Reform Bill Committee

Good morning and welcome.

Can I welcome Members to the first meeting of the Senedd Reform Bill Committee? Can I remind Members that the meeting is broadcast and will be available on Senedd.tv? Transcripts of the proceedings will be available as per normal for committee meetings.

The Senedd operates a bilingual system, and therefore interpretation is available on the headsets via channel 1. But if you require amplification, that's available on the headsets via channel 2. Can I also remind Members, please, to turn off your mobile phones and other electronic equipment that may interfere with the broadcasting?

Can I welcome everybody? Because this is the inaugural meeting of this committee, I want to put on record the remit of the committee, to ensure that we're clear as to our role. It has been established to look at reform Bills that are coming before the Senedd. We are aware that one is imminent, and it is likely that there will be others, but obviously that Bill has now been referred to this committee for scrutiny at Stage 1. I’m also pleased that we have Members from all parties here in this committee, and we’re all agreed to welcome Jane Dodds as a member, who unfortunately will not be a voting member under Standing Order 17.49, but will otherwise participate as a full member other than that.

We will consider the general principles of each Bill that is referred to this committee for Stage 1, and we will publish a report at the end of that scrutiny session for preparation and consideration at the general principles debate at the whole Senedd. If the Senedd agrees those principles, it will then move on to Stage 2, which is probably going to be done under the house of the whole Senedd. So, our job is to complete Stage 1 and prepare the information for consideration at that debate. Members may then obviously make amendments to the Bill as per normal. But in this case, because it’s a whole-house committee, any Member may make an amendment, and any Member may introduce the amendment. So, that’s our focus, and anything we do in here will be published on the committee’s website, which is also available via the Senedd’s website. Members of the public and organisations are encouraged to share their views with us, either that way, through the website, or by writing in to us.

Now, the timescales are tight. We know that, and we have been given an indication that Stage 1 of this Bill is likely to be completed by the end of January—19 January, I think. So, we have this term, effectively, to undertake our duty of Stage 1, but there may be other Bills coming towards us during that time. And for Members’ information, we did write to stakeholders to perhaps prepare them as an indication as to what may be coming, and we did so jointly with Chairs of the Finance Committee, the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee and the Local Government and Housing Committee, so that organisations and members of the public would be aware of the likelihood of a request for information and supporting evidence when that Bill was published. Just to remind the public, once the Bills have gone through Stage 1 scrutiny and through the processes, this committee will be dissolved. It has the sole purpose of scrutinising those particular Bills that come to us and are referred to us by the Business Committee.

We’ll move into private session shortly for the first meeting, but before I do, we have papers to note. There are two papers. One is a letter from the Finance Committee Chair regarding the scrutiny of legislation to reform the Senedd, offering a possibility of joint meetings on issues that are going to be common to the two committees. And the second is a response to that letter from myself to the Chair accepting that offer and highlighting the fact that there will be occasions when we may be doing similar work, but there will also be occasions when we have different paths we wish to follow as a consequence. Are Members happy to note those papers? Thank you.

Item 4 next: under Standing Order 17.42, the committee is invited to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting and the meeting of next week, 20 September. Are Members content to move into private session for those two meetings? They are. Therefore, we now move into private session.