Item 5 on the agenda is the Assembly Commission motion, a consultation on the Assembly reform, and I call on the Llywydd to move the motion—Llywydd.

Motion NDM6646 Elin Jones

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the report of the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform.

2. Approves the Assembly Commission’s decision to consult on the Panel’s proposals and other electoral, franchise and internal reforms made possible by the Wales Act 2017.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It's a pleasure to present this in my name.

Last year, the Wales Act 2017 was passed, heralding the start of a new phase of devolution in Wales. There are differing views in this Chamber about the Act and what it means for the future of devolution in Wales. Nevertheless, I am sure that we can all agree that the devolution of powers over our own electoral and internal arrangements is an important development. It's an opportunity to ensure that our national Parliament better represents the people of Wales and works in the most effective way possible in responding to the needs of our communities.

An important first step is using these powers to change the Assembly's name to 'Welsh Parliament', to ensure that everyone in Wales understands what this institution is here to do and how it works with them and on their behalf.

The Commission has also set in chain other measures, including establishing a Youth Parliament for Wales to inspire and engage young people in the work of the Assembly, and implementing the recommendations of the independent digital news taskforce in order to make it easier for people to understand and stay informed about what the Assembly does.

However, when the Wales Act comes into force this April, we will be able to go further than this, to change the size, electoral system and internal arrangements of the institution, and to change the elective franchise at our elections, including the voting age.

Last year, the Assembly Commission established an expert panel on Assembly electoral reform to provide robust and politically impartial advice on the number of Members the Assembly needs, the most suitable electoral system, and the minimum voting age for Assembly elections.

Since then, as you know, the panel has published a detailed report and specific recommendations, which include a clear message on the capacity of our institution. It concluded that a 60-Member Assembly is too small to carry out its functions effectively. I would like to thank the panel, under the chairmanship of Laura McAllister, for their thorough and comprehensive report.

All of us in this Siambr know that a call for more politicians is never going to be popular. Nevertheless, this report highlights the need to take action to address the capacity gap. The panel noted the proposals that have already been implemented to increase the capacity of the Assembly, but those methods in themselves aren't sufficient. So, the Assembly Commission has a responsibility to explore what more can be done.

In order to elect more Members, we need a system to do that, of course, and the panel has favoured three specific systems, based on a series of core principles. A consultation by the Assembly Commission will invite responses to those recommendations and the other proposals on external and internal arrangements that have been discussed by Assembly committees in their previous work. The consultation will also include innovative ideas included in the panel's report about ensuring diversity and representation, particularly as regards gender balance, and I look forward to hearing the comments on how the proposals for the electoral system can lead to an Assembly that better reflects the people and communities that we serve. Therefore, I look forward to hearing the comments of the parties on these recommendations and any alternative suggestions that they believe could draw the required consensus here in the Chamber.

The expert panel's report makes it clear that if the Assembly accepts the case for enhancing the size of the Assembly and changing its electoral system then it is now, during this Assembly term, that we should actually make the legislation. These matters go to the heart of our constitutional arrangements. That's why co-operation over the past year between the parties has been so important. May I thank the party leaders for their input, and also those individuals and the representatives who've actually been part of the political reference group? I'm very grateful for the positive, constructive and sensitive way in which everybody has contributed on these very difficult issues.

My intention is to continue in that vein, and such an important reform should always be driven on a cross-party basis, with a cross-party consensus within and outwith this Chamber. The consultation of the Assembly Commission will also include consultation on reducing the voting age to 16 and 17-year-olds, and ensuring that everybody lawfully resident in Wales can vote, even if they are not UK citizens, as well as some prisoners.

The Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services made a statement in this Chamber a fortnight ago outlining his recommendations for the reform of local government, including changes to the franchise. I am grateful to him for his commitment to working with the Assembly Commission to ensure that our respective reform proposals are developed to form a coherent, workable, and effective framework for elections in Wales. The next phase of the work is to have a broad consultation with all Assembly Members, with civic and political society, and, more than anything else, with the people of Wales.

