Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to participate in this debate today. It's our first opportunity since the Senedd elections to consider some of the serious constitutional challenges facing Wales and the rest of the UK, and I am indeed grateful to Plaid Cymru for choosing to table this motion as one of their first debates of this sixth Senedd. It is likely to be the first of many such debates. In the last Senedd, as Chair of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, I recall introducing a report on constitutional reform, and I prefaced my introduction by saying it was probably one of the most boring reports Members would ever have to read, but, equally so, one of the most important, and I haven't changed my view. So, those who say that these constitutional issues are not important are fundamentally wrong, because they go to the heart of our democracy—they define what we can and cannot do, the extent to which we can make decisions on the issues that are important to the people of Wales, our ability to improve prosperity and to take decisions that will improve the quality of life of the people of Wales, and that is why we are here and that is why this Welsh Parliament exists and is so important to our future and indeed to that of the United Kingdom.

Now, whilst I will not be supporting the Plaid Cymru motion in the form it has been tabled, it is clear that there is a lot of common ground on the mandate for reform and on the areas that we are in long-standing agreement need to be devolved if we are to be able to deliver on our promises to the people of Wales. The Conservative amendment I have to say is disappointing in the extreme; it is sadly indicative of a party that is in denial. In my opinion, there is a clear and undeniable mandate for reform. The mandate for this Government couldn't be clearer: as our manifesto set out, we will work for a new and successful United Kingdom based on a far-reaching federalism. We want to foster a national civic conversation in Wales about our future. We will establish an independent standing commission to consider the constitutional future of Wales.

Now, returning to the Conservative amendment, on point 2, it is right to say that there has been and continues to be constructive inter-governmental work to deliver the common frameworks programme on a collaborative basis. However, we cannot talk about frameworks without highlighting the assault on devolution contained in some of the provisions of the UK internal market Act.

On point 3 of the Conservative amendment, we agree that, for example, work on the vaccination programme has demonstrated the effectiveness of working together across the four nations. Sadly, too often, this has been achieved in spite of the UK Government rather than because of it. Only last month, Sir David Lidington, a Cabinet Office Minister in Theresa May's Government, delivered a lecture on the union, which he described as being

'in greater peril than at any moment in my lifetime'.

I think the opposition would also do well to heed the advice of their former Member David Melding, who recently wrote that the Conservatives will win an election in Wales when they are confident in how they can creatively use the devolved institutions, and that most democratic multinational states have a devolved or federal structure. Yet we now have a UK Government that, faced with the potential break-up of the UK, instead of choosing to embrace change and to seek consensus with the nations of the UK and the regions of England, has decided that the way forward is to centralise power and to undermine devolution by deliberately trying to achieve through financial manipulation what they cannot achieve through the ballot box. We have a leadership in the UK Conservative Government that cannot even bring itself to refer to a 'Welsh Government', choosing always to refer instead to a 'devolved administration'. And we now learn that Ministers are no longer to refer to the nations of the United Kingdom, but instead only to refer to the UK as a country. Dirprwy Lywydd, this strategy will fail. If the Conservative Government believes that it can airbrush Wales and devolution out of existence in this way, they will fail, because the UK can only survive if it is a genuine association of sovereign nations working together with common purpose. Sovereignty does not lie with Westminster, nor does it lie in Holyrood or here in the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. Sovereignty in Wales lies where it always has, with the people of Wales, and how they choose to exercise that sovereignty is and must always be a matter for them.

Now, Members will know that the Welsh Government has driven the debate on constitutional reform. It is nearly a decade since we first called for a constitutional convention on the future of the UK, but the need to discuss and debate these issues is now greater than ever. In particular, we want to hold a conversation, an engagement, with the people of Wales, to find a consensus among citizens and civic society about the way forward for devolution and the constitution. It is therefore on this basis that we will be pressing forward with our manifesto commitment to establish an independent commission to consider the constitutional future of Wales.

We will also be supporting the work of the UK-wide constitutional commission being established by the UK Labour Party. Our aim is to work across the nations and political parties to press the UK Government for a more thorough reform of our constitution. We are in the process of drawing up our plans for our commission, and I hope to make further announcements about this in the coming weeks, but I'm very clear that engagement of the Welsh public and of civic society will be a central part of our approach, and, in the meantime, we will be publishing later this month a refreshed and updated version of 'Reforming our Union'. Members will recall that we published this in 2019, based on around 20 propositions for the future governance of the UK. Our refresh will take account of developments since 2019, reflecting upon the implications of the approach taken by the UK Government since December 2019 as well as on the further thinking that's been undertaken across the political and academic spectrum about the need for reform.

The case for the devolution of policing and justice has been compellingly made by the Commission on Justice in Wales, but I do think it is unhelpful simply to present a shopping list of further powers that we want without a guiding principle and without tackling the structural changes needed to their operation and financing. That is what 'Reforming our Union' offered—a vision of how a true partnership could work between the four nations participating voluntarily, a vision based on mutual respect, regular conversation, fair funding and coherent sets of powers, using the principle of subsidiarity. Now, when we update that document, I hope it will help kick start a national conversation about the future of this country. Above all, we need genuine engagement with the Welsh people to make sure their voice is heard in what will be a critical and radical conversation about the future of Wales and the UK.

So, in conclusion, Dirprwy Lywydd, we reject the Conservative attempt to suggest that there's nothing amiss with the constitutional status quo, and, whilst we agree with some of the sentiments behind the Plaid motion, we want to put our finger on the bigger conversations that are needed now about the future of devolution and the constitution, and to make sure that the views of the people of Wales are at the heart of these conversations. That is the fundamental thrust of our amendment. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd.