Thanks to Sam Rowlands for opening the debate. As he said, councils are so important in our cities, towns and communities, when properly empowered to be so. As he said, the Labour Welsh Government is failing communities in three key areas.

Funding: councils need fair funding across the whole of Wales, including Flintshire.  I know Carolyn Thomas has been part of campaigns locally, highlighting the failure of Labour's funding policy to properly fund the county she was a representative in. Not supporting and trusting locally elected people: we need devolution as close to the people as possible, but the Welsh Government is instead grabbing power to Cardiff Bay. And empowering local people to take the lead on where we need houses, facilities and services—where they should be developed, trusting local people.

Peredur Owen Griffiths referred to his representation of many former mining towns and villages, still reeling—and this is a bit of poetic licence here—after 25 years of continuous Labour Government in Wales. And perhaps I should declare: I myself am the great-grandson of a miner, whose son, my grandfather, was told he wasn't going down the mine; he was going to break the chains that had existed for so many generations beforehand. He referred to the lack of action by the Labour Government on flooding and air pollution, and the high levels of children in Wales living in poverty—something I've been highlighting here for 19 years, long before the Government changes intervening, following that. As he said, it's a national disgrace, as is Labour's lack of an anti-poverty strategy.

Huw Irranca-Davies says his communities are full of great people, and of course they are full of great people, but from then on we heard a deflection of responsibility and a denial of accountability by a member of the party that has been responsible for promoting prosperity and tackling poverty in Wales for 25 years, and which bequeathed austerity—