Thank you for your statement, First Minister. Starting with the context that you set out, it has been very challenging recently, partly because of COVID, but also the impacts of Brexit, as you explained. But, there is another a dimension that is also challenging, of course, namely the broad range of—the 27—Bills in another place—in another Parliament—that have, more and more, permeated our areas of responsibility. It feels, occasionally, that there is more legislation happening in Westminster in devolved areas than there is even in this place. 

One of the questions I'd like to ask at the very outset is: how do we cope with the difficult political and legislative environment that we face? We, as a point of principle, have been opposing legislative consent memoranda as a symbol of our dissatisfaction with the totally undemocratic situation, in our view at least. But, how do you believe we can strengthen and safeguard our Welsh legislature against a deliberate attempt to undermine our powers here and the democratic settlement?

We, in Plaid Cymru, in the past, have introduced a self-determination Bill in order to set out the right of Wales, like all other nations under the UN charter—the right to self-determination—as a core part of our political values and our political and legal framework. Are there other ways in which we could collaborate in order to ensure that we do withstand this attempt to undermine our democracy—some Welsh version of the claim of right, for example, which, again, encapsulates this right to self-determination?

In moving to the proposed legislative programme for the coming 12 months, generally speaking I think we welcome the content. There is an environmental thread running through all of this, and many of these Bills—the coal tip safety Bill and the clean air Bill—have been long awaited, and our hopes for this legislation are clear. Plaid Cymru looks forward to scrutinising it carefully and to push the boundaries in terms of its impact as much as possible.

In ensuing years, we will look forward to seeing the co-operation agreement bearing fruit in some of the areas that you've mentioned, such as Senedd reform and a Welsh language education Bill. We must not forget secondary legislation and the Welsh language standards programme, which is going to be reintroduced in the next weeks. We would also like to see legislation in terms of nature targets, and we look forward to collaborating in terms of making council tax fairer.

Generally speaking, one general criticism I would make is that the programme for the next year still looks very thin as compared to the legislative programmes that we see in Scotland, for example, and that has generally been true. It's an average of four, five or maybe half a dozen Bills—that's what we've been delivering, on average, in this Senedd—as compared to around 15 a year in the Scottish Parliament. The Northern Ireland Assembly, when operational, has something in the region of 14 pieces of primary legislation on average.

Of course, the issue of the capacity of this place is very relevant, and Senedd reform responds to this. We have seen a lack of pace in legislating. There were pledges going back four years in terms of legislation around environmental governance. So, there are implications to this. Are there other areas of capacity that need to be addressed—not only in terms of increasing the capacity of this place in terms of the number of Members, but what about the capacity of the rest of the system? The leader of the Conservative Party referred to the good work that's done by civil servants in drafting legislation; as we increase the capacity of this place, do we also need to look at lifting the cap on the number of civil servants, certainly in terms of those who have specialist skills, in order to ensure that we increase and accelerate the legislative process?

Just finally, can I echo your comments on the importance of Member Bills and committee Bills? Again, we haven't been doing as well in this legislature. Only 7 per cent of Welsh primary legislation has come through Member Bills, as compared with 10 per cent in the Scottish Parliament and 16 per cent in the Westminster Parliament. So, are we all agreed that part of Senedd reform is to increase capacity for Member Bills and committee Bills? Because that has an important role to play in a Parliament that is balanced in terms of the power of the executive and the legislature.