Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 6 February 2018.
Could I have a statement or clarification on two issues, please, leader of the house? The first is in relation to termination of pregnancy provision for women from Northern Ireland and the consultation that has been brought forward by the Government. I make no observations about the substance of the consultation, but I have had heavy representations over the weekend about the length of the consultation that the Government has allowed for this important piece of work. Apparently, the length of the consultation, it has been put to me, is only a four-week consultation. It was launched on 12 January and will close on 9 February. And I was wondering, in light of the public interest in this matter, is the Secretary prepared to extend the length of consultation? It has been brought to my attention that other consultations that were launched similarly on a similar date do have far longer consultation periods. The one, for example, that's been brought to my attention started the same day and has 65 days to go, and is closing on 3 April, and the next consultation, which was launched on the same day, on the defence of reasonable punishment, has another 64 days to go, and was launched on 9 January and closes on 2 April. As I say, I make no observations about the substance of the consultation, but I do think that representations around the length of the consultation merit an explanation as to why this particular consultation that the Government have brought forward only has a four-week period of consultation, rather than a longer period, which is the traditional norm that Welsh Government attaches to such pieces of work.
And secondly, could we have a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for local government? I understand that in a recent meeting of the partnership council for Wales, he indicated that it was very much back on the Government's agenda—local government reorganisation—and that this was as a direct result of no mandatory collaboration being undertaken. This obviously contradicts the previous Cabinet Secretary for local government's assertion that there would be a 10-year window of stability for local government. Now, if he has been misrepresented, then it would be very beneficial to have a statement to clarify his remarks in that partnership meeting, because, obviously, I am led to believe that he did give an assurance that reorganisation was back on the agenda, which does contradict the assurances of the previous Cabinet Secretary.