We noted that the Counsel General is considering amending the Bill using wording that may carry the risk of challenge and for that reason and for the avoidance of doubt we believe that the Welsh Government should ask the UK Government to bring forward an Order in Council under section 109 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 to modify the National Assembly's legislative competence such that the risk of challenge no longer arises.

Voting and taking part in the democratic process is at the heart of a healthy, functioning society and we therefore supported the lowering of the voting age to 16 for National Assembly elections, as provided for in Part 3 of the Bill. In our view, reducing the voting age to 16 provides an opportunity to deliver a society that is more engaged in the democratic process over the long term and should be welcomed. We are convinced that lowering the voting age will require adequate awareness raising and educational support to ensure that this opportunity is utilised by young people. For that reason, we are concerned at the apparent lack of a coherent action plan to deliver votes at 16 in readiness for the 2021 Assembly elections. In our view, Llywydd, the Counsel General and the Minister for Education were not clear enough about their plans for awareness raising and education. If 16 and 17-year-olds are to exercise their right to vote in 2021, then a clear, co-ordinated, timetabled and costed plan for awareness raising and civic education is needed as a matter of urgency.

We recognise that there is work under way to formally co-ordinate activity through a stakeholder group, as has been mentioned. Whilst its collaboration is welcome, we remain unclear as to the stakeholder group's make-up, responsibilities and operational time frame; we look forward to the further details that the Llywydd has indicated will be provided in the response on this. Given the potential influence that the stakeholder group may have, we recommended that the Llywydd should publish the membership and terms of reference of the stakeholder group, including the key milestones and time frames for delivery and, of course, the Llywydd has referred to this. Following on from this, we recommended that the stakeholder group should prepare an action plan for the co-ordination of all work related to the preparation of awareness raising and educational materials for the 2021 Assembly election, clearly identifying the lines of accountability as well as responsibility for preparing specific work streams.

We agree with the Llywydd and with the Welsh Government that the Bill should not include specific duties in relation to educational matters. We do, however, consider that guidance is necessary to ensure sufficient and consistent educational provision across Wales to that end, and we welcomed the Minister for Education's commitment during the evidence sessions to consider this matter further following advice from the stakeholder group. Therefore, we recommended that the Minister for Education should issue a statement explaining how citizenship and political education will be delivered in time for the 2021 Assembly election, including the time frame for any accompanying guidance that she intends to issue. We also recommended that the Llywydd should issue a written statement at the earliest opportunity detailing the funding being provided by each body contributing to awareness raising and education in readiness for the 2021 Assembly elections.

I'd now like to briefly cover matters relating to the electoral registration process. The administrative arrangements enabling 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the 2021 Assembly elections need to function efficiently to ensure that the voter experience of the newly enfranchised is not a negative one. This is particularly important given that voting in the first election for which a person is eligible to vote can affect their future propensity to vote. What became apparent to us is the need for greater clarity around who is leading and co-ordinating the delivery of changes needed to ensure that the newly franchised are registered and able to exercise their right to vote in 2021. Clarity is also needed around the funding of the changes needed. We therefore recommended that the Llywydd should issue a written statement covering where these responsibilities lie for all changes needed to the electoral administration and registration processes, as well as addressing the funding of these changes.

I'd now like to address section 27 of the Bill, concerning the oversight of the Electoral Commission by the National Assembly. We agree with the Llywydd, the Counsel General and the Electoral Commission that, as a matter of principle, the Electoral Commission in Wales should be accountable to the National Assembly. However, we consider that fully developed provisions should have been included in the Bill on its introduction, rather than the approach now being suggested of amendments at Stages 2 and 3. The correspondence we received from the Llywydd and Counsel General about section 27 towards the end of Stage 1 only really served to reinforce the challenge of this task: amendments needed to the Bill will need to be significant and complex.

We do acknowledge that it would be constitutionally preferable to have arrangements in place prior to the 2021 Assembly election. In the circumstances, we recommended that provisions setting out the detailed arrangements for oversight of the Electoral Commission in Wales by the National Assembly should be removed from the Bill and, in the absence of a stand-alone Bill, included in the forthcoming local government Bill that has been promised. This, of course, has already been referred to in the comments from the Llywydd, but we believe this would have allowed for scrutiny of those provisions during a Stage 1 process, allowing engagement with stakeholders on the detail of these important provisions. It is for this reason that we made a general recommendation, repeating one made by our predecessor committee in its 'Making Laws in Wales' report, that Bills should be introduced into the National Assembly that can be reasonably considered to be fully developed at the point of introduction.

We welcome the proposals in Part 4 of the Bill that implement recommendations from our predecessor committee in the fourth Assembly, relating to disqualification from being an Assembly Member. Our sole recommendation concerned the Llywydd and the Welsh Government ensuring that they are satisfied with the schedule that lists the categories of persons disqualified and the holders of offices who are disqualified. Finally, as has been referred to, we share the concern of the Counsel General with respect to the undesirability of conferring powers on Welsh Ministers as provided for in section 36 of Part 5 of the Bill. We have consistently cautioned against the use of subordinate legislation to implement significant policy changes, and, therefore, we recommended that section 36 of the Bill should be removed. I therefore welcome the comments and proposal from the Llywydd to remove section 36 from the Bill. Thank you, Deputy Llywydd.