Thank you, acting Presiding Officer. I also would like to add my thanks to the Chair and to the committee for their detailed examination of the many issues around the emotive and complex subject of voting rights for prisoners. Both the inquiry and the report were thorough and objective. The analysis and recommendations have certainly helped to inform our policy conclusions, which are set out in my already-published written response to the recommendations. We accept, or accept in principle, all the committee's recommendations that were addressed to the Welsh Government. Our reasoning is set out in my response, so I will not go through those again.

As highlighted in the committee's report, there are significant legal and administrative issues to tackle in implementing prisoner voting. The Welsh Government will need to engage in work with the UK Government and in particular with Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service to deliver prisoner voting in a timely, coherent and effective manner. My officials have already started liaising with contacts across a range of UK Government institutions.

But that is only part of the preparation and engagement needed. The right to vote is a precious and powerful tool. Voters need to be informed about what they are voting for and who wants to represent them. Candidates and political parties need to be able to reach out to voters and communicate their policies to them. If extending the vote to prisoners and young people in custody is going to be meaningful, we also need to do a lot of work on the softer issues identified in the committee's report, such as voter awareness and education, accessibility to information and media and practical support to help prisoners and young people in custody to register their vote. 

I have always made clear that the Welsh Government believes strongly in the principle that at least some prisoners should be enfranchised in devolved Welsh elections. We will work to introduce legislation in this Assembly to enable prisoners and young people in custody from Wales who are serving a custodial sentence of less than four years to vote in local government elections. Our aim is that eligible prisoners and young people in custody will be able to vote at the next ordinary local government elections during 2022. 

However, sadly, we do not believe it will be possible to resolve all the issues mentioned in the committee report in time to include provision for Assembly elections in the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Bill currently being considered by Assembly Members. For all the reasons that the Llywydd just set out, and with which I entirely concur, we need to do a better exercise in figuring out what we need to do and think about that more particularly. I'll revert to that point a little later in my speech. 

So, this will be a very small group of new electors, but they have particular circumstances that cut across many of the long-established arrangements for registering to vote and casting votes. There simply isn't enough time to work through and test with the UK Government, the prison service and electoral registration officers all the new legal and administrative requirements that would need to be in place for an election that was held in 2021, as the Llywydd just pointed out. Bear in mind that, for any new category of voter to be able to vote at the Assembly election in May 2021, all the primary legislation, the secondary legislation and the guidance would need to be in place by July 2020, when the canvass starts to draw up the register that will apply at those elections.

We will also need to work closely with the likes of the Electoral Commission, prison governors and officers, political parties, education providers, media organisations and prisoners themselves to develop clear, accurate and practical guidance and procedures to inform and support prisoners about how to register and cast their vote. Accordingly, the Welsh Government will not table amendments to the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Bill; we will seek an appropriate legislative vehicle to introduce provision at the earliest opportunity to enable prisoners and young people in custody from Wales to vote in Assembly elections. The first general Assembly election at which prisoners and young people in custody would be able to vote, therefore, would be those in 2026. 

The number who gain the right to vote by these changes will be small—about 2,000 at the most—but this is an important step forward, both in practice and in principle. We need to make sure that this is not merely a gesture that has no practical effect beyond what's written on the statute book. That means we, and all the other agencies involved, will need to invest time and effort to make sure the necessary infrastructure is in place, is tested and is robust. I'm very happy to respond to John's request to keep the committee informed as to our progress with regard to each of the recommendations and how we implement them in practical detail, and I'll make sure that officials keep the committee informed as those matters progress.

We want this new group of voters to be able to exercise their rights and to do so in the knowledge that they are citizens, have a stake in society and have obligations to society too. I firmly believe that the return on such investment will be very worth while indeed. Diolch.