8. Will the First Minister make a statement on the Welsh Government's proposals for constitutional developments in Wales? OQ56160

Llywydd, I set out our proposals for Wales’s constitutional arrangements in the 'Reforming our Union' paper published at the end of last year. We have been clear that Wales’s future is best secured through a powerful and entrenched devolution settlement, within a successful United Kingdom.

It's a fascinating document, but, First Minister, we're currently seeing the impact of vaccinations being devolved. What would it be like if, as you want, you also get your hands on justice or can borrow money with no restraint? When devolution is a process that only ever moves in one direction—towards independence—how can people become comfortable with it? If there is no devolution settlement, if it's not stable, won't we sooner or later have to choose between abolishing this place or sleepwalking to independence? 

Llywydd, from a Member who I believe is now in the fifth political party that he's joined since the last election, lectures on stability seem a little far-fetched. The way to debate Wales's constitutional future is to set out different propositions, to put them to the public, to make arguments in favour of them. The Welsh Labour Party and the Government that I represent will go on arguing that Wales's constitutional future is best secured through a form of radical federalism, in which the dispersal of sovereignty to four different, directly elected Parliaments in the United Kingdom is recognised, but where we choose to pool that sovereignty in order to more effectively secure common goals—an entrenched devolution settlement for a successful United Kingdom.

That is the ground that the Welsh Labour Party occupies, not the increasingly strident English nationalism of the Conservative Party here in Wales, and those candidates it appears willing to select on the basis that they will, to quote one of them, 'take a sledgehammer to the Senedd', and come here to campaign for the destruction of devolution. That appears to be the viewpoint of the modern Conservative Party in Wales, but nor will we support the idea of independence—a nineteenth-century idea to a twenty-first century problem. The real future, the constitutional future that the bulk of people in Wales want to see is proper, powerful, entrenched devolution with the advantages that continued membership of the United Kingdom brings to Wales.