As a Plaid Cymru group, we are minded to support at the moment, but, as with the caveats proposed by David Melding, I think it’s important that we see what happens at committee stage and to—[Interruption.] Everybody’s phone is going off today. Gosh.

I just wanted to say that we’d have to look at what happens in committee in relation to the amendments potentially that will be put forward.

I’d want to probe further on whether you are content that there are still sufficient controls in place for Welsh Government under these proposed changes. You mention the regulatory framework for housing associations registered in Wales document, but, for example, performance indicator 2 in relation to tenants is quite—. Well, it’s just one tiny paragraph, and it doesn’t say how you’d demonstrate tenants are effectively engaged. It doesn’t go into detail about what appropriate ways there are for tenants to be engaged, so I’m wondering how you’re proposing to enhance the role of tenants if that is the vehicle for doing so and if it’s not through this particular piece of legislation.

Picking up on the point with regard to councillors, I believe that’s because the councillors who’ll be on any given board won’t have the deciding vote on that particular board. I was wondering whether you could look into the possibility of whether tenants groups or tenants could have that particular role, so then, potentially, you wouldn’t have to reduce it because tenants wouldn’t be deemed to be political. The reason why I think you have to decrease the amount of councillors is because it is deemed as Government control or political control. If you had tenants performing that higher level role on housing association boards, could you do it that way? Could it be a different way of looking at things? I’m not sure whether you’ve done that research. I’m getting my way through the explanatory memorandum, but, obviously, we had it yesterday and we’ve got 134 pages to read, so I haven’t got through it all yet. So, perhaps we can discuss that further.

As we know, the issue with regard to it being in the public domain at the moment would be the borrowing issue. So, this is a wider point about whether you’ve discussed with the UK Government increasing or altering the cap on local authorities’ borrowing, considering the fact that, if it did remain in the public domain, you’d be borrowing off the public purse, and you’ve already got plans in train. So, would you be able to appeal to the UK Government to change their long-standing opposition in this regard? And, if you can, then I will congratulate you.

Can you comment on the removal of disposal consents? In what ways do you plan to make sure that the Tenant Participation Advisory Service will be fully involved in consultation on that particular issue?

When this goes to committee, can we ask the ONS to comment on any potential recommendations so that any potential amendments either by the Government or by individual Members are considered in relation to what the ONS deems to be acceptable? I.e. at the moment, the ONS have said that, as the Bill stands, it would be acceptable, but, in politics, people have different ideas; amendments will probably come forward. How are we going to know throughout that process that the ONS are happy with that, because, of course, you’ve presented a Bill, but you’ve only had a reaction to it as it stands? When we’ve discussed this before on the education committee in the previous Assembly, where we had reclassification of further education and higher education, we did have a private briefing from the ONS, but we didn’t have something on the record. But really, I think, we need to be as open and accountable as possible—so whether the ONS could give the committee dealing with this that type of flexibility and that openness to discuss whether possible amendments would be futile or whether they would be able to consider them appropriately.

At the end of the day, we want to be able to build more social housing, and if changing this means that that happens, then, of course, we think we will be able to support it. But I think it’s about the detail of what is proposed and how we ensure that tenants’ rights are at the heart of all of this.