The draft Wales Bill was published on the 20 October and since then has been scrutinised by the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee (CLA) of the Assembly. It has also been scrutinised by the House of Commons Select Committee on Welsh Affairs and on 9 November a concurrent meeting of both committees was held in the Senedd where evidence was heard from legal experts and academics. The CLA Committee received 33 pieces of written evidence and took oral evidence throughout November. Its Report was published on 4 December.
The draft Bill contains specific proposals where much of the evidence received is positive, such as providing in law for the Assembly to be permanent, the removal of unnecessary controls over the composition of Assembly committees, the cessation of involvement of UK ministers in Assembly proceedings, placing the Sewel Convention on a legislative basis, and the transfer of powers concerning energy, transport and elections.
However, several issues about the contents of the draft Bill were raised in written and oral evidence to the CLA.
“The current conferred powers model of devolution in Wales lacks clarity and is incomplete. Indeed, it is silent about many areas of policy such as defence, policing, the criminal justice system and employment. This lack of definition has proved to be a recipe for confusion and dispute, and there is widespread acceptance that it is fundamentally flawed.
Professor Thomas Glyn Watkin’s evidence said that “It is also demonstrably the case that the proposed reservations remove competence from the Assembly”. He added that the aim of the draft Bill appears to be to regain ground lost by the UK Government in Supreme Court judgements.
Much of the evidence received expressed disquiet about how the “necessity tests” in the draft Bill would operate and in particular how it could result in more legal challenges to Welsh legislation. Written evidence from Emyr Lewis states “there is no time limit on this, so an Act of the Assembly may have been in place and functioning very well for years, and still be challenged.” Other evidence, including that of the First Minister and Presiding Officer, highlighted the difficulty of interpreting the term “necessity”.
The First Minister also expressed the view that “without addressing the issue of the jurisdiction, the Bill won’t endure for many years”. He noted the Lord Chief Justice had said it was possible to have a distinct jurisdiction without the need for a separate court system.
In its report the CLA Committee stated that “the weight of evidence received overwhelmingly opposes the way in which the draft Bill delineates the boundary of the Assembly’s legislative competence” and that it “is not yet in a state to command consensus”. It does not believe that the Bill should proceed until it is significantly amended.
a clear commitment that a bilingual consolidation be carried out during the current Parliament.
The CLA Report will be debated in Plenary on 13 January 2016.
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