Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. Thank you to both Members who’ve participated for their very interesting and pertinent questions. Dai Lloyd is absolutely right that the Bill has been controversial at a series of points during its progress. It’s partly as a result of the House of Lords report that he referred to that UK bodies will now be listed on the face of the Bill, as a result of late amendments in the House of Lords. Welsh bodies will be listed as a result of regulations that Welsh Ministers will have to bring in front of the National Assembly and which will be subject to the affirmative procedure as Dr Lloyd noted.

There are a series of safeguards, I believe, in this Bill now that allow us to have some confidence against some of the potential pitfalls that Dai Lloyd outlined. The requirement to have new, specific codes of practice that sit alongside the Bill, on which Welsh Ministers will have a direct ability to be consulted and to comment, and so on, I think will give us an opportunity to pick up a number of the points that he made, and to make sure that they are reflected in the necessary safeguards that need to surround the new data-sharing possibilities that the Bill allows for. It is very important to be clear that the Bill allows data to be shared in specified circumstances between specified bodies and for specified purposes, and when those purposes fall away—if someone is no longer in fuel poverty, for example, in the example that Dai Lloyd gave—then the data-sharing possibilities of this Bill fall away with them.

I’m pleased to confirm again that we have looked independently at the position taken by the UK Government in relation to article 8 human rights compliance. We believe the Bill is compliant. Any regulations that we bring forward under the affirmative procedure will have to be separately confirmed by Welsh Ministers as being Human Rights Act compliant. So, there will be further opportunities for this Assembly to scrutinise that matter, too.

Turning to Mark Reckless’s points, no, I don’t imagine that all tensions between devolved and non-devolved perspectives on data sharing have been ironed out, even as a result of the close working relationship we’ve had over this Bill, but what we have secured are new sets of consultation rights in both directions, which are now written into the Bill, which means that if there are issues where tensions need to be further pursued, we will have a vehicle for doing so.

The issue of debt is an interesting one, and I think the Member is right to raise it. I think there are two different ways in which the Bill might be relevant there. There will be people who the Bill will be able to help by being able to consolidate debt, to bring debt together, and to allow debt to be more manageably pursued when debt is owed to a range of different public sector bodies. There is work that I am keen to do with local government in Wales to look at the way that that part of the public sector pursues the debts that are owed to them. But we know as well that there are people who are not simply in debt because of straitened circumstances, where there are legitimate bills that are owed to public authorities, and where there is a right on behalf of the public to make sure that those bills are paid, because paying those bills pays for the services that we all rely on, and the Bill will allow for some extra capability in the hands of public authorities to do that effectively.

I entirely agree that data that are made available for research purposes as a result of the Bill, that the results of that should be shared with the public. The way that the SAIL database in Swansea operates is, I think, a very excellent example, which we promote elsewhere in the United Kingdom, as to the way in which we make sure that data that are contributed by Welsh citizens are put to use for important purposes, and done so openly and accessibly.

Finally, to agree as well that the ONS data park in Newport is developing a cluster in which we are attracting people into Wales, and we are developing a future workforce of our own. A leader in the field, Professor Bean, recently said that Newport was emerging as a hotspot for the data profession right across the United Kingdom, and in a small way, the powers that will come to Wales if this LCM is approved will help us to develop that important new industry for Wales.