Welsh Government confused political process with legislative process over council tax regulations – says National Assembly Committee
21 May 2013
The Welsh Government may have lost sight of the National Assembly’s role as a legislative body in preparing its proposed council tax reduction scheme regulations, according to a National Assembly for Wales Committee report.
While accepting that the development of a new scheme presented Welsh Government officials with significant challenges, the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee also concludes that a lack of communication between the UK and Welsh Governments in this area is disappointing.
Two sets of regulations were laid on 5 December 2012, the date of the last Plenary meeting of the Assembly’s Autumn term. Concerns were raised at the time about the lack of opportunity for Assembly Members to scrutinise the regulations.
Standing Orders, the rules by which the Assembly operates, state that Motions must be tabled five working days before they are debated and that no Motion to approve a statutory instrument can be considered in Plenary until the relevant Committee has reported, or at least 20 working days have lapsed, since the instrument was laid.
Revised regulations, which concerned council tax benefits for up to 330 000 households in Wales, were subsequently agreed after the Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales agreed to recall the Assembly on 19 December.
“The Committee has serious concerns about the handling of these regulations,” said David Melding AM, Chair of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee.
“It is imperative that the National Assembly has ample opportunity to scrutinise legislation as that is one of its core responsibilities, and we believe that the Minister should have drawn our attention to his concerns about the making of these regulations much earlier in the process.
“We strongly recommend that, when the Welsh Government is to make subordinate legislation that is complex and lengthy in nature, or where it is facing time constraints, it seeks to engage with the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee and relevant subject Committee at the earliest opportunity. This may involve laying incomplete instruments in draft.
“In this case, the Committee has concluded that the Welsh Government confused the political process with the legislative process. In so doing, we believe that the Welsh Government may have, at times, lost sight of the Assembly’s role as a legislative body.”
The Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee makes one recommendation in its report:
That, when the Welsh Government is to make subordinate legislation that is complex and lengthy in nature, or where it is facing time constraints, it seeks to engage with the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee and relevant subject Committee at the earliest opportunity. This may involve providing advance copies of Regulations in draft or laying incomplete Regulations with a clear explanation of the reasons why this is being done.
Link to more information on the Consitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee