It's a real privilege to join this debate and to follow such strong and powerful contributions to this, a Parliament, which in itself forms a part of a continuum of our history. We talk about our chapels and our churches, but we can also talk about our synagogues, mosques and temples, a part of the tapestry of who we are. And when I think about our religious history, I also, like others here today, think about our social history, our cultural history. The nation that was born in the shadow of Rome and built chapels that exist today, like St Govan's, is as important as perhaps St David's is more recognisable.

And, then, as the nation took on its political identity, Mike Hedges spoke about the competition, if you like, or near warfare in some cases, between chapels and pubs at the beginning of the last century. And when I read about the social history of Tredegar, there was that stirring conflict if you like. The temperance movement was born of our chapels and the trade union movement tried to ride two horses, and I'm not sure how successful it always was at different times. But it is a part of who we are, because we can all talk about these things. But there's no other country in the world that would have built Soar y Mynydd where it was built and stands today—I think one of the most evocative places in our country. But we can all talk about our local chapel and our local places.

Members here will know that I've lost both my parents over the last few years, and reading through some of the papers of my local chapel, Ebenezer, Sirhowy, what you see in the minutes of the chapel is a history, a social history of Sirhowy and a social history of Tredegar, and the place of the Welsh language. The debate: should we have our services in the Welsh or the English languages? They decided, first of all, certainly, that they would preach in English but pray in Welsh. If there isn't a metaphor for Wales and for Tredegar, that probably is it.

But this also stretches back and informs who we are today. When Griffith Jones introduced his circulating schools, he didn't just preach the Bible, but he ended illiteracy; he created a literate nation in the medium of Welsh, and that led to reaching out again and creating a different cultural experience. And Evan Roberts, competing in 1905 with the Welsh Rugby Union for who should be remembered as the winner in 1905. The revival led to an explosion in an identity that was built upon our chapels. And what we did there, of course, was to create a very different Wales, because the Wales that had existed before was the Wales of somewhere like St Martin's in Cwmyoy. I think it's one of the most beautiful churches in the country, and those of you who know it, up in the hills above Abergavenny, will know that you walk through that crooked nave and you look at how the geology and the geography of that place have created a church in use today, but somewhere that is uniquely Welsh and also a unique and beautiful place, and a very evocative place. But we read through our churches and our chapels and our religious buildings our history of our country.

I agree with the points made by Mike Hedges in introducing this debate, and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to those. She will know that the heritage centre that is being built in Merthyr, from the synagogue, speaks about the history of the Jewish community in the south Wales Valleys. And I think we still have to come to terms with parts of our history, and certainly the anti-Jewish riots in Tredegar at the beginning of the last century are something that we haven't come to terms with yet today. I think, in the way that we protect the bricks and mortar, what we have to do is to translate that into the present as well and into who we are as a people and who we want to be as a nation.

I would also seek to ask the Minister how she believes that the Historic Environment (Wales) Act that was passed by this place, I think, back in 2016 can be used to provide protection for these places, because until we have protected these places, we literally will not have the bricks upon which we can build this future. So, we have, in this debate this afternoon, stretched our minds back to the shadow of the Roman empire, where we built our nation, and where that nation was forged, both in the industrial revolution and all the other parts of our history that we are familiar with, but also in the chapels and the churches. What happened there was not that a Government created a people, but that a people created a culture.