Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Okay. I would like to welcome everyone to this first meeting of the Local Government and Housing Committee. In accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I have determined that the public are excluded from the committee's meeting in order to protect public health. In accordance with Standing Order 34.21, notice of that decision was included in the agenda for this meeting, published on Friday of last week. The public items of this meeting are being broadcast live on Senedd.tv and the Record of Proceedings will be published as usual. Apart from the procedural adaptation relating to conducting proceedings remotely, all other Standing Order requirements for committees remain in place.

Okay, we will begin, then, with the first item. We haven't received any apologies. Are there any declarations of interest? No. 

Then, we will move on to item 2 on our agenda today, which is the committee remit. There is a paper—paper 1—setting out that remit, and committee is asked to note our responsibilities. Are there any questions, or is committee content to note those responsibilities? Yes, okay. Thank you very much.

Item 3, then, is papers to note. We have paper 2, which is our predecessor committee in terms of our responsibilities, the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee legacy report, published at the end of the last Senedd term, making observations for future committees on working practices and potential areas for future work.

Paper 3 is the last Senedd's chairs' forum legacy paper, providing observations about working practices for committees. Paper 4 is a letter from Llamau, the charity working to end youth homelessness, and we will, I'm sure, return to those matters in due course. The next paper is a letter from the Auditor General for Wales just setting out his keen desire to work with the committee in terms of our remit and overlap with his responsibilities, and paper 9 is a letter from the Llywydd regarding the Business Committee's decision on timetabling.

The committee is invited to note those papers. Are Members content to do so?

I'm content to note it, Chair, but I must say that I express a level of extreme frustration with the decision of the Business Committee to reduce the amount of time available for scrutiny in this Senedd. I think it's a very, very poor way of operating and I hope that the committee will be able to respond to the Business Committee in due course to say that we expect to be provided not only with the resources that we clearly do have, but also the time to scrutinise Government, both ministerial and policy scrutiny, to ensure that we're able to fulfil the expectations of the people who elected us.

Okay. Thanks for that, Alun. I'm sure that committee will want to give those matters full discussion in due course, but, yes, it's useful to have that flagged up at this stage. 

Subject to that, then, is committee content to note the papers? Mabon.

We will discuss these matters in detail during the private session of the committee today, Mabon.

Okay. Diolch. Subject to that, then, we note those papers. 

Item 4 is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting. Is committee content so to do? Okay, thank you very much. We will then move into private session.