I do apologise to Members and to you, Dirprwy Lywydd, that it's time for me to get angry again, but perhaps I should try a slightly different approach and one of sadness rather than anger. I will be speaking against these amendments, apart from 82, which is a technical one, because, as I rehearsed with the issue of extending the franchise to foreign citizens, this whole area was replete with possible unintended consequences and poor thought in the original intention, and frankly just shouldn't have been in this Bill. It should have been, of course, as many witnesses told us, in a separate Government Bill.

I was pretty certain this was a shambolic approach and I did express this at Stage 2, and then we've just heard the Counsel General saying all sorts of bells and whistles now need to be attached to the Government's intentions. I have to say that, if you need any more convincing that this is a rushed and half-baked approach, just reflect on what the Counsel General has said. I really think, starting with amendment 68, this is just an example of how slipshod the Government has been, because they have again piggy-backed on a Commission Bill and have taken the approach of, 'We will do our homework tomorrow. We won't actually ask the Electoral Commission about the exact detail of the fine points they need, and we will not submit it to an appropriate level and early scrutiny'. The Government's own purpose and effect table states that,

'This amendment allows further work to be undertaken on the detail of the financial arrangements required to fund the Electoral Commission in relation to its work.'

So, the Government now felt the need to buy some extra time for policy development in an area that most feel should have been sorted out or dealt with in a separate Bill and presented in a complete form. Legislation should be complete and enable a policy direction, not merely start down the road to where we do not know.

Amendment 83 is the same. The purpose and effect table of this amendment states that, quote,

'The purpose of this amendment is to remove a provision that specifies the first financial year to which the new provisions about the Electoral Commission's financial estimates will apply.'

So, this amendment again leaves these changes open-ended, just to give time for co-ordination and to check what the Electoral Commission really think is appropriate. Well, when they come back, it's what we think that's appropriate that really needs to be the determining factor. So, again, I think this is a very poor approach, and similarly on amendment 84.

It seems to me that, in having to readjust all these time commitments, we're in the position of not really knowing what was fit for purpose in the first place, and now we're told at this stage, for heaven's sake, at Stage 3, what the Government thinks is best, without any chance of proper scrutiny and interrogation as we would have had had this been done at an earlier stage in this Bill.

I have to say that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, when looking at this, warned of these complications. It was one of the reasons we thought this was poorly advised, and this has now come home to haunt the Government, though they don't seem particularly embarrassed, I must say, at the comprehensive nature of their amendments to try and bring some order into what they urged at Stage 2. But I really do believe that accountability is a serious requirement and we need to be satisfied that the system proposed will be able to deliver that. It may be that it's a much more coherent model that the Counsel General has just proposed, and I'm sure his consultations with the Electoral Commission went very, very well, but the whole purpose here is supposed to be to strengthen a relationship between this place and the Electoral Commission, and yet we've got the Government doing all the damn negotiations on it, without us as Members having any primary say or oversight. I find it really, really peculiar. And, again, the fundamental point is that this whole part of the Bill was not there originally, and needed proper work done on it. And that implied, in my view anyway, that it would have been better done in the Government's own Bill—the local government and elections Bill—that is proposed.

So, again, it's very, very disappointing. We could have used this Bill as a model for legislation in general—a Commission Bill on an important constitutional area, demonstrating how we wanted our legislative stages to proceed, and how the vital aspect of scrutiny is applied. And, frankly, we've not done a good job. And to think that, in this particular area, it's about the very body that is there to advise and ensure that we have the means for fair and free elections. So, again, I'm very, very disappointed. I'm under no illusions of what success I'll have here. My dear friend here, Andrew R.T., whispered after my previous contribution, 'It wouldn't matter if you were Abraham Lincoln'—with all these arguments, there'll be no shift. But I do hope Members will reflect on some of the things I've said—they're very sincerely made. And I do think this whole sorry saga should require us to reflect very carefully in future on how we make such important, foundational, really, constitutional law.