Can I thank the Counsel General for his statement? The proper enforcement of animal welfare, food production and fisheries law is very important—these are serious responsibilities. And of course, with effective enforcement, self and natural compliance is increased. That, presumably, is the objective of what we want.

These powers have been held by the Welsh Government for some time, but, as we produce more law, we are also creating new enforcement responsibilities—for example, those in the recent public health Bill. In this area, I do think that the reference to the evidence base is important, because in many of these offences, the evidence for them, or the potential evidence, will be gathered by people other than police officers.

I wonder if the Counsel General listened to the debate on the public health Bill at Stage 3, when all the opposition parties backed an amendment, for example, on stating clearly the human rights responsibilities of enforcement officers. These officers aren’t necessarily even in the public sector. At least in that particular law, the public health Bill, that, in the end, was clarified—that they would be local authority employees.

But to have a clear statement in law of human rights obligations is surely important when we gather evidence. We, at the moment, rely on PACE and general principles scattered about the statute book, rather than expressing it clearly in the law that we are passing. I wonder if he is worried about the implications for meeting human rights obligations, which, of course, is one of the general prosecution principles set out in his proposed code, under section 11. So, it is something I think that we need to pay particular attention to, and it’s only by exercising our responsibilities properly there that we will give people full confidence that the law is being enforced with rigour but also with all appropriate fairness on the individuals and organisations concerned, particularly in reference to human rights.

I’d also like to know if he has made any—. He hinted that these responsibilities are growing, but has he made any assessment of the likely increase in prosecution and enforcement activity that will now occur as Welsh law becomes more and more distinct? What sort of capacity does the Welsh Government have to meet those responsibilities? The current department that he heads—does it have the required capacity to exercise these functions in the future?

I do think this is a welcome statement, and it’s brought attention to an area that is, perhaps, on our learning curve, but I suspect that it will become more and more important in the future.