National Assembly for Wales

Item 1 for the committee this morning—this afternoon, sorry—is introduction, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. Could I welcome everyone to this meeting of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee? No apologies have been received today. As a reminder, the meeting is being broadcast live on Senedd.tv, and the Record of Proceedings will be published as usual. Please could Members ensure that all mobile devices are switched to silent mode? Senedd Cymru operates through the medium of both the Welsh and English languages. Interpretation is available during today’s meeting.

That takes us to item 2, instruments that raise no reporting issues under Standing Order 21.2, and affirmative resolution instruments. Item 4.1 is the Carbon Accounting (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2025. The regulations update the definition of 'carbon unit' to meet greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. The regulations form part of a suite of regulations referred to collectively as the Climate Change (Wales) Regulations 2025. The two remaining sets of regulations in this suite are also on our agenda today. Senedd lawyers have identified no reporting points.  Do Members have any comments? No. Are we happy to agree the report? Yes. 

Instruments that raise issues to be reported to the Senedd under Standing Order 21.7—made negative resolution instruments. The following three items could be discussed together for convenience: the Individual Candidate Election Expenses (Senedd Elections) Code of Practice 2025; the Political Parties Campaign Expenditure (Senedd Elections) Code of Practice 2025; and letters from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government, a draft report, and a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government.

These three codes of practice were issued to provide guidance on what constitutes election expenses and campaign expenditure in Senedd elections. Senedd lawyers have identified multiple reporting points for each code—26, 21 and 40 reporting points, respectively. As a result, in the supplementary pack, we have a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government, received Friday afternoon, in which she states her intention, following our reports, to withdraw these three codes of practice. We understand that the codes have now been withdrawn. The Cabinet Secretary states that her officials will support the Electoral Commission in addressing the reporting points to lay revised versions of the codes. Do Members have any comments?

Yes.

I thought that you would, Alun.

This is pretty poor stuff from the Government, and I think that we should request an explanation as to why these codes were published with such a number of errors in them—their explanation of what's gone on and why we are in this situation.

Agreed.

Yes. I think that that has got a lot of agreement there. Can we write to the Government, asking them that? Yes.

Item 4, instruments that raise issues to be reported to the Senedd under Standing Order 21.2 or 21.3—the Climate Change (Net Welsh Emissions Account Credit Limit) (Wales) Regulations 2025. These regulations set a legal limit of 0 per cent on the number of carbon units that may be credited to the net Welsh emissions account for the 2026–30 budgetary period, ensuring that Wales cannot offset its carbon budget for that period with credits, as part of a broader legislative framework to meet climate change targets. Senedd lawyers have identified one technical reporting point. A Welsh Government response has not yet been received. Jen, would you like to run us through the reporting point?

Thank you, Chair. The reporting point notes that the regulations refer to several terms that are defined in the parent Act, which is the Environment (Wales) Act 2016, but not in the regulations themselves. Due to the effect of the Legislation (Wales) Act 2019, definitions in a parent Act don't carry through to legislation made under it. So, the meanings of the terms will not be the same, unless the regulations specifically provide for that to happen or repeat the definitions. So, the Welsh Government is asked to address this point.

Are we happy to ask them to do that? Yes.

Item 4.2, the Climate Change (Carbon Budget) (Wales) Regulations 2025, draft report. These regulations set Wales's fourth carbon budget for 2031–35, requiring average net greenhouse gas emissions to be 73 per cent lower than the baseline. These regulations follow advice from the Committee on Climate Change and are part of the Welsh Government's ongoing commitment under the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 to reduce emissions. Senedd lawyers have identified one technical reporting point. A Welsh Government response has not yet been received. Jen, would you like to run us through the reporting point? 

Thank you, Chair. So, the reporting point here is the same as that in relation to the previous set of regulations, which I just referred to, in that there is an issue with the use of terms that are defined in the parent Act but not in the regulations. So, again, a Welsh Government response is similarly awaited on that point.

Okay. A lot of nodding. Thank you.

