Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:13 pm on 30 November 2022.
I will happily work with the Government to facilitate this. My issue with the offer that the First Minister made was that he doesn't want to see that committee start its work until the UK inquiry has completed all its streams of work. That is some considerable time in the future, and I believe that this Parliament that sits here today—which has memory, corporate memory, of those decisions and the ramifications of those decisions—needs to be able to undertake its parliamentary work. As Russell George emphasised, a lot of those decisions are fresh in people's memories. That information is readily available, and the passage of time might muddy the waters in getting to the conclusions that we want to see on the good and the bad.
And that is my issue with the proposal that the First Minister has put before Parliament today, that it's to make it wait until the UK inquiry has finished its work in its entirety. So, I go back to the Labour backbench in hoping that someone on the Labour backbench might consider the proposals on the order paper. I'm sceptical that will happen, but I can always try. God loves a trier, and, as a Conservative, you can't accuse me of not trying. But, ultimately, we are a Parliament. It is our job to scrutinise what the Government does on the most fundamental questions of the day. The ramifications of the decisions that were taken on COVID-19 surely is the fundamental question that will dominate thinking going forward for parliamentarians and civic society—trying to understand what happened with those decisions, the ramifications of them, and the measures we need to take in the future. That's why I implore Members across this Chamber to support this motion today, because I think it would be positive not just for the people of Wales but the stature of the Welsh Parliament.