The Commission has, therefore, decided to launch the public consultation next week, seeking views on the expert panel's recommendations and on other possible reforms to the Assembly's electoral and operational arrangements. This conversation will have to include the voices of many people throughout Wales: some people who engage with the Assembly frequently and people who might never usually consider responding to an Assembly consultation, along with people who might currently know little about the institution at all. To this end, the consultation will include a variety of different approaches that will help people to understand the proposals and respond in ways that suit them. For example, as well as publishing a formal consultation document, we will launch a microsite to provide information about the proposals and help people to respond on the issues that matter most to them.

The proposal before the Assembly today invites Members to endorse the Commission's decision to consult with the people of Wales on the way forward—no more, no less. Listening to the views of the people and understanding their concerns and ideas will help us decide whether the time is right to introduce legislation to reform the Assembly and the content of that legislation. So, I very much hope that every Member will support this motion today, thereby making sure that it is the voices of the people that we serve that shape the future of our Parliament.

Diolch. We have a number of speakers. I'll try and get you all in in the short debate time that we have, but I will appeal to you to remember that your fellow colleagues may not get called. So, if you could just be as brief as you could be. Thank you. Angela Burns.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to thank the Presiding Officer, and I welcome very much this debate today. I would also like to place on record the formal thanks of the Welsh Conservatives to Laura McAllister and her team. We're very grateful for the engagement that has occurred with political representatives, and the Welsh Conservatives will be supporting the motion before us today, because it is now essential, we believe, that we ask the people of Wales for their views and that we do not pre-empt their opinion. The key responsibility for the Assembly Commission, as we see it, is to ensure that the people of Wales have a clear understanding of the additional responsibilities the Wales Act 2017 will bring. We believe that the Assembly Commission has a very clear responsibility to ensure that the people of Wales have a good understanding of the proposals made by the expert panel. These proposals are quite complicated in detail. Some of them are very technical, particularly recommendations 6 and 7, which talk about how we may be enfranchised, or how the people of Wales may be enfranchised, to vote Assembly Members in. I think there needs to be real clarity about any consultation going forward so people can understand very clearly what the various options are. It is a very, very complex system.

We also believe very strongly that the Assembly Commission now has a very deep responsibility to ensure that as wide a suffrage as possible is enabled to take part in this consultation. It cannot be just the usual stakeholders. We must get out to all of the people. So, we will encourage you to look to innovative and different ways of getting out to people, whether they're in the north, the south, the east or the west of this land, to ensure that everybody, but everybody, has a chance.

We are no longer an Assembly but we are a Parliament, and it is vital that Assembly Members in this place have the ability, the time and the tools at their disposal to be able to scrutinise effectively the Welsh Government. As I sat here listening to the Presiding Officer's opening gambit, I think that, in my years of being an Assembly Member, I've always been in the main opposition party, bar a very, very minor blip, and I do know how important it is to be able to scrutinise, when you're in that role, to be able to hold the Welsh Government to account, and the governing party to account, because every society must have check and balance, and we must be the check and balance for whoever is in Government in Wales. In order to do that we need to be effective, fair, impartial and a lot less tribal when it comes to committees, and we must also enable a governing party to have a robust back bench, because that is the way a really good democracy works. So, we can see that the call to action, the call to review how we run our Assembly, the call to review the tools we have at our disposal, is of great, great importance now. But it's a difficult one to explain to people, and we've got to make very, very clear—or the Assembly Commission have an obligation to make very, very clear—that the people of Wales understand that, and then, once they've made their decision, we must absolutely listen to it and abide by it, because, after all, this is nothing if not their Parliament.

Thank you to the Llywydd for introducing this debate today, and to Laura McAllister and her team for such thorough work. This, of course, is a debate that we've had before. I remember going on behalf of Plaid Cymru to give evidence to the Richard commission about expanding the Assembly at that time, when it was recommended that we should move—even 10 years ago—to an Assembly of 80 Members, and here we are, still an Assembly of 60 Members. So, it's about time for us to talk to the people of Wales about the thorough, genuine and purposeful recommendations about turning an Assembly that is evolving into a Parliament into a genuine Parliament, with real balance between the Government and the opposition parties.

We in Plaid Cymru welcome the report, but I don't want to influence the genuine consultation with the public. So, I just want to talk a little about the principles that Plaid Cymru feels are important as we look at this issue, keeping the options open on the methods of achieving those principles.

