The next item is a statement by the Minister—[Interruption.]

Sorry. [Laughter.]

—dramatically introducing her own statement on the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill. I call on the Minister to make the statement, Julie James. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Apologies for spilling water there. 

Llywydd, I'm very pleased to introduce the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill to the Assembly. This Bill consists of provisions that have been subject to extensive consultation, both with the public and local government. It will deliver a major package of reforms to the way in which devolved elections are run and the governance framework of local government.

The Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill proposes to extend the franchise for local government elections to 16 and 17-year-olds and foreign citizens legally resident in Wales. The Bill will allow principal councils to choose their voting systems for elections. It will also set the elections cycle for local government at five years, in line with that of Senedd Cymru.

The Bill provides a power for the establishment of a combined all-Wales database of electoral registration information and will enable electoral registration officers to register people automatically using a wider range of reliable data. The Bill amends the legislation relating to the qualification for and disqualification from membership of a local authority and makes provision for election pilot schemes. It further provides clarity on returning officers' expenditure and the accessibility of election documents.

The Welsh Government is changing the governance framework for local government to better enable innovation, transparency and local ownership for driving up service delivery outcomes and standards across Wales. The Bill will, therefore, introduce a general power of competence and a new system for improving performance and governance based on self-assessment and peer review, including the consolidation of the Welsh Ministers' support and intervention powers. To support this, I am working with the Welsh Local Government Association to develop a new, sector-led, co-ordinated approach to local government improvement and support. This Bill requires local authorities to take responsibility for their own improvement. There are reserve powers for the Auditor General for Wales and the Welsh Ministers where performance is less than satisfactory.

It is a feature of this Bill that we are seeking to empower local authorities, providing options where they do not currently exist. The Bill provides a power to local authorities to make an application to merge voluntarily. Local authorities work hard to deliver services using different mechanisms to collaborate over different areas. A key recommendation of the working group on local government was the need for more consistent mechanisms and structures to support regional working and collaboration. The Bill will therefore provide for this by including powers to facilitate more consistent and coherent regional working mechanisms called corporate joint committees.

We have worked very closely with the WLGA and local government leaders, through the local government sub-group of the partnership council, to develop these proposals. I see these committees as an important tool for local government to use to support collaboration, transformation and the longer term sustainability of public services. They will be bodies corporate, formed from the membership of principal councils, established in statute and able to directly employ staff, hold assets and manage funding.

Local authorities will be able to request the creation of a corporate joint committee for any service they wish. Welsh Ministers will only be able to create a corporate joint committee in a limited number of functional areas that are set out in the Bill: improving education, strategic planning for the development and use of land and the function of preparing a strategic development plan, transport, and economic development. The aim is to reduce complexity for councils using different kinds of regional working arrangements, and to ensure that the decisions are made as close to the local people as is possible for effective and efficient democracy.

Good governance is not only about effective structures, it is also about transparency. Therefore, amongst other measures included in the Bill aimed at increasing public participation in local democracy and improving transparency, principal councils will be required to prepare, consult on, publish and keep under review a public participation strategy. They will also be required to publish a guide to their constitution that explains in ordinary language the content of their constitution. Provision is made for the broadcasting of council meetings that are open to the public. To encourage diversity and hopefully enable more employed elected members and those with caring responsibilities to be able to stand for election, the Bill amends the legislation covering remote attendance at principal council meetings.

The Bill also requires community councils to prepare an annual report about the council's priorities, activities and achievements during the year. This was a recommendation of the independent review on the future of community and town councils in Wales and key to ensuring transparency and accountability.

The Bill requires a principal council to appoint a chief executive and makes provision about their role. This replaces the term 'head of paid service' and updates the role to reflect modern management practices. To further promote diversity in democracy, it also enables the appointment of members as assistants to the executive and job sharing by executive members and leaders. It also updates provision about the entitlement of members to family absence and places a duty on leaders of political groups to take reasonable steps to promote and maintain high standards of conduct by the members of the group.

The Bill includes a number of measures aimed at reducing opportunities for avoidance behaviour relating to non-domestic rates and removal of the power to make provision for the imprisonment of council tax debtors.

