Rwy’n falch iawn hefyd o ddweud mai Ynys Môn oedd yr awdurdod addysg cyntaf i droi yn llwyr at addysg gyfun nôl yn nechrau’r 1950au. Felly, eto, mewn addysg, mae yna lwyddiannau ac arloesi y gallwn ni fod yn falch ohonynt.

Llywydd, I’ve painted a picture, hopefully, of Wales’s past. The question is now: how do we learn from that experience and build on that legacy in order to paint a vision of the future and improve performance and prospects in key areas? We need to be able to turn to our history, not to find excuses for poor performance, but as an inspiration to improve our performance. For our present and future, we say, ‘Wales can do better’.

It seems like yesterday, but 20 years ago, a narrow majority of the people in Wales had enough confidence to vote ‘yes’ to the idea that they lived in a nation worthy of governing itself. But so far, devolved Governments haven’t been able to, for example, raise our GVA compared with the rest of the UK. They either haven’t had the powers or haven’t had the ambition—perhaps both. For the country that saw so much technological innovation, which used to be the resource exporting capital of the world, is this the best we can do?

Why are we in a situation on St David’s Day where people in this country can’t take enough pride in our level of prosperity and in our levels of wealth? We can see those persistently worrying indicators on health and the PISA rankings for education. Poverty levels are still devastatingly high. We can’t genuinely look people in Wales in the eye and say, ‘Yes, we are reaching our potential’. But, let’s move towards a time when we are able to do so in the future.

Twenty years is young for a democracy, but it is long enough for us to have a Government with a clear vision and an ambitious vision of where we’re heading. I was proud of Plaid Cymru’s manifesto for the election last year—proud of its ideas and proud of its innovation. It’s the duty of all of us here to innovate and to inspire.

With time pressing on, I’ll turn to the Government’s amendment. We won’t be supporting it, not just on the principle that it removes a large part of our motion, but what I see is an amendment that does away with evidence, with data, about some of the challenges that we actually face. Governments should not shy away from realities, and, in fact, to do so blocks the road to improving performance.

I look forward to today’s debate. In celebrating our patron saint, I trust we all want to celebrate the best of Wales—the best of our yesterdays and of today. But with an honest assessment of where we are today, let’s build a real vision of our tomorrow, too, and let’s never accept anything short of our full potential.