First of all, I want to talk about the fact that we need to expand the Assembly's capacity to scrutinise the Government and to hold it to account. This is something that Angela Burns has just talked about as well. Usually, that's described as 'more politicians', but I would like to describe it as more politicians but less power for the Government, because the Government that has to face a more powerful Parliament is a Government that can be more accountable—that has to be more accountable—to the people of Wales. We are also losing politicians in Wales. We'll be losing Members of the European Parliament, and we're talking about losing Members of Parliament at Westminster through parliamentary reform.

The second principle is to extend the franchise to younger people to vote. I know, from talking to schools myself, that young people can be divided 50:50 on this issue themselves, but I think that extending that right to young people to vote from the age of 16 onwards is something that we ought now to genuinely consider along with changes to the national curriculum.

Thirdly, we have to ensure that whatever we do is commensurate with or proportional to the representation that we have in the Assembly already or improves on that proportionality. And it's important to Plaid Cymru that we strike the right balance between local accountability and the fact that votes across Wales should be reflected as much as possible in this place in the way that people vote. We celebrate the fact that a by-election took place yesterday and we welcome Jack Sergeant as a new Member, which shows that there is a process, and, even though some might be disappointed in the number that turned out, I thought it was quite encouraging that almost one in three people in Alyn and Deeside voted in a by-election—it's better than some Westminster by-elections. But the more we can build on participation, the better it will be for this Parliament in dealing with the issues before us.

Of course, we have to ensure that we retain and improve representation according to gender here. This is something that Siân Gwenllian has talked about in the Assembly recently. There are specific recommendations from Laura McAllister in the report. What I'll say now is that it's not uncommon in a modern democracy to see processes and techniques in place to ensure that the parliament represents, as much as possible, women and men on an equal basis.

And I think, finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, it really is time to ensure that this Assembly is transformed into a Welsh Parliament in name, and not just in name, but in composition and status as well. This is because of the history that we've had. Make no mistake: giving Wales an assembly instead of a parliament was quite deliberate; we were intentionally shackled from the start. No legislative powers until the 2011 referendum, of course. No tax powers at all. We didn't even have a Government in the first days of the Assembly. That's how shackled we were, and the description of a 'county council on stilts' was a little too close to accuracy for my tastes. But we have moved on; we have become, in our deliberations, in the way we've worked on the tax legislation over the last few months, we've become a real Parliament. It's time to acknowledge that in conjunction and consultation with the people of Wales. But I'm certainly hopeful that that will come to a time where we now have true parliamentary scrutiny of all the Government, whichever political colour it is.

I rise to speak in this debate as chair of the National Assembly Labour group. The issues addressed in the report of the expert panel on Assembly electoral reform are matters not for the Government in the first instance, but for us as representatives of our political parties, and for our communities and parties more widely to consider. 

I would like to place on record the thanks of my party to Professor Laura McAllister for undertaking this substantial piece of work. The breadth of expertise of the panel members has ensured a detailed exploration of some very complex issues. They are issues that deserve full consideration and full consultation.

There are two areas in the report where we have existing policy. Firstly, Welsh Labour supports votes at 16, as was evident by the recent Welsh Government announcement to extend the franchise in local government elections. This was a commitment made in our 2016 manifesto and we support proposals to extend this to Assembly elections too. Secondly, Welsh Labour has a proud record of electing women in Wales. We have more women in this Senedd than any other party, making up over 50 per cent of our group. While it's taken Plaid Cymru 80 years to elect a woman to Parliament, and the Tories, to their shame, still have never elected a woman to the House of Commons from Wales, of the 11 Welsh women MPs, 10 of them are Labour. And it’s not just at Westminster and Cardiff Bay that Welsh Labour leads the way on this. In council chambers across Wales, Welsh Labour has more women representing their communities than any other party. In my own constituency of Cynon Valley over half of local councillors, and over half of Cynon Valley Labour councillors, are women.

But I don't want to get carried away. Positive mechanisms to increase the number of women have played a significant role and, in the process, are transforming my party. This has given a voice to women and helped to make this place a better, more constructive arena to debate the future of our country. All parties have a duty to ensure that they reflect the communities they seek to represent. It shouldn't take an expert panel to make that clear to anybody. Some of you will agree with the quotas as set out in the expert panel's report. Others won't. Whatever your view, I hope we can all agree that we need more women engaging in politics, standing in politics, and succeeding in politics. I don't want us to need quotas, but I especially don't want any party to think they can wait until they are mandated by law to take equal representation seriously.

Dirprwy Lywydd, 100 years ago some women were given the right to vote. It is within our grasp to give all women now a real voice, too. The Labour group has had an initial discussion on other areas of the report, and we will continue these. We will also feed into the consultation that our party has committed to during 2018 before reporting to our conference in 2019. Dirprwy Lywydd, to conclude, I would like to again thank the expert panel for their work and look forward to engaging in the conclusions from the Assembly Commission’s consultation.

Diolch, Llywydd for bringing today's motion on behalf of the Assembly Commission. I also would like to give my thanks to the expert panel for producing its report, and the political reference group itself, which has been meeting over the past year. The PRG meetings were very interesting, so I'm told, although I must point out I only attended one myself, as a substitute. But the UKIP representatives listened carefully to the panel and what they had to say, and also to the response of the political parties.

But I think it's less important, really, what the political parties think about these proposed changes, than what the public think about it. This is why UKIP supports the public consultation and is therefore happy to support today's motion. But we do feel that the consultation should act as a way of educating the Welsh electorate about these proposed changes, the biggest of which, we believe, is the proposed expansion of the Assembly. We think that this is such a major issue that the consultation should ultimately lead to a referendum, because no popular consent can be deemed to have been given unless we first have had such a referendum.

Now, in terms of the other issues, votes at 16: we also have a national policy on that, and we do oppose extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. Equal representation of genders: we believe that should be up to the political parties themselves to decide. The problem with the consultation is how to get widespread involvement, and how to ensure that voices that are heard in it are not merely those of the usual suspects—that is, the stakeholders who are already fully supportive of the Assembly as an institution and would be quite happy with an enlarged Assembly. We have to ensure that the consultation is not rigged in any way.

Now, the Llywydd has spoken of the need for consensus in this place, but also of the need for some measure of popular consent. We believe in UKIP that it would be unwise to proceed, particularly with the expansion of the Assembly, without securing that popular consent by means of a referendum.

Can I also join with other Members in congratulating Laura McAllister and the panel for producing an authoritative report? I think it stands comparison with anything you'd see produced in other parts of the United Kingdom and it stands in a proud tradition of constitutional reporting that we've had in our history of devolution. Perhaps we've had to do a lot of the thinking along the way—and so we've had the Richard commission, we had the Silk commission, and also the Holtham commission, though that was more directly related to the Welsh Government. They constitute a very formidable body of evidence, I think, on these central constitutional matters. I don't think any of us can really doubt the central finding of the report, which is—and I quote—that

'the Assembly is undersized and overstretched.'

I've served in the Assembly from the start in 1999. I've seen it evolve and I realise, at close quarters, that the amount of work we do is remarkable—and it's because we are very well supported, have outstanding staff, and have learnt to adapt our procedures. But, it's not necessarily unforced in some respects, and maintaining the capacity of the work that we do does put quite a lot of strain on certain parts of the legislative apparatus, and it is appropriate for us to look at this. The report says that we need between 20 and 30 more Members. I'm not sure I completely agree with that, but certainly when you compare us to Scotland and Northern Ireland, we are very much smaller and we do need to address this issue.

Can I turn to what the Electoral Reform Society said? One of their central insights was that we only have about 42 AMs who can sit on committees to scrutinise the Welsh Government. This is at the heart of our weakness, really; there aren't enough AMs to scrutinise. Whatever we say about devolution in the United Kingdom, it has produced very, very strong executive powers. I was talking to someone the other day who remonstrated with me for using the 'federal' word, and I said, 'Well, actually, in the UK, we are beyond federalism; our Governments are a lot stronger than most federal Governments in the western world.' So, we do need a powerful legislature too to scrutinise the work of that Assembly.

The Electoral Reform Society point out the fact that increasing membership, in their view, would require an adjustment in the electoral system, and they prefer the single transferable vote. But, myself, I don't think it is wise to connect increasing the size of the Assembly with a new electoral system. The one could blight the other if we're not very careful, and I think I detected that tone from Vikki Howells's contribution. I think we'd be very wise to look at what is essential, and that is to see if we can increase, with public support, the size of the Assembly.

