---

Legislative Programme and Budget Statement (Wales)

I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I will relay them to my hon. Friend today. We support the Equitable Life Bill and the ombudsman’s recommendations and we hope that the episode will be brought to a head shortly. The postbags of every member of the Committee are full due to the issue, and I am hopeful that we can get something done fairly quickly. Many would-be recipients are getting on in age, so I hope that we can get moving. I also hope that Sir John Chadwick will report back shortly, so that we can progress. We support the removal of the national insurance rise for employers. When it was first announced, we considered it to be a jobs tax. It is sensible to defer and not do it. We also welcome the annual increase in the basic state pension as part of the pensions and savings Bill, although we would have liked to see the Government go further and increase pensions by a third to the level of pension credit guarantee, especially for those aged over 80. It is a step in the right direction, however. We welcome the energy security and green economy Bill. I hope that that measure will be taken forward in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government to ensure energy efficiency in homes and businesses and, importantly, to promote low-carbon energy production, from which we in Wales are set to benefit. In response to the previous Gracious Speech, I suggested a veterans mental well-being Bill. I hope that the wide spectrum of problems that impact upon service veterans is taken into consideration in the armed forces Bill. I am pleased that it is to be introduced in the first year of this Parliament, reflecting its importance, and I welcome the commitment in the coalition document to rebuild the military covenant, including the provision of extra support for veterans’ mental health needs. We in Plaid Cymru have recommended a multi-agency support centre for veterans, providing welfare where necessary and medical and other support so that assistance can be centralised in one place. We also strongly support the Gelli Aur project in Carmarthenshire becoming a convalescent home for service veterans. We recently published a paper on the matter and I am on the Howard League for Penal Reform commission looking into veterans in the criminal justice system. I hope that, together, we can take steps to respond to the problems and ensure that veterans, wherever and whoever they are, get the care and support they deserve. I therefore hope that the Bill that has been announced is as comprehensive as it should be. I am sure that much of the freedom Bill or the great repeal Bill, which will remove some of the previous Government’s measures, will be supported. I wonder whether it will involve revisiting elements of the Government of Wales Act 2006, with which many of us found fault. The rules that prevent people from acting as candidates in both the constituency and on the regional list are a specific problem. We will see how things pan out. In general, we support the rolling back of some of the authoritarian measures introduced by the previous Government. I have long fought against the introduction of identity cards, which have cost billions of pounds for no obvious security benefit. I am also glad that we will move towards the Scottish system for the DNA database and introduce safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation. As always, however, the devil will be in the detail.