And he's defending his party, which bequeathed austerity to the incoming UK Government in 2010, austerity that would have led to far greater imposed cuts if the UK Government had not taken the action they did. There were only two EU Members—and obviously, we were in the EU then—who were in a worse position; they were Ireland and Greece. Ireland imposed bigger cuts than the UK to drive out their austerity. Greece didn't, and they had far bigger cuts imposed upon them. Which would you have preferred?

Peter Fox: our motion, he says, is right on so many levels: family, economy, education and Welsh NHS. He said if only successive Labour Welsh Governments had done more over the last 23 years to build strong, resilient communities and a strong economy, bringing hope and aspiration for future generations. He said their failure to do this could end life chances, and despite Welsh Conservative-led Monmouthshire receiving the lowest Welsh Government funding in Wales, it's provided some of the best innovation and services in Wales. He said that Labour-controlled councils generally slash vital services despite sitting on vast reserves that they carried forward year on year on year. And he said that Conservative councils deliver for communities; Labour councils in general fail them.

Mabon ap Gwynfor said Wales is a community of communities—absolutely—let down, he said, by a neoliberal ideology. I struggle to understand what that means. In other words, a far-left party, Plaid Cymru, is condemning an approach that dislikes extremes, recognises the benefits of giving voice and control to local people and community, generates enterprise that improves prosperity and funds public services, and champions evolutionary change whilst recognising that revolutionary change almost always hits the weakest the hardest.

Altaf Hussain said we should be doing all we can to help our businesses thrive as we build back from the pandemic and to give local people a central role in building stronger, safer communities.

Carolyn Thomas said when she walks around the community she belongs to, you can see what's been achieved. Well, I belong to the same community—we live very close by—and I work with many of the organisations and am the patron of some of them that she mentioned, and I applaud the brilliant people, those community fighters and entrepreneurs, who have driven so much of that change. But I also receive every day a bucketful of e-mails from people in Flintshire telling me that, despite their vulnerabilities, they've been told by Labour politicians or a Labour council what is good for them, rather than being asked what they want to achieve. [Interruption.] And, of course, I wish the casework wasn't so huge, particularly disabled people and others, and, of course, prosperity per head in Flintshire, which was on a par with the UK level in 1999, is now trailing behind.

Joel James—he said a centralised system of Government planning in Wales, or the centralised system in Wales, fails to understand the needs of local communities, with cohesion damaged as people become apathetic to this system of Government. We need greater empowerment of local communities and communities should not have to fight so hard to get their voices heard.

From Jane Hutt, the Minister, we heard a party political broadcast based once again upon a deflection—[Interruption.]—a deflection of responsibility for their atrocious, shocking failure in Welsh Government since 1999. She also once again gave us a list of how they've distributed the funding they've received from the UK Government. Launched in 2001 Communities First was the Labour Welsh Government's flagship programme to improve the living conditions and prospects of people in the most disadvantaged communities across Wales. However, the Wales audit review of Communities First stated the programme emerged from chaos, was not planned and there was an absence of basic financial and human resource planning before the programme was launched. When they scrapped it, £0.5 billion had been spent on it when it was announced the Welsh Government was phasing it out, having failed to reduce the headline rates of poverty or increase relative prosperity in Wales. As the Bevan Foundation said:

'Communities First did not reduce the headline rates of poverty in the vast majority of communities, still less in Wales as a whole.'

Well, after 23 years of a top-down, poverty-trapping, command-and-control Labour Welsh Government, a Welsh Conservative approach to enable, empower and set free our local communities is urgently needed. And this will require a revolution in policy and service delivery in Wales, enabling people and communities to identify their strengths and to tackle the root problems preventing them from reaching their potential. 

As the Carnegie Trust states, the enabling state approach is about recognising that

'government, alongside driving the performance of public services, should enable communities to do what they do best', where communities are best placed to bring a wealth of local knowledge and collective energy to the decisions that affect them.

However, as Building Communities Trust research found,

'People in Wales feel increasingly less able to influence decisions affecting their local area.'

The 2011 UK Conservative Localism Act gave new rights and powers to communities and individuals in order to decentralise power and encourage greater local innovation and flexibility. However, the Labour Welsh Government failed to introduce most of its key provisions in Wales. Well, by finally adopting the community rights agenda in Wales, we can shift power away from central Government in Cardiff towards communities, creating a society that is more engaged and responsive. It's time to break the shackles of top-down Welsh Government, time to enable our communities and time to set Wales free to travel the road to a vibrant people-powered recovery.

Since the devolution era began almost a quarter of a century ago, the Welsh Labour Government has been ever keener to destroy its critics through derision, spite and buck passing, while barely bothering to offer a serious political argument. Throughout my time here since 2003, I have listened to them boast about outputs rather than outcomes, how much is spent rather than how well, while failing to effectively monitor and evaluate their programmes and expenditure. Whenever Welsh Conservatives have proposed human rights and community rights-based motions, legislation and amendments to legislation, they have voted these down.