Pre-legislative scrutiny role

1.  We estimate that the additional task of conducting pre-legislative scrutiny of LCOs has almost doubled the workload of the Committee for its members (Paragraph 13)

2.  We do not believe that all proposed Orders should be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee, but in the case of the most complex and wide-ranging Orders, the option of a debate open to all Welsh MPs has proved its worth. (Paragraph 15)

3.  There is a clear advantage in nominating members of the Welsh Affairs Committee to serve on Delegated Legislation Committees in relation to draft LCOs. (Paragraph 16)

4.  Allowing debate in the Welsh Grand Committee may be necessary if an LCO is particularly controversial or has implications for specific constituencies and localities. Holding a debate on the floor of the House enables any MP from anywhere in the country to comment. We therefore consider that these options should be retained, but used sparingly and only when necessary (Paragraph 17)

Timing

5.  For those LCOs which have taken the longest time to proceed from their announcement in the Assembly to approval in Parliament, the main factor by a significant margin is the time taken up by negotiations between the UK and Welsh Assembly Governments to agree on a text. (Paragraph 21)

6.  We consider that the delay in respect of the Fire Sprinklers LCO was highly unsatisfactory and that it was clear that a Legislative Competence Order would achieve the desired outcome much earlier than any amendment to building regulations, once devolved. The Committee hopes that lessons can be learned from the unnecessary delays caused in bringing this proposed Order forward. (Paragraph 24)

Future scrutiny of proposed Orders

7.  We consider that there should be a standing assumption that proposed Orders will be scrutinised by the Welsh Affairs Committee once they have been laid before the House, without the need for the Secretary of State to specifically refer each Order to us. For clarity, and depending on any other changes which may be made, this could be specified in a Standing Order. In addition, the Secretary of State should be required to provide notification in writing to this committee as soon as an LCO is submitted to the Wales Office, in order to enable us to undertake scrutiny of the process in Whitehall and prepare the ground for our own scrutiny to follow quickly when that is complete. (Paragraph 31)

8.  We believe that every proposed LCO should continue to undergo pre-legislative scrutiny in the House of Commons. (Paragraph 33)

9.  We consider it important that we continue to issue a public call for written submissions when we receive a proposed Order and that we allow interested parties a reasonable time to respond. (Paragraph 34)

10.  We will normally wish to take oral evidence in connection with a proposed Order. we would normally expect to hear from Welsh Assembly Government and Wales Office Ministers, as well as the sponsoring Assembly Member, in the case of private members' LCOs (Paragraph 35)

11.  We consider that an accelerated process of scrutiny could be implemented for LCOs which appear to raise no significant legal or policy questions. We intend to adopt this approach and would recommend it to our successor committee in the next Parliament (Paragraph 36)

12.  We agree that we must give prompt consideration to LCOs which are referred to us for scrutiny to avoid needless delay. It remains the case, however, that some LCOs will raise issues of broad importance to the people of Wales or may be of some legal complexity Proposed Orders should receive proper scrutiny via a sustained inquiry and the House of Commons should be fully informed about the implications of any decision it is asked to make on extending the legislative competence of the National Assembly for Wales. (Paragraph 37)

13.  To avoid duplication of effort, we can draw on evidence taken in the Assembly rather than holding similar evidence sessions with the same witnesses. This might mean that the number of oral evidence sessions at Westminster could generally be reduced to a single session with Welsh Assembly Government and Wales Office Ministers . We intend to adopt this approach where possible and would recommend it to our successor committee in the next Parliament. (Paragraph 38)

14.  We can feel confident in drawing on the evidence taken in the Assembly due to the strong links we have established with our counterparts in Cardiff Bay. (Paragraph 39)

Arrangements after the next General Election

15.  Depending on the date of the election, some proposed Orders may complete the pre-legislative scrutiny process but may not be finally approved by Parliament before dissolution. Those Orders will be a matter for the new Parliament to consider, but we would not expect our successor Committee to feel it necessary to repeat the pre-legislative scrutiny process in cases where we have already reported on a proposal. This would be a needless duplication of effort. (Paragraph 43)

16.  We do not recommend that pre-legislative scrutiny of LCOs should be undertaken by ad hoc committees, established only to consider a single proposed Order. (Paragraph 46)

17.  We would support a change to Standing Order 152 to allow departmental select committees to establish more than one sub-committee simultaneously. This may also benefit other select committees and we suggest that the Procedure Committee might wish to consider this matter more widely. (Paragraph 51)

18.  It may not need saying, but for the avoidance of doubt, we wish to put on record our strong conviction about the continuing need for the work of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and we strongly urge the House to maintain a Welsh Affairs Committee in the next Parliament both to pursue the traditional role of the committee in the context of devolution and to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of LCOs.

