National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Social Welfare) Order 2008

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for making this not-altogether-straightforward statutory instrument abundantly clear. I also thank her for her time this afternoon when we both had an opportunity to look at the pros and cons. There are several issues here: the political one relates to legislative competence orders. Your Lordships will be faced with debating a host of legislative competence orders in the forthcoming period. The noble Baroness made it quite clear, as have the Government, how careful we need to be to ensure that this is, on all occasions, the right road. I do not feel, and neither does my party, that it is right to pass legislative competence orders, then pass the buck to the Government of Wales and let them get on with it. That must never be allowed to happen. However, it is different where the Government of Wales have competence—that is the key issue. I hope that the competence of the Government of Wales will increase steadily as they continue to bed down and rule Wales. There is another point arising from the order which I am a little concerned about. It appears that this statutory instrument will in some ways reduce the autonomy and powers of local authorities. I am not saying that that is necessarily a bad thing but in political terms your Lordships will be only too aware—probably more than me—that these issues can become very sensitive between a local Government, in the form of the Assembly for Wales, and local authorities, where powers are inevitably shared. It is also important in future debates on legislative competence orders and particularly on this one which seems to do some very good things. I am not being negative about this particular statutory instrument—quite the reverse. The objective of this instrument is to smooth out and make fairer the benefits that are available, and to make sure that there are not rich counties and local authorities and poor ones dishing out different amounts of assistance. It is also complicated to some extent by the fact that the recipient has to contribute to the package. That is yet another balance that has to be taken and I would be interested to ask the noble Baroness what sort of criteria will be required to decide how much a particular recipient should contribute. Is it related to the total size of the package, which in my opinion it probably should not be, or the wealth of that person? It seems that there is plenty of room for negotiation. I wonder how it will take place and who will be negotiating with whom in order to arrive at the objective of this statutory instrument, which is that it is seen across Wales as a fair package which is justifiable and one where everyone is getting a fair deal. The statutory authorities should be seen to be doing an excellent job in providing this assistance in a fair and—this is a very important word— consistent way. In general and for the purposes of this debate, we support the passing of this statutory instrument.