Now, this COVID crisis has also shown the clear constitutional tensions that exist, and is leading many to question the long-term viability of the current settlement. Unfortunately, the crisis has shown the UK Government to be actively working against Welsh interests in certain areas. During the early stage of the pandemic, with nations from across the world racing to secure sufficient supplies of COVID tests, we were informed that a Welsh Government deal with a private company, Roche, to supply 5,000 daily tests in Wales had collapsed. Why? Because the UK Government kicked Welsh Government efforts into touch to ensure that England got what it needed. Welsh interests were of secondary importance. So much for this United Kingdom.

Only a few weeks later, we found that Welsh interests were again being relegated, with private suppliers of personal protective equipment being told by the UK Government agency Public Health England that they should limit the distribution of PPE to care homes in England only. Key orders of coronavirus protective masks, gloves and aprons were being refused to care homes in Wales and Scotland. Again, the United Kingdom not quite delivering for all.

Now, I have been generally supportive of the Welsh Government's cautious approach to easing lockdown, and generally it shows that when Wales has the freedom to act, it can make positive choices. We have shown that we can take a different path, and with Wales's per capita death rate lower than England's, I believe that the different path is justified. Recent estimates show that, during the pandemic period, had England matched Wales's lower rate of excess deaths, it would have resulted in 24,000 fewer deaths in England between March and June this year, according to the Office for National Statistics. David Cameron once pinpointed Offa's Dyke as the line of life and death, and these stats show that it truly is, though not in the way Cameron thought.

Now, Wales's constitutional future has never received so much attention, with focus on and support for independence at an all-time high. We are at a crossroads after the Brexit vote. At the ballot box next year the people of Wales will have a clear choice. We need to ask ourselves some fundamental questions. Just as in Scotland, where opinion polls now show a majority in favour of Scottish independence, it's only a matter of time until Wales needs to decide what is next for us. With Scotland gone, Northern Ireland too, there will be no UK. People in Wales will face a binary choice: Wales or England. Are we happy to become a county of England, as UKIP, the Brexit Party and other English nationalists want us? Or are we going to grow a backbone and decide that we are finally going to stand up for ourselves and take our place among the free nations of the world? One thing is clear: it should be the right of the people of Wales to decide whether Wales should become an independent country, and the Welsh Parliament should have the constitutional right to legislate to hold a binding referendum.

Finally, Dirprwy Lywydd, some want to abolish Wales. I cannot betray centuries of the national history of Wales, of suffering, of sacrifice, of achievements of its people and its glories over 2,000 years. The pursuit of national freedom is a noble cause, for Wales as any other country. The dragon is stirring. Diolch.