Wales represents 4.7 per cent of the UK population, but, in 2020, we only received 2 per cent of the UK research and development budget, which is crucial for the growth of our economy. On top of this, we've historically seen chronic underinvestment, leaving us underprepared for a crisis like the current cost-of-living crisis, whilst unable to take control of the situation ourselves. Westminster still handles 45 per cent of Welsh expenditure, with no guarantee it will be spent in line with the needs of Wales.

If we look at the recent cost-of-living crisis, for example, it has disproportionately affected poorer communities, which means it has had a massive impact on Wales compared to other, more prosperous parts of the UK. We already entered this cost-of-living crisis with the highest level of relative income poverty and the highest level of child poverty in the UK. But, crucially, the tools available to us to deal with the crisis are largely reactionary rather than preventative. We don't, for example, have control over welfare here in Wales, nor do we have control over our taxes. We couldn't implement a windfall tax, for example, on the obscene profit margins made by oil and gas companies, nor could we try to redistribute wealth to help those worst affected. Can you imagine an independent Wales not providing welfare support to low-income families, unlike the heartless cutting of the universal credit uplift by the Westminster Tories? And let's look at the cost-of-living crisis: the UK Government's attempts to tackle this crisis have been abysmal. The best the Tories can come up with is moving car MOTs from one year to two, saving one-car families a paltry £23 a year. Now, wow, that is what you call real radical thinking.

The energy bill support scheme is poorly thought out, leaving the most disadvantaged families horribly exposed. And yesterday's car-crash interview on Good Morning Britain will probably become a pivotal moment in this Tory Government's awful tenure, when Boris Johnson basically acknowledged he had no answers to our cost-of-living predicament. The vision of Elsie, and thousands of other Elsies across these islands, travelling on a bus to keep warm, will be the enduring image of a failed and rotten Government.