National Assembly for Wales (M 40)
I am writing in response to the request for
comments on the Modernisation Committee's current inquiry into
the Committee Stage of Public Bills to bring to the Committee's
attention the recent joint formal working between committees in
the National Assembly for Wales and the House of Commons' Welsh
Affairs Committee.
I read with interest the Committee's First
Special Report of Session 2005-06 that set out alternative
options for committees' consideration of Bills, in particular
the references to devolution and to the interest of the devolved
legislatures in the Bills that impact on Wales or other parts
of the UK.
Informal liaison between the Assembly committees
and committees of the Houses of Parliament on matters of mutual
interest has evolved since the Assembly was established in 1999.
However more recently some elements of this joint working have
been formalised. I will set out some of the background.
In March 2003, the Welsh Affairs Committee (WAC)
published a report, The Primary Legislative Process as it Affects
Wales, that included a proposal for formal joint working between
the House of Commons and the National Assembly. This proposal,
subsequently termed "reciprocal enlargement" was supported
by the House of Commons Procedure Committee and, as a result,
the UK Government agreed to a "limited experiment" permitting
formal joint working between WAC and the Assembly's committees
until the end of the last Parliamentary session.
This resulted in joint pre-legislative scrutiny
in the summer of 2004 by the WAC and the Economic Development
and Transport Committee of the National Assembly for Wales of
the draft Transport (Wales) Bill. Both committees agreed
that it had been a worthwhile and valuable experience. This was
followed by joint scrutiny of the Public Services Ombudsman
(Wales) Bill by WAC and the Assembly's Local Government and
Public Services Committee, and joint scrutiny of OFCOM's consultation
on "Proposals for the Nations and Regions" by WAC and
the Assembly's Culture, Welsh Language and Sport Committee, both
of which were successful and well received by those involved.
As a result, following the General Election in May 2005, the House
of Commons Standing Order permitting formal joint working of the
WAC with Assembly Committees was made permanent.
In July 2005, the Government's White Paper,
Better Governance for Wales, referred to the joint scrutiny
of the draft Transport (Wales) Bill as a useful and worthwhile
experiment suggesting that it was something that could be built
into Parliament's and the Assembly's Standing Orders on procedures
for Wales-only Bills. The WAC, in its report on the White Paper,
endorsed the approach for further draft Wales-only Bills, and
the Government's response to the WAC report acknowledged that
the joint working had led to improvements in draft Bills.
The recently published Government of Wales
Bill provides for the Assembly and Parliament to approve draft
Orders in Council (these will confer enhanced legislative powers
on the Assembly). The nature of the pre-legislative scrutiny of
Orders in Council will be for Parliament and the Assembly to determine,
but I would envisage, and welcome, some form of joint scrutiny
between the relevant Assembly Committees and the WAC.
I welcome the commitment to the continuation
of formal joint working between the WAC and Assembly Committees,
and would ask that the Modernisation Committee consider endorsing
the positive experience of formal joint scrutiny, support its
continuation and consider, as part of its deliberations, the potential
for extending the joint working on primary legislation affecting
Wales to other House of Commons' Committees.
Dafydd Elis-Thomas PC AM
Presiding Officer
February 2006
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