Item 5, notifications and correspondence under the inter-institutional relations agreement. Correspondence from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs on the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) (Amendment) Regulations 2025. The Deputy First Minister informs us of his intention to consent to the UK Government making and laying the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, which will apply to Wales as well as the rest of the UK. These regulations will amend the existing UK-wide scheme to ensure producers cover the costs of managing packaging waste, promoting consistency and the polluter-pays principle across all nations. Have Members got any comments? No.

On to item 5.2, correspondence from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language on the Procurement Act 2023 (Specified International Agreements) (Amendment) Regulations 2025. The Cabinet Secretary informs us that he has given his consent for the UK Government to make the Procurement Act 2023 (Specified International Agreements and Saving Provision) (Amendment) Regulations 2025. These regulations mainly give effect to two international agreements, but a small element of the regulations relates to transitional provisions and requires the Welsh Ministers' consent. The Cabinet Secretary states that the Welsh Government expect to lay separate regulations to give effect to the international agreements for contracts covered by the Procurement Act 2023 for Wales on 18 November. Do Members have any comments? No.

A written statement by the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs on the Organic Production (Amendment) Regulations 2025. The Deputy First Minister informs us of the Welsh Government's consent for the Secretary of State to make the Organic Production (Amendment) Regulations 2025, which introduce minor changes to ensure alignment for organic producers across Great Britain. These regulations extend transitional provisions for marketing standards and organic products until 31 December 2026, and will come into force on 1 January 2026. Have Members got any comments? No.

Item 5.4, correspondence from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs on United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 exclusions from market access principles: glue traps. The Deputy First Minister informs us of his intention to consent to UK-wide regulations excluding glue traps from the market access principles under the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, following a request from the UK Government. He notes that the regulations will not currently impact policies in Wales but could facilitate future legislation if evidence supports extending the ban on glue trap sales. Have Members got any comments? No.

Correspondence from the Welsh Government on meetings of inter-ministerial groups—a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning on the Interministerial Group for Tourism, and a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language on the Finance: Interministerial Standing Committee. We have two notifications this week of inter-ministerial group meetings taking place. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning shares a communiqué published by the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport following a meeting of the tourism inter-ministerial group in July. And next we have a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language that provides details about discussions held at the meeting of the Finance: Interministerial Standing Committee on 17 October. The Cabinet Secretary states that he has secured agreement to undertake joint working, looking at ways to improve the operation of the Barnett formula to be reported at the next meeting of the Finance: Interministerial Standing Committee. The meeting is expected to take place in February next year. Do Members have any comments? No.

Papers to note—correspondence from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government to the Finance Committee on the Building Safety (Wales) Bill. The Cabinet Secretary has copied the committee into a letter to the Finance Committee, providing further details to inform its scrutiny of the Building Safety (Wales) Bill. Do Members have any comments? No. 

Correspondence from the Welsh Government on the Welsh Government’s response to the committee’s report on the Welsh Government’s legislative consent memorandum on the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill. Members are invited to note the Welsh Government’s response to our report on the legislative consent memorandum for the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill. Do Members have any comments they wish to make at this stage? No. 

A written statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government on the consultation on the draft Local Elections (Wales) (Amendment) Rules 2026, and the draft Representation of the People Act 1983 (Security Expenses Exclusion) (Amendment) (Wales) Order 2026. The Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government informs us of a 12-week consultation on proposed amendments to the rules for local elections in Wales, focusing on technical updates, bilingual requirements and aligning with recent changes to Senedd election rules. A key change is that candidates will no longer need to account for reasonable personal security and property protection expenses as part of their campaign expenditure. The draft rules and draft Order are intended to come into effect for the local elections in 2027. Do Members have any comments they wish to make? No.

A written statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government on the review of community arrangements of the city and county of Swansea. The Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government states that the Welsh Government will implement changes recommended by the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru following the commission’s review of community arrangements in Swansea. The Welsh Government intends for the required Order to come into force on 6 May 2027. Do Members have any comments? I don't think it's a declarable interest, but I would just mention I live within the city and county of Swansea to avoid any confusion.

