The next item is the motion to suspend Standing Orders in order to allow debate of the next item, and I call on a member of the Business Committee to move the motion.

Motion NNDM6017 Elin Jones

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales, in accordance with Standing Orders 33.6 and 33.8:

Suspends that part of Standing Order 7.1 that requires the consideration of a motion to appoint members of the Commission no later than 10 days after the appointment of the Business Committee, to allow NNDM6018 to be considered in Plenary on Wednesday 8 June 2016.

Motion moved.

Formally.

The motion has been moved. Mark Reckless.

Diolch, Lywydd. You’re new to your role, as I am to this Assembly, and my comments on Standing Orders do not reflect on you or your office. Indeed, I value the constructive conversations we’ve had on the problem.

There’s no escaping that we are currently in breach of our Standing Orders, which is not a comfortable place for any legislature to be. As a principle, we have transparency and we have accountability. I understand that perhaps not many of our constituents will read these Standing Orders, but I think it’s important that those who may wish to engage with the Assembly and our procedures are able to refer to this document in the way that I’ve sought to, to understand the procedures and the rules that we apply in this place.

We are required to appoint an Assembly Commission within 10 days of appointing our Business Committee. We are now 14 days after that and in breach of that requirement. We do have important issues for the Assembly Commission, for instance regarding the European referendum and some of the legal issues surrounding that and purdah. We now have, on item 6, a motion that I consider to be ambiguous. It states that it

‘suspends that part of Standing Order 7.1 that requires the consideration of a motion to appoint members of the Commission no later than 10 days after the appointment of the Business Committee’.

Presumably, we are only suspending that part that has the 10-day requirement, rather than the whole of the text I have just read. We will then have, in item 7, a reference back to

‘in accordance with Standing Order 7.1’, which, of course, we have just suspended to a somewhat unknowable or ambiguous degree. What we are clearly doing is acting as required by section 27 of the Government of Wales Act, but I’m concerned that, where we’re not acting under Standing Orders, we’re amending them in a way that is ambiguous, and this is not a place where we should be. I’ve heard various people of great seniority in this place refer to, variously, flexible or pragmatic interpretations of Standing Orders, and I just make the point that this is a serious basis for procedure. The rules should be published, they should be clear, our constituents should be able to see them and those of us who look at these things should be able to rely on them as a guide to how business will actually be done in this place.

When we met 14 days ago, the option I believe we should have taken would’ve been to adjourn our proceedings to allow the Business Committee to come up with a motion to appoint the Assembly Commission and then come back for that motion to be agreed. Were we not to have done that, we could’ve had a motion to suspend Standing Orders, or the relevant part—perhaps 10 working days rather than 10 days—specifically as required, rather than leaving them for us to breach them and then seek merely to amend them to put that right, ostensibly, in arrears. I don’t intend to oppose either of these motions, but I did want to say that for the record. Thank you.

May I thank the Member for that contribution to the debate on this motion? I do agree that it’s not ideal that we need to suspend Standing Orders in this way. However, circumstances conspired against us on this occasion. The Business Committee, as Members will know, did feel that it was unfortunate that we couldn’t comply with Standing Orders on this particular occasion, but the Business Committee did agree to review the 10-day deadline that has led us to this situation where we are debating a motion to suspend Standing Orders. So, I am grateful to the Member for his comments.

I now move, therefore, to the question as to whether the motion to suspend Standing Orders should be agreed. Does any Member object? As there are no objections to the motion, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.