I first met Oscar when he entered front-line politics in Newport as the Newport city councillor for the Victoria ward, quite some years ago now. At that time, he really blazed a trail as a Muslim councillor, and, thankfully, since then, other members of the community have followed his example. I have no doubt that his presence, his visibility on the authority were instrumental in those other members of the local ethnic minority communities' understanding that they too could represent Newport on the city council. It encouraged them to get involved in front-line politics in different parties, and it's so good to see the diversity of representation that we have on Newport City Council today. I know many of them would recognise the debt of gratitude that they owe to Oscar in those terms.

Of course, as an Assembly Member and a Member of the Senedd, Oscar again showed members of our ethnic minority communities in Wales that they could aspire to representation and representative politics in our Assembly at that level, in our Parliament, as it now is. Whenever I saw Oscar at local events in Newport, he would raise issues of importance to our diverse communities. He was very consistent in that. Obviously, he was interested in lots of other matters as well, but he was always conscious of his role as understanding those communities, his continuing relationship and links with them, and the responsibility in particular that it gave him to understand those matters and to raise them whenever possible and appropriate. He never shied away from that responsibility.

But he was also very keen on international links, not just with Pakistan, but worldwide. He would often discuss with me how we forged those links locally as well as at a Wales level. When I had an involvement with the Assembly branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Oscar was always keen to understand the business that we were involved in at any particular time, and to put forward ideas as to how we could widen the role that we were playing and the links that we were forging, and the international aspects of Wales and the Assembly in general.

But in terms of lobbying conversations with Oscar, as others have mentioned, I well remember his passion for cricket, because when I was Minister for sport I was incessantly lobbied by Oscar about Wales having its own cricket side, and all the advantages that that would bring, and when I pointed out some of the potential difficulties, he wasn't really alive to those at all—he was so passionate about cricket and Wales forging a more distinctive identity. In fact, Oscar played for our Assembly cricket team, because we did play a few matches over the years, and we played one, in fact, at Sophia Gardens, and Oscar took part. I think he bowled leg spin, as I recall, and he was certainly a keen bowler, and he was keen to regale me of his cricketing exploits in younger years, when his abilities were even greater than they were on that occasion at Sophia Gardens.

So, I think, again, as others have said, we remember Oscar as a real character. He was a Labour Party member at one stage. He went to other political parties. In some ways he perhaps was bigger than membership of any political family. He was a real character, but I know that, in whatever party Oscar was at a particular time, he was very, very proud as a front-line political representative, both on Newport City Council and in the Assembly and then Senedd. Our thoughts are very much with his family on this very sad day.