A written statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the Education (Scotland) Act 2025 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2025. The Cabinet Secretary for Education states that the Education (Scotland) Act 2025 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2025 has been laid before Parliament to update legislation and statutory references following the establishment of Qualifications Scotland and changes to the Scottish education inspectorate. These amendments will also affect Welsh statutory instruments, including Welsh language versions, ensuring all references are current and necessary. Do Members have any comments? No.

A supplementary legislative consent memorandum (memorandum No. 5) on the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill. Members are invited to note the Welsh Government’s supplementary legislative consent memorandum (memorandum No. 5) on the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill, which was laid on 29 October. Members will be aware that the Senedd agreed a legislative consent motion for this Bill in Plenary on 21 October 2025. The supplementary memorandum states that these amendments make supplementary provision to the clauses for which consent was previously sought, and, as a result, the supplementary memorandum remains in line with the consent previously given by the Senedd. Are Members content to note this? Yes.

Correspondence from the Welsh Government on the Welsh Government’s responses to committee reports on the Welsh Government’s legislative consent memoranda on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill—a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, a Welsh Government response, a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children, Young People and Education Committee, a Welsh Government response to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We have a number of items of correspondence in relation to the legislative consent memoranda on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Members are invited to note the Welsh Government’s response to our report and that of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Do Members have any comments they wish to make? No.

Correspondence from the Welsh Government on the Welsh Government’s response to the cross-committee report on the UK-EU implementation review of the trade and co-operation agreement. Members are invited to note the Welsh Government’s response to the cross-committee report on the UK-EU implementation review of the trade and co-operation agreement. Members will be aware that a debate on the cross-committee report is scheduled to take place in Plenary on Wednesday afternoon.  Do Members have any comments they wish to make? No.

A written Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning on the Infrastructure (Wales) Act 2024 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2025. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning informs us that the Secretary of State for Wales has laid the draft Infrastructure (Wales) Act 2024 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2025 for approval in the UK Parliament. This Order makes technical amendments to UK legislation outside the Senedd’s legislative competence as a consequence of the Infrastructure (Wales) Act 2024, and is made under section 150 of the Government of Wales Act 2006. Do Members have any comments? No.

Correspondence from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government on the Building Safety (Wales) Bill. There was a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government on 30 October 2025, and there was a letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government on 7 October. Members are invited to note the response from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government following the evidence session we held with her on 29 September. We will be considering a draft report on the Bill at next week’s meeting. Do Members have any comments they wish to make? No.

Correspondence from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government on the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation (Wales) Bill. This letter was from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government on 30 October, and the letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government to the Finance Committee was on 30 October. Finally, we have two items of correspondence from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government, enclosing the Welsh Government’s response to this committee’s report on the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation (Wales) Bill, and the Finance Committee’s report on the Bill. Members will be aware that the Plenary debate on the general principles of this Bill is due to take place in Plenary tomorrow.  Do Members have any comments they wish to make? No.

That takes us on to item 8. In accordance with Standing Orders 17.42(vi) and (ix), I invite the committee to resolve to exclude the public from items 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13. Do Members agree? Yes.

The Planning (Wales) Bill and Planning (Consequential Provisions) (Wales) Bill, an evidence session with the Counsel General and Minister for Delivery. First of all, can I welcome Julie James, the Counsel General, to the meeting? Would you like to introduce your officials, or would they like to introduce themselves?

Yes, I'll ask them to introduce themselves, Cadeirydd, if that's okay.

Thank you, Counsel General. My name is James George. I'm senior legislative counsel in the office of the legislative counsel, and I've led the drafting team on the Bill.

Hi. My name's Dion Thomas. I'm the head of legislation and performance in the planning directorate, and I'm the policy lead on the Bill.

And I'm Claire Fife, head of the legislative codes office, and for the purposes of today, the programme manager for the Government's programme to improve the accessibility of Welsh law.