Taking the opportunity afforded by the Bill, miscellaneous provisions relating to a range of matters aimed at strengthening and modernising the operation of local government are contained in the Bill. These include information sharing between regulators, the Auditor General for Wales and the Welsh Ministers, repeal of community polls and their replacement with a petition scheme, a new process for appointing the chief executive to the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales, and powers to enable the merger and demerger of public services boards.

As I outlined in Plenary last month, we are working 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. This follows on from the recommendations of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee report, 'Voting rights for prisoners'. Our aim is that eligible prisoners and young people in custody will be able to vote at the next ordinary local government elections, due in 2022.

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 has not been enough time to work through and test with the UK Government, HM Prison Service and electoral registration officers all the new legal and administrative requirements to enable us to have provisions ready in time for this introduction. I will be keeping the Equalities, Local Government and Communities Committee informed of these developments and hope to share provisions on prisoner voting with the committee well in advance of Stage 2.

I look forward to Members' comments on the Bill today and the Assembly's consideration of the Bill over the coming months. Diolch.

Clearly, there is too much in this Bill and your statement for me to cover in its entirety, so I'll try and be selective.

You state that principal councils will be required to prepare, consult on, publish and keep under review a public participation strategy, but previously Welsh Government has proved often averse to implementing the Localism Act 2011's community rights agenda, which would help public participation, including the right to community challenge; the right for community organisations to submit expressions of interest in running local authority services; and the community right to bid for assets of community value, where councils would maintain a list of community assets nominated by community groups and, if the asset is sold, the group would be given time to come up with a bid. Would this facilitate these deficits or not?

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Your statement refers to community councils and the need to prepare an annual report, and it states that this was a recommendation of the independent review on the future of community and town councils in Wales and key to ensuring transparency and accountability. In January, I questioned you regarding the Wales Audit Office report, stating:

'The current standard of financial management and governance remains disappointing at too many Town and Community Councils'.

You responded that you'd only been in post six weeks and said you'd not yet had a chance to read the report in depth. So, again, how, if at all, will this Bill address that? You refer to the independent review panel on community and town councils in Wales that has also called, amongst other things, for all community and town councils to be working towards meeting the criteria to be able to exercise the general powers of competence and recommended that community and town councils, all representative of them, should become statutorily invited participants on all public services boards. Again, how will this Bill address that?

You refer to enabling prisoners and young people in custody from Wales serving a custodial sentence of fewer than four years to vote in local government elections. Of course, the YouGov poll in 2017 asking people in Wales whether any prisoners should be allowed to vote: only 9 per cent stated that they should. So, there does appear to be a bit of a disconnect between the will of the people and Welsh Government here. However, the motive, we support, which is rehabilitation, providing offenders with the opportunity to reflect on and take responsibility for their crimes and prepare them for a law-abiding life when they're released. How do you respond to the evidence in the report that you referred to, the committee report, from Parc prison, where we heard that few prisoners would either use a right to vote, or see it as an incentive to rehabilitate, and where the committee report admitted that the empirical evidence to support the theory that voting age rehabilitation was limited? In fact, the right, we understand, of prisoners to vote is to be introduced at Stage 2 due to difficulties the Welsh Government has had in identifying the number of prisoners who will be included within the eligibility criteria. How does that address the deficit regarding scrutiny, where Stage 1 scrutiny in committee is essential to proper detailed scrutiny of all elements? If that information from the Welsh Government's briefing earlier today is accurate, it raises major concerns.

I've been here long enough to remember how the debate on votes at 16 started, and it started because 80 per cent of young people in Wales weren't voting for anybody and it has developed since. In your explanatory memorandum, you refer to the figures in Scotland, and you say that 89 per cent of those eligible 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland registered, against 97 per cent for the general population, and I believe 75 per cent are estimated to have voted, against 85 per cent for the general population. But the real comparator, is it not, is the Scottish Parliament election in 2016, when overall turnout was back down to 55.6 per cent for the constituency and 55.8 per cent for the regional vote—even lower in Wales at 45.4 per cent? So, what evidence have we got to indicate that a parliamentary election would see that referendum result being repeated in terms of engagement?

