Rhodri Morgan has been confirmed as the new leader of the Wales Labour Party and the party's choice for Assembly first secretary.

The decision was made at a special meeting of the party's Welsh executive in Cardiff at lunchtime on Friday.

Stressing the need to unite the party, Mr Morgan said: "Labour's leader in the Assembly is not there to be a thorn in the side of the UK Government or the UK Labour leader either.

"But it's not there to be a puppet either.

"Devolution has got to mean what it says - it is a defined transfer of power from the UK as a whole to Wales.

"And that is what it is about within the Labour party and within government as well. "

Mr Morgan became the acting assembly leader on Wednesday when the then first secretary, Alun Michael, resigned in advance of a no-confidence motion.

He paid tribute to Mr Michael's time in office: "Few would have been able to leave the stage with such grace and dignity in trying circumstances.

"I thank him for his immense kindness to me in handing on the baton of devolution."

Earlier on Friday, Mr Morgan had undertaken his first official engagement as acting first secretary.

He visited the Mountain Ash offices of a company responsible for managing several European programmes.

He was promoting the Assembly's booklet on the Objective One European scheme, a £1.2bn European regional aid package for Wales.

Objective One was the issue which triggered the vote of no-confidence in Alun Michael.

Plaid Cymru tabled the motion on Tuesday following what they called Alun Michael's failure to secure Treasury match-funding needed to release the Objective One money.

Speculation on coalition

Following the departure of Mr Michael, who had led a minority Labour administration in the Assembly, there has been speculation about the possibility of a coalition government in Cardiff under Mr Morgan.

However, although he has already held talks with other parties, Mr Morgan has remained tight-lipped on the issue of coalition, saying it was an "option" and a "means to an end"

"The end is political stability. We have got to find common ground between the parties.

"All 60 of us here realise that we have got to make this Assembly work."

Assembly to decide

No-one, he added, wanted to see the Assembly undermined by more votes of no confidence, which he likened to "putting a nuclear bomb under the administration".

A decision on confirming Mr Morgan as first secretary is due to be taken during a full meeting of the assembly on Tuesday at 1400 GMT.