We now move on to item 5, the statement by the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution—codes of Welsh law: a programme to improve the accessibility of Welsh law. Mick Antoniw.

The laws of Hywel Dda are mainly contained in three collections of manuscripts setting out Wales's native and distinct legal system. Scholars agree that the most developed version is Llyfr Iorwerth, the Book of Iorwerth, which dates from the thirteenth century. It was named after a lawyer, Iorwerth ap Madog, who complied a llyfr prawf, or test book, which contains all of the core texts that people needed to know in order to become a justice. The Book of Iorwerth also contains the laws of court and more general laws of the land.

Setting out the laws of a country is vital to provide certainty and protection for citizens and their environment, to prevent arbitrary decisions and to ensure people know their rights and their obligations. Our ancestors seemed to have understood this better than we do. As we are told in Llyfr Iorwerth, they kept the law under review, or, in its words, they

'examined the old laws, and some of them they allowed to continue, others they amended, others they wholly deleted, and others they laid down anew'.

Llywydd, this is a process we have started here in Wales, and I'm proud to have today laid the first programme to improve the accessibility of modern Welsh law, as required by the Legislation (Wales) Act 2019. This programme commits the Government to bringing forward consolidation Bills and taking a number of other steps to make the law more easily available and understandable.

Work of this nature is common practice in many jurisdictions across the common law world. After inheriting English law, it has been normal practice in most Commonwealth countries to ensure that their legislation is well organised. This is done by not allowing Acts of Parliament to proliferate, as they have in the UK, and by keeping a structure to the statute book—something we are lacking. Llyfr Iorwerth provides a detailed account of the procedure for claiming land, and contains practical statements of the rules for compensation for cattle trespass and non-co-operative ploughing, both important issues in the Middle Ages.

Now, our consolidation of planning law won't cover cattle trespass and ploughing, but it will provide a comprehensive statement on the use of land, aided by the Law Commission's proposals to simplify and modernise the law in this area. The planning system is essential to shaping sustainable development and places, helping economic growth, while at the same time reflecting social, environmental and cultural considerations. An effective and efficient planning system is vital to civil society, and simplifying and consolidating the law is needed to fully achieve this. 

Consolidation of several different existing Acts into one well-drafted and bilingual Act will be one of our most effective tools to improve the accessibility of Welsh law. I have previously announced that we will be consolidating the law on the historic environment, and I can now update Members on our progress. I will be introducing this Bill in 2022, with the intention of replacing existing law that is decades old and that has been amended repeatedly and differently in relation to England, Scotland and Wales. This has left a confusing tangle that even legal professionals find perplexing, and most of it is only available in English. The work that has already been done on the draft Bill shows the benefits that consolidation will bring. Legislation for listed buildings and scheduled monuments has been brought together and restated to make it more logical, easier to read and more internally consistent across the various provisions. In future, users will be able to turn to one piece of primary legislation for the law on the management and the protection of the historic environment, and that law will be made for Wales alone and will be fully bilingual.

The programme also identifies further areas of the law where we will be assessing the value and potential for consolidation, with a view to bringing forward another two Bills before the end of this Senedd term. Alongside the legislative projects in this programme, we're also seeking to expand and develop our Cyfraith Cymru/Law Wales website, which provides explanatory material and guidance about Welsh law.

I can also confirm that we are beginning the long overdue task of making the Welsh language text of our legislation available in up-to-date form. Arrangements are now in place to work alongside the excellent team behind the legislation.gov.uk website and, in time, we will be responsible for updating all the Welsh legislation on this site. We are also working to improve the functionality of legislation.gov.uk to enable users to search Welsh law by subject.

Locating and organising the law by subject is at the heart of our work to develop codes of Welsh law. The consolidation and structuring of law in this way, together with advice and guidance, will make it easier for people to locate the law and have confidence in the accuracy of the materials retrieved.

We produce legislation in both Welsh and English, of course, and both texts have equal standing in law. Making legislation that is clear and accurate in two languages requires us to learn from others across the world, but also to innovate ourselves, and we have developed considerable expertise over the last 20 years. That expertise will stand us in good stead as we look to improve the accessibility of the legislative text in both languages, using straightforward syntax to convey what can be complex concepts. Likewise, as new language technology improves, we aim to automate and accelerate parts of the translation process, enabling drafters and translators to work more closely together to improve both texts and to make them easier to follow. We are also completing a long-term project to standardise hundreds of terms and publish them on the BydTermCymru portal.

