Firstly, can I say thank you very much to Sir Wyn Williams as the president of the Welsh Tribunals, both for his annual report but also for everything that he and his judges have been doing? The challenges have been greater because of coronavirus, but even in the normal scheme of things, the day-to-day work is rarely glamorous and I think it is important that we put on record our appreciation for what is done. 

Reading the annual report, I hope nothing I say will be taken as a criticism of the president or the report, but more of an interest in what he has written. Firstly, I think it's important that the annual report should be self-standing. I haven't had the extent of exposure to the previous report that perhaps some others have, and just as one example, the reference in paragraph 2.5 to cross-ticketing, I don't know what cross-ticketing is, and it's not explained, as far as I can see, within the document. It refers to a member of the Welsh Tribunals cross-ticketing, and then gives a specific tribunal. I'm assuming that they're likely to be a member of another Welsh tribunal and are then cross-ticketing to one that they're not a member of, but I'd liked to have been clearer on that. There's also a reference to one individual who cross tickets from the first tier property tribunal for England into the Residential Property Tribunal Wales, so I'm not sure if it's just a general thing when someone does something that's not on the tribunal to which they're appointed.

The previous speaker, after speaking, I think, with some excitement and positivity on his behalf about the re-emergence of a renewed Welsh judicial system—. I don't support that in the way he does, but I do share his concerns about what I think he rightly observes as a dysfunctional interface, and I think the quality and the extent of the work that happened on the commission for justice is in a different league to the appetite for the UK Government to respond to it and to upend the system and to make it anew. I'm struck by how small some of these tribunals are, and also how disparate their level of functions are. So, they have the commonality of being Welsh tribunals, but then there are very significant differences between most of them and what they do.

I also look with interest in light of the degree of emphasis put on Welsh language in the development of a Welsh judiciary and appointments, as to how widely it was used in the tribunals, and note that, outside the Welsh language tribunal, of 2,251 cases, only nine were conducted in Welsh. 

I have, if I may, a question to the Minister about the Welsh tribunal unit, and how we deal with issues such as independence of the judiciary when the president of the tribunals is looking, as I understand it, to two civil servants within the WTU as a structure whereby legal advice can be sought and obtained when necessary. Is the WTU seen as an embryonic Welsh ministry of justice, and if so, when the Minister refers to it having great structural independence, is that in the way that the MoJ would, for the UK Government, often, with respect to England, or is he looking at something stronger than that?

I note that the president refers to his term and the Law Commission report and how a decision needs to be made in the short to medium term about the role of the president, and he notes that his role is mainly administrative and pastoral, and I'm sure there are very valuable and important things that he does—very much so—but I was a little unnerved to note that there's no clear statutory basis for the president to serve as a judge on tribunals. It's generally accepted that they can, or potentially should, but then the current president sets out his views as to how he's conducted his own role, and I just wonder if we need a greater clarity of understanding here, amongst judges, but also primarily, perhaps, between the Welsh Government and the UK Government, because I think the degree of divergence between the ambition of the commission on justice—. And the president was one of those commissioners and refers in this report to some of the things he learnt through that and has made me understand aspects of that report in a way I didn't before, because of what he says in this annual report today. Is that difference of view between Welsh and UK Government such that we are not getting pragmatic, sensible solutions to the operation of the system?

And I agree with Mick Antoniw; there has been a dysfunctional interface, but there are two potential ways of dealing with it. What we tend to hear here is how that means we must see devolution of justice. The other way of dealing with it is to operate some things on a UK or at least England and Wales basis, rather than further devolving, and I'm unclear where the UK Government stands. It doesn't take as much interest in this as we do, but I listened to David Melding and I'm not sure whether his stance and emphasis necessarily reflects that of his group or the UK Government. So, there is a degree of confusion. I sympathise with the president in some of his calls for that confusion to be resolved, even if I wouldn't agree with some of the ways he might wish that to happen. Thank you.