Now, I think there's much to welcome in the document in terms of some of the specific proposals. I would like the First Minister just to explain the interrelationship between what he sets out and the work that he's asked Alun Davies to conduct and the report that will be forthcoming, I believe in the spring, about the future of the United Kingdom. We obviously now welcome, as has been referred to, the proposals for a separate or distinct legal jurisdiction here in Wales to join those in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and for the devolution of policing and justice powers. I'm sure that the powerful, indeed unarguable, case will also be made for this by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd when his Commission on Justice in Wales reports next week, I believe.

We welcome your recognition that the population-based Barnett formula for the distribution of funding across the UK must be replaced by one based on an independently assessed basis of need, and indeed the wider changes in terms of the fiscal framework that you referred to earlier, and that this principle should be applied to non-devolved funding areas as well.

Above all, I welcome your opening proposition, really, that parliamentary sovereignty at Westminster, the idea of the supremacy alone of Westminster as a concept, as a principle, as a value, even, is long past its sell-by date, and that popular sovereignty rests with the people of Wales. Indeed, they have the right to assert their independence through a referendum, and you refer in section 3 of the document that it is

'the Welsh Government’s view, provided that a government', in either Scotland or Wales,

'has secured an explicit electoral mandate for the holding of a referendum, and enjoys continuing support from its parliament to do so, it is entitled to expect the UK Parliament to take whatever action is necessary' to ensure that it happens. In terms of its immediate and, indeed, long-term impact, I suppose that last principle of moving to a system of popular sovereignty, based on nationhood in our case, is probably the most far-reaching of all. But of course it's one thing to declare sovereignty and it's quite another to insist on it in the teeth of continuing Westminster opposition—a Parliament that still believes it's supreme. I remember when the devolution of policing was last proposed by your predecessor, he was given—I'm quoting the Western Mail—a 'roasting' by Labour MPs from Wales. So, there certainly was opposition there.

It raises another point, I think, because in some senses the kind of problem of London or Westminster centricity that actually bedevils the British constitution as a whole is also a problem, isn't it, within the British Labour Party? We've seen in the last few weeks, on this question of the right to hold, by Scotland or Wales, an independence referendum, which you're now supporting, that Richard Leonard, your counterpart in Scotland, has said there will be an explicit clause in the next UK Labour Party manifesto ruling out an independence referendum for Scotland under all circumstances. John McDonnell has said that he is minded to support it, whereas Jeremy Corbyn has said it's a case of wait and see. It was ever thus. What is the status, really, of this proposition within the Labour Party?

Though I would like to tempt the First Minister even further—you're not obviously with us in terms of the independence of Wales as a whole, but surely even to achieve this agenda for the reform of the United Kingdom, maybe one of the best things that you could do to achieve that is to declare independence as a Labour Party in Wales, in order, then, to actually create a new political dynamic within your own party and more widely. I know we disagree about the desirability of independence as a political end. We have a different interpretation, I think, of the effectiveness of the union as a means of redistribution. You referred to it as a framework for pooling reward and risk. I have to say, with some exceptions, most of the time Westminster has been more risk to Wales than reward, and I think the most powerful arguments I've seen made in favour of this sometimes are made weekly by yourself, First Minister, at the despatch box. We both share, I think, anger at a Government in Westminster that plays us like a puppet on a string, controlling us, denying us fair funding and treating us like second-class citizens.

Now, in some senses, as often happens, popular political culture is ahead of formal politics. We've seen it on the streets of Merthyr and elsewhere, and my one question is: on this issue of the constitutional convention, I think absolutely that's the way to engage properly with these deeper questions, but why can’t we lead the way? Why do we have to wait for Westminster to decide to create an UK-wide constitutional convention? Why can’t we be prefigurative? Why can’t we begin here to have the very kind of engaged discourse that he’s just laid out for us, beginning here in Wales, and hopefully acting as a catalyst for wider discussions across these islands?