Diolch, Llywydd. The need for a COVID inquiry is not in question in today's debate. What the motion and the amendments that have been tabled are trying to do is to establish the answers to other questions about the nature of the inquiry: who will appoint it, who will chair it, when will it begin, when will it produce its findings? And alongside the 'who' and the 'when' there is the question of how, and specifically whether this should be a full, statutory public inquiry. 

Now, starting with the 'who', the Government has put an amendment down that strikes out 'Welsh Parliament appointed, judge-led'. Now, I'm not sure if its objection is to 'Welsh Parliament appointed', or 'judge-led', or both. Now, I understand, formally, since the passing of the Inquiries Act 2005, it's Governments that establish statutory inquiries, but I think the spirit of the motion is the proposition that there needs to be the kind of cross-party dialogue that Paul Davies referred to and was referenced in the FT letter around the terms of reference for the inquiry. If you like, there needs to be public consensus for there to be public confidence that the inquiry will be both thorough and independent. So, I would invite the Government today to commit to engaging in that kind of dialogue with opposition parties, but also more widely with the public and with relevant stakeholders on the terms of reference of the inquiry.

We think that, given the gravity of what is to be investigated and the sheer scale of suffering involved, this needs to be a statutory public inquiry with powers to compel the production of documents, to take evidence on oath and require statements from witnesses, in a similar way to the Grenfell Tower inquiry. That kind of inquisitorial process requires the skills and experience of a senior judge to chair it. And the search for that chair needs to begin immediately, if it has not already begun, which brings us on then to the question of timing.

It takes, on average, four to six months to establish a public inquiry, which is why the work does need to begin now in establishing it if evidence sessions are to begin this year. That's because there's a need for a lot of preliminary work in collating documents and statements, et cetera, so that informed questions can be asked by the Queen's Counsel's team that would act on behalf of the inquiry. 

A full report from a genuinely comprehensive statutory inquiry, of course, will take time to finalise. That's in large part because of the complexity of the inquiry's subject matter in this case, but also the wide range of people from which the inquiry will need to hear. The inquiry needs to create the time and the space to hear the voices from all those that have been affected. In that sense, this will be an inquiry unlike any other in our nation's history and, of course, it will need to be informed by a parallel inquiry to be held at the UK level.

But some questions are urgent, and I think it would be right to adopt the kind of phased approach that has been followed in the case of the Grenfell Tower inquiry, with an interim report produced before the end of this Senedd term setting out the facts of what happened, how well prepared we were, who knew and did what in relation to the early response to the pandemic, and what the interim conclusions are on what needs to be done differently in the future. 

We've made our own contribution as a party to that vital learning process today in publishing a report on the Welsh Government's response so far, written by the general practitioner and public health consultant, Dr Camilla Ducker. We will certainly face another pandemic at some point, and we may be grappling with this one for many years to come. An early inquiry will help us to do both more effectively, and I urge the Government to establish it today without any further delay.