You talk about reforms to improving electoral arrangements for local government, including extending the franchise to foreign citizens legally resident in Wales. However, the explanatory memorandum provides no examples of any other country or nation that gives non-citizens the vote in local elections and the impact that this has had. So, what discussions have you had with other national Governments about the impact of allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections? And what case studies has the Welsh Government used to assess the impact of allowing non-citizens to vote? I'm told that at its briefing earlier, the Welsh Government did not know of any research that had been carried out on the effect of the introduction of the right to vote for non-citizens and where the principle of representative democracy has always been based upon a citizen's right to vote requiring the stake that citizenship brings.

I believe I'll be coming to the end of my time shortly, so I'll conclude—

You will, yes. I am watching, yes—go quickly. [Laughter.]

—before you very politely point that out to me.

The Bill allows some council officers to stand in an election within their local authorities, how will you manage issues around conflict of interest that could arise in such circumstances? What consideration have you given to the potential cost of an educational programme to inform local people of any potential changes to electoral systems used by local authorities within your regulatory impact assessment?

Thank you, Mark Isherwood, for that series of questions and comments. In terms of the public participation strategy, we are not copying the Localism Act, because our legislation already allows for a number of things that are not current in England, and, anyway, we're not in a position where we want to copy England. What we're doing here is, in conjunction with the WLGA, developing a system for Wales. So, I'm very pleased with the public participation strategy, it complements a number of other things, such as the community assets transfer and so on. It doesn't encompass all of them. But we are very keen that each local authority should develop its own strategy for its own people, because we believe in the local democracy that that brings.

In terms of community councils, the Member will be aware that there have been a number of audit issues with some councils across Wales and so on. What we are doing is we are making sure that they are making a statement about where they are and what their activities are, which is transparent and open. We're also restricting the power of general competence for those community councils where they have not had qualified audits, where they have capable and competent staff that administer them, and the idea is to encourage them to get themselves to a good standard of accountability. If that isn't sufficient, then we will review the situation, but I'm confident that ensuring that community councils step up to that plate will be enough to—it's enough of a carrot to enable them to be able to do that.

In terms of the number of issues that he raised around the voting arrangements, we have a fundamental political disagreement here. I fundamentally disagree with virtually everything he said in his contribution on voting. The prisoner voting system was rehearsed at great length in the committee. The committee report reported, it was a majority report, he was in the minority that didn't support it. We do support it, and that's why we are where we are.

In terms of votes at 16, I vehemently believe that young people should have a say in the way that their country is governed, the way that their local authorities are run and the services that they provide. We've rehearsed, as part of the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Bill, the measures we'll put in place in terms of our curriculum to make sure that people understand the rights and responsibilities that voting brings. I think that the argument that people don't use their vote so they shouldn't have it is an extraordinary one, and I'm sure that people will be very interested to think that Conservatives think that.

In terms of foreign nationals, the UK Government has done a number of things around citizenship that have tightened that up, which mean that a number of people who live and contribute to working and cultural life in Wales are not able to have a say in the way that their local councils and services are delivered. I simply think that that's wrong, and the Government wants to put that right. In terms of eligibility, we are saying that anyone who has the right to remain, live, reside, work and contribute to this society should have a say in how it's elected.

Can I thank the Minister for the statement? Can I, in fact, welcome the statement and welcome the general direction of travel? Can I also thank the Minister for arranging the briefing by officers earlier today? I found that very valuable.

Obviously, it's a very extensive Bill, and I'm not going to indulge in a long list of quotes and discussion points, but I was going to concentrate on the voting systems, specifically the single transferable vote versus first-past-the-post. And, obviously, I note the proposal, we've discussed it before, about actually not having a strategic lead from here to say, 'Listen, guys, we're going to have STV across the board in local elections, just like in Scotland.' You've devolved the decisions to our local authorities, which will possibly render—of the 22 local authorities, obviously, some of them STV, others first-past-the-post, with authorities next door to one another having completely different voting systems from that point of view. Now, I think there is a potential for some element of confusion there, and I would prefer that there would be a strategic lead from here to say, 'Listen, guys, we're going for this, it's STV, and everybody's having STV.'

