, Committee of the Whole Senedd
Group 3: Minor drafting changes in the Welsh language (Amendments 61, 75, 90, 78, 80, 58)
Llywydd, in replying to the Member, while every effort is made to ensure accuracy in the drafting when a Bill is introduced, it was, as necessary, developed at considerable pace, in order for the Senedd to have the opportunity to scrutinise it in detail and…
, Committee of the Whole Senedd
Group 3: Minor drafting changes in the Welsh language (Amendments 61, 75, 90, 78, 80, 58)
Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. This group of technical amendments corrects the erroneous use of the incorrect terminology 'Aelodau'r Senedd' in the Cymraeg version of the Bill as introduced. Correcting these errors to 'Aelodau o'r Senedd' will help to ensure that…
, Committee of the Whole Senedd
Group 2: Impact of frequency of ordinary general elections on public appointments (Amendment 35)
Diolch, Llywydd. I am grateful to Darren Millar for tabling amendment 35, as it does raise an important point about the implications of a change to the frequency of ordinary general elections for public appointments in Wales. On that point, and as this is the…
, Committee of the Whole Senedd
Group 1: Senedd constituency boundary reviews: definitions and interpretation, representation periods, reports, and implementation (Amendments 59, 60, 76, 77, 91, 98, 100, 79, 105, 25, 54, 55, 56, 108, 15, 110, 16, 17, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115)
Yes, moved.
, Committee of the Whole Senedd
Group 1: Senedd constituency boundary reviews: definitions and interpretation, representation periods, reports, and implementation (Amendments 59, 60, 76, 77, 91, 98, 100, 79, 105, 25, 54, 55, 56, 108, 15, 110, 16, 17, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115)
Diolch, Llywydd. Firstly, can I just agree with, I think, all Members that this is indeed a historic Bill? We did obviously go through the details of the Bill in the principles debate, so I just want to assert one point, as far as I'm concerned, and as far as…
, Committee of the Whole Senedd
Group 1: Senedd constituency boundary reviews: definitions and interpretation, representation periods, reports, and implementation (Amendments 59, 60, 76, 77, 91, 98, 100, 79, 105, 25, 54, 55, 56, 108, 15, 110, 16, 17, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115)
Amendment 110 provides that if a review determines that changes are required to be made to the boundaries of Senedd constituencies, then the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru's final report must set out the boundaries of all constituencies for which…
, Committee of the Whole Senedd
Group 1: Senedd constituency boundary reviews: definitions and interpretation, representation periods, reports, and implementation (Amendments 59, 60, 76, 77, 91, 98, 100, 79, 105, 25, 54, 55, 56, 108, 15, 110, 16, 17, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115)
Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I’m delighted to open this, the first of our Stage 2 debates on the Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill. It’s a debate in which I believe there is considerable consensus and with a range of amendments, both Government and…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
I haven't. I'll have to write to you separately on that. I don't know.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Sorry, I missed that last bit.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Well, overall, the First Minister has the oversight of that, and then much of it comes to the individual portfolios, the ministerial portfolios, and it becomes a collective thing within Government. But my function was to initiate the commission and for it to…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
No, the timescale is starting now and the discussions are taking place now, and they are partly dependent also on discussions within the Senedd, probably discussions within committees as well, obviously discussions on the fact that we'll have a new First…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Okay. Thanks for that. Well, I suppose the first thing to say is that it's still under consideration. Some of the things do require, I think, quite an application of thought as to how you'd bring about changes. Some of the changes are not just in terms of the…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
I can only answer part of that; I don't know whether anyone else here can help more than that. All I can really say on it is this: firstly, there was certainly a backlog of all sorts of financial matters that needed to be resolved, to do with pay deals and so…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Okay. Because the constitution is about the way in which power is exercised. It's about the regulations that exist, not only for the exercise of power, but the distribution of power, and that impacts on everybody's lives. And you're right, people don't wake…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
I think there is a statutory instrument that's under preparation and so on, but that's probably a couple of months away yet.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Well, it's difficult to say at this moment, because I don't know. Until you have that engagement over it, it's impossible to say. The problem as to where we are now is that we know that agreements have been there, but we don't understand what the full detail…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Yes, into the 20s, and, of course, because they are co-operative agreements between Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and UK Government, the whole basis of them is that there will be buy-in and agreement within all four Governments and that there will then be…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Well, the common frameworks—. And I'm trying to remember how many there are; there are, is it 20—?
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Well, every decision the Government takes is a political decision. So, the fact that we have not been engaged I don't think is an oversight. I don't think it's one of those things where you say, 'Oh, dear. We've forgotten to discuss this with Wales, et…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Well, we know, don't we, that when legislation is coming forward or discussions take place at the UK Government level, there's been a consistent position that's been put from, really, the four nations of the UK at every opportunity that there has to be…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Well, can I just say, I know the First Minister has written, I think, on this, and one of the issues I raised, of course, when we had questions about it in the Senedd recently, was that we didn't have any advance engagement in terms of that paper or in…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
—out of my hands. But, I'm very much in agreement that there's a need for very serious reform of our constitutional relationship.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
I believe that Wales's best interest is being part of the UK, just like I believe that the UK's best interest was being part of the EU, and that's obviously a decision that's—
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
I might go further and ask you to define what you mean by a 'unionist', but we haven't got time to do that this morning.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Am I a unionist? Yes.