Now, I did say 'between 20 and 30'. Certainly, 30 extra Members, I think, would be too big an ask. That would increase our size by half. In Northern Ireland, they're thinking of coming down a bit, I think to below 90. I have a proposal that if we were to more modestly suggest 75 Members then the proportion between constituency and regional Members would remain the same. So, we would not have to change the electoral system—though, of course, we would then need 50 directly elected constituencies. So, there would be a boundary commission that would have to meet to do that. But, at least we could proceed on the basis of preserving the current electoral system of the additional member system, which does produce quite a high level of proportionality. That's why it's endured in Germany for so long. So, that would be my suggestion. I know you could also keep that proportion if you had 90 Members, but I think that is really too demanding given the general political climate at the moment.

Can I finally just turn to the role of citizens? I do believe that we are seeing a great force being generated now for citizen involvement, and we are moving quite decisively to participatory democracy. Representative democracy has had its day, citizens require much more activity in decision making and I welcome this. That's why I've suggested that we should look at a citizens' chamber being established at some point in the National Assembly. Now, you might want to do that at the twentieth anniversary of devolution and ask that chamber to look at the constitution as a whole. That may be one task, but it could also look at our legislative programme and suggest items for that legislative programme.

But I do have this one piece of advice for the Commission: I think something far more active in terms of citizen involvement is required than what I have seen suggested so far by way of consultation. We need at the very least a citizens' jury or panel to look at this question, because that could open the doors for this policy to become practicable. If we had a powerful endorsement from the public and that was seen to be unbiased, then I think we could move ahead on this issue. I'm not convinced by those who say, 'Well, it's going to cost £100,000 or £200,000 to run that sort of panel or jury.’ After all, we are considering a significant increase in our membership, which will bear additional expenditure running into millions of pounds. So, that's my advice to the Commission: ensure that citizens get to have their say.

I too welcome the report of the expert panel on Assembly electoral reform, and I congratulate everyone who has been involved in the work, and I congratulate the Commission and the Llywydd for commissioning the work in the first place and moving with a sense of urgency following receipt of the Wales Act 2017, which makes all of this possible at last. Without that Act, of course, we wouldn't be in this place discussing this.

The next step is to hold a wide-ranging consultation on these issues that are contained in the report, not only about the number of Assembly Members—I'm slightly concerned that the discussion will focus on that, the number of Assembly Members and whether we need to increase the number of Assembly Members, and that that will dominate the discussion. We also need to emphasise the other important issues that are mentioned in the report. I believe that we need new arrangements. It was a small percentage that voted in the by-election on Deeside yesterday, and even though Simon might not be overly concerned about that, I do think that it does show that there needs to be change and that people need to feel that there is a value to their vote and that people feel that the people who are elected genuinely do represent the whole population.

Recommendations 14 to 16 include lowering the voting age to those aged 16 and over, and of course we need the political education to go along with that. I'm pleased to see that recommendations 15 and 16 refer to that. There are many young people who are eager to vote, and I very much hope that this aspect of the report will receive approval, certainly the approval of young people, and hopefully the approval of everyone who is concerned about the future of our nation.

Recommendation 10: I have a particular interest in this as spokesperson on equality for Plaid Cymru. Recommendation 10, of course, is the recommendation that talks about a gender balance representation, and recommendation 10 suggests that there should be a gender quota integrated with any electoral system put in place for 2021. Certainly, I do believe that we need to have a gender balance through legislation and that this Assembly should lead the way in Wales so that public bodies follow in our footsteps and so we avoid internal party-political arguments, because that's the kind of thing that tends to happen when we leave it to the individual parties. We need statute here.

I would encourage everyone to take part in the consultation and in this debate, and I do very much hope that it will encourage discussion and debate about the Assembly itself and that it will educate people about the value of the Assembly and also encourage a wider debate about the role of women in public life in Wales.

I'm very pleased to take part in this debate, and welcome the consultation that will ensue on 'A Parliament that Works for Wales'. I'm going to also make particular reference to the recommendations, which seek to widen the participation of women and young people in this Assembly, this Welsh Parliament. And I think it's appropriate that we consider these recommendations—I don't think it was necessarily planned—in the week we celebrate the centenary of partial suffrage for women, and look back to the pioneers, a century ago, who fought to get the vote. And what would they be thinking today, in terms of where we move forward?

