As Members know, the Bill makes important changes to the franchise and to the rules disqualifying people from candidacy in those elections or from membership of the Senedd. It's right that the Senedd should have an opportunity, in due course, to review the operation of those changes.

David Melding’s amendment 6 seeks to facilitate that sort of review, by requiring Welsh Ministers to publish, and lay before the Senedd, a report on the effect of extending the franchise in Senedd elections to qualifying foreign citizens. Darren Millar’s amendment 160 does the same in respect of the extension of the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. David’s amendment 40 envisages a report on the effect of disqualifying from membership of the Senedd serving members of Welsh local authorities.

Deputy Presiding Officer, the Government is fully accepting of the principle underpinning those amendments. The Senedd ought, in due course, to have a full opportunity to review the consequences of the changes that it has made, and that can most easily be done, I would suggest, on the basis of a Welsh Government report setting out what has in fact happened. We think that such a report should also deal, as I've said, with the consequences of allowing qualifying foreign citizens to be candidates for and Members of the Senedd, although the three amendments don't cover that aspect. We also think that the timetable for the report should be linked to the cycle for Senedd elections, rather than to the time when the Bill receives Royal Assent, so that it can take into account the most recent set of elections.

So, amendment 164, in my name, sets out a consolidated reporting requirement covering all those matters, and envisages a report being published by Welsh Ministers and laid before the Senedd within six months following the Senedd elections in 2026.

I'm grateful to David Melding and Darren Millar for bringing forward those amendments, which have given the Government an opportunity to bring forward that consolidated approach, and I believe, and I hope, that Members will share that view that that will significantly strengthen the Bill. I hope that Darren and David will consider not moving the amendments in light of those assurances, and I invite them and other Members to support amendment 164, and the consequential amendments 163 and 165.