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

I think that at this time we are all particularly conscious of the special care needed for vulnerable children, to whom the order applies, because of the dreadful fate and very tragic end of the 17 month-old baby boy at Haringey. That is still very much in the news and on our minds. The order, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, enables the Assembly Government in Wales to pass Assembly measures, has been very closely examined by the Welsh Affairs Committee. I want to refer to only one major procedural point where I find myself in very strong agreement with the committee. Its first conclusion on page 27 of its fifth report states: "““We do not believe that the process for the scrutiny of this proposed Order has been satisfactory, or that it has worked as intended. We would again urge the Welsh Assembly Government to synchronise the publication and referral of a proposed Oder to an Assembly Committee with its referral to Parliament by the Secretary of State. Failure to do so represents the single biggest obstacle to the effective scrutiny of proposed Orders and, coming as it does at the very beginning of the process, it adversely affects all subsequent arrangements””." That is a very important paragraph. What appears to have happened is that the first draft of the order was reported on by the Assembly committee before it had been cleared with other relevant Whitehall departments. The rest of the story is recounted in paragraph 6 and the following paragraphs on page 8 of the report. Paragraph 6 states: "““The process of Whitehall clearance had led to some substantial revision of the proposed Order as first published and laid before the Assembly ... Effectively, this meant that the Assembly Committee had undertaken considerable work in scrutinising and reporting on a very different proposed Order to that which was referred to the Welsh Affairs Committee. It also substantially reduced opportunities for formal joint working between the two committees, something which each committee decides on a case-by-case basis. On this occasion we decided not to conduct formal joint working, as the Assembly Committee had completed its investigations and published its Report—almost two months before the revised proposed Order was referred to us””." This was a very serious situation. The proposed order in its revised form has therefore not been scrutinised by the Assembly committee, as that committee acknowledged in its second report. I am abbreviating this account, but it makes certain key points. This unsatisfactory situation could have been avoided had the proposed order first been cleared with Whitehall departments before being published and been laid simultaneously before the Assembly and before Parliament. That would have helped to facilitate complementary working by the two committees.