Croeso. Can I thank the Counsel General for her recent correspondence to the committee, which is included in the papers for Members to note? If I can go on to the first question: at the time of the Bill's introduction, the Llywydd stated that consultation with, or the consent of, the UK Government was required to bring sections 105 and 370 of the Planning (Wales) Bill within the legislative competence of the Senedd. Have you undertaken the necessary consultation in respect of section 105, and have you obtained the required consent in respect of section 370?

Yes, thank you, Chair. Actually, can I just make another remark before I start as well, if you don't mind?

Please do.

I just wanted to clarify something. Because a large number of the stakeholders referred to Dr Charles Mynors in their evidence to the committee, I just wanted to clarify for the record his role, since he's been mentioned so often. So, he was the principal author of the Law Commission's 'Planning Law in Wales' report, and he is currently on secondment. The Welsh Government is a member of the team, but the team's led by James and Dion, and his specialist expertise and knowledge has been extremely helpful to the project, particularly on areas such as the protection of trees and minerals and waste. I just wanted to make sure that the committee understood his role, because it has been referenced quite a lot in earlier correspondence.

But, Chair, just in terms of the question you asked: yes, we wrote to the Secretary of State for Wales on 15 July this year, seeking consent. We haven't had a formal response yet, but officials have been talking with relevant officials from the Wales Office, and we've been informed there are no policy concerns at all. As you know, consents must be secured by the time of Royal Assent, and we're very confident that we'll have the consents in place by then.

Okay. Thank you. Have you undertaken a broad assessment of the engagement of the Bill's provisions with human rights, in particular the provisions that would make changes to existing law, and what was the outcome of that assessment?

Yes, thank you, Chair. While these are of course consolidation Bills, as with any Bill, we've carried out a full human rights assessment before introduction, and I can confirm to the committee that I'm satisfied that the provisions of this Bill are wholly compliant.

Thank you very much. Finally from me: can you expand on the reasons you have provided in the explanatory memorandum to the Bills for not undertaking an integrated impact assessment?

Yes, the integrated impact assessment is used to build a balanced case for change, understanding positive and negative impacts for policies, programmes, budgets or legislation. It's obviously a very important part of the process of developing new policy and implementing new policy, but, obviously, the committee will be more than aware that this is a consolidation Bill, so there are no new policies involved and so, therefore, the policy as restated is extant. So, we didn't feel any need to do an integrated impact assessment. In fact, as the Chair knows and the committee knows, this is about improving accessibility of the law and clarifying it.

Okay. Diolch. Sam.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. Good afternoon, Counsel General and panel. In your letter on 10 October to the committee, you said that more provision had been moved from regulations to the face of the Bill, and that a smaller number of provisions had been moved from primary legislation to secondary legislation. So, do any of these new secondary legislative powers enable Welsh Ministers to make policy changes in the future? 

No. So, the idea is to make the law more accessible, obviously. So, what we've tried to do is contain as much as possible on the face of the Bill. So, where previously something might have been hidden in an obscure statutory instrument, it's been moved. I think I might ask James to explain how the drafters have gone about doing exactly that, but just to assure the committee that the idea is to make it more accessible and, frankly, to make you have to sift through fewer pieces of legislation to understand what the law is.

That makes sense.

Thanks, Counsel General. Yes, it's about accessibility and consistency as well. So, I think where we have things that are, in future, to be dealt with in subordinate legislation rather than primary, that's generally because those are issues that are generally dealt with in subordinate legislation anyway, but there are anomalies or exceptions, where some small element of them has been put into primary.

If we just give some examples, there is a small number of new regulation-making powers, and they're mainly about procedural-type matters. One of them is, say, section 72(4) of the Planning (Wales) Bill, which confers a new power to require the Welsh Ministers to notify applicants that their applications have been called in. Then we've got paragraph 6 of Schedule 8 and paragraph 13 of Schedule 9, which are powers to make provision about using electronic communications in connection with certain kinds of applications. So, those are just minor procedural matters of the kind that are dealt with in subordinate legislation anyway.