Developing legislation is still a relatively new undertaking for the Senedd and the Welsh Government, and we continue to learn from others. But, as we look forward over the next five years, we can also look back at our own past, remembering that, as well as following good practice from elsewhere, we are following the successful approaches of our ancestors in developing codes of Welsh law. So, I thank Members for their support for this goal. I know that it will continue. Diolch, Llywydd.

Thank you, Minister. We now move to Mark Isherwood to speak on behalf of the Conservatives. 

Diolch. In March, your predecessor as Counsel General issued a written statement in which he said that he wanted to ensure that more work to deliver more accessible law would be done in, quote, 'normal' times. He also referred to the passing of the Legislation (Wales) Act 2019 and said, quote,

'it will be for the next Government to bring forward the first formal programme of activity to make Welsh law more accessible under that Act', that work was already under way on two consolidation Bills and that the Welsh Government had three further projects under way in line with the intentions set out in 'The Future of Welsh Law' consultation in 2019. However, he added, quote,

'progress with these projects have been affected by the diversion of resources to respond to the pandemic'.

Given that the pandemic is still with us, why have you concluded that the 'normal' times referred to by your predecessor needed to progress this work have arrived and that the resources are now available for this?

The Legislation (Wales) Act was all about gathering law into different subject filing cabinets, with a headline statute and everything else made with reference to that statute—a huge undertaking designed to help the public find and use law themselves. You quote from the thirteenth-century Book of Iorwerth, Llyfr Iorwerth, a text of the Gwynedd or Venedotian code of medieval Welsh law, where the kingdom of Gwynedd, or Venedotia, was a Roman empire successor state that emerged in sub-Roman Britain in the fifth century. Well, as Leo Tolstoy also stated in the nineteenth century, writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult. And as Dame Hilary Mantel said in this century:

'When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.'

Well, when the Welsh Government makes secondary legislation, MSs won't know it's happening most of the time, because they're made via a negative procedure, rather than the affirmative procedure and so come to Plenary. Although negative procedure secondary legislation is necessary to fill in procedural gaps in primary legislation, MSs won't necessarily know this is going through unless they're on the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee. It is this Welsh Parliament that makes law, and leaving it to committee to grumble about it after Welsh Government has made it via negative procedure isn't satisfactory. What assurance can you therefore provide regarding the issue raised by our excellent former colleague Suzy Davies MS during the Stage 4 debate on the Legislation (Wales) Bill, when she said,

'I hope, Counsel General, you'll also take on board that accessibility includes accessibility for AMs'— now MSs—

'and to consider perhaps better ways of bringing forward negative procedure secondary legislation to the attention of Assembly Members'—

Members of the Senedd—

'bearing in mind that we are deemed to consent to that, so it's always good at least to be able to know it exists.'

What is the total financial cost of this accessibility programme over the five-year period? What demand from the public has there been or has been measured for making the Legislation.gov.uk website more accessible, or is this just something that will benefit the legal sector at greater cost to the public purse?

And to conclude, the pandemic has shone a light on devolved powers, with many people in Wales still confused about which set of COVID regulations were applicable to them. With less than half the electorate voting for anyone in May's general election—the Welsh general election—it is clear that the democratic deficit in Wales is still alive and kicking, with many still not understanding where the decisions are taken, who is responsible and how much power the Welsh Government actually has over their lives. Therefore, how will the accessibility of Welsh law increase the public's understanding of devolved powers and devolved legislation so that they can access the correct information from the right place at the right time?

Can I thank the Member for a number of very important questions, for his comments and also, as we've come to expect, an interesting history lesson on Welsh law and particularly the references to Roman law, which of course are more the base of the Scottish legal system rather than the English and Welsh system? Well, certainly so far.

You did refer to the issue of more acceptable law in normal times and the resources and the programme that we can expect. It is fair to say that the programme for consolidation, the work on codification, the work on the development of the resources around the development of the accessibility to Welsh law is a tricky one, because the demands on the expertise and skills of the Welsh lawyers, the Welsh legal services, are tied up in many ways. One of those of course is the legislative programme. There is still obviously a lot of work that is under way in respect of the leaving of the European Union; that hasn't gone away, and of course there is still a lot of legislation and I suspect there will be more in respect of the COVID situation.

It is also, I think, fair to refer to the fact that many of the demands in respect of legal service are of course those that are set by the UK Government. We have 32 items of legislation; many of them, which when they're announced, we're not given the details of until the very last minute, yet we have to respond, we have to consider the implications for the Senedd, the impact on the integrity of devolution, the relationship to the various responsibilities that we have, and of course we then have to engage in the legislative consent process. Those demands are absolutely enormous and we have had to accommodate, I think, in terms of the programme that we have.

So, I've identified some of the work that is under way already in respect of the accessibility, the technical accessibility of Welsh law, knowing what it is, where it is, the accessibility of that. We also have to have regard to the accessibility of law and the fact that it is not just about practitioners, officials and lawyers who want to access the law and know what it is; it is actually about the people of Wales. And of course, I think the point you were getting to was the point that I've regularly made, and that is really the impact of cuts in legal aid and restrictions of legal aid by the UK Government that have actually excluded access to the law for so many people, and that is why the Welsh Government has introduced a considerable amount of support and funding in respect of advice services. It is not an adequate replacement for a proper legal aid system, but it does contribute in some particular way.

You raised the issue of the cost. The cost will depend upon the scale of work that is involved, firstly in terms of the work that's gone on, for example, with the commission, with the further work that may be ongoing, the work in respect of, for example, the coal tip safety work that the commission are doing, and of course a number of areas that we will obviously want to explore further. Firstly, in respect of some legislation work with regard to removing obsolete—a consolidation Bill to remove obsolete provisions; that is to clean up, to some extent, the Welsh statute book. But other areas that we will look at and we will explore will be around the area of public health, housing, building regulations, allotments, hazardous substances and, of course, we've already referred to the issue of planning. So, it is an ongoing process.

When the Legislation (Wales) Act was passed, of course, it was not just about laying this programme, but also annual reports, so that Members will have the opportunity on an annual basis to scrutinise the progress of the process of reform, codification, consolidation and the work that is going on in respect of the accessibility of Welsh law.

I hope that I have answered all those points. Just one final comment, I suppose, in respect of the issues you raised about access. Of course, you'll see that my statement and the report that has been tabled do refer in some detail to the work that is going on to look at how this process can be complemented by the use of technology, the use of artificial intelligence, the development of, for example, the Cyfraith Cymru/Law Wales website, and within all of that, one of the underlying principles is that we want the law and the work we do to be as clear, as simple, as understandable and consistent as is possible.

Thank you. Now it's Rhys ab Owen for Plaid Cymru.

Thank you very much, temporary Presiding Officer. Counsel General, I welcome this statement greatly. I also welcome the talk about the laws of Hywel Dda at the outset of your statement. It's important that we destroy the myth here in the Senedd that we don't have a rich history and heritage of laws in Wales. According to the yardstick of the age, the laws of Hywel Dda had much greater status than other legal systems and they gave much higher status to women than other different legal systems in the period.

The accessibility of Welsh law is a problem—it's a problem for the public and it's also a problem for practitioners. Developing websites such as Law Wales is vital, but the work on legislation.co.uk is more important still. Because that, counter to what Mark Isherwood referred to, is used extensively by the public, particularly, as you referred to, Counsel General, following the extensive cuts by the Tory Government in Westminster to legal aid. What discussions have you had with companies such as Westlaw and Lawtel, which provide a lot of information to legal practitioners? It's those that legal practitioners use very often.

Codification is vital as well, and we're in a very fortunate situation in Wales that we have a relatively small number of laws, so we can do this, and we can do it early in the history of redeveloping laws in Wales. It would be much more difficult, of course, for other legislatures to do that. I'm very pleased to hear that there is an annual report that's going to be published on the development of the work, but what is your objective in terms of codification and the accessibility of the law by the end of this term?

This announcement, however, does not clarify a lot of the issues, including laws that apply only to England yet form the law of England and Wales. It's very difficult to identify whether the laws passed by the UK Parliament apply to England, apply to England and Wales, or Wales alone. For example, Acts passed by the UK Parliament that only apply to England do not include the word 'England' in their short title. Often you need to delve deep into the Act itself to find the answer. What discussions, therefore, are you having with the UK Government to clarify this difficulty?

