I speak to amendment 16 in this group. Again, in the case of this amendment, as with the other two, there have been constructive discussions between Plaid Cymru and the Government, and the amendment before us is a very positive compromise, I believe. The intention of the amendment is to place a duty on the First Minister to make a proactive statement to the Senedd saying one way or the other by 24 March whether he intends to make a proposal to postpone the election or not.

Our amendments yesterday, calling for a point of no return, were defeated, and they would have meant that the First Minister would have had to start the process of making a request to postpone the election by the start of the pre-dissolution period at the latest—7 April in the case of an election on 6 May. As I mentioned yesterday, anything after that is too late in the day in our view, given that candidates will be legally in place as candidates by that point, and the electoral spending period will have begun and so on. Under this compromise, although we won't be told with complete certainty by 7 April, we will have greater assurance by 24 March and also a decision, unless a major unexpected event takes place, as to whether the election will take place on not.

In light of passing our amendment yesterday that placed a duty on the Government to carry out a review of preparations for holding an election during each of the three-weekly reviews of the COVID restrictions, and to communicate the findings of those reviews, then we should have a clear picture by 24 March of our direction of travel in terms of the pandemic and its likely impact on the ability to hold an election. The First Minister should therefore be in a position to make a decision by that date. The reason for choosing that date is that that is the last day on which the Senedd is expected to sit before the beginning of the Easter recess, which will lead into the pre-dissolution period. There are reasons why that statement should be made to the Senedd whilst it's still in situ so that we can scrutinise the decision.

To respond to the Conservatives' view that we heard, that they were to vote against this amendment, may I remind you that this is a Bill not only to allow the postponement of an election, but also to allow an election to be held in a safe way on 6 May? And we all very much hope that that will be the case. We are asking the First Minister to outline in his statement to the Senedd how we can be assured that continuing with an election under COVID restrictions would allow a full and fair election campaign for the benefit of all candidates, be they wealthy or not, but also for the benefit of everyone who is eligible to vote, so that they can have access despite restrictions to information, which is so important in making a decision on how they would wish to cast their vote. So, it is very important, I think, that this is included on the face of the amended Bill. 

In terms of amendments 3 and 4, we are opposed to these. They've been put forward by Gareth Bennett with the support of Mark Reckless and they're trying to restrict the ability of the First Minister to propose a postponement unless the UK Government has done the same for police and crime commissioner elections. Now, recognise that this is our general election here in Wales. The date that we set and the control that we have over that date is crucially important for Welsh democracy. 

Turning to amendments 6 and 7, we support the spirit of these amendments from the Conservatives. It's important that the Government does make it clear what the threshold for postponement should be. We can see the merit of amendment 7 particularly, which could reinforce the new section inserted with unanimous support yesterday in terms of the three-weekly reporting on postponing the election. These amendments would formalise the criteria that are the foundation for that, although I would place a caveat on it that we wouldn't want to see any restrictions on the kind of factors that would need to be weighed up in coming to a decision.