I know that those who fought for our right to vote 100 years ago would have supported the Labour Party’s positive action, as Vikki Howells has outlined, leading up to the establishment of the Assembly, with the twinning of constituencies—we commented on that yesterday. It did result in unprecedented numbers of Labour women being elected in 1999, including myself; indeed, I was twinned with the First Minister, Carwyn Jones. And how proud the Suffragettes would be in our constituencies to see that gender equality we achieved in 2003, largely because of that positive action. But, sadly, we've slipped back from that groundbreaking parity, and we need to address that. I think we do need to use this opportunity to explore—and I'm glad the Llywydd talked about exploring in this consultation the changes proposed in recommendations 9, 10 and 11.

Yesterday, Chwarae Teg’s Natasha Davies made a plea that we should take this opportunity to vote for a parliament that works for women. And I do urge—as others have—wider civic society to engage, as well as the political world and political parties, in this consultation. We want to know what the National Federation of Women's Institutes, Merched y Wawr, the Soroptimists, our young people’s forums, the National Union of Students, trade unions, tenants groups, as as well as our faith and non-faith communities, think about these opportunities—citizens' juries, which David has mentioned. We need to look to consult on the widest possible political enfranchisement of people in Wales. And that includes, of course, consulting on the recommendation to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds for our Assembly elections.

Now, Richards has already been mentioned, I would say, Dirprwy Lywydd. In 2002, let's remember, it was First Minister Rhodri Morgan who announced that independent commission, chaired by the Labour peer, Lord Richards of Ammanford, to examine the powers and electoral arrangements of the Assembly. He reported back—it's worth looking back at his report—in 2004. Recommendations such as the fact that the Assembly should have primary law-making powers have come to fruition, the corporate body structure replaced with the Executive and legislature, and, of course, so many of his recommendations have been adopted, but the wider recommendations on the electoral arrangements—size of the Assembly; of course, Richards recommended we move to 80 Members—remain in play.

Richards didn't focus on the issues that I've been highlighting—and, indeed, Siân Gwenllian and Vikki Howells—today, to how we seek and deliver gender parity for this Assembly, our Welsh Parliament. And I think we are here for a purpose. We must look back to the examples of our sisters in the Suffragette movement, enabling us to be here today, and look forward to what our future generations would expect of us in taking the opportunities we have to make a Parliament that is fit for purpose, in terms of the widest representation of people in Wales.

Thank you.

I call on the Llywydd to reply to the debate. Llywydd.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It was an unintentional tactic on my behalf to allow so little time for myself to respond to the debate. It's obvious that I'm out of practice on the timing of speeches.

If I could just refer very quickly to some of the main points made—some of which are common across all the contributions. The point that Angela Burns made at the outset, of course, on ensuring that the consultation that we're embarking upon is as broad as possible within the resources available to us, and that it should extend to every part of Wales—yes, we are going to make every effort to do that. David Melding referred to the specific point with regard to trying to be as innovative as possible with regard to the work we undertake on consultation—a citizens' panel, a jury. The Commission did look at these options, but, unfortunately, as David Melding has said, we came to a decision in this case that it would appear to be too expensive to undertake, although we were aware of how valuable that would have been.

A number of people contributed from their party's point of view, and it was very valuable to hear their points of view on some of the issues that we will be consulting upon, and a number also alluded to what we can be looking at arising from the gender balance report. And as Vikki Howells said, we could look, of course, at using legislation to secure gender balance, but we shouldn't avoid the responsibility of each one of our parties, and each individual here, to ensure that we promote making women and people from underrepresented sections of the community to be engaged in the politics of Wales. 

May I also say thank you to David Melding for talking about an alternative option—an option of 75 Members? We haven't started the consultation yet, and yet, we have been given an additional option to consider. So, I am very appreciative of the thought that has gone into that option.

A number of Members have mentioned what is core to the work of the panel and the discussion that we've had this afternoon, namely the need to ensure that the balance between the work of this Assembly, this Parliament here, the work of its committess, the work of this Chamber, and the work of the Government all works for the benefit of the people of Wales—more and better scrutiny. More scrutiny leads to better legislation, better policy decisions by Government, and that all ultimately benefits the people of Wales as we represent them in this Parliament. So, may I thank you for the encouraging response to move forward, hopefully, to take the step of authorising further consultation on these fascinating and interesting issues?

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.