Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution – in the Senedd at 2:40 pm on 12 January 2022.
Can I firstly thank you for those further comments? Just to say, in respect of the remuneration, again, I'm sorry if you haven't had the letter, but, certainly, I know I had a written request from one of your Members, Mr Joel James, who asked for that information, and that information in terms of the rates of remuneration have been provided. I'm disappointed if, perhaps within your own group, an individual Member has not made available to you information that was specifically provided. I'm sure that a copy of that letter, if Mr Joel James is in agreement, could be made available to you, and the information is in that. So, I will deal with that.
In terms of the expenditure and the budget, well, the budget takes place in terms of the commission and its work, which doesn't just suddenly come to a stop. How the budget can be expended over a period of time, and the extent to which it is expended, is going to be dependent on the full work programme, but in terms of the delivery of the report, clearly there will be work that carries on from that. And I think I've made clear in previous statements as well that, of course, one of the issues is the establishment, ultimately, of a permanent constitutional commission, not this, and, of course, there would be recommendations on that and it would lead to issues around that. So, it is inevitable that it will go over the particular year timescales. The important thing was an interim report by the end of this year, a full report by the subsequent year, but, of course, those timetables may change because, as you know, debate, discussion and events around the constitution are a work in progress.