Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Just carrying on from what you said a few moments ago, you said around £24 million. That was just something that had been said, but that wasn't the major driver of it. Who, do you think, is going to get that benefit? Whatever it is, who benefits from it?

Well, yes. I think the time that's spent in locating the law and interpreting the law is time that's not spent, I suppose, applying the law or doing other things. So, any organisation, in any sector, really, which currently uses the statute book, will, I hope, over time, find the benefit here. So, for example, in the world of planning—and you'll know that there's a significant amount of work going on in relation to planning law on the basis of the Law Commission's own work—it is possible, I think, to see that as a significant asset in the planning process—a more rational, more ordered planning statute book—and this Bill, effectively, leads us down the path towards that sort of clarity, essentially. So, that's one area of it, but there are other benefits. I think, in the work of the Government, for example, in any project for law reform, the first task is, clearly, to understand the law as it is today, and, so, making that part of the process more streamlined obviously frees up resources then to deploy on law reform and other activities. So, I think organisations of any sort, really, will benefit from spending less time on this, if I could put it like that. 

Will my constituents, or your constituents, benefit from lower billable hours by very expensive lawyers? 

Yes. Well, I would hope that, but the other aspect to that is that some of the—. So, take housing law as an example. We know that the cuts to legal aid in the field of housing mean that, in parts of Wales, there are no housing lawyers providing legally aided services, in particular in north Wales. So, advice services are coming under significant pressure to give more and more sophisticated advice to members of the public, and we will all know from speaking to advice services that they are under their own pressure. So, providing a code of housing law in the longer term will facilitate that and will support their work. So, the short answer to your question is, yes, that would be the ambition. 

I tell you what, you really are pushing me to want to talk about both planning and housing law, but this is not allowing me to—

You're on the wrong committee to do that, Mike. [Laughter.]

—there are problems there that putting things on the statute book are not going to resolve. There are intrinsic problems within those. And I'll just stop there before you tell me off. 

Yes, please.

How will you ensure there are sufficient resources available to resource the Bill? You, Chair, and I serve on the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee, where we're continually told about the pressure on the legal staff of the Assembly in dealing with Brexit and trying to deal with the effects on agriculture and fisheries, which we discussed yesterday. How are you going to have sufficient legal resources to do it when your colleague Lesley Griffiths continually says about the huge pressure that they're under and the lack of staff they've got in order to deal with the environmental parts of Brexit?

Yes, that's a very live question, a very live discussion, obviously. The purpose of the duty in the first part of the Bill is, effectively, to make sure that resources are deployed to this task. There is, obviously, existing work of consolidation, which happens on a piecemeal—if I may put it like that—basis, and it is, by its nature, the sort of work within Government and within a legislature that is—. Most of us weren't elected with a burning ambition to put consolidation of the law at the top of the agenda. I'm not making a judgment on that, but that's the practical political reality of it. So, I do understand the fact that these things are competing priorities, if I can put it like that. So, it's the fact of imposing that duty that draws to it the requirement to find those resources in the long term.

I've had very productive conversations with each of my Cabinet colleagues in relation to the benefits to their portfolios of the sorts of work envisaged by the Bill. In fact, environment, energy and agriculture is an area that would benefit very significantly, potentially, in the longer term from consolidation and codification, and I have discussed with them a basis on which resources can be made available. You've seen the sorts of figures we're talking about here across all portfolios, effectively.

I'm not allowed to talk about those; other people are going to talk about them. But, really, what I'm talking about is the physical resources of people. You're going to be having—. You've got a limited number of people who are legally qualified within the Government. Recruiting more is both expensive and recruiting people with the right skills is difficult. Tell me if I'm wrong on either of those. If that's the case, then, if you're going to do this, is there something else that is not going to be done? And is that going to be part of the Brexit? This isn't about cost. Whether it costs £1 million or £10, I don't know, or £10 million, I don't care—from the questions I'm asking. Other people will care about that. What I care about is actually, physically getting people to deal with it.

Sure. Well, the point of committing the resources is to give sufficient visibility to be able to recruit legislative counsel to do the work, essentially. So, that is the point of getting the visibility on the resource. I completely understand your perspective, which is to say, on the existing staff base, this is not achievable, and that's correct. It's achievable on a piecemeal basis, but that is the sort of thing that you would see, perhaps, being, for obvious reasons, dislocated by Brexit. But the point is to be able to commit to taking on legislative counsel to do that.