I'm a long-term proponent, as is my party, of proportional representation, plainly, because, at least then, every vote will count, and, hopefully, addressing low turnouts and spoilt-vote scenarios. The sky hasn't fallen in on Scotland, basically, who've had STV in local government for some years now. In particular, I've always thought that the combination of first-past-the-post and multimember wards at local authority level to be particularly undemocratic. You and I both know Cockett ward specifically in Swansea, where I previously was a county councillor myself; the electorate there is 12,500 in Cockett in Swansea, and there are four county councillors. Then, obviously, every elector feels they have four votes and they're all going to vote the same way, so you need a slate of four candidates. I can see Mike has obviously been in another multimember ward in Swansea, but we can compare experiences if we like. But, anyway, even, dare I say, when 15 years ago all four of those ward councillors in Cockett were Plaid Cymru, we only got about 60 per cent of the vote. We didn't get 100 per cent of the vote, so even in those halcyon days when Cockett went Plaid, we didn't deserve it. There should have been two plaid, one Labour, one Lib Dem, if you were being fair about it. I note now there are four Labour councillors in that ward on a similar percentage of the vote, so the same argument still applies about fair play: never have the residents of Cockett voted 100 per cent for whichever party has the four county councillors.

But STV, you see, would answer that conundrum, wouldn't it? In terms of, if we must have multimember wards, what about having STV, then?

As Dai Lloyd says very eloquently, the current multimember ward system with first-past-the-post in place produces some strange and wonderful results, and he won't be surprised to find that I think the current result is quite halcyon whereas the previous result was not quite so halcyon from our point of view. But he makes a very good and effective point. Clearly, not 100 per cent of people voted—. That's why we're giving local government the chance to look again at whether they want to change the system. If they do, they'll be able to consult with local people and they'll be able to do that by giving them that power.

Once we've got a couple of councils that have decided to do that, and I'm sure that they will be able to consider it very seriously, then we will be able to compare what that produces with what the first-past-the-post system produces, and the Bill also puts in place a peer-review system so that we will have the ability to compare and contrast. One of the things that's said about STV is that it increases diversity and participation. We will be able to see, almost in a controlled trial, if you like, whether that actually comes to pass.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak as Chair of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, as we will of course be scrutinising this Bill during its passage through the Assembly. This is a very important and indeed substantial Bill and we will be undertaking thorough scrutiny of the various provisions in due course. But at this stage I would like to ask the Minister about two provisions that have not been included in the Bill as introduced. The first is in relation to extending the franchise to prisoners in Wales. Members will be aware that our committee recently undertook an inquiry into voting rights for prisoners, and we recommended, as we heard earlier, that the Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales Commission introduce legislation to give all those Welsh prisoners who are serving custodial sentences of less than four years the right to vote in devolved Welsh elections. This recommendation was accepted. In a letter to the committee on 18 September, the Minister confirmed that the Welsh Government would

'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 on the same terms as will apply for local government elections.'

So, as such a provision has not been included in the Bill that's before us, I would be grateful to the Minister for any update she's able to provide today to confirm her intentions on this. And I would also like to ask the Minister about the commitment she made to the committee on 17 October in relation to a due regard to the right to adequate housing. The Minister suggested that this Bill could include such a right, but there is no provision for this, and, again, I would be grateful for an update on the Welsh Government's intentions.

Certainly, John. In terms of the prisoners' franchise, as I said in my statement, we simply haven't had the time to work through since the accepting of the committee's recommendation. We intend to bring forward, or work with the committee to bring forward, amendments at Stage 2 to enable the committee's report to be brought into effect. And by then—well in advance of Stage 2—the officials will have had the chance to work through the various complexities of how that will be administered. So, I'm very sure that we'll be able to work with the committee to bring that forward well in advance of Stage 2, so you have a good chance to look at it and indeed to see whether the committee itself wants to do that.

And then, in terms of the due regard to a right to adequate housing, I think what I've said in the committee is that we would look to see whether we could include that in the statutory guidance around the performance framework for the local authorities. So, this Bill sets out the way in which that guidance would be issued, and then the guidance itself would have the various provisions in it. So that sort of provision, and a number of things around the way various services are performed, would be in the statutory guidance. And, as John Griffiths will know, the statutory guidance is something that the authority must follow—it's not something that it can itself have due regard to.

