Llywydd, I asked you to consider recalling the Assembly when the UK Prime Minister announced his intention to prevent Parliament for sitting for more than a month, or as David Lidington, the previous Deputy Prime Minister put it, to gag Parliament in these most crucial days for our country. If Members of Parliament are to be denied a voice, then it is all the more important that we here should be able to speak up for Wales, for our economy and our future. When our motion says that the actions of the Prime Minister are an outrage, we mean exactly that. In a few short weeks, we have seen a Government turn its back on the fundamental decencies of a functioning democracy—an utter disregard for the truth, an utter disregard for Parliament, an utter disregard for the services of those senior women and men in his own party who dare to disagree with him. 

Let me begin, Llywydd, with the issue of telling the truth. Now, I have been in politics long enough to know that the same object can be described in different ways from different perspectives, but when the Downing Street official spokesperson is put up to say that the Prime Minister has no plans to prorogue Parliament, when a Scottish court discovers that he had already decided to do just that, that is not just telling your own version of the truth. Let us call it what it is: it's a lie, a deliberate, intentional lie. And, Llywydd, this is but one example, and, sad to say, there are plenty more. 

Michael Gove is put up to say confidently that there will be no shortages—no shortages—of fresh produce on supermarket shelves after a 'no deal' Brexit, only for the British Retail Consortium, whose members actually stock the shelves, to say that this is categorically untrue. Or the health Secretary, Matt Hancock, assuring us that the NHS will be 10 out of 10 prepared for no deal by 31 October, when the national health service itself says that there is a strong likelihood of shortages of vital drugs—vital drugs that treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and epilepsy, amongst other things—because they cannot be stockpiled, and when the British Medical Association says leaving without a deal will irreparably harm the NHS and the nation's health. 

Now, Michael Gove, who now defends the Government's strategy as having a mandate from the 2016 referendum, is the same Michael Gove who said as recently as March that

'we didn't vote to leave without a deal. That wasn't the message of the campaign I helped to lead.'

Llywydd, a Government that has lost all respect for the truth has lost its moral compass. It leads to the belief that the inconvenience of Parliament is best addressed by its enforced silence. It leads to the belief that, as Sir Nicholas Soames put it yesterday, a party that was once a broad church should be reduced to a narrow sect by expelling those who take a different view. Llywydd, a Government that has no respect for the truth has forfeited the respect on which our democracy relies. That is why it is absolutely essential that we send a clear message of support today—support to those in Westminster and in the courts who are, even now, fighting this abuse of power. And I want to say how proud I am that we as a Welsh Government have been able to join the case led by Gina Miller, which is being heard in the High Court as we meet in this Assembly this afternoon.