So, it's more important to take on legislative staff to deal with this than it is to deal with Brexit.

Well, the point of this is not to see—. The benefits to this can accrue as a consequence of some of the challenges we face in Brexit. Brexit will complexify the law even further, and this is a programme that enables us to make the law more straightforward in the longer term.

Do you want to speak a little bit about that, Claire or Dylan?

This was on resources to the public? Sorry, I missed your question.

I was asking what particular resources have been set aside or you envisage being needed in order to do that work of engaging with people and letting them know, 'This is happening, this is what's happening, this is how it will affect you, or will be useful to you'.

The resources for engaging with stakeholders on the Bill are within Welsh Government at the moment. We're rolling that out. If it was on individual projects, the Bill teams that are working on those would do that. So, on planning, they have an extensive stakeholder list and they will engage with them. So, if, as the Counsel General was saying, we were talking about planning consolidation, that would be part of that planning consolidation project and would engage them and tell them all about the changes that are coming through a consolidated planning project. Was that the point you were—?

Yes. So, you're not envisaging additional resource; resource would be from within—

On this, no.

Diolch, Chair. In that regard, for clarity, you mentioned that there are no extra resources attached to the actual programme projects. Am I correct in saying that the costs that we've got here are purely attached to the accessibility?

Yes.

Okay. So, is that realistic in terms of four or five projects per year, pro tem, per programme?

Yes, that's per programme over a five-year term. So, they're figures we've assumed—

Okay. So, you think that's realistic.

Yes.

Okay. Thank you, Chair.

Diolch, Chair. Good morning, Counsel General. The explanatory memorandum suggests that all costs will fall to the Welsh Government. Is that realistic, or is it likely that there will be some level of cost to the private and public sectors?

Well, the—. I've just talked to Mike about the benefits. We've also considered how changing the law would obviously impact in terms of costs. The only functions imposed by the Bill are in Part 1, and they're all attached to the Welsh Government. So, in that sense, it is the Welsh Government who will bear the costs of discharging that function. Part 2 obviously imposes obligations, or affects other devolved authorities rather, but in fact that doesn't impose specific duties on them to act in a particular way. So, in that sense, I don't think Part 2 does that either. 

Clearly, Part 2 introduces a new set of terms and a new set of practices, which any user of the law needs to understand and needs to get to grips with. Again, I think the nature of an interpretation Act probably means that, once that has been understood, then the cost of understanding it is the cost that will be borne, basically, by lawyers working in law firms or local government, or whatever. And I think that's just in the ordinary course of—

So, would that capacity already be there in those sectors, or are you saying that there might be some limited costs, but it would be a one-off cost? 

It would be a one-off cost in that sense of learning what the new law says, but it's the sort of thing that you would expect to be a very minor part of anyone's day job, in a sense. You know, 'What does this say? How does that relate to legislation being passed in future?' It's just being current in the law, essentially, so, in that sense, it's de minimis, I'd say.

Okay. And you consider three options in the impact assessment that accompanied the Bill upon introduction, but there's no 'do nothing' option. How seriously were other options considered? 

Well, the 'do nothing' option is, I suppose—how best to put this? Doing what we are doing at the moment is a consideration in the regulatory impact assessment so, conceptually, the other alternatives are to do less than we're doing now, which we don't think is a sustainable approach. And then the other two options, conceptually, are: we carry on doing it in a more programmatic way, but without imposing a duty on ourselves, or we do it in a programmatic way in which we impose a duty and you get to hold the Government to account for it, essentially. So, I think, conceptually, that covers all the bases. 

The 'do nothing' option takes us back from where we are now, which I don't think—

So, it wasn't even worth having it as a comparison with the other options. 

Well, we didn't feel it was a realistic way forward, essentially, and the current programme, or the current activity, is piecemeal and opportunistic, and you would expect that to be the baseline of any Government, really.  

Okay. And there's an exact cost in there in terms of the majority of costs. There's also a £20,000 range in the overall cost. Why do you think it was necessary to produce a range for some costs but not for others? 

Sorry, could you just repeat that? 

Yes. It was a bit of a technical question, wasn't it? The majority of costs have been considered as an exact cost, but there's also a £20,000 range in the overall costs. 

Right. Let's see. 

I was wondering why it's necessary to produce a range for some costs, but not for others. 

