9. Debate seeking the Assembly's agreement to introduce a Commission-proposed Bill — The Welsh Parliament and Elections (Wales) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:37 pm on 10 October 2018.

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Photo of Elin Jones Elin Jones Plaid Cymru 4:37, 10 October 2018

Can I thank Members who've contributed to the debate this afternoon? As Suzy Davies said as she started her response, we've come a long way, some distance, from the National Assembly that was first elected in 1999. We are a proper Parliament—your words—we are a proper Parliament now, and we should call ourselves that in whatever language, and I'll come on to that point later on. 

There seems to be a majority of support in this Chamber to allow young people—16, 17-year-olds—to have a vote for the National Assembly, Welsh Parliament or Senedd. Siân said it beautifully—young people are the architects of their future; they need to have a voice in the architecture of their future: pobl ifanc yn benseiri ar eu dyfodol. It's not something that's agreed by all here, and that's shared, by the way, by the consultation responses we had as well, where there was a majority in favour of 16 and 17-year-olds voting, but not universal support.

On job sharing, the points made by both Jane Hutt and Siân Gwenllian, I understand the disappointment with the fact that the expert panel recommendation on job sharing is not to be brought forward in this piece of legislation, and we had a discussion in the Commission about this. We're not currently convinced that there is a supermajority in this Chamber to introduce that as part of the legislation, but more fundamental is probably the issue around competence where it relates to an Assembly Member's right to become a Minister or a Cabinet Secretary. And I don't want to be in a position at all where Members are elected to this National Assembly who can be Assembly Members, but have not the right to become Cabinet Secretaries. We would have, in effect, two tiers of Members at that point. So, that's an issue that needs to be resolved before we undertake any legislation on this matter. Its time will come—I've no doubt about that—but its time is not yet here. 

Now, we had expressed the different views on what we call ourselves. I don't think we should overindulge ourselves in the issues of what we call ourselves or what we call this Parliament. We are to be a Parliament, a Senedd. There is obviously a divergence of views expressed here today on whether we should use the Welsh name only, Senedd, to refer to this place rather than Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament. Let me remind you all that we need 40 of the 60 of you to agree to this name change as part of this legislation working its way through the National Assembly and reaching Stage 4. Those of you who are advocates of 'Senedd' and its use in Welsh only—find out whether there are 40 of you who would back that, and then that's the way to make that change.

As Lee Waters said, what we call ourselves as Assembly Members, now currently from the National Assembly, derives from what we call the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament, and infantile minds—as you called yourself I think, there, Lee—will make mischief on some iterations of what we call ourselves. But, again, I would ask you—we need to agree on this; we need to have 40 of 60 of you, of us—I have a vote on this, by the way, in this particular case, as does Ann Jones, so 40 of the 60 of us need to agree on this, and we should not dwell and spend too much time on it. Some have said we need to spend more time on what the Parliament actually does, and I agree with that, but we are a Parliament, we are a Senedd, we call ourselves that and we do our work on behalf of the people of Wales, and for us to do that, let's, hopefully, today start the process of legislating on these matters. Scrutiny will follow and all of the detail can be examined at that point, but, hopefully, you'll allow the Commission to introduce this Bill for scrutiny by this National Assembly. Diolch.