Scrutiny silence threatens good lawmaking

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 4th Jul 2005

New made-in-Wales laws could be passed without a proper assessment of how they will work in everyday life - that's the fear of Mike German, Assembly Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats.

Mr German today gave evidence to an Assembly committee which is looking at the White Paper 'Better Governance for Wales'. He branded the White Paper "profoundly inadequate" and driven by "narrow party interests"

He said: "The White Paper has chosen do go down paths which I would not have chosen as the way ahead. An enormous amount will need to be done to put the legislature in a position to exercise even minimally effective scrutiny. The White Paper offers no solutions to the problems it has created.

"The silence on scrutiny in the White Paper means that the job of organizing scrutiny is left to the National Assembly for us to sort out for ourselves. Yet bizarrely it suggests that the Secretary of State should write our standing orders. This Assembly now has six years of experience - we can and should write our own standing orders."

Mr German's submission to the committee highlighted a number of problem areas and questions:

1. What would be the process for motions for an order in Council? How widely will it be defined?

2. Legislative scrutiny - the difficulty of a major increase in workload with just 60AMs

3. How would private bills work?

4. The need for 'Sewel' motions, where the UK parliament legislates for Wales in areas which would ordinarily be considered to be devolved.

5. Need for an 'Advocate General' to police the grey areas of what is and is not devolved'

6. The discretion of the Secretary of State as the gatekeeper for tabling bills;

7. The need for the National Assembly to have its own 'Queen's Speech';

8. How easily would citizens have access to laws made in Wales?

Mr German added: "It is unfortunate that Labour have chosen this path, rather than the clear route drawn up by the Richard Commission. It is a lost opportunity."