The range cost relates to the variables in laying the programme, reporting on the programme and revising the programme, which depends on how the Assembly scrutinises the Bill, and whether a revision is necessary. The precise costs relate to the estimated costs of staffing the legislative counsel—the translators and the administrative staff—based on a speculative programme of four to five Bills. The precise details of the programme would be for each future Assembly.  

I see.

What this does, clearly, is to set the obligation to have a programme, but the nature and content and, frankly, the scale of ambition of that programme are matters for the Government of the day looking at the other priorities, essentially. 

So, they're two different things, really—the exact costs that are within it, and then the range relates to something else. Thanks. And the RIA notes that the Welsh Government hasn't tried to substantiate the Law Commission estimate that implementing its recommendations could result in an annual £24 million benefit. 

Yes. As I was touching on earlier, firstly, that wasn't the principal driver for the Bill, really, but, having assessed that, I think we felt that making our own judgments was the better approach than analysing the Law Commission's numbers, effectively, although that's helpful to give a sense of scale, I think. 

You didn't feel that would have helped you to sell the Bill. 

Sorry? 

Do you not feel that that would have helped you to sell the Bill? You know, a big figure like that would be— 

It would be if I was able to say to you, 'I've looked at every penny in that and I think it's completely defensible', but my personal view was that I would rather say to you, 'This is why I want to do the Bill, and this is my view of the costs', rather than rely on that. Although, it's obviously helpful to have that as an external indicator of the scale of benefit. 

Fair comment.

Do you think it's in the right ballpark? 

Well, I don't want to be confident about saying that, because, to the point that Mike was making earlier, this is felt differently by different kinds of organisations, isn't it, and so, in a sense, it depends on the make-up of the programmes that follow it. 

So, you didn't think that that was a necessary aspect of what you're trying to do. That's their opinion, but it's not really relevant to you progressing. 

I wouldn't say it's irrelevant; it's very relevant, but my view of it was that, since that wasn't the principal driver, I was keen not to put too much weight on that because I anticipated that you would want me to explain exactly why that was. [Laughter.] I believe I was right in that. [Laughter.]

Foresight. [Laughter.]

Diolch yn fawr. Go on then—briefly, Mike. 

Very briefly, would it be true to say that it's public cost and private benefit?

No, because the law applies to charities, public sector organisations, local government and a range of other public services that are equally under pressure from the complexity of the law. 

Okay. Diolch. Rhianon. 

Thank you, Chair. So, in regard to the emergent log jam of the statute of Brexit—and that's affecting us all across UK plc—is there enough emphasis around the importance of this being foundational of a crowded statute book at the moment? And I suppose—. I have a more detailed question in a minute around the costings that you've given us, but bearing in mind the tsunami of issues that are going to start hitting us all, and are hitting us, and will increasingly do so, I'm trying to understand the scale of importance of this as a sort of foundational level, as to how that will make it easier for us moving forward. And is that a very important driver, because you did say that Brexit—and I can understand why—could derail this very important piece of consolidative work?

Well, I think it is important. The programme and the duties that the Bill imposes, effectively—at least, the duty to introduce the programme that drives the consolidation comes into effect, effectively, for the next Assembly term, and is the beginning of a five-year programme for the first term. But, to be clear about this, this is not a question of us spending the next two years consolidating the statute book, or the next two years doing something else. This is a programme that will continue. The task of making a radical difference in the simplification of the statute book is the work of a generation, really, and the question that you're asking is the sort of question that is often asked in the context of giving any priority to this work, because we will all be able to think of things that we would prefer today to allocate those resources to, and that will usually be for good reason. But the consequence of applying that on a universal basis is the problem that we have today and the problem that other parts of the UK have as well.

My feeling is that Brexit poses even more of a challenge to our statute book, and, on whatever basis that occurs, it is going to mean that our statute book needs an awful lot of work in the longer term to make sure it's accessible to people. And that is just to make a new post-Brexit legislative world intelligible to people, which I think is a significant benefit. 

Okay. So, I suppose then that that leads into the human resources side, which seems quite minimal regarding—. And I know you've qualified in terms of the extent of years ahead that this work will take. So, you've mentioned that the largest cost will be to resource the legislative counsel—human resource. So, is that £377,000 a fixed price, or do you presume that that will fluctuate in terms of this Assembly term and next, or is it your best guesstimate at this moment?