Where things have gone the other way, we've got things like time limits for compensation claims, which are important and haven't changed for a very long time, so they've been moved into the Bill. We've preserved a power for the Welsh Ministers to change the provisions about the time limits in the Bill. So, that's a slightly different power from what they have at the moment, but just to preserve the ability that they currently have to change those time limits. And then we've got other sorts of standard-type new powers that you'd have in any Bill, like powers to bring provisions into force and to make further consequential amendments.

Fab, thank you. And then in terms of approaching this—and, Counsel General, you've talked about the accessibility of law—how have you approached this consolidation exercise?

Well, I'm going to get the team to do that, because obviously this is a very technical Bill and I think the committee needs to understand how the team have done it. But just from a personal point of view, I've been concerned, one way or another, for most of my legal career with planning law, adjunct planning law, and one of the biggest issues has been—and I think I've said this in the committee before—if you knew somebody was coming to Cardiff to adjudicate on planning law, we would say, 'Oh good luck; good luck trying to figure out what's in force in Wales and what isn't', and all the rest of it. So, we very much want to get to a stage where you don't require good luck to be able to figure that out, that it's apparent from this consolidation Bill what is and isn't in force in Wales, what the base of the law is.

And then the last thing I would say is that there are some things that we all think need reform, but actually they're really difficult to reform, because you've got to try and find where the law is in order to do the reform. So, the consolidation Bill gives you the basis of how the law is now, so it becomes a much easier proposition to be able to say how you'd like it to be, because it clarifies, if you like, what the extant nature of the law is. But I'm going to let the team talk to you a little bit about the process that they've gone through.

Shall I go first? Obviously, in this particular case, the Law Commission's report has been an important part of the background to what we've been doing, but it's only part of it, so it has informed what we've done, but it's not been all that we've done.

On all consolidation projects, we as legislative counsels start by considering the potential scope of a new consolidated Act, and trying to assess what can be brought together in it, and we discuss that with policy officials in the relevant area, and the lawyers who deal with that area, who use their experience to advise on what makes sense as a coherent piece of law. So, based on those discussions, we form a view on what is in, and then we, as the drafters, go through all the legislation that we've decided is in, looking at it from the drafting point of view of how we can bring it more in line with modern drafting practice, improve the structure, and consider whether there are things that we don't need any more or odd things that might need to be fixed, and so on. We look at whether there are any improvements that are needed, and are those going to be within the scope of consolidation.

Sometimes that has involved further consultation with the Law Commission, as you heard from Professor Young. Policy officials obviously look at everything we do. The lawyers in the planning law team in the Welsh Government's legal services department look at everything, to make sure they're happy that we're not changing anything by accident. And we also, as the drafters, work very closely with the Welsh language terminologists and legislative translators to make sure that everything expresses the effect of the existing law as well as we can, in both languages. Obviously that's an iterative process that can affect both texts as those discussions go on.

Shall I come in?

I'll hand over to Dion.

Yes, shall I come in from the policy side of things? As James mentioned, it's very much a collaborative approach, and from a policy perspective, we get the questions through from the drafters around the legislation, and we will consider the questions that arise from that from a policy perspective. A lot of the evidence, obviously, has come from the Law Commission report. That's a good basis, but then if there are areas during the drafting process that we, perhaps, aren't sure about, then we've taken the opportunity to check with relevant stakeholders on those.

So, for example, internally, we will have discussed with various departments. There are departments that deliver—I suppose our delivery bodies for the planning system. So, you've got PEDW, which is Planning and Environment Decisions Wales. They deal with the planning appeals for the Welsh Ministers. So, the appeal provisions we've been able to check with them. We've discussed with highway colleagues in relation to the highway provisions, where they undertake functions on behalf of the Welsh Ministers in that respect.

