Government of Wales Bill

I make no apologies for my party being in government—that is a very good thing. The fact that we moved to devolution at all was because of a consensus that was the direct polar opposite of 18 years of Conservative colonial rule in Wales. The people of Wales rebelled and said, ““We will move towards devolution””, and the Liberals, the Welsh nationalists and others were on board. I want to touch on the representation of the business voice in the Bill. Clauses 72 to 75 deal with the partnership council, the local government scheme and the voluntary sector scheme. The clause on local government runs to 21 lines and the clause on the voluntary sector runs to 38 lines. That recognises the importance of those two sectors. Almost like an apology at the end, the clause on business organisations runs to four lines. The clause on local government states:"““The Welsh Ministers must make a scheme (““the local government scheme””) setting out how they propose . . . to sustain and promote local government in Wales.””" It says that they"““must keep the local government scheme under review, and . . . may from time to time remake or revise it””" and that every year they must publish a report—and so on. That is replicated as regards the voluntary sector, whereby Welsh Ministers must produce an annual report and sustain and promote the interests of voluntary sector organisations. All that is absolutely right. However, we are missing a trick if, in my constituency and across the whole of Wales, we fail to recognise the immense economic regeneration, and improvements to people’s quality of life, that can be achieved by business interests—micro-businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises and large companies. When the Bill moves into Committee, the Government should either table an amendment to redress that balance, or accept another amendment that may be tabled, to replicate some of the details in the clauses on the voluntary sector and local government.