I met him here after his election. And in the way that chance has it, Llywydd, the responsibilities that he discharged over that brief period for Plaid Cymru in the Chamber, speaking on Brexit, speaking on finance, happened to be the responsibilities that I held in the Welsh Government at the same time. And as a result, and much more than would normally be the case, I found myself in his company. And he was, without any shadow of a doubt, one of the most decent and able politicians of his generation; somebody who, as Adam Price has just said, when he came through the door to discuss something that mattered passionately to him, his ambition always seemed to me to be to see where common ground could be forged and where we could agree together on the important responsibilities that fall to us all. That's how I ended up working with him on 'Securing Wales' Future', a document that has served us so well in the past two years and will go on, I know, being a touchstone of the sort of nation that we want to be in the context we find ourselves in today, and beyond that as well, conversations about finance, about tax, about Gwent and the things that mattered to him there.

Inevitably, like all of us, when something awful like this happens, you find yourself remembering and you think of conversations that you've had. I thought over the weekend of an occasion where we had talked together about the importance of us jointly being able to present a copy of 'Securing Wales' Future' to the UK Government. It was a product of both our parties, we both had a lot to do with its production and we wanted to go together and make sure that we presented it to the UK Government, and, lo and behold, a senior Secretary of State in the UK Government was visiting Cardiff and we were able to go and present the document to him. Steffan introduced the document in the way exactly as you would expect—articulate and to the point. We received a reply from the Secretary of State and, as we left the room, Steffan said to me, 'Well, if I wasn't a nationalist before I came in this room, I'm definitely one as I leave it'. [Laughter.]

He was, as you all know, a thoughtful, sensitive and committed individual, but he was a funny person, somebody whose company you wanted to be in, somebody who you learnt a lot from, even in those more casual moments. It's very difficult, isn't it, to remember that it is barely six weeks since he last spoke in this Chamber, and difficult to remember that it's only six months ago since many of us here in south Wales and in the north, where a number of us were, across parties in the Chamber, set off to walk together across the front in Llandudno. It was a beautiful day; it was one of those high summer's days when the sun shone and you couldn't but be optimistic about the future. And here we are, barely six months later, in the dark winter days. A day when

'The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.'

And neither, for a long time, Llywydd, will we.