It complicates the situation further that the laws that are made in this Senedd, and laws made in Westminster, extend to Wales and England, even though the laws only relate to England perhaps. They're part of the same legal system even though perhaps they only apply to Wales or perhaps they only apply to England. Isn't the obvious answer to this complex problem to create a Welsh law when the law applies to Wales, and an English law when the law applies only to England? That would show very clearly to everyone, the practitioners, the public and the politicians, the differences between Welsh law and English law.

And if the situation isn't difficult, isn't complicated enough, aren't you as Welsh Government adding to the complexity and breaching your duty under the Legislation (Wales) Act 2019 by consenting so often to the Westminster Government passing legislation within devolved areas? Laws passed by the Westminster Government within devolved areas will not be bilingual, cannot form part of your codification plans and will not be scrutinised here by the Senedd. It could also hinder a future Senedd from passing laws within those areas. So, what steps are you taking to ensure that you have the capacity in Welsh Government so that Bills in devolved areas are passed in Wales?

Does the Counsel General also intend to publicise this plan across the border in England? It's important that practitioners across England and Wales know about the work going on here. Have you been in touch with the Law Society, with the Bar Standards Board and with the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives to discuss and promote this plan? Also, what role will the soon-to-be-established law council of Wales have with regard to this?

Finally, on planning—and it's a brave Government that does tackle planning, so I do commend you for doing that and it certainly needs to be tackled—how will you ensure that planning law reform restores balance to the local planning system in which the public feel that they are being marginalised, such as in the model farm in the Vale of Glamorgan, and also where councillors are forced to accept plans that they do not agree with, such as Cardiff Council with the union flag in the city centre? Will reform of the planning law give greater powers to the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales and give enforcement powers so that planning departments do have regard to that Act, but also the Equality Act 2010 and the safeguarding of children?

As you've said several times, Counsel General, Welsh sovereignty is not in the hands of men like Hywel Dda, but rather it's in the hands of the people of Wales here. Having said that, the spirit of Hywel Dda and the spirit of Iorwerth ap Madog are to be heard in the Senedd today. I welcome that and I greatly hope that the Welsh Government will continue in that spirit, and develop and protect Welsh law in the face of the opposition of Westminster. Thank you very much.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

Can I thank the Member, as ever, for a very far-reaching and wide-ranging series of comments and questions? I suspect if I were to answer in detail all of them, I would attract the ire of the Llywydd, but I will do my best within the time that is available to me. [Laughter.]

Can I just say first of all on the issue of planning—and, of course you are right, it is an incredibly complicated area—the work is under way on it? I understand that the English version and the Welsh version will both individually amount to something like 400 pages of legislation, and everything that will follow on from that. So, the assistance of the Law Commission within that process is extremely valuable. 

I think we also have to distinguish between the issue of consolidation as opposed to reform, and you're absolutely right about the areas, the issues and the matters that get raised with us as Senedd Members in that capacity with regard to reform. But it's also important to understand that the consolidation process is one where, effectively, we do not want to see—. I mean, we do not want to effectively tie down the entirety of the capacity of the Senedd in terms of legislation and scrutiny to actually reform the entirety of planning law, unless that becomes a specific part of the legislative programme, but rather to take what there is and to put it together and to consolidate it into a simple-as-possible and consistent piece of legislation that can then be codified under a planning head, so that citizens within Wales will know where the law is in one place, and it would be available equally in Welsh and in English.

So, that's an important different process to the one where there would be reform and all the arguments over the type of reform, and so on. If we were to go down that particular road, I think consolidation as a project would actually grind to a halt over the years. But what we do look at is to look at where there are opportunities in legislation that may be forthcoming. One of them I think I mentioned when I was giving evidence to the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, which does such important work in this area, was that as a result of UK Government legislation, there are areas where there will be divergence in law almost certainly. We may well want to bring our own electoral reform legislation, and that then provides opportunities for reform and for effectively consolidating into one place, and in Welsh and in English. So, we can fulfil some of those demands in other particular ways. So, it's very important to have a focus on that as part of the process that's under way.

