Thank you, Chair. I've just got a couple of questions on this balance between the steps that will be needed to implement this Bill and the impact that it'll actually have. You've probably heard in evidence that we've received that there are still some concerns out there about how agencies might address malicious reporting; some detail about how the public interest test might be applied further along the line; what's going to happen with out-of-hours provision from social services, and so on. There are still, from our perspective, quite a few things that are unknown about the effect on our public services in particular of the implementation of this Bill. Would you agree that perhaps we should know a little bit more about that before we proceed with supporting the Bill?
Well, it's very difficult, bringing in this legislation that hasn't been done before. It's very difficult to gauge the impact, and we've covered that, I know, in previous discussions. But I think it's very important to say that we are not creating a new offence. The Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault. And I think it's an interesting point to make that, in Ireland, they introduced similar legislation through an amendment to a Bill, and had no detailed preparation for bringing in the Bill, and in fact there's no evidence that this has caused any difficulties, and no significant negative impacts or increase in workload. But in any case, we have our implementation group, which is going to address many of these issues. This met on 14 May. That was the first meeting. You see, I think we do have to take a balance between assuming this Bill is going to go through and what we can actually do. We can't presume that the Assembly will accept this Bill, so we have to be staged in what we do. But we had the first strategic implementation group on 14 May, and we had representatives from the police, the police and crime commissioners, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru, the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, the Welsh Local Government Association, the legal profession and the third sector. They're all there, and they're all very keen to make this legislation work and to look at the implications of it. I'd just like to say how grateful I am for all those organisations giving their time and commitment. They've set up four work streams, looking at parenting advice and support; data collection, evaluation and monitoring; operations, procedures and processes; and out-of-court disposals and diversions. These groups will be taking forward this work and will be looking at many of those issues that you've mentioned, and will also be updated on the progress of the awareness strategy that we will be bringing in. I'm really confident that the legislation will be implemented in a very practical and workable way, because we do have the commitment of all these agencies, and there's been a huge amount of preparation done in the Welsh Government to prepare for this in a way that, I have to say, hasn't been done in some of the other countries—as I mentioned, in Ireland. So, as much preparation as could be done is being done and has been done, but we really now see that the implementation group is taking forward all these issues, and obviously those agencies that are taking part in the implementation group are, on the whole, in support of the principles of this Bill.
Well, thank you for that, Minister, but the way I look at this is that you've already said that, if this Bill passes—and it will pass; it's in enough manifestos to pass, so the question is what type of Bill is going to pass—and if there is a gap of, let's say, two years before anything is implemented, and the implementation group is doing the work that you've described—and we're very relieved to hear that—why is this Bill being introduced now when that implementation group hasn't really come up with a strategy that could help persuade people about what implementing this Bill would look like in real life? You're asking the Welsh public to take a bit of a chance on this.
I think we have, as far as possible, looked at international evidence where this legislation has been introduced. It's different for different countries, so I know it's difficult to get anything that's absolutely linked. But I don't agree that it's a bit of a chance, really. I think we are preparing very well and very carefully. As the team who have been working on this have worked through the preparation for the Bill, lots of issues have arisen as they've done that, and so you have to do that, I think, alongside the actual practical implications with the groups that are coming together, and I think the point at which we've done that is probably just about right, really.