, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Instruments that raise issues to be reported to the Senedd under Standing Order 21.2 or 21.3 - previously considered
Thank you, Kate. It sounds like another one for our ongoing look into this particular area of work. Colleagues, are you happy with those comments and observations for that report? We are. Thank you very much, Kate. Item 3.3, the last one in this section…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Instruments that raise issues to be reported to the Senedd under Standing Order 21.2 or 21.3 - previously considered
Very good. Thank you, Kate. And very apposite in terms of our earlier discussion this afternoon with the Counsel General in front of us as well, about how we go about this, and then how we monitor them as well. That'll be something we return to. Are we happy…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Instruments that raise issues to be reported to the Senedd under Standing Order 21.2 or 21.3 - previously considered
Croeso nôl. We're back now onto item 3.1 as we recommence this afternoon's session of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee. We're coming back into public session. We just had a fascinating and long session with the Counsel General and Minister…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Okay. Thank you very much. Counsel General and your team, we've covered a lot of ground there over that two hours. We will send you the transcript for checking for accuracy, but we thank you very much for your time and your attention this afternoon; we really…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
So, the UK Government review of the programme, have you got any idea of when that's going to be finalised and published?
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Thank you, Alun. A relatively straightforward question, I think, from me just at the end here. It's on common frameworks, which we touched on a moment ago. We don't have an annual report on final frameworks, clearly, at the moment, but the provisional…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Thank you very much, Sam. We've covered a lot of ground, and we're into the last six or seven minutes, but Alun's going to take us into another area here—let's see if we've got time.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Thank you, Adam. Thank you very much indeed. Sam, we're going to come to you, and we do definitely want to get into some depth here.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
We welcome that. Colleagues, we're going into our final half an hour now, so I'm going to hand over to you, Adam, there. I think we've got four sections that we might want to come to, but over to you, Adam.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Well, would you be open to suggestions coming forward at some point, when we turn our attention to this, about how we can increase the clarity of what's being corrected and when, and what's been overdue, because it's not, obviously, transparent at the moment…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
We'd love to be a fly on the wall with some of that engagement that you do. Listen, the other side of that, of course, is that when errors are made, we have two concerns as a committee. One is the clarity and transparency that comes back to this Senedd about…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
What sort of discussions do you have, because you do have this overview? Diplomatically speaking, do you rap the Minister over the knuckles and say, 'What's going on here with this one?'
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
But then we'd be out of part of our job.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
We agree.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Are you content with the numbers that are currently being identified, because they're not insignificant? Yes, some of them are ones that can be corrected by slips. Some of them are relatively minor and we'd expect them to be dealt with very rapidly and very…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Indeed. Okay. So, we, on this committee, eagerly await the latest riding out of Ben-Hur. Okay. Right. Let me turn just very briefly to statutory instruments. You have a quality assurance process in place to avoid errors happening. We're picking up significant…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Right.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Brilliant. Thank you, Alun. We'll move smartly ahead, but can you just tell us, are you still considering bringing the planning consolidation Bill forward this year, this autumn, this—?
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Yes, thank you. Alun—sorry.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Thank you.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Or if Welsh Government accedes to it—
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
My point is this—and, in a sense, this is a 'yes' or 'no'—when the choice is made, for whatever reason, and the increasing number, as Alun has pointed out, for whatever reason, at a UK level—the democratic deficit, that deficit of scrutiny, of the ability of…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
Yes. Sorry, just very, very briefly—sorry, I'm really abusing my position here—I would refer you to our annual reports, where we highlight where this has actually happened. We analyse this and we cite where we see this happening. But we can also look at the…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
But you would accept, Counsel General, in answer to Alun’s point, that the same characteristics that you’ve laid out about the growing democratic deficit, whenever we do England-and-Wales legislation, for a multiplicity of reasons, arise in that situation as…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Scrutiny session with the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution
But we have come across examples.
