In this 25th year of devolution, there is an opportunity to reflect together on what has been achieved and to consider what we must do to meet the challenges of the 21st century and achieve what we want to in the next 25, 50 or 75 years.

Context matters. Our collective challenges are complex and our problems are difficult. In communities such as the one that I have the privilege of representing, many of those challenges lead back to things that happened in the 1980s.

The first years of devolution, when I was a lad, were a time of plenty, and perhaps more could have been done. Let us not forget that the Labour Party of that time was also guilty of spending money on things that should not have been priorities, such as the £9 billion that was spent on an illegal war in Iraq.

In 2007, things changed in a number of ways. The SNP came to power for the first time, and the financial crisis happened. That should be remembered, because, since that crash happened, there have been self-inflicted harms caused by Westminster Governments: austerity, Brexit and the Liz Truss Government, particularly its budget. External factors, such as the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have also had an impact. Since the 2010 Government of David Cameron, significant mistakes have caused extreme difficulty and have made Britain, as the Resolution Foundation has said, a poorer country with a very few rich people in it.