May I welcome the direction that we're travelling in here, as the Counsel General presents this statement today on the Legislation (Wales) Bill? Of course, the intention is to strengthen the legislature here for Wales. Of course, we have been in this place before as a nation. We remember Hywel Dda's laws, of course, in the past. David Melding always reminds me—I think he was around at the time, in the year 950—that of course we had innovative laws at that time, and rights for women for the first time, around 1,000 years before rights appeared in any other legislation. So, we do have a history of creating innovative legislation, and that's what we have here today, to be fair to you. Of course, there are several challenges, and those challenges will become clear as we scrutinise all of this during Stage 1 at the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. We will be looking at this, and part of the evidence has already reached us at the committee, and that's what Suzy quoted from.

But, of course, there is a challenge—we'll forget about Hywel Dda for now—the challenge now is that there are some Wales and England laws, and there are new Wales-only laws, and of course the fact that there are two languages. You outlined the challenge here—anything that is meant to appear in Wales is meant to be in Welsh and in English, and sometimes we have those challenges appearing before us in the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee when things that emanate from Westminster don't appear in the Welsh language. So, I would hope that this legislation would make it clear that, if Westminster legislates on our behalf, there's an expectation for that legislation to be in Welsh and English, because, of course, we are a bilingual nation.

Having said that, the next point that I have is about interpretation. Naturally, I welcome this new arrangement—that you say that the legislation will be codified according to subject area. I think that that's a positive step forward and makes sense. But in this issue of interpretation, particularly in two different languages, you will understand that not all languages are an exact translation of another language, and so there's a challenge, not just in terms of the words that will be used, but in that the sense can be slightly different in English as compared to Welsh. I understand what you say—that the Welsh and English languages are equal—but if we can imagine that the sense is slightly different in English as compared to Welsh, then what language is given priority when you come to a decision? I know it perhaps seems like a difficult point, and an esoteric one, but it is important when you come to interpretation in a law court, particularly because, as you'll be aware,there are several thousand square miles of Wales where people speak Welsh as a first language, and so they would quote this different arrangement in the Welsh language. But you are aware, and you've outlined, that the work of codification means a great deal of work in reorganising how legislation is presented. It means a great deal of work behind the scenes to achieve that, and, of course, there are implications then in terms of staff and resources and so on, and I very much hope that the Counsel General will look at that particular issue.

Then, two points to conclude: of course, we are under the auspices of the Wales and England legal jurisdiction at present, but that, of course, looking to the future, as you mentioned, and as you've mentioned before, jurisdiction arrangement makes no sense at all now, given that we are developing an individual corpus of law here in Wales, and yet we're under the jurisdiction of a Wales and England arrangement. So, how do you see this aspiration of seeing a Wales-only jurisdiction proceeding. Because if we don't take major steps forward to achieve that aspiration, we'll continue with the same arrangement that we have at present, which is always that of England and Wales. 

The final question is in terms of accessibility. Of course, with an increasing number of people, because of financial cuts, having to represent themselves in law courts, what you say about access to legislation is vitally important, because you're talking about the person on the street being able to understand where to find things and what the wording means. So, what practical steps are you taking, rather than this just being a highbrow discussion between different lawyers? For the person on the street, or the layperson, what kind of practical difference, on the ground, is increasing accessibility going to make? That is, how are you going to ensure that there is better accessibility for our people with regard to accessing our legislation?