Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:37 pm on 24 April 2018.
Well, we shall miss him when he's gone. And I want to move on now. I don't know what the First Minister's long-term objectives are, and whether he plans to stand for the Assembly in the next Assembly elections and therefore the extent to which he retains an interest in whether we expand the size of this institution or not. The Assembly Commission has embarked upon a consultation exercise, the results of which have not yet been made public, but nobody has actually gauged the feeling amongst the public in general, as far as I'm aware, and so UKIP have plugged the gap and done an opinion poll, which has been carried out by opinion research, a respected market research company. And we asked the public, 'Do you support an increase in Assembly Members at the National Assembly for Wales, from 60 to either 80 or 90?' Only 32 per cent of respondents were in favour of an increase, 42 per cent, and 26 per cent don't know. Does the First Minister think it right that we should proceed with this exercise without carrying the public with us?