We don't agree with the change in the franchise, but Mark Isherwood has already spoken about those, and I will therefore focus my remarks on areas where I think we agree with the Government, at least in principle. The single transferrable vote—we'd like to see electoral reform, and I think STV has a lot of attractions, and actually I think it's quite exciting that the Welsh Government is allowing different local authorities to go their own way and make their own choices. We approve of local devolution, and we'd like to support you in this, albeit there clearly are risks and uncertainties around it, and we will see how it develops. I wonder how far the Minister expects local councils to go in choosing this. What are her expectations? If councils do go to STV, is it likely to remain that way? If you get people elected under STV, is it going to be harder to reverse that process than it is in the first place? Clearly, she won't know firmly what's going to happen, but I think there are reasons we have to think about what the scale will be. We have a Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales. Is there going to be extra work for that body, where councils do go to STV, redrawing ward boundaries to be more appropriate for that electoral system, or could there be scope for some councils to stick with existing ward maps, particularly where there are larger numbers of wards with three or four members? Could I also ask what will be done in terms of local education to help people understand that the system may be different in their area, whether 16-year-olds being able to vote within schools, or more broadly for the electorate, for whom this may be a new way of voting that contrasts with both Westminster and the Assembly?

Moving on, I welcome the general power of competence being extended to local authorities. The Minister says she didn't want to copy England, but is this not what you're doing in this area, albeit eight years late? When the Localism Act came through in 2011 at UK level, and some aspects did extend to Wales as well as England—for instance, I think there needed to be a legislative consent motion for the senior pay policy—why didn't we at that time look to give an LCM to extend the general power of competence through that Westminster vehicle? And, if not, why is it that we haven't sought another vehicle at any point over the last eight years to bring in that, I think, very positive reform?

Can I also ask about the corporate joint committees? Am I correct that this will be an additional option for local councils? Various councils and other bodies have found good ways of working, regionally or in collaboration locally, and, where those ways work and have been successful, is there really any need to change them? I know these corporate bodies will be their own legal entity and can employ staff, for example, and are certainly a positive addition to have, but is that simply an option that councils will be allowed, rather than something that's forced upon them?

I won't rehearse the voting issues either. In terms of the issue around when a local authority, a principal council, decides that the voting system should be changed, and that STV would better suit the need of the local people, they need to agree the change by a two-thirds majority of council seats, and the new system has to stay in place for at least two electoral cycles, for the reasons that Mark Reckless outlined. And then it would have to go through the process again to change it back, if it wanted to. So, there's a system in place that allows it both to change it and to change it back. And that's two full electoral cycles—so 10 years, effectively—in between them. And the reason for that is that we don't want the chopping and changing, and we also want to have—if the system goes into effect, we want to allow it to bed in and make sure it has a second electoral cycle. In order to do that, the local authority would have to work with the local boundary commission in order to change all of its wards to multi-member wards. So, there's a process set out in the Bill in order to facilitate that and to work with the commission. And, yes, that's work for the commission, but we are in the process of redoing the entire boundary system at the moment, and, by the time this Assembly ends, they will have completed that process and be ready to start the next process in any event. 

In terms of the general power of competence, the reason that we're doing it now is because it sits alongside the rearrangement of the way that we do performance management for local authorities here in Wales. So, they are allowed to have the power of general competence—it's something I've personally believed in for a very long time—but it sits alongside the self-improving peer review mechanism, and I think both are needed for local authorities to be able to take best advantage of it, and that's the reason why we didn't do it at the time, because we didn't have that system in place.

And, in terms of the corporate joint committees, they have to have the corporate joint committees for the four areas of work outlined in the Bill, which I set out in my statement, and then a local authority or local authorities in the area can add anything else to it that they wish to do. Some of them will choose to change their arrangements, because it will suit them better. Others will choose to stick with the arrangements they have in place, and we are not imposing any kind of one-size-fits-all on Wales. So, the committees will have to exist for the four mandatory areas in the Bill; otherwise, the local authority's entirely empowered to add or not, as it sees fit. 

