Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:05 pm on 26 May 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:05, 26 May 2021

Well, Llywydd, I am looking forward very much to being able to develop plans for that civic conversation. I want to do it with parties right across the Chamber who have a serious interest in the future of the United Kingdom and Wales's place within it. I don't define any ideas out of that conversation because, if it's a civic conversation, citizens will have the ability to make that contribution. All those possibilities will be able to be rehearsed within it.

I would just say again, Llywydd, that we had an election in which the choice could not have been clearer. There were parties who stood who believed that this whole institution should be abolished, and that the governance of Wales should be handed back to Westminster. They didn't succeed in gaining support to be represented here. There was a party that believed that Wales should be taken out of the United Kingdom. If any party stands on that proposition and wins an election, then it has a mandate to take that forward. But, until it wins an election, it cannot expect that the centre of gravity of the discussion about our future will be dragged to a proposition that failed to command the support of enough people in Wales to give it a majority here on the floor of the Senedd.