And then, externally, we have also undertaken that exercise. In particular on the minerals and waste side of things, we've gone to practitioners, local authority practitioners, to identify what we think and to see whether they agree with that approach. So, yes, very much a collaborative approach and with lawyers obviously guiding us in that respect. Claire, do you have anything—

I just wanted to explain about the documentation. As James, Dion and the subject lawyers settle that, it's a small group then that starts pulling together the explanatory notes or the tables of origins, destinations, and eventually it all comes together. But it's quite something to watch, really. I'm not a part of planning, but seeing this expertise come together and this checking constantly that we're holding tight to the Standing Orders, it's quite something. And then, ultimately, we're ready then to take it to the Counsel General and make sure the Counsel General is content.

And I suppose the colloquial thing is, you've got to check that you're not enshrining custom and practice that's grown up, but actually isn't based on the base law. I know that this is perhaps a ridiculous analogy, but for those of you who've ever played the game Monopoly, virtually every family in the country has different rules for playing Monopoly, and if you actually go back and read the rules, they're usually nothing like the rules that you're playing by. People put money in the middle and all sorts of stuff that are not in the original rules. So, what this team is doing is checking that just because something is a custom and practice, it is actually in the law, based in the law, and that we're restating the law as it is. And the custom and practice might be something you want to do later, or actually it might not be something you want to do later. So, it's quite an iterative process of, ‘Well, we do it like this, why do we do it like this?’ You go back to the base material and so on. So, it's a very exhaustive and clever and intense process. I would not in any way pretend to have the level of knowledge that the people who have been involved in this legislation have, and will be invaluable to us going forward in terms of any reforms we want to do as well.

Consolidation Bills don't tend to be controversial, because they're that: they're not new policy. But, in evidence to the committee, Annabel Graham Paul, who is the Wales representative to the Planning and Environment Bar Association, raised a 'word of warning' about litigation risks resulting from any over simplification of legislation made in a consolidation exercise. So, what considerations have you given to the risk as part of the approach that the four of you outlined in the previous answer?

I'm definitely going to get James to answer that in detail. But, again, just to make the point, and this is a point I've made often to the Llywydd, right? So, we're often asked, ‘You've been asked a simple question, Minister, give a simple answer.’ And the one that the Chair here will know that I always use is, 'Yes, it's a very simple question: explain local government finance; give a simple answer.' So, something that might on the face of it seem simple actually really isn't, and then other things that might seem very complex are capable of a simple answer. That's the art, isn't it? I'll hand over to you at that point, James.

Thanks, Counsel General. Certainly, the issue you mentioned is definitely one that we have considered, that we've been quite anxious about all the way through the process. I think I would describe the approach we've taken as being positive, but careful. So, we've looked very carefully at the existing legislation to try and understand how things work. We've tried to identify cases where we could improve how it's presented, or if we've seen things that don't seem to be needed, we've considered whether we could just leave them out. But it has also been very much at the front of our minds that this is a consolidation exercise and we're not trying to change the effect of the law. So, whenever we have changed any wording, we've thought very hard about whether that could make any difference to the legal effect. Obviously, because it's a consolidation Bill, we don't want to stray beyond what's allowed by the Standing Order, we don't want to make some inadvertent policy reforms or cause any problems, we don't want to reopen issues that have previously been settled and create risks that people might start arguing about them again.

So, I think I would say that the risk of new litigation is one of the reasons why we've been careful, but it's part of a bigger set of reasons that all point in that direction. And I would say the 'we' I'm talking about is all of us—the policy officials and the lawyers—

So it has very much been front of mind as you've been consolidating this, what was highlighted by Annabel.

Definitely. 

Can I give you an example that has always struck me? It has been put to me by several parliamentary draftspeople over the course of the time I've been doing this. In a piece of legislation, you might have something that refers to the Secretary of State. It doesn't necessarily tell you which Secretary of State. Sometimes, because the provisions have been repealed in England, the Secretary of State means the Welsh Ministers, even though they're not mentioned at all. This is what I mean about 'good luck'. So, you might have a provision that says 'the Secretary of State can do X', and the actual interpretation is 'the Welsh Ministers can do X'. Again, I don't want people to have to have a PhD in statutory interpretation to be able to get through this, so where that's the case, we've made that simple change. Sometimes, of course, the powers are shared between a particular Secretary of State and others, so a series of judgments have to be made about whether this can be simplified, or whether a catch-all term still works, and you have to do that for each individual provision, so this has been no small task. 