Of course, you've identified the issues of divergence. They're matters that we've discussed in this Chamber on a number of occasions, that, of course, the UK Parliament passes laws for England and Wales that often only apply to England, and in Wales we pass laws for Wales that only apply to Wales. We don't pass laws for Wales and England equally in that particular format. So, you are right that there are those anomalies, I think, in the process. They are partly political in the perception of the role of the UK Parliament in legislating and how it legislates. Those are ongoing and they emerge regularly, I think, in all the different items of legislation that come from UK Government that we have to consider and where we have to consider legislative consent memoranda. They are dealt with frequently on an individual ministerial portfolio basis, but those issues do regularly arise. It may be that if we make progress on the inter-governmental reform programme that is under way, there may be opportunities to set further principles down the road in terms of the way legislation is developed and operated and the way in which conflicts and disagreements are actually resolved.

You referred to the importance of accessibility, and I agree with you entirely that, firstly, the steps that we are taking are fundamentally important in terms of accessibility. If you don't know what the law is, where it is, whether you're a citizen, whether you're a practitioner or whatever, that accessibility doesn't exist. And it is fair to say that when you look at a lot of UK Government legislation, or laws—. If you take education for example and you look there to find out where the law is, you would spend quite some time actually trying to find out where it is, what is still in force, what is still relevant, and so on. The attraction to us in terms of consolidation and codification is this: when we have consolidated law in an important area, we then have the opportunity when we make amendments not to introduce a new law, a second law and a third law and all these subsequent bits of secondary legislation, but what we do is we amend the law that we have. So, we still have a single piece of legislation in one place, but that is what we change, and that is the objective in a whole range of areas. Historic environment, I think, is an important area. There is a lot of interest in it. It does affect many aspects of Welsh cultural and historic life. So, I think that was an important one that develops. But as I mentioned in my response to Mark Isherwood, of course there are other areas that we are looking at that are ripe to do at the appropriate time. 

In terms of the other aspect of accessibility, which I think we're in complete agreement on, that is this: if people can't access the law themselves and be represented in the law, then that is a significant restriction on the accessibility of the law of the citizens. I've said in the past I would like to see us have our own Welsh legal aid system. One of the recommendations of the Thomas commission was for that to take place, or for the process to begin in that respect. I feel that if people cannot have representation then they do not have genuine access and they are disempowered within the legal system. When I went to visit the Cardiff civil justice courts the other week and met with the judges and some of the staff there, when you hear that in the family courts there are those whose accessibility on issues of major importance to their family, to their children and so on, was accessing the courts by means of a mobile phone, then that clearly is not something that is satisfactory. And, of course, a number of these are issues that I had intended to discuss with the Lord Chancellor and Minister for justice, Robert Buckland, last week. There has been a reshuffle. There is a change there. So, that conversation and those discussions hopefully will continue, but obviously with a new Lord Chancellor. I do hope I've answered all the points that you raised.

Huw Irranca-Davies, Chair of the legislation committee.

Diolch, Llywydd. I really welcome this statement this afternoon, and also the debate that has ensued and the comments, because it shows that, far from being a dry and arcane piece of Tuesday afternoon business here, it actually goes to the heart of trying to make law accessible and understandable, not only for professionals, as has been mentioned, but for the public as well, and that goes to the core of our legal system, and our justiciable elements of our legal system as well. So, it is vitally important. It's been quite wide ranging. I've been slightly overawed as well, I have to say, not only having the legal expertise in front of us here within this Chamber, but also the historic allusions as well, to Hywel Dda, the Book of Iorwerth, Roman law, statue law and so on. But, listen, I'll do my best, in my role as the Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, to respond with a few remarks, and in so doing, I look fondly on my colleague on the frontbench in front of me, not just as the Counsel General but as I like to remember him, as the former Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee.

The Counsel General, in his new role, will know that our predecessor committee began considering the Welsh Government's plans for the consolidation of Welsh law back in 2017, and in fact, that committee then subsequently scrutinised the Legislation (Wales) Bill prior to it being passed by the Senedd in July 2019. Given that his committee welcomed the new duty on the Counsel General and the Welsh Ministers at that time to prepare at least one programme for each Senedd to improve the accessibility of Welsh law, the Counsel General, in his new role, will know the strength of feeling that is still within the Senedd to see this work getting up and running. And the approach to this is important. Not trying to do too much at once, but doing it in bite-sized chunks, is important. We will not get there overnight and it's not, I think, appropriate to run at this in terms of resources and so on. But it's the old adage: doing this in bite-sized chunks, how do you eat an elephant? You do it in bite-sized pieces, steadily and slowly and looking for the right opportunities to come along.

