Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill [Lords]

Welsh Liberal Democrats also welcome the Bill and will not oppose its Second Reading. However, we shall raise a number of points in Committee because we believe that the Bill could be strengthened to protect older people in Wales. I would like to acknowledge the long hours and hard work that the noble Lords have put in on the Bill in the other place. I particularly want to pay tribute to the dedication and tenacity of Lord Roberts, Lord Livsey and Lord Thomas, who performed their duties with great energy and enthusiasm. When the Government revealed their White Paper last year, the Secretary of State described it in his usual understated way as a ““trailblazing”” Bill for Wales, and I think that he used the term again this afternoon. I wish that we could share his excitement. However, we must question exactly what kind of a trail the Bill is blazing for Wales. The Prime Minister has famously said that his greatest political regret was not going far enough with his policies on reform. In my opinion, the Bill comes close to falling into that trap. Like the Government of Wales Bill, it moves us in the right direction but falls well short of where it should be. This is progress by pigeon step rather than a great leap forward. I think that it was the Prime Minister who also said that the Labour Government were at their best when they were at their boldest. The Bill does not show the Government being bold; it shows them at their most timid. Wales has a large and growing population of older people. More than 20 per cent. of the population in Wales are over 60, with that population likely to rise in the next 20 years. By 2021, nearly 500,000 households in Wales will contain at least one person over the age of 65. Policies directed at helping to improve the lives of this large sector of Welsh society are very welcome, not least because many older people in Wales are vulnerable, financially and socially. We applaud the Government’s intentions with this policy, but we have some serious reservations about the Bill. For the commissioner to be effective, he must have a sufficiently broad remit and sufficiently tough powers, and he must be given a voice in the relevant corridors of power. The most pressing failure of the Bill is the commissioner’s relatively weak powers in relation to non-devolved matters. At present, the commissioner’s input on issues such as pensions, benefits and employment is significantly compromised. Let us imagine that the commissioner had been in place last November, and had seen the Turner report, the Government’s response and the new pensions White Paper all come and go. According to the Bill, the commissioner would have had no right to communicate directly with the Ministers responsible for an enormously influential step-change in pensions policy. His voice would have been limited on an issue of seismic importance for the people he was paid to represent. I still find it incredible that a pensioner in Wales will be able to write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, yet the commissioner will not be allowed make any such input to them directly.