Thanks to the committee for bringing today's debate, and also for the large and informative report that they produced. Now, Huw was just talking about the new ways of working and I think all of us are learning at the moment how to function under the so-called new normal. It is unfortunate that the massive crisis of COVID-19 occurred when it did, when the electoral reform committee had already finished most of its work, because COVID is going to have a major impact on how we work going forward, and that impact has not informed in any way the findings of this report. That isn't the fault of the committee, of course; it's just a misfortune of timing.

As I said, this is a voluminous report that has thoroughly examined several issues that were of interest to the committee. The problem is that other solutions, like planning in detail how to continue operating with 60 Members, were of almost no interest to it. So, the report barely touches on this. As Huw mentioned, it does go into it a little bit, but the underlying assumption is that we will ultimately have to have close to 90 Members here. So, I fear I must profoundly disagree with this assumption.

The fixation on getting extra Members was the starting point for this report, so it's a bit like the old joke when somebody is on a motoring holiday abroad and they ask a local, 'Can you tell us the quickest way to get to the city centre?', and the local says, 'Well, I wouldn't start from here.' That's my problem with this report: I wouldn't have started from here. I wouldn't have started from the presumption that this place cannot operate properly without another 25 to 30 Members. We sit here for two days in Plenary each week. In the House of Commons, they sit for four days a week. It's not like we're paid much less than MPs; certainly, we are paid a full-time salary. So, if we are overworked, why aren't we having Plenary for more than two days a week? 

A major problem is the business of committees. This is a big issue. But when we discussed this in 2017, I suggested that the number of committees, the amount of committee meetings and the number of AMs that would have to sit on committees could all be looked at. My remarks were treated rather witheringly. Lo and behold, a few months later we had a reorganisation and it was decided by the Business Committee that we didn't need eight Members on committees after all; we could have six.

So, given that, could we now also look at the number of committees we have or, more usefully perhaps, the volume of work that is undertaken? We could look to cut down on the number of meetings when we do the forward work programmes because, as we know, work expands to fill the time available. A witness was quoted as saying that in this report. Once committees are set up, they like to feel important, and they like to have a full programme of work, but let's be honest: we're not discussing legislation all the time on committees, are we?

Even if we are debating legislation, what good would extra Members do? We operate here in a party political system with party whips. Members are whipped as to how to vote on legislation. They don't just sit there and listen to the evidence and then decide for themselves how they're going to vote—they're told how to vote by the party whips. If you had another 20 Labour Members here, then what earthly good would it do? They wouldn’t provide any greater level of scrutiny since those extra Members would still be told how to vote by their party whips. This system would be the same if we had 60 Members, 90 Members or 100 Members, and we'd still get perfectly good opposition amendments being voted down by the Government. That is the reality of party politics, and that reality is being completely overlooked in this report.

This is a time of uncertain public finances. People in the real world are losing their jobs and their livelihoods. This is the very worst time to try and convince the general public of the need for 30 more Members of this Chamber, at a cost to them of millions of pounds a year. For that reason, while I appreciate the work that has gone into this report, I must oppose its findings completely and utterly. Many members of the public are concluding that we don't need 90 Members of the Senedd. We don't even need 60. We need precisely zero, because we don't need this place. But don't trust my opinion; ask the public themselves directly in a referendum if they want 30 more Members, or if they would rather abolish the Assembly altogether. I know which way I would vote. Diolch yn fawr iawn.