Can I just express my disappointment that we will not have the right to adequate housing written into Welsh law? I think this was the opportunity to do it in this Assembly. I think the opposite case, that people don't have a right to adequate housing, is exceptionally outrageous, and presumably we've never accepted that as a social norm since at least the second world war. So, to actually put a right that could be actioned by people who feel they've not received the attention they should from the various statutory bodies that are responsible for providing such a right would be a definite advance, and it would also lift up the priority of housing for all. So, I do think it's time, and I think it's very disappointing that you're hiding behind some sort of form of due regard contained in guidance. Now is the time to put this in on the face of the Bill. And, of course, the courts interpret that in terms of what is available, what we can do, but the basic point would be that everyone should be housed, and I do think that ought to be in our fundamental law. 

Secondly, on the right of prisoners to vote, this is a very important area in which international law has a lot to say, very nuanced in terms of the length of sentences that prisoners receive—there's a huge range—and there's a whole issue about younger people as well, given that 16 and 17-year-olds will get the right to vote. So, I do think this area needs examination. But I do find it very frustrating, Deputy Presiding Officer, that the Government again is introducing a Bill without a really important section of that Bill being available for the whole legislative process. Now, our legislative process takes, at each stage, weeks. The whole process takes months. And yet you are telling us that you still haven't got the proposals ready, but you've got to introduce the rest of the Bill for various other reasons. And, in response to the Chair of the local government and housing committee, you said you're still working through the details and the complexities, but you'll try to let him have it sometime after Stage 1—you know, we shouldn't legislate like this. It really is a poor show. 

Well, on the right to adequate housing, I hear what David Melding says, and I largely agree with him. But what we're doing here is ensuring that local authorities give regard to the right to adequate housing. He will know that the Conservatives refused point blank to put that into the Housing Act 2004 at the UK level. Had they done so, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So, I'm not going to take any lessons about that from the Conservative benches. We will be putting that due regard right into the statutory guidance and local authorities will have to abide by it, just for the avoidance of doubt. 

In terms of the prisoner voting, I agree with him. We want to get the elections part of this Bill through in order to allow local authorities to have the changes in place that they want to have. But I also wanted the committee to do its important work in looking at this matter, and I made it very clear in the committee that I was waiting on the committee's report to take it forward. We've accepted the recommendations, and I will work with the committee to bring that forward as fast as we possibly can. 

Thank you. And, finally, Mike Hedges.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I start off by saying I welcome the statement? Can I also say that what local government most needs is a financial settlement that allows you to fulfil the needs of the communities served? And whatever the Bill has—and there are lots of very good things in the Bill—it's the financial settlement that is the real driver for local government. 

Three very positive statements on the Bill: extending the local government franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds may well get all of us as politicians paying more interest to the views of 16 and 17-year-olds than we have up until now—and I don't exclude myself from that, I don't exclude other Members in here either, and certainly not local authorities. 

Secondly, enabling the addition of people to the electoral register without application where the electoral registration officer is satisfied they have reliable information the individual is eligible for registration: it's not just your ability to vote, it's all the other things that go with being on the electoral register.

Allowing principal council employees and officers who wish to stand for election to resign their posts once they are elected, rather than when declaring candidacy: I think that's a great step forward. And we both know people who've given up and then failed to get elected afterwards. But when is the resignation to take place—on being declared elected, or before they sign the declaration as an elected member? There can be four or five days in between those two dates. 

I have concerns about the five-year cycle. We brought a five-year cycle in for the Assembly, but looking at a five-year cycle for local government—. And it was to fit in with the Westminster Parliament, which was going to have a fixed, five-year term—well, that turned out well, didn't it? [Laughter.] But I think five years is too long. I think four years is about right. I think three years is probably better than five, but I think five years does stretch the elastic of democracy too far, and I really would hope that we'd both turn the Assembly elections, which are not your responsibility, and local authority elections, back to a four-year cycle. Because we don't need to worry about Westminster; they seem to be running on a two-year cycle at the moment. [Laughter.]

I welcome the proposed provision for principal councils and eligible community councils to have a general power of competence. The only worry I've had, and I've campaigned for the general power of competence for the whole of my political life, is that some English councils in the south of England have turned the general power of competence into an ability to buy up estates and shopping centres all over Britain. And I think there may well need to be some control over that general level of competence—being competent to do anything within your own area, not competent to go and borrow £30 million to go and buy a shopping centre somewhere. I don't think any of us who have argued for a general power of competence in the past ever thought that's what people would use their general power of competence for. 

