Diolch, Llywydd. We laid our report on the legislative consent memorandum for the Elections Bill in December last year, and in that report we noted the Welsh Government's position that it would be inappropriate to grant consent to the UK Government to legislate on the devolved matters included in this Bill. Most of our committee agreed that consent should not be granted on the basis that any proposals to legislate on these devolved matters should be brought forward by the Welsh Government and subject to full scrutiny by the Senedd. Two Members, Joel James and Sam Rowlands, disagreed with that view and believed that consent should be granted.

Since then, the supplementary LCM in relation to this Bill was laid on 22 March, and we were invited by the Business Committee to consider and report on that supplementary LCM, No. 2, by today. We only had one meeting scheduled within that time frame on 23 March. We received an oral briefing from Legal Services at that meeting. However, due to the very limited time available, we have been unable to consider a legal advice note or to report on the SLCM.

The Counsel General will be aware that I wrote to him on Friday, expressing our frustration at being unable to undertake any detailed work on this supplementary LCM. The provisions within the supplementary LCM relate to amendments tabled to the Elections Bill on 11 January and 28 February. The delay in laying the SLCM then is therefore very disappointing. We are very concerned by the approach taken by the Welsh Government in not laying separate supplementary LCMs, following the tabling of each tranche of amendments. The delay has left no time for scrutiny of the supplementary LCM by our committee before it is debated today, and we are concerned that this debate is taking place without Members having the benefit of being able to consider a report by a relevant Senedd committee to inform their view. This situation highlights the importance of laying LCMs, or indeed supplementary LCMs, in a timely manner.

Given the previous debate, Llywydd, it's obviously a particular concern to the committee that I've had to reiterate this sort of message in relation to several supplementary LCMs brought forward by the Welsh Government with insufficient time for scrutiny. We've just discussed that building safety supplementary LCM today, and in December of last year, I expressed the committee's disappointment that the delay in laying supplementary memoranda in relation to the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill also restricted our ability to scrutinise that legislation. So, I would repeat my ask, the committee's ask, to Welsh Government, Llywydd, to ensure that committees have the necessary time and information to be able to play a meaningful role, a proper role, in the legislative consent process. Diolch yn fawr.