Diolch, Llywydd. This a motion in search of a headline from a party in search of a purpose. It's a pretty crude attempt by the Brexit Party—and the clue is in the name—to find a new target to attack now that they won't be able to blame the European Union for all the ills. Who's next on the list of targets? The very institution in which they choose to sit. But, Llywydd, it seems to me there's a basic contradiction at the heart of the attempt by the Brexit Party to switch its focus from a cause that has been won to one which I profoundly hope and expect is a lost cause.

Their campaign against the EU was built on the anxieties of people in communities across the UK that key decisions were being taken too far way from their communities. Their new target is this Senedd. And whatever else may be said about us, we are, in the main, rooted in our communities and very happy to be held to account by our voters.

So, what does 'take back control' actually mean? When the electorate sent a message that they felt powerless to influence the critical decision in their lives, are we really to believe that what they really wanted was a centralisation of all of that power in a square mile around Westminster, an elected dictatorship by a UK Government with a large majority, capable of riding roughshod over any other source of legitimacy in the UK, whether that be the devolved institutions, local government or the judiciary? I don't think so.

Llywydd, this Parliament is still relatively young—we will shortly reach our twenty-first birthday—and devolution in Wales has been anything but static. We've come from being a corporate body to being a Parliament, from a maker of secondary legislation to being a primary legislature, with growing tax powers and a grown appetite for further devolution. We now have the capacity to make choices that are better and different and better suited to the people of Wales. And it think it's a real achievement that, while the model of devolution has changed, the principle of devolution has now truly become the settled will of the people of Wales, and the credit for that achievement is one that is shared by all the mainstream parties represented in this Chamber. So, let's reject the motion for what it is—an attempt to subvert the will of the people of Wales by a party on its last legs.

Turning to the amendments. The Plaid Cymru amendment, as Hefin David said, attacks successive Welsh Governments, despite the fact that they were part of, what I would say, at least, was a successful coalition Government from 2007 to 2011. Amendment 1 is one the substance of which we don't at all disagree with, but we want to be able to vote on the amendment that we've laid, which captures the cross-party and the civic nature of the devolution settlement here in Wales. I heard fantastic contributions from the Conservative benches in relation to devolution. The amendment, I felt, didn't capture that. I was thinking perhaps you were waiting for a line from Westminster; I think that may be unfair, given the contributions that were made in the debate. And Neil Hamilton, I thought, for a man rescued from political oblivion by devolution, made a particularly ungrateful contribution in moving his amendment, perhaps sensing his political demise in this place, setting his sights on an elected health board job somewhere in the future, perhaps.

But, in seriousness, Llywydd, in a complex and globally networked interdependent world, where some problems can only be dealt with—like climate change—across jurisdictions, some others—like social care or education—must be tailored, in terms of their solutions, to local need. What we need in that kind of world is a distributed model of power and decision making and democracy, one which recognises and celebrates the role of devolved institutions like this Senedd, capable of creating parliamentarians who've given speeches today like Carwyn Jones, David Melding, Angela Burns and others, and we should be proud of the contribution this institution makes to Wales and to Welsh democracy, and not decry it. So, Llywydd, I ask Members to reject the motion and support the Government amendment.