Is there a proposal to make it easier for local authorities to remove the three protected officers—the chief finance officer, the monitoring officer and the head of paid service? If I could call it the Caerphilly problem—. Because the difficulty, or the near impossibility, of having those three posts protected is such that, unless something is done, any other local authority who had a chief executive who was not prepared to go would be in exactly the same position as Caerphilly are and may well find themselves in further problems in the future. 

On behaviour and putting group leaders in charge of behaviour—brilliant idea. The only problem is, as you and I both know, the people who behave the worst tend not to belong to groups. They tend to be individuals, independents of various hues. They are the ones who tend to behave the worst, in my experience of local government and, dare I say it, other places. And, really, have we got an opportunity to bring some sort of action against those, because, if they haven't got a party leader, then who do you complain to?

And, finally, on electoral systems, I think that's a whole debate in its own right. If I can just say I fundamentally disagree with every single word Dai Lloyd said on it. The STV wastes more votes than any other system. The great election result in a council in Scotland: three seats—topped the poll 1,700, second 1,500, the third person elected 354, because both the two largest parties were frightened to put up two candidates in case they didn't get anybody elected, and the other—. So, we really do need to start discussing this. And I think that—. And also—well, finally, I'll say that I wish Dai Lloyd was right that people vote in party blocks, because my experience in Morriston is that they tended to be very much a pick and mix when they were picking the people to represent them and, thankfully, most of the time they picked me. 

Well, I'm not sure how to follow that last remark. Mike Hedges made a series of points that reflect his life-long interest in local government, and I largely agree with the points that he made.

Just to pick out some of the things, the three protected officer issue, we are currently conducting a review into the arrangements for protection for senior officers with particular roles in the authority. He will know that we're doing that as a result of the situation that occurred in Caerphilly. So, we'll have a look at the review once it reports in January and take that into account, I'm sure. My own particular view is that you need to strike a balance between officers who should not be subject to any kind of arbitrary dismissal because they are giving hard-to-hear advice to elected members, and somebody who's kept in post for seven years, or six, or five, or three, or whatever it is, while they have a dispute with the council. So, clearly a better balance has got to be struck, but we'll await the outcome of that.

In terms of the power of general competence, some authorities in England have taken commercial activities to a whole new level. The various powers, performance management systems, et cetera, that are associated with this Bill will also come with sets of guidance attached to them, and one of the sets of guidance will be around the prudential borrowing and financial provisions that the local authority must follow, which we're actually in the process of consulting on right now.

We will be ensuring that, as we go through the committee, the committee has full sight of the drafts of the various regulations and guidance that go with it, so that we get the committee's full input as we take that through. And we're developing the guidance and statutory regulations that go with this Bill in co-production with the WLGA for the first time. So, they're being co-produced with local authorities in Wales, so that they are fit for purpose as we produce them. So, I take his point, but I think there are ways that we can ensure that local authorities don't over-reach the use of the power of general competence in that kind of way.

In terms of the cycle, we are matching the cycle of the current Senedd. I think that we need to do that because otherwise we're constantly moving. I've just made the Order to move the local government elections out a year because otherwise they clash with ours, so that's something we have to address. If the cycle for us changes, then clearly we'll have to readdress the cycle, but it makes no sense to have them clashing in that way.

I completely agree with him about the local government settlement. He will know as well as I do that we're currently in the hands of an austerity-driven Conservative Government who take very little responsibility, it seems to me, for the decimation of public services across the whole of the UK. We've done what we can to protect local government here in Wales, but I too would like to see an ending of the austerity regime.

In terms of the behaviours and so on, obviously individual Members are still subject to the code of conduct. This is an additional duty on group leaders, so that the group leader becomes a role model and enforces a certain set of conducts. But I don't disagree with his comments about people who don't belong to any group, and they are of course subject themselves to the code of conduct, as they are at all levels of Government.

And then the last thing was about the change in the voting systems. What we're doing is we're allowing the local authority to choose for itself whether it does that. So, if there's a head of steam in its local population or in the local authority itself to do that, then we will facilitate that. If there isn't, then we won't. All voting systems have their ups and downs. We would have to have another hour and a half, Deputy Presiding Officer, to debate that, so I don't propose to do that now. 

Thank you very much.