It's basically fixed, subject to normal fluctuations in salaries, basically, but that is, essentially, the core cost. You could imagine, in circumstances, you might deploy additional resource, if that was required and if that was justifiable, and it is conceivable that some of this resource could be deployed in exceptional circumstances on other things, but that's basically the core cost. It'll fluctuate with salary costs, but that's essentially it. 

So, an administrative team of three staff to be created to deliver the programme and the project. So, can you outline the specific objectives of this team? But, I suppose, wider to that precise question for me is: are we confident that, with the deployment of civil servants around the wider issue around Brexit, this is a sound thing to do moving forward?

Are we talking about the costs on page 53 of the RIA, which is the estimated cost of developing and reporting on a programme? Is that right?

Yes. 

Sorry, could you—? Forgive me. 

So, an administrative team—it's a specific HR costing. So, we've talked about the legislative counsel. So, you've allocated a team of three just to do the admin. It's just really a basic question around what their specific objectives to the team would be. But I think that really answers itself as a question, to be honest. 

Do you want to give some clarity to that?

Absolutely, yes. Some of the role of the administrative team is certainly to support the process of developing the consolidation Bills and ensuring that the programme is developed—as the Counsel General says, the preparing of the programme. But, then, there are the other functions that the explanatory memorandum goes into and which the Counsel General has already touched upon—things like maintaining, developing, enhancing the offer through the Cyfraith Cymru/Law Wales website. So, that's about identifying commentaries, ensuring the information and explanatory material on there is up to date.

We also want that team to be working with the National Archives to update legislation.gov.uk. In the past, the Counsel General has spoken about the problems of the fact that the Welsh language text on that website is not as up to date, in many forms, as the English language text. So, it's about working with them to ensure the Welsh legislation is edited and updated. And, then, in the Counsel General's written statement towards the end of last year, he talked about organising the existing law by subject area, and that would be a key part of the work of this administration team, making sure that legislation.gov.uk is organised by subject in relation to the law applicable in Wales, both starting now and over the longer term. 

So, the digital offer is a key part of the administration team's work, but then I think other future work could be developing the glossaries on the Welsh language, which the Counsel General has talked about in the past. Part of that duty under section 1 and section 2 is facilitating the use of the Welsh language, so it would be finding ways and mechanisms to do that. But it is about making sure—. That team is about making sure that the accessibility of the law is over and above the consolidation and codification. 

So, in regard to technologies—we've mentioned this a couple of times this morning—I would presume that that's going to play a major part within this, in terms of how we harness that. 

Well, that would be the ambition, certainly. When I appeared before the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, I spoke briefly about the discussions we've been having with Google and with other technology providers just to understand the range of future options in some of this work. Obviously, it's important to make sure that the resources that we deploy today are, as far as any of us can gauge, fit for the future—one says that tentatively, but, clearly, to try and do our best at this point to make sure that that sort of technology is possible to be deployed in future. But none of that at this point is—. I am not saying to you, 'We have a plan for technology and this is how much it costs.' It's a much more kind of embryonic set of discussions. But it's absolutely clear that there'll interesting opportunities to look at how Welsh language texts work together, how to hyperlink between them, how Members in scrutiny sessions are able to see that perhaps more effectively than we can even on our online resources today. So, there are some longer term gains there, if I can just put it like that. 

And, finally, there's a mention that you're deploying resources for this for early 2019. Has that been achieved?

Well, it's for the early financial year, 2019. And, yes, I'm confident that we'll have that resource. 

Okay. Thank you, Chair. 

Thank you. Nick. 

Diolch. Why has the resource requirement placed on other teams within other Welsh Government not been costed in the RIA?

So, the principal resource challenge is going to be a drafting resource challenge. That's the large part of it, given the nature of the work. The point of it, consolidation-wise, is not to be changing the law. That's the basic point. There'll be a set of Standing Orders, which enable the Assembly to scrutinise, but in a different way than the Assembly would scrutinise a reform Bill. So, the large part of the work will be done on that basis, but there obviously will be work that policy colleagues will need to engage with, but that's in the nature of any piece of legislation that is being developed, essentially. So, in that sense, it's treated in the same way. 

Thanks. And, in terms of the £12,000 costs associated with preparing and laying a programme for the Assembly term, can you provide any details of the resources that would be required?

Yes. That's one executive band 2 person working on the consultation programme, and then looking at the results, and developing the paper. And Claire is envisaged to be that resource now.

