I raise to speak with a heavy heart on behalf of the Labour group. First, I'd like to extend all of our condolences to Steffan's wife, Shona, his son, Celyn, and the rest of his family and friends. Steffan was so widely respected by Members of all parties across this Chamber and held in really great esteem. His razor-sharp intellect was clear to see, as was his grasp of the key issues and his genuine passion to make Wales a better place. And in the work that he did on first proposing the EU continuity Bill, and his work thereafter on 'Securing Wales' Future', he will undoubtedly leave a strong legacy here in Wales.

I'd also like to say a few points personally as well, because I arrived in this Chamber in May 2016, at exactly the same time as Steffan, and I was struck very quickly by how non-partisan a place this Chamber is. It was actually Steffan who played a key role in first showing me that, as we both served on BIPA together—the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. I remember meeting with him and the other representatives prior to our first trip and feeling somewhat trepidatious about how I would get on with Members of other parties during that trip. But Steffan actually jumped over the security barriers in Tŷ Hywel, such was his enthusiasm for the work we were about to undergo, and that certainly did break down any barriers that there were.

From then on, I found that there was nothing that he could not talk about and show a huge amount of knowledge on, as other colleagues have said, from international examples to national and to local. The depth of knowledge and passion he had across all different areas of politics was really quite incredible. But virtually every conversation that I had with him would always come back to his family, and that was something that really struck me. He was, clearly, very much a family man, a very proud father, and spoke with great affection of his wife and his parents too, and how they had shaped his politics.

His talent will undoubtedly be a great loss to the party, Plaid Cymru, and a great loss to Wales as a nation as well, but of course, more importantly, a loss that is felt by his family and his friends too. Like Steffan, I too am a historian at heart, and I am confident that, when the history of this fifth Assembly is written and this chapter of the history of Plaid Cymru, Steffan's role will be a shining light.