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National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Social Welfare) Order 2009

I, too, welcome the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, to his new office and to this gathering in particular. We are very grateful for the very detailed thought and work that has gone into the preparation of these orders relating to the legislative competence of the Assembly. I intend to comment briefly on the form and content of the orders, and I begin by affirming that special care must be taken with carers because the legislative regimes that deal with care arrangements, especially charges, differ in different countries within the United Kingdom. Of course, carers are becoming increasingly important to us as the population becomes more elderly and in greater need of care and carers. They are particularly important to us in Wales because, as the 2001 census revealed, we have a higher proportion of carers than any English region. As my noble friend Lord Glentoran pointed out, 11.7 per cent of the population—341,000 people—are carers, for the very good reason that we have a higher proportion of people with limiting long-term illness, chronic sickness and disability, as explained in paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Memorandum. I therefore understand the Welsh Assembly Government’s anxiety to have legislative competence in this field to support regular carers in the ways described in the Explanatory Note to the social welfare order. Such is the legislative competence conferred that any cross-border issues that arise can, as I understand it, be amicably resolved by close liaison between the relevant authorities. Yesterday the Government published their Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Care Together. I hope that that togetherness embraces the National Assembly and that they will take account of the contents of the Green Paper before and as they legislate. I am also glad to welcome the exceptions to matters order and to commend our own Constitution Committee, of which the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, is a distinguished member, for separating the order into two and for his clarification. I am not quite sure that I fully understand it, but I am sure that with further study and consideration I shall probably get my head round it. One should also commend Carwyn Jones, the Consul General, who has put his name to the Explanatory Memorandum on the second order. The order brings precisely the order required to an area in which chaos was threatening. The table of exceptions has been replaced by a list, and it is clear that, ""a provision of an Assembly Measure is not within competence if it falls within any of the exceptions listed in that paragraph"." This avoids specifying exceptions, as I understand it, to every change to Schedule 5 following a legislative competence order. Quite a number of these orders come our way these days. There are extensive differences between Schedule 5 in 2009 and the schedule as it appeared after the passage of the Act in 2006. A number of fields in the schedule have been amplified by the addition of specific matters, and the time is fast approaching when there will have to be some consolidation to clarify the areas in which the National Assembly has legislative competence. It would be interesting to know what Assembly measures have sprung from those competences. Ideally, a document should be produced in the course of, or at least at the end of, each Assembly’s four-year term that consolidates the legislative competences that have been achieved up to that date. I certainly hope that the National Assembly and its Government will consider that suggestion.