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Government of Wales Bill

I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Coity, said at Second Reading, and I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, today on the subject of the new clause. I have also been in touch with the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, which has developed into a significant body over the years and now has some 25,000 voluntary and community organisations on its database. It has made considerable progress. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Coity, gave more details at Second Reading about the extent of the council’s activities, including its involvement in the National Assembly’s voluntary sector scheme, which was the direct outcome, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, of the requirement in Section 114 of the Government of Wales Act 1998 that the Assembly shall,"““make a scheme setting out how it proposes, in the exercise of its functions, to promote the interests of relevant voluntary organisations””." As I understand it, the resultant scheme provided for the establishment of a voluntary sector partnership council on similar lines to the body proposed in the new clause. Indeed, it seems that the purpose of the new clause is simply to give a statutory basis for what is in effect already in existence. The voluntary sector, I am told, believes that the Welsh Assembly Government would wish to maintain the current arrangements and that it would be appropriate therefore to include the voluntary sector partnership council and its composition in the Bill. As we have heard, the Wales Council for Voluntary Action is a substantial organisation, which employed some 169 staff in the year to March 2005 and received government support towards its core funding of £721,000. It also received Welsh Assembly funding of £14 million and European structural funding of more than £9 million towards specific areas and grant schemes that fell within its scope. Presumably, the Wales Council for Voluntary Action can see benefit for itself in the new clause, although—and I suspect that this is what Jane Hutt is getting at—there is an obvious danger that it could be eclipsed in time by the new partnership council. I am sure that it has given this issue its full consideration and perhaps will consider it even further. My second point concerns whether it is right that the partnership council should be established by this Parliament in primary legislation or whether it might not be a more appropriate subject for the Assembly to deal with. I can understand a statutory council being necessary when statutory local authorities are involved, but non-statutory voluntary bodies are arguably in a different category. I await the Minister’s response with interest.