Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:58 pm on 23 March 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:58, 23 March 2021

Well, Llywydd, my advice to the Member is to cheer up. My goodness, he's written off the next election, he's written the one after that off as well. Really, my party will be there, fighting to make sure that the results are different. We're not defeatist in the desperate way he has been there, this afternoon.

There are many things we could debate as to which matters would be left at a UK level. The key thing for my party is that all those things would be agreed, that we are a voluntary association of four nations. There we are, I have quoted Mrs May for him this afternoon, because that's how she described the United Kingdom in her Edinburgh lecture in the weeks before she ceased to be Prime Minister. A voluntary association of four nations means that we agree the things that we choose to operate at a UK level. It's in our hands, not in the hands of Westminster to determine it.

The truth is, Llywydd, that the choice at the election is this: the Welsh Conservative Party doesn't believe in Wales, his party doesn't believe in the United Kingdom, my party believes in both.