The Counsel General gave evidence to our committee yesterday afternoon and we briefly discussed his priorities regarding the accessibility of Welsh law, one of which is to consolidate the Welsh statute book. As you mentioned, in March of this year, the previous Senedd agreed to new Standing Order procedures that will facilitate the introduction and the scrutiny of consolidation Bills, which will play a significant part in improving the accessibility of Welsh law. The Welsh Government's legislative programme statement in July this year stated that legislation relating to the historic environment will be the subject of the first consolidation Bill, and I note that the Counsel General has confirmed that this afternoon. We look forward, in our committee, to taking on this new scrutiny role.

If I can also turn to some other aspects of the statement this afternoon, we very much commend the approach that the Counsel General says: that in future, users will be able to turn to one piece of primary legislation for the law on the management and protection of the historic environment, and that law will be made for Wales alone and will be fully bilingual, a point that was touched on by colleagues in the Chamber a moment ago—the principle that we hold to on that. But also that the programme identifies further areas of the law, where you will be assessing the value and potential for consolidation with a view to bringing forward another two Bills before the end of this Senedd term. We welcome that as well.

The Counsel General will also be aware that stakeholders have said that the ambitious task of making Welsh law more accessible will require sufficient resourcing by the Welsh Government and that legislative measures alone, such as consolidating legislation, will not be enough to make Welsh law truly accessible. In this respect, I do welcome in the statement the references there to seeking to expand and develop the Cyfraith Cymru/Law Wales website, providing the explanatory material and guidance about Welsh law. We welcome as well, as you referred to at the beginning, the long-overdue task of making the Welsh language text of legislation available in up-to-date form, and also your reference to working to improve the functionality of legislation.gov.uk to enable Welsh users to search Welsh law by any subject. And finally, just to remark, we do also welcome your ambitions to complete the long-term project to standardise the hundreds of terms and publish them on the Byd Term Cymru portal, also.

I'd like to conclude my contribution today, Llywydd, by welcoming this programme and the opportunities it brings for making law more accessible to our citizens. That is what it is all fundamentally about. Our committee intends to monitor, now, the implementation of this programme and we look forward to discussing these matters with the Counsel General on a regular basis. Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd.

Could I thank the Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee for those comments? Of course, the role of the committee in the actual scrutiny, not just of the integrity of legislation, but all the underlying principles and the issues of accessibility, I think, is very fundamental. As this legislature, this Parliament has begun to mature, effectively, that committee has become a legislation and constitution committee in the traditional sense, and has a very, very important role, particularly in a Parliament that doesn’t have a second chamber.

On the issue of consolidation, of course, it had been something that had been discussed for quite some time. I think we all would give credit to a former Member of this Senedd, David Melding, who did an awful lot in terms of the continual promotion of the need for consolidation. Obviously, he’s not here today to actually see the progress that is being made on this first report that has actually been introduced.

There are, of course, a number of areas and challenges, not just in terms of the accessibility, but the accessibility and the way it fits in within the quality of law, and the jurisprudence of law—that is the issues around the justice of law. And, of course, there will be issues that will be emerging that are not specifically within this accessibility but I think are relevant, and that is going to be challenges that there will be in respect of human rights, the rule of law, issues of judicial review, and the issue of standards that we may wish to maintain, and the issues of how those interreact with the pressures that may come from parliaments elsewhere. The resources issue is one that is, obviously, ongoing, and significant in terms of all the demands that there are.

I was very impressed with some of the information I was provided about the way in which judicial training is changing, and now specifically looking at areas of Welsh law, particularly, for example, areas of housing and so on, and, of course, the issue that now, of course, administrative court hearings will take place within Wales, which is absolutely right. Of course, the one area that I didn’t mention is the area of the Welsh tribunal reform, and the work the Law Commission are doing there. I think that is part and parcel of the jigsaw of the developing Welsh legislature. Thank you, Llywydd.

Thank you, Counsel General.

We come to the next three items, 6, 7 and 8. In accordance with Standing Order 12.24, unless a Member objects, the three motions under items 6, 7 and 8—namely the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) Regulations—will be grouped for debate, but with separate votes. There are no objections to that.