Thank you for being allowed to jointly submit this motion this afternoon. For a year now, Plaid Cymru has also been calling for a public inquiry that is specific to Wales. That would give a unique opportunity to assess and learn lessons from the way in which the Government has handled the pandemic, but, rather than that, the Government has decided to have one Welsh chapter in a UK-wide inquiry.

Now, Members will be aware that, over the last 18 months, Plaid Cymru has agreed, more often than not, with the steady way in which the Welsh Government has protected public health in Wales, in complete contrast to the dangerous actions of the Tories in Westminster. But that doesn't mean that we've given our seal of approval to every decision, and it doesn't mean that there are no lessons to be learned.

Nearly 6,000 people have died in the wake of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. There are immeasurable levels of illness, not to mention the chronic disability associated with long COVID. As well as that, six months of education days were lost, and there have been far-reaching economic consequences and increasing strain on our health services. That all tells us that we need an inquiry, and that we need a Wales-specific inquiry, and we need that because, very simply, this crisis has happened in an area that is devolved. We've been able to chart our own course during the pandemic because health is a devolved area, and so it makes perfect sense that we scrutinise in detail the unique actions that have been taken in Wales, because this is an area devolved to us, and we have the opportunity to have created our own response. Time and time again the First Minister has emphasised that we have a Welsh response to the pandemic here, and so the microscope should be on our response here in Wales. It's not the same thing as the response in other parts of the UK.

The Institute for Government says that establishing one large inquiry that could investigate all of our four Governments in the same way would be difficult legally, logistically and politically. Plaid Cymru welcomes the UK-wide inquiry as well, but do we think that that kind of inquiry, with one chapter on Welsh affairs, is going to be able to assess everything in the detail that's needed? There is a risk that the voice and the experience of Wales will be lost once again.

If we don't have a Welsh inquiry, how will we know whether the Welsh Government learned lessons from the Cygnus pandemic drill that was undertaken in 2016? How will we know why the Welsh Government was so tardy in responding to the virus at the outset? I remember the delays in cancelling the rugby match between Wales and Scotland. How will we know what really happened with the Roche testing fiasco? How will we know why the Welsh Government allowed patients infected with the virus to leave hospital and go into care homes?

In the same way, how will we be able to know how to build on some of the successes that have happened, build for the future—for example, as Russell George has mentioned, our success as a country with the vaccination scheme and the track and trace scheme that has been very successfully implemented by the local authorities? 

To close, therefore, the sooner the better that we get a Welsh inquiry and implement it quickly so that we can reach the truth and we can learn the lessons for the future. So, I encourage everyone to support this motion today. Thank you.