Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:06 pm on 13 March 2019.
Diolch, Llywydd, and I move amendment 39, speaking to all the amendments in this group.
These amendments refer to section 72 of the Bill, which means that the Assembly has the opportunity to review the work of the ombudsman, something I'm sure we all approve of, particularly as the ombudsman is directly accountable to us. These amendments remove the reference to an Assembly committee from the face of the Bill, and replace it with a statutory duty on the Assembly to be responsible for that review. Because the whole Assembly makes the statute, I think we should adhere to the principle that the whole of the Assembly is responsible for reviewing it, and it's appropriate that the Bill places these functions on the Assembly, rather than directly on individual committees. As I mentioned before, we'll be talking about amendment 43 shortly, which permits the Assembly to delegate these functions to a committee, and it's through Standing Orders—that's the appropriate way of doing it, rather than placing on the face of the Bill a duty on the Assembly committee. So, I recommend these changes to all Members. Thank you.