Like everyone in the Chamber today, I too send my deepest condolences to Shona, Celyn, Gail, Nia and the whole family, and I wish to thank you for sharing Steffan with us. He was taken away far too soon and his loss is great to his family more than anyone, of course, but also to Plaid Cymru, the people of the south-east of Wales, this Assembly and to Wales. He contributed so much, and his intellect will light the way for us. He will be an inspiration and he will walk with us on the journey towards a free Wales.

I first came across Steff at a public meeting in Pen-y-groes in the Arfon constituency. Alun Ffred had insisted that this bright young boy from Gwent should join us to share his vision, and that is what he did, in a thoughtful, detailed, intelligent and quiet way, but in an entirely convincing and credible way. He had a dream and he believed that that dream would be realised. Over ensuing years, I would meet Steff at conferences and Plaid events, and in 2016 both of us were elected Assembly Members for the first time, and I had the privilege of sitting next to him until quite recently.

As we’ve already heard, he didn’t like the computer screen, and therefore, if he wanted to send a message to the Llywydd, very often he would have to go through my computer screen, and then I would pull his leg and say, ‘Well, I’m not your personal secretary, Steff’, and he would tease me too. For example, when I took every possible opportunity to press for a medical school for Bangor, I would hear, ‘You gogs are far too noisy.’ And that was one of his favourite phrases. I delighted in those phrases. I loved to hear his powerful, carefully constructed speeches, but those asides when another Member was speaking would always put a smile on my face. ‘This is terrible’, when a Minister was refusing to answer a question or was rambling on, and he would hate to hear Members referring to the UK as ‘our nation’ or ‘our country’. He would always correct that—'Wales is our nation. Wales is our country.’ And another thing that wound him up was references to Wales as a 'small nation'. ‘We’re not a small nation’, he would insist, ‘We are a bigger nation than many other independent nations.’

In walking to the Chamber or whilst waiting to deliver a speech backstage, Steff would say this to me, ‘Here we are, Siân Gwenllian’—he’d never call me ‘Siân’; he’d always call me by my full name—‘Here we are, Siân Gwenllian, the woman from Gwynedd and the boy from Gwent. We’ll go for it. Let’s go, let’s show them how it’s done.’ I will never forget those words. We represented very different areas, but the boy from Gwent made quite an impression on me, and that bright, principled boy will always be with me in our Senedd, in our conferences and in my daily life, because that boy from Gwent will always be in my heart, in all of our hearts. Steff, your dream lives on and that dream will be realised. Rest in peace, dear friend.