5. Statement by the Chair of the Standards of Conduct Committee: Dignity and Respect in the Assembly

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:58 pm on 7 March 2018.

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Photo of Jayne Bryant Jayne Bryant Labour 3:58, 7 March 2018

Thank you for your points, Gareth. I appreciate you were following on from the points of Paul and Llyr. I think the issue you raised about the ministerial code is again something you raised last week as well, so I'm sure that that will come up, but as I said, we have to be mindful that it's beyond our remit in terms of what we can change, but obviously we have to look at all of these issues when people like yourself raise them. 

It is important that there's a clear path, as you say. I think the important point is that the person who is the complainant is in control of those processes as well, because it is important that they know where they want to go with it, rather than just having that decision made for them. I think it is important that people are signposted in the right way, and hopefully if there are people who feel unsure about coming forward, there is this phone number now at the moment. Obviously, this is just an interim measure—whether we extend that, the committee's yet to report on that. Obviously, we're still in the middle of our inquiry so there are lots of things we can look at, but we can have a debate on that when our inquiry reports.