I rise on this occasion to support the Government motion—and these benches will not be supporting any of the other opposition amendments—unusually for me. Some Members who don't know me as well as others will be very surprised to hear that I love a bit of consensus, me. It's been really good to see that there is an element of consensus around this debate. We all do agree that our nation and this part of our nation needs a viable airport; we may have differences about how we want that to be run in the long term. It's been really encouraging to see, Dirprwy Lywydd, that we have consensus about the devolution of air passenger duty.

We can't do without an airport. In the longer term, we all know that we need to reduce the amount of air travel that we have, but there is also clear, consistent academic evidence that regions without their own airport suffer from that. There is the practicality of people moving in and out, but there is also that message—and others have mentioned this—and needing to send out that message that Wales is open for business, that we are here. And I think we do have to remind ourselves of the history here: there's absolutely no doubt that we would have lost that airport if the Welsh Government hadn't stepped in. That's completely clear. And at risk of breaking down this consensus, I do completely agree with Mick Antoniw: privatising the airport was never the right thing to do; it was always going to be challenging, when it had such a close competitor in Bristol, to make it viable without an element of public support.

Now, on these benches, we are very relaxed about this major piece of infrastructure being in public ownership, because we are very well aware, as others are, that this is normal. In lots of other parts of the developed world, it is perfectly normal for Governments to own, support and run, albeit at arm's length, key pieces of infrastructure, because those Governments know that the markets cannot always be trusted to deliver for the people. Sometimes they do, but in this case, they clearly would not have done, and we would clearly have been without an airport.

I want to just touch briefly on the devolution of air passenger duty. As I've said, I'm really glad to hear the Conservative benches wholeheartedly supporting it. It is, as somebody said, indefensible and iniquitous that every other part of the UK has this tool that they are able to use in whichever way they see fit. And there lots of ways that it could be used: it could be used to attract new carriers; it could be used to penalise people who fly too often or who fly for unnecessary reasons. But we need to be making those decisions here. It is not appropriate.

Now, I suppose I'm a little bit concerned, given that our Conservative colleagues have told us they've been advocating this for a long time, that they appear to be being ignored at the other end of the M4, and I wonder if this is something to do with the previous Secretary of State for Wales's apparent obsession with cross-border economic regions. I wonder whether he was perhaps a little bit too interested in the long-term viability of Bristol Airport, not that we wish any ill to Bristol Airport, but if it's either/or, I know where I want to be putting our resources.

I am optimistic, though, given what's been said today, that with a new Secretary of State, with a very clear message from the Welsh Government, but also today from this Assembly, that we can send that message very clearly to the new Secretary of State and ask him to advocate for this position. The current situation is just not defensible. It isn't fair, it isn't just, and long term it won't work.

With regard to points 5 and 6 of the motion, I just want to say a little bit more about point 5. The Flybe situation was disappointing, and I want to express my gratitude to the Minister today, because he has kept us very much informed about the developments. When you heard that a quarter of the flights going out were Flybe flights, it was a moment of being really, really concerned. As others have said, our thoughts have got to be with those people who are at risk of losing their jobs, though I understand—and the Minister may be able to confirm this today—that some of those jobs, the ones in Cardiff Airport, have already been protected by other carriers; and the passengers for whom it was hugely disruptive—people who couldn't go to job interviews, people who couldn't go to family occasions. But, of course, those people might not have been able to go at all if we hadn't had an airport. But, I'm very grateful to the Minister for keeping us in touch.

It does beg the question as to whether or not the Westminster Government kept its promise to Flybe shareholders, but I think it's fair to say that this is a very challenging market. This is not the first regional carrier that has collapsed. What's really important is that we retain the viability of our airport. I was pleased to hear from the Minister that it's not as devastating as we thought it might have been.

So, we're happy today to support the Government in supporting the airport and to support the motion. We need to reduce, as I've said, our flying, but in order for that to be possible we need to have more effective regional connectivity. Until we have that, if we don't have our own airport, people will simply fly from elsewhere, so a thriving airport is vital to us all. We will support the Government motion today, and we will support them in continuing to support the airport. The Minister will, of course, expect us to scrutinise him rigorously as to how he does just that.