Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:31 pm on 8 January 2020.
I'll join with other Members in the Chamber in saying what lovely people the Conservatives are and how wonderful it would be to see them engaging with this. Llyr, don't say, 'Don't go that far'—I think it would be a really good thing if they engaged. [Laughter.]
Llywydd, I'll use your words that you said to the committee, and the Chair has already mentioned it. You said of Westminster MPs that, of the over 600 MPs, over 100 sit on no committees at all, and in your words, you said they
'take no part in Government or shadow Government, and—. I wouldn't know what they do.'
You said:
'I wouldn't know what that life must be like, to turn up to the Parliament and then not have anything to do for the week.'
And that is quite a long way from our experiences. Of every single person in this Chamber, that is quite a very, very big distance from our experiences, being on two or more committees, spending weekends getting your head around your papers for two committees in the following week, for those of us who are on committees. And I can't imagine, then, how Government Ministers balance both constituency work and being in Government. It must be absolute hell for work-life balance. I cannot imagine ever being in that position, especially with two young children. I can't imagine how it's done with the numbers we currently have and the workload we currently have.
But with regard to the more popular argument for persuading people, I think you need to say to people, 'If a Government Minister is under scrutiny, what would you prefer? Would you prefer them to have lots of people scrutinising what they do, or fewer people scrutinising what they do?' And I would say that people would say, 'Well, I'd rather there were lots of people who are experts in small, limited areas scrutinising Government, rather than a few people trying to do everything.' You get better scrutiny, I believe, with more Members—[Interruption.]—and also the depth of the scrutiny becomes better as well. I'm sorry, I'd love to take an intervention, but it's a statement, so I can't do that. But I don't know you've just said, Janet Finch-Saunders, I'm sorry.
And the other issue is electoral fairness and clarity. Electoral fairness and clarity. I've had complaints, Delyth Jewell, from constituents in Nelson who've said they've received Plaid Cymru leaflets saying that I was no longer the Assembly Member and Delyth Jewell was the Assembly Member. And they were complaining to me, 'When did you stand down?' Well, of course, that wasn't what you did, you just put a leaflet out saying, 'I'm the Assembly Member for South Wales East and I'm here to help you.' Of course you did, I don’t think you did anything wrong. Delyth, if you'd have done anything wrong, I'd have gone straight to the standards commissioner. [Laughter.]