As the only party that seems to believe in the future of the whole of the United Kingdom, and Wales's integral place in it, it's my pleasure to be able to ask some questions in respect of your statement, Minister. The commission, as you will know, we regard as unnecessary. It's unnecessary because it's Wales just looking at one single part of the United Kingdom and not having proper consideration of the views of people elsewhere in the United Kingdom, which I think is a big mistake.

It's an expensive commission—£1.1 million each year over three years. It's supposed to finish its work in December of this year, yet you've already allocated for future budgets in the following financial years, even beyond this current financial year, for two years, another £1.1 million. Can you explain to us why the commission, even after it has completed its work, still needs £1.1 million per year in the financial year 2024-25?

I've paid great attention to the work of the commission; I've read the report. I was, frankly, astonished that it examined what it regarded as the centralised power system in England, but it had no regard whatsoever for the centralising of powers here in Wales. There was no talk of any potential for devolution to the regions of Wales—my part of Wales, which feels, for example, north Wales, so disconnected with life here in Cardiff Bay and, in particular, Cathays Park, because of the ignorance of the Welsh Government towards that particular region. Can I ask, will you give some direction to the commission to actually look at devolution within Wales in order that we can get a proper decentralised approach to the governance of this country, rather than the centralised approach that your Government has taken over the past two-odd decades?

In addition to that, the report quite rightly talks about the importance of direct accountability in a democracy. Of course, we all know that the Labour Party, in cahoots with Plaid Cymru, is trying to strip that direct accountability away through the introduction of Senedd reforms that will empower political parties over members of the public in terms of whom they can directly elect to represent them in this Chamber. I know backbenchers on the Labour benches agree with me in that respect, because closed-list systems take away power from the people and put it into the pockets of political party leaders. That's the wrong approach, as far as we’re concerned, and I think you should ask the commission to examine and give its view on the proposals for Senedd reform that have been hatched between the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru, because I don’t think, frankly, that they would find them to be beneficial to the people of Wales.

You made reference to Gordon Brown’s commission on the future of the UK—a Labour Party document, not a document that has any more gravity outside of the Labour Party than the gravity that you seem to attach to it. Wales, of course, was an afterthought in that document. It talked heavily about the situation in Scotland. It talked about the regions of England. Wales barely got a mention in the document, and in fact the mention it did get completely disagreed with the view of the Labour Party here in Wales, which wanted to see the full devolution of the criminal justice system. Of course, Gordon Brown disagreed with you. I don’t know why you’re applauding him now in this Chamber and saying what a wonderful piece of work he’s done, when, frankly, he clearly didn’t share that piece of work with you before it was published. He even made references to the 'Welsh Assembly Government'. He didn’t talk about the ‘Welsh Government’. The ‘Welsh Assembly Government’ is a term that we abandoned over 10 years ago. This shows how out of date and out of touch Gordon Brown is, frankly, with the people of Wales and the people in this Senedd, including his own colleagues in the Labour Party.

Then you talk about public engagement. My goodness—they’ve had 2,000 responses so far that have contributed, through the questionnaire, to the work of the commission. Fifty-five per cent of those, apparently, supported independence. Now, that’s clearly not reflective of the views of the people of Wales, because we’re consistently told that support for independence is well below 55 per cent, extraordinarily below. So, I’m afraid that this commission seems to be talking only to those people that some of its members want to listen to. Can you tell us how you will encourage the commission to reach out beyond that navel-gazing part of society that seems to be obsessed with constitutional tinkering here in Wales so that we can ensure that there’s a proper representative view put to it of the views of people across this country?

And finally, I want to say to you, Minister, that I think it’s time that we invested the resources that are going to this commission into our NHS, into our schools and into our public services. You keep claiming that you’ve got no money to invest in some of these things, you keep claiming that you’ve got no money to be able to put into the pockets of our nurses and other public sector workers. Here’s some money. If it’s burning a hole in your pocket, spend it in a different direction.