Reopening the Welsh Parliament Estate

Part of 6. Questions to the Senedd Commission – in the Senedd at 3:17 pm on 1 July 2020.

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Photo of Elin Jones Elin Jones Plaid Cymru 3:17, 1 July 2020

Well, as I said in my previous answer to Janet Finch-Sanders, the general guidance is that people should work from home where they are able to do so. The very vast majority of Commission staff and elected Members' staff have been able to work from home effectively and continue to do so. We work as a Commission in tandem with the general guidance of the Welsh Government at this point. Therefore, with that guidance still in place, then the vast majority of our staff will continue to work from home until that is done.

But, we are, as I said, planning for the return of staff for the purposes of next week's hybrid Plenary. Then, we can accommodate up to 10 per cent of staff and Members to put that into operation. That decision on 10 per cent was taken by the Commission in its last meeting. As we've done all along, we will review the experiences that we have from week to week, and adjust as we go along.

In terms of the issue that we are currently bound by the 2m distancing legislation in Wales and therefore in our Chamber, we cannot accommodate more than a third of our Members—up to 20 Members—in the Chamber at any one point in time. We will learn from the experiences of the next few weeks as to how the hybrid Chamber and Zoom meetings work, and then we will reflect on those to see how we develop our work for the autumn term.

As it's dawning on all of us, we may well be subject to COVID regulations for the medium term. Therefore, in addition to short-term adjustments that we've done over the past few weeks, as both a Business Committee and as a Commission, we have to plan for a medium-term solution, and we will look at all ways of working into the future to ensure that the most effective way of undertaking our work is done on behalf of the people of Wales.