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National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Housing and Local Government) Order 2010

My Lords, I beg to move that the Grand Committee does report to the House that it has considered the draft National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Housing and Local Government) Order 2010. For ease, I shall henceforth refer to this order as the housing LCO. This is the first LCO that I have spoken to in this House. It is a particular pleasure to deal with devolution issues that relate to Wales after many years of being more familiar with devolution issues that relate to Scotland. This draft housing LCO was approved by the National Assembly on 24 February. The previous Government laid the draft LCO before Parliament in March. For whatever reason, no time was found to debate the LCO in either House before the general election. I am pleased that the coalition Government committed to take forward the housing LCO in our programme for government, which is what we are doing. The draft LCO was approved by the other place on 7 July, having been debated in Committee on 5 July, and it comes before this Grand Committee today for debate only two months after the coalition Government took office. Noble Lords may be aware of the discussions that have taken place between the coalition Government and the Welsh Assembly Government in relation to the scope of this LCO. I shall address that issue immediately. The coalition Government have been concerned that this LCO devolves legislative competence that the Assembly would not necessarily need. The Assembly Government are committed to seeking legislative competence to suspend the right to buy in areas of housing pressure. However, competence in the LCO covers disposals of social housing generally, including abolition of the right to buy. Indeed, as I understand the situation, when an LCO on this issue was first proposed in 2008, the Welsh Affairs Committee in the other place recommended that it should not proceed while it included the ability to abolish the right to buy. We are grateful indeed for the reassurances given by the Welsh Assembly Government that they are fully committed to the right to buy scheme and have no intention whatsoever to abolish it. The coalition Government are similarly grateful for a further reassurance from the Assembly Government not to seek powers to usurp the views of local people and dictate the location of Gypsy and Traveller sites. Given these assurances, and our commitment to progress this order through Parliament before the Summer Recess, I am pleased to support this LCO today.