Well, I think this is an extraordinary time to be bringing this Bill forward. This is a constitutional measure, and we are in a highly attenuated forum in this debate today. Despite the marvels of modern technology, which have enabled us quite effectively, I think, to participate in proceedings in the last two weeks, I don't believe that it's right, when two thirds of the Members of the Assembly are not able to participate in this debate, to bring it forward today for discussion and for a vote.

The only reason that this Bill is being progressed—in my view, it's a desperate attempt by the Labour Party to shore up its dwindling political support throughout the electorate. We see in the recent general election how the electoral map of Britain, and Wales in particular, has changed. Labour has lost a great deal of its traditional voter support, and it's a measure of its desperation that it now seeks some salvation by extending the vote to children, prisoners and foreigners. If that's the measure of the Labour Party's desperation, I don't give much for their chances in the next set of elections. It seems to me they're in the same position today as the great silent film actor Harold Lloyd—hanging from the hands of the clock, desperate to try and stop himself falling into an abyss. And I don't believe that they will succeed in this respect.

As regards votes for people who are not citizens of the United Kingdom, I believe that that is wrong in principle, that if you are to determine the make-up of a Parliament and the Government of a country, then you ought to be as firmly committed to that by being a citizen as you possibly can. So, this is wrong in principle and there's almost nowhere else in the world where this has been done in the past.

Whether votes should be given to those who are 16 and 17-year-olds, again I think is a highly controversial issue, and it's improper, I think, for it to be brought before the Assembly for legislation in this way. It's notable that the Labour Party today derives a very large proportion of the support it retains from younger people and from migrant communities, and, of course, those are two of the major elements of the extension of the electorate that the Government in Wales is seeking in the course of this Bill. In my view, it's a squalid political manoeuvre for partisan purposes. It's the Labour Party's emergency that this Bill has been brought in to try to benefit, rather than the national emergency. We have suspended our civil liberties over huge swathes of human rights in the course of the last few weeks, and that would never be done in times of normality. This is an emergency, currently, in relation to the COVID virus, which we've not seen before in our lifetimes, and, in these circumstances, I think it is absolutely extraordinary that the Welsh Government should feel it right and proper to bring forward this Bill for consideration today. So, I hope that the Assembly will stand up for its rights and the rights of its Members who are not able to participate in the proceedings in the course of this debate, and throw this Bill out today.