I thank the spokesperson for the warm way in which she has welcomed the return of the Bill to the Assembly, and for her constructive comments this afternoon. I look forward to working with Members across all parties as we develop the Bill in the months to come.

Your first question related to the fiscal implications of the Bill, and, at that point, I’d direct your attention to the explanatory memorandum, which also includes the regulatory impact assessment. It does include some detail in terms of what we would expect the cost of the Bill to be for Welsh Government, local authorities and for others as well. We’ve been really keen throughout the development of the Bill to minimise the cost to local government, because we understand the pressures that they are under at the moment. For example, with the part of the Bill that deals with the food hygiene system, the Bill allows local authorities to keep the receipts that they receive when they hand out a fixed penalty notice, for example, so that they can reinvest that in terms of doing their duties to inspect premises, and so on.

You asked about the register of retailers. All retailers of tobacco and nicotine products will be required to be on the national register. There’d be a proposed fee of £30 for the first premises and £10 for each additional premises owned by the business. That register will provide local authorities with a definitive list of the retailers within their areas selling either tobacco or cigarette papers, nicotine products or a combination of these items, with the aim of reducing the likelihood of under-18s accessing these products. We will be naming either a local authority or another organisation as the authority that will manage that national register.

We’re aiming to keep it as simple as possible to minimise the burden on business, so retailers will only need to notify the registration authority of any changes to the details of their entry once they’ve registered, rather than formally re-registering every three years, which is why a formal licensing system would have actually put more burden on business. That is why we’ve opted for this approach. It will also be a helpful resource in terms of local authorities being able to disseminate information, advice, guidance and support for businesses on their register, because, at the moment, they do rely to a large extent on local intelligence, which is quite fragmented. So, now they’ll be able to be aided much more robustly in their enforcement duties as well. I’m glad that you have welcomed that part of the Bill as well.

In terms of handing over of tobacco, what that means in practice is that it will be an offence for an individual to hand over tobacco to somebody under the age of 18. The aim is to prevent young people obtaining tobacco and nicotine products through the internet or through telephone orders, and this Bill is very much about keeping pace with changes that are happening in society and in the way that we access different things. The offence applies to, for example, bags and delivery boxes used by supermarkets, but it doesn’t capture fully enclosed envelopes because we can’t reasonably expect people to know what’s inside a closed envelope when that’s handed over. So, delivery drivers handing over tobacco or nicotine products to somebody who appears to be under 18 will be expected to carry out the age verification check, similar to those that are carried out by shop assistants in such situations as well. This will be enforced by local authorities.

With regard to intimate piercing, we seek through the Bill to prohibit the intimate piercing of a person who is under the age of 16 in Wales in any setting, and it also extends to making it an offence to make arrangements to perform such a procedure. So, for the purposes of the Bill, intimate piercing includes piercing of the nipples, breasts, genitalia, buttocks and tongue, and that was introduced in the amending stages when the Bill previously went through the Assembly. Again, the aim there is both to protect young people from the potential harms that could be caused by an intimate piercing, but also to avoid circumstances where they’re put in potentially vulnerable situations. Many practitioners, you’re right, already choose not to undertake these intimate piercings on children and young people anyway, but this will bring things into line across Wales. We can certainly have further discussions at the next stages in the passage of the Bill through the Assembly with regard to extending the intimate areas to tattoos, for example. I’m not sure whether that was discussed at any length in the previous stages at the Assembly, but I look forward to having those discussions with you as well.

Just to, very quickly, reflect on your concerns about toilets, the Welsh Government will issuing guidance to all local authorities in assisting them in developing their local toilet strategies. Within that, we will be asking them to look at users of highways, active travel routes and visitors to sites for events of cultural, sporting, historic, popular or national significance as well. So, it’s intended to be a wide-ranging and robust piece of work. Again, pollution isn’t included within the Bill, but I’m sure this is something that we’ll discuss in detail in the next stages.