Draft Government of Wales Act 2006 (Amendment) Order 2015
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Bebb, Guto (Aberconwy) (Con)
† Bray, Angie (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
† Cairns, Alun (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales)
Clwyd, Ann (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
† de Bois, Nick (Enfield North) (Con)
† Doughty, Stephen (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
† Edwards, Jonathan (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Flynn, Paul (Newport West) (Lab)
† Griffith, Nia (Llanelli) (Lab)
† Hart, Simon (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
† Hemming, John (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
† Hollobone, Mr Philip (Kettering) (Con)
† James, Mrs Siân C. (Swansea East) (Lab)
† Moon, Mrs Madeleine (Bridgend) (Lab)
† Morris, David (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
† Offord, Dr Matthew (Hendon) (Con)
† Williams, Mr Mark (Ceredigion) (LD)
Leoni Kurt, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Second Delegated Legislation Committee
Monday 15 December 2014
[Sandra Osborne in the Chair]
Draft Government of Wales Act 2006 (Amendment) Order 2015
4.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Alun Cairns): The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Alun Cairns): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Government of Wales Act 2006 (Amendment) Order 2015.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Osborne, for my first statutory instrument Committee as a Minister. I am sure that Members will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to detain them long, although I look forward to an interesting debate.
The UK Government are making the order at the request of the Welsh Government. The National Assembly for Wales is considering legislation relating to sustainable development in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Bill. The stated intentions of the Bill are to enhance the sustainable development duty on Welsh Ministers and to make sustainable development a “central organising principle” of the Welsh Government and other public bodies in Wales exercising devolved functions.
Section 79 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 already imposes a duty on Welsh Ministers in relation to sustainable development. To avoid Welsh Ministers being subject to two separate duties, the Welsh Government wish to be able to amend section 79, but the Assembly does not currently have the legislative competence to do so. As a result, the UK Government have agreed to use the power under section 109 of the Government of Wales Act which allows Her Majesty’s Government, by Order in Council, to amend schedule 7 to that Act, thus conferring the required competence upon the Assembly. If passed, the order will enable the Assembly to amend section 79 to ensure that Welsh Ministers’ obligations align with the duties contained within the Bill.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC): Do not SIs such as this one indicate that devolution is indeed a process and not an event? Long may it continue to be so.
Alun Cairns: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. This demonstrates the various stages of devolution, from the Government of Wales Act 1998 right through to the Orders in Council under the 2006 Act and the full legislative competence that was granted after the last referendum and the latest Act. He makes an important point about what I think it is fair to call the evolution of devolution.
Section 79 was created in the Government of Wales Act in 2006, when only executive competence existed in Welsh devolution. Following the referendum in Wales
in 2011, the Assembly obtained full legislative competence for the subjects in schedule 7 to the 2006 Act. The order therefore reflects the evolution, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr and I were just discussing, of Welsh devolution since 2006.Section 109 requires the order to be approved not only by both Houses of Parliament but by the National Assembly for Wales. The debate in the Assembly is expected to take place on 20 January. I believe that the order demonstrates the UK Government’s continued commitment to working constructively with the Welsh Government to achieve an effective devolution settlement for Wales. I hope that the Committee will agree that the order is a sensible use of the power in section 109 and that the practical result is to be welcomed. I commend the order to the Committee.
4.33 pm
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab): As I rise to speak, I assure Members that I am not going to do the Christmas pantomime act or detain them for a considerable amount of time.
As the Minister explained, the statutory instrument amends schedule 7 to the Government of Wales Act 2006 so as to confer legislative competence upon the National Assembly for Wales to amend section 79 of the Act, on sustainable development. Duties placed on Welsh Ministers relating to sustainable development are already part of the Welsh devolution settlement, and I know that many Members of the National Assembly for Wales and Welsh Government Ministers have shown a keen interest in sustainable development and have been highlighting the importance of sustainable development across a range of Departments and responsibilities.
We are dealing with an order to allow the National Assembly for Wales to amend section 79 in the context of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Bill, which is being considered by the Assembly. The Bill aims to add depth and detail to sustainable practice across the public sector in Wales and to enshrine the commitment to sustainable development by requiring specific public sector organisations to make progress and to contribute to the well-being of a sustainable Wales. I had the pleasure of hearing the then Minister for Communities and Tackling Poverty, Jeff Cuthbert AM, talking about the Bill at the beginning of a day of discussions in Llanelli on “The Llanelli We Want”, as part of “The Wales We Want” conversation.
If we agree to the statutory instrument, it would allow the National Assembly for Wales to use the opportunity of the Bill to strengthen the legislation on sustainable development. There has been some criticism that the framework laid out in section 79 of the 2006 Act may not be strong enough. It requires Welsh Government Ministers to publish a sustainable development scheme setting out how they will promote sustainable development, to report on how the scheme has been implemented each financial year and to report on the scheme’s effectiveness. In his commentary on the Welsh Government’s “Sustainable Development Annual Report 2012-2013”, the Commissioner for Sustainable Futures for Wales said that there is
“systemic weakness in the current governance structures for sustainable development and the associated reporting of progress”.
If the draft order is agreed to, if Members of the National Assembly for Wales wish to use the opportunity of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Bill to strengthen the legislation on sustainable development, they will be able to amend section 79 of the 2006 Act accordingly. We are therefore pleased to support the order.
4.36 pm
Alun Cairns: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her support for the order. As she underlined, the purpose of the order is to enable section 79 of the 2006 Act to be
amended, not for this House to scrutinise the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Bill; that is a matter for the Welsh Government. The purpose of the order is to provide the Welsh Assembly with the competence to do so. It can therefore set out its own mission, obligations and principles based on sustainability.