Diolch, Llywydd, and I move the motion. Thank you, everyone, for staying to listen to this. I just want to begin by making two things plain. The first is that these regulations protect various officers from liability for non-compliance with the usual legal requirements that govern the calling and conduct of by-elections. Those usual requirements were suspended by the Coronavirus Act 2020. These regulations now seek to extend that period of suspension and protection, and so they are important.

The second point I want to make is that there are similar regulations that apply in England that extend the period of suspension even further. That's not important, partly because my constituents in the Ogmore valley and central Swansea don't live in England, and partly because there isn't a Senedd election in England in May.

Now, there will be common criticism that applies to both these sets of regulations, but it's up to Members of Parliament to challenge those made for England. I would like this Welsh Parliament to fully understand these Welsh regulations, the purpose of postponing by-elections for a year or so, and then to ask whether we as the legislature think that that's a suitable way to deal with deferring local democracy.

Now, in my region, there are two casual vacancies: one in Castle ward, due to the sad death of the very well-respected councillor, Sybil Crouch; and one in Nantymoel, which is due to the imprisonment in early March of the less well-respected councillor, David Owen. The provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020 came into force, disapplying sections 39 and 63 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 for the period 15 March to 24 April 2020. So, progress on those two by-elections was paused.

Those provisions ordinarily require a returning officer to order an election, fix a date and issue the necessary notices, and they render various officials liable to summary conviction for non-compliance with those requirements. So, protection for those officers against liability for non-compliance, which ran out on 24 April, did need repairing, and it's absolutely right that Welsh Government officials wanted to bring in new regulations swiftly. So, they still left officials vulnerable for a good 10 days, and managed to break the 21-day rule in laying statutory instruments again in the process of doing that, but, let's be generous, it was a very, very busy time; nobody got hurt.

But I've got to say that the instrument is full of errors: there are misreferences to this being an Order, not regulations; there are wrong dates in it; there are wrong sections referred to; there are references to provisions of the corona Act being limited to two years, without noting that these enabling powers—sorry, the powers for making these regulations—are an exception to that rule; there's reference to a Royal Assent, which is completely meaningless in this particular context. So, as a piece of law, regardless of intention, it is a mess and, on these grounds alone, perhaps we should be arguing that they should be annulled and a new set laid immediately—preferably ones that make sense.

But the main reason I'm asking you to consider annulling these regulations is that they're not proportionate. Law should always be proportionate, but that principle was confirmed, even though it needed no confirmation, in other corona regulations made just a few days later. So, that principle was definitely in the Government's legislative mind. So, I'd like to hear from Government what is proportionate about effectively postponing any by-elections from March this year to between February and April next year—what is proportionate about denying my constituents the opportunity for local representation for almost a year, or even longer, without public consultation? And can we remember that not all wards are multi-member wards? How were these dates reached, when Welsh Government only spoke to a few people involved in electoral law and co-ordination? Because their convenience does not outweigh the views of this Senedd and the people we represent. And I don't think it's a response to say that:

'Further views of stakeholders will be sought retrospectively on supplementary provisions' without saying who or what you have in mind. 

So, I'm asking this Senedd to think very carefully of its constituents and the democracy of which they're being deprived by these regulations without just cause and to annul these badly drafted and unnecessarily oppressive regulations. Let's ask the Government to lay new ones without the mistakes, with shorter periods of postponement, and accompanied by an explanatory memorandum that offers an explanation of why we need this length of postponement, and, if needed, to come back with another set later, and maybe even another set. But I'm just asking you to be sure that you're content to leave your constituents without representation for so long. Thank you.