Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders.
Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences.
Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies.
Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D—very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about 'laying' rather than 'publishing' at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be—I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Siân; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents' actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting—you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up—I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3—so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect—that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time—I know you've talked about New Zealand—but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone—you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin—that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow—