I have to say at the outset that my preference is for the Senedd elections to go ahead as planned on 6 May, but only if is safe to do so, because we are in the middle of an unpredictable pandemic that kills hundreds of people in Wales each week. Thousands of people have died in the past year, and thousands more are left struggling to breathe or battling terrible fatigue for many months, and it's all due to this awful disease—a disease that has led to half of our critical beds and a quarter of our hospitals being full of patients with COVID-19. It has led to exams being cancelled for schoolchildren for the second year in a row, and parents across the nation struggling to home school their children. And it's led to the closure of large parts of our economy, thousands of businesses failing and tens of thousands losing their jobs. The SARS-CoV-2 virus has mutated, it has become more virulent and is still infecting hundreds of our citizens each day. But we have hope, hope that we didn't have this time last year. We have two vaccines being delivered, with hopefully more on the way. Whilst we have got off to a great start, we have only delivered the first dose to around 8 per cent of the population. We don't expect to have vaccinated everyone until the end of this year. So, in light of all this, how can we possibly hold free and fair elections?

In the past few weeks, I've heard others point out that larger democracies have held elections, mostly pointing to the USA, but their elections are not like our elections, and US citizens have weeks to vote. We have 15 hours. US citizens rely on televised debates to get information about their candidates, and we knock on people's doors to introduce ourselves. So, unless we vastly change the way we conduct elections, it's difficult to see how we could safely hold elections whilst the pandemic continues to run rife.

We also have to consider whether we have the manpower to even run an election. Should we be diverting resources away from bringing a swift end to the pandemic toward running an election? Of course, we could see vast improvements over the next couple of months, allowing us to hold free and fair elections, but by the same token, we could see things worsen. Who knows what the new variants will bring? As more people become infected, the more chances this virus has to mutate. So, God forbid we see a variant that is resistant to the vaccines.

So, if the past year's taught us anything, it's that this pandemic is unpredictable. It therefore makes sense for us to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. So, I hope we can hold elections in May, but we have to introduce this emergency Bill so that we can postpone them if it's not safe to hold them in 14 weeks' time, and public safety is of paramount importance. Diolch yn fawr iawn.