Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a sad fact that successive Labour-led Welsh Governments have failed to improve the life chances of the people of Wales. For the past two decades, Welsh Labour have failed to keep a watchful eye on their own spending habits. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted on vanity projects, failed business ventures and poorly managed quangos. The evidence can only point towards Lee Waters and his conclusion that, for 20 years, Welsh Labour haven't really known what they are doing on the economy.

Welsh Labour have also presided over a cacophony of crisis in the Welsh NHS: cancer waiting times not being met for 10 years; the 95 per cent target for patients spending less than four hours in A&E has never been met; and the 95 per cent target for patients waiting fewer than 26 weeks for treatment has not been met for 10 years. Despite receiving nearly £83 million from Welsh Government on intervention and improvement support between 2015 and 2019, the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board experienced the highest-reported patient safety incidents out of the seven Welsh health boards, and waiting lists continue to spiral out of control. The Welsh NHS has done a magnificent job treating our residents even before the pandemic, but it is time that they had leadership that empowered their efforts.

Welsh Labour have failed our farmers. The all-Wales nitrate vulnerable zone is now putting rural livelihoods at risk, causing serious mental health concerns. The agriculture White Paper fails to champion food production, and you are sitting on a tuberculosis strategy that saw the slaughter of 9,762 animals in the year to December 2020. In fact, the environment deserves better than your complete failure to deliver on Mark Drakeford's leadership promise to create a clean air Act, and your inability to introduce deposit-return schemes across Wales. 

As the recent Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee report stated, 

'rhetoric must now be met with bold and decisive action.'

That action will just not come from Welsh Labour nor, indeed, your pals in Plaid Cymru. And to them I say that being part of the union is in the best interests of our health service and, indeed, the best interests of Wales. Around 13,500 Welsh residents are registered with a GP practice in England. Being part of the union is in the best interests of our economy. Around 70,000 people travel out of Wales to work. Being part of the union is in the best interests of our taxpayers. Whilst Welsh Conservatives would freeze council tax, your devastating nationalist nonsense would result in a higher per-person tax of approximately £3,700.

In May, this nation will be at a crossroads and the people of Wales can choose to vote in favour of change. Let's for once now end the fallacy that we need a change of direction through holding an independence referendum. We need a change, yes, but that's a change in direction by welcoming new leadership. With our plan of action and recovery, it is now only the Welsh Conservatives who can deliver a much brighter tomorrow for Wales. Diolch. Thank you.