19.  The Welsh Affairs Committee should retain responsibility for pre-legislative scrutiny of proposed Orders. There are procedural changes which would enable the process to operate more smoothly in future. Some of these require changes to Standing Orders and the new Parliament might provide the opportunity for these to be made and for other committees to revise their working practices at the same time should they so wish. (Paragraph 54)

20.  We recommend that, from the new Parliament, the Welsh Affairs Committee be given the power to invite any MP who is not a member of the Committee to attend and ask questions during evidence sessions in respect of LCOs. This change should allow more Members to be involved in the pre-legislative scrutiny process. The attendance of other Members would be at the invitation of the Committee, which is best placed to decide whether their participation would be of value in the context of any given inquiry. As a consequence, we do not recommend any change to the current size of the Committee. (Paragraph 56)

21.  We recommend that consideration be given to revising Standing Order 152 to allow departmental select committees to establish more than one sub-committee simultaneously. We suggest that the Procedure Committee might wish to consider this matter in the first instance. (Paragraph 57)

Formal joint meetings

22.  Whilst there is little practical effect on the conduct of meetings, we do not believe that the current wording of Standing Order No. 137A(3), which allows us to "invite members of any specified committee of the National Assembly for Wales to attend and participate" in our meetings reflects the actual experience of joint meetings. We recommend that the Standing Order be updated to provide for concurrent meetings, reflecting Standing Order 10.48 of the National Assembly for Wales. (Paragraph 62)

Informal meetings

23.  Informal meetings have allowed us to benefit from the perspectives of the Assembly Committee members and their reflections on the evidence they have received, before writing our final Report and to join up scrutiny at Westminster and Cardiff Bay. We now consider them a vital part of our approach to our work on LCOs. (Paragraph 65)

Timing

24.  Whilst we do not consider that it would be appropriate to delay our inquiry until after the relevant Assembly committee has reported, we do consider that there is merit in publishing our Report slightly after that of the Assembly committee. In this way, we are able to build on the considered view of the Assembly committee and avoid duplication. (Paragraph 67)

Whitehall Clearance

25.  The Secretary of State has said recently that the Wales Office has 'learned our lessons' and that delays with particular LCOs were 'avoidable'. We would welcome further elaboration from the Wales Office on the nature of these delays and where they could have been avoided, as well as its plans to ensure that they do not occur in future. (Paragraph 76)

26.  The Wales Office's experience of LCOs as "a greater burden of work now than at any time in its existence since 1999" is one that we would recognise. It is unfortunate that the resources to deal with this burden were not made available at an earlier stage, but we acknowledge that the Wales Office is now making efforts to speed up the Whitehall clearance process for proposed Orders. There remains, however, an unacceptable lack of transparency within the process which hampers our ability to assess any progress which may have been made. (Paragraph 79)

27.  We believe that there is a strong case for a more formal reporting system on the Whitehall clearance system. The Wales Office should provide this Committee with a monthly update on the progress of all proposed Orders together with an explanation of any delays. In the event of this Committee being dissatisfied with progress, we intend to call ministers and officials from Whitehall departments to attend a meeting of the Committee along with a minister or official of the Wales Office a in order to identify the issues that remained unresolved, and to provide transparency about the process. (Paragraph 80)

The law in Wales since the Government of Wales Act 2006

28.  Processes for passing legislation possess an inherent degree of complexity, but we do not consider that the LCO procedure is intrinsically any more complex than other legislative processes. (Paragraph 88)

29.  We call for different a type of drafting to be undertaken by the National Assembly for Wales with the support and encouragement of the Wales Office and the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. The traditional approach within Whitehall is to draft any legislative clauses as widely as possible and to give ill-defined powers to ministers and officials. This arises from the wish to be able to deal with unanticipated circumstances and it is understandable when a legislative opportunity may not arise for a considerable period of time and perhaps for many years. Such drafting is not justified given the speed and efficiency of the LCO process, which makes it easy for the Assembly to draft and submit a fresh LCO to deal with specific circumstances that have not been anticipated in the drafting of existing legislation. It follows that each LCO should be as well defined as possible and should reflect the intention that has been stated by Ministers, Assembly members and MPs for each LCO to contain 'what it says on the tin'. (Paragraph 95)

30.  We agree with the Lords Constitution Committee that "clarity and transparency in the law are elemental to the core constitutional principle of the rule of law". The developing complexity of the law in Wales therefore gives us cause for concern. This situation arises not only from the legal complexity of certain individual instruments, such as the Environment LCO, but also from the need to keep track of a range of legislative vehicles through which powers can be devolved either to the Assembly or Welsh Ministers. (Paragraph 96)

31.  A difficulty now exists for legislators, ministers and civil servants, experts and most particularly the general public, in establishing the precise state of the law in Wales. In its report on the Environment LCO, the Lords Constitution Committee recommends the creation of "user-friendly explanations of the Assembly's evolving legislative competence, both in the case of individual LCOs and, on a regular basis, of Schedule 5 as a whole" to address this difficulty. We agree that there is more work to be done to establish a comprehensive and accessible 'Welsh statute book' and consider that this should be combined with a more straightforward approach to the drafting of proposed Orders and Explanatory Memoranda on the part of the Wales Office and Welsh Assembly Government. (Paragraph 97)