You are the resource.

I am. [Laughter.]

Just to give a face to the work. [Laughter.]

I am the executive band 2.

We don't often get that, so that's—. It's certainly not dry, law, is it, when you can actually bring it alive, putting a face to the name?

There is a one-off transition cost of £5,000 in the Bill, in Part 2 and Part 3. What else will be required to make sure that stakeholders understand the requirements and the changes this will mean?

That goes back to the discussion I was having with Rhun earlier. There is a modest figure, which is really around providing guidance to professionals, essentially, about what Part 2 does. I'm not envisaging the public at large being informed differently, particularly, from that. I think the key point is to make sure that the people who operate the provisions—and these are default provisions in law, really, aren't they—the professionals and people giving legal advice, understand the changes, and that's really the target.

So, it's not really like the tax changes, for instance, where there's been a public awareness-raising campaign in force that's specific for the users of the law.

Don't forget that in future Acts it will be, 'Under this Act, these are some of the key changes'—that sort of thing.

It's a different type of legislation to what we're used to dealing with—

Well, it's legislation about the law, isn't it? You know, so in that sense—

Legislation about legislation. 

Well, it's the first time we've done that here, I think, so in that sense—.

Yes, it's interesting. You told the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that you hope to have resources in place by this year, by 2019. Is everything on track in terms of your assessment of where we should be, and where we are?

Yes.

Great, thanks.

Okay, thank you. Rhianon.

Can you outline how the ongoing programme is going to evaluate the efficacy of programmes delivered under the legislation?

Well, there are two aspects to that. The Bill itself is a Bill to keep the law under review. So, that includes within it a review of the efficacy of the Bill in delivering that outcome, essentially. And the benefit—well, there are many benefits, but one of the benefits of having a duty is that it provides the ability for scrutiny, obviously, and accountability and review. And the financial assumptions currently envisage three reports over the course of an Assembly term—formal reports to the Assembly on where we are with the programme, which will obviously have been published. But I envisage perhaps more frequent, you know, oral reports in the Chamber, or statements, and opportunities for Members to hold the Counsel General to account. But I think the proof of this particular pudding isn't so much in that, I would suggest—probably stakeholders aren't going to be focused so much on that. The benefit to stakeholders will be: 'Are you actually consolidating the law?', basically. So, it will be felt at that end. But I would plan to use the Law Wales website, when that's been revamped, if you like, as a means of keeping people currently up to date.

I was going to ask you in terms of your communication—it's not a very sexy issue, is it, for the public? So, how are you going to communicate the importance of this? Is that your main vehicle?

Yes. People who will be interested, I hope, will know where to find it, and it will be in there, basically. But there are—

Okay. You mentioned the issue earlier around advice centres around housing. There are many ways of doing that. So, that's your main vehicle.

Could you just, because this is different—and I'm trying to get my head around it as well—how long do you anticipate—? Because there's very little cost attached to this on the surface, and you've mentioned this floating figure of £24 million out there—in that regard, how long do you anticipate that this programme could take, bearing in mind the highly unique position we're in with external factors at the moment?

Okay. Well, that is entirely a factor of the ambition of the Government of the day, from time to time, and its other priorities. But the existence of the duty will, on any scenario, increase the pace, if I can put it like that—or at least it should increase the pace. But this is not the work of one Assembly term, or two Assembly terms, in truth—it is the work of many Assembly terms. We've envisaged four or five consolidation measures per Assembly term. Plainly, in the future, if there is a Government who has access to vastly more resources, or—. There's a sense in which you could deploy more resources and make faster progress, but we feel that is a sensible run rate, if you like. But if you say to me, 'Well, how long will it take?', I can't put a figure on it specifically.

Okay. And finally, then, with regard to the importance of this as a generic issue and agenda for Wales, we've mentioned the issues around Brexit, and how that's going to impact our legislative programmes—how would you grade this in terms of importance of how and when it should occur? It's obviously happening, but how important do you think it is?

I think it's important. The question is why we are doing it. There are a number of different reasons for doing it. There's the very well-understood issue about democratic accountability—what do we say, and what laws are we passing? The laws that we pass, if people don't know what their rights and responsibilities are, are going to be less effective, aren't they? So, that's one argument. The other argument, which I'm personally very strongly persuaded by, is the social justice argument of enabling people to know where the law is, in circumstances where they don't have access to lawyers, bluntly.

Thank you.