It’s a pleasure to contribute to this important debate on the Legislation (Wales) Bill. May I thank the Counsel General for his opening statement in this debate? Naturally, we agree and welcome the intentions underpinning this Bill as a party. Because what are we talking about? Well, we’re standing in a proper Senedd now, which will be named a Senedd or a Parliament soon. We do legislate in both languages and also we levy taxes, so it’s natural that we should look at how we do legislate—our methods in legislating. Of course, as has already been explained, the purpose of this Bill is to make Welsh law more accessible, more clear and simple to use. Well, there is a challenge there in the first instance, because in looking at many pieces of legislation it can be exceptionally complex, having been built and rebuilt over a period of years, because we have a combination, as Suzy Davies has said, of England-and-Wales legislation, Wales-only legislation, and of course Welsh legislation, which has just been made by us here, and will continue to be made here of course. There is also the challenge and the excitement of creating legislation in Welsh, and the exciting challenge of interpreting legislation drafted in Welsh, because, as the Counsel General will be aware, it’s not a matter of simply translating one language to another. The matter of interpretation is pertinent here. We talk about the equality of both languages, which is extremely important, and I can see a glorious time when we will be developing legislation in Welsh, which will be interpreted in a way that may be slightly different, or the potential to interpret it slightly differently, in English, and, as we've heard, it will then be up to the courts to resolve that particular challenge. I’m pleased to have the opportunity to discuss legislation in our own nation, although it can be complex and, of course, we are talking of codification, consolidation.

Of course, we’ve been here before. The Counsel General will recall Hywel Dda, naturally. The golden year was 909, when not only did we have the laws of Hywel Dda by they were also codified. So, we have been innovative in Wales around 1,000 years ago. Before others thought of codification, Hywel was codifying in Whitland. So, we are regaining that ground, if truth be told. But, having said that, we need a definition of what exactly we mean by codification, because, as Suzy and Mick have said, we have had a lot of evidence from witnesses as to how exactly codification will work, what it actually means,  just as what accessibility means. Of course, we want to ensure accessibility for those dealing with the law on a day-to-day basis, those who are paid to do so, but we are talking more broadly here about providing accessibility for the ordinary man or woman in the street. So, that is accessibility in order to understand exactly what is happening, because that is also a challenge and not one that is always apparent to those developing legislation.

But as we are living in interesting times and we are creating our own legislation in this place, and doing so bilingually, now is the time, as more than one of our witnesses told us, to actually tackle this challenge of accessibility and codification, because from here on in we should expect that all new law should be codified and should be consolidated and should be accessible in both languages.

Therefore, yes, as a party we agree with recommendation 2, we agree with the principles of this legislation, we want to see it making progress but we also need to see the details, but that isn’t going to prevent us from supporting the general principles. Thank you.