Sometimes, that issue actually means what you end up with on the page is a bit more complicated. It looks simple because it says 'Secretary of State', but actually in some cases it means the Welsh Ministers. In some cases, it means the Welsh Ministers plus the Secretary of State, or alternatively a Secretary of State sometimes, depending on who chooses to do it.

Thank you.

Alun Davies.

Thank you. I think it's probably fair to say that notwithstanding the complexity and the scale of this legislation, I'm not sure that the committee has heard much that would worry either the committee or the Government, in fact. I think most of the witnesses have been very positive about the process, and you'll have seen that following the evidence the committee's received. So, given that I think most of us here—the committee hasn't reached a view on this—want to see this consolidation proceed smoothly and to reach the statute book in good time, I think we're just going to focus on a number of relatively narrow points this afternoon, which are as much for clarity as for any other reason. I'm going to ask you about the evidence from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority and the relationship between this Bill and management of landscape issues, namely regulation 41 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017; you would have anticipated this question, of course. The provision is not included in the legislation; Bannau Brycheiniog seem to believe it should be. So the question is why isn't it. 

Again, I'm going to defer to experts, but in general, it is perfectly possible to make out that virtually every area of law relates to planning in some way. Most housing law relates to planning, most transport stuff relates to planning, so to some extent it has been a question of where are you drawing the edge. It's a judgment call, isn't it, where is the edge, and absolutely we have considered a number of things. The habitats regs is one of them, but there are others, actually, that could have been in or not in. And in the end, we've gone with the experts' view on keeping this accessible, straightforward and simple as the primary aim, and then drawing the edges accordingly. But in all honesty, there's very little you couldn't say was part of planning law if you really wanted to push the boundaries. But I'm going to defer to Dion or James on the specifics.

I'm happy to take that. I think the Counsel General is right, it's about where you draw that line. No doubt it is important, but there are other requirements and other legislation that are equally important. This is a provision about planning policies and encouragement of management of landscapes, but equally there are requirements around economic development, sustainable development, biodiversity. Going back to the point, we have to draw that line somewhere, and we think we've drawn the line quite sensibly in that respect.

I would note, I guess, that stakeholders have come forward to the committee to say that they generally agree that the scope is appropriate. I'd also note that the UK Environmental Law Association didn’t raise this issue. But what they did put into their evidence was that they thought that it was very helpful to separate out the law, because with the consolidation of planning law being brought into one and made simpler and clearer, they can then look at the relationship between two pieces of legislation a lot clearer, to then have the debate about whether it's appropriate or not appropriate and should it be strengthened, et cetera. I think that would be our position.

I think that position makes perfect sense; you're absolutely right in taking that approach. I think, as a committee, we will want to ensure that you've got that level of comprehensive consolidation whilst recognising that boundaries do exist to any consolidation.

And that's not to diminish that at all, it'll still be as important. It's just located in other places.

Yes, I understand that. On the relationship between this legislation and the UK Government's Planning and Infrastructure Bill, you haven't referenced it, but it exists, so what is the relationship and how do you see these pieces of legislation sitting together?

I'm going to start by saying that we don't have any control over when the UK Government introduces various things, and they don't always do it to our convenience, so as the thing comes up in the King's Speech, you can find your heart sinking and thinking, 'Oh no, just as we were getting to the point where we thought we'd finished, we've now got to have a look at this'. But, obviously, the team has considered what that Bill is doing, and again, I'm going to defer to much more expert colleagues about why we don't think it's an issue.

I'm happy to start, and then, James, you can come in. In terms of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, I can describe it by dividing it into thirds. There's a third that deals with infrastructure consenting and changing the infrastructure consenting regime, which is changing the Planning Act 2008, the Transport and Works Act 1992 and the Highways Act 1980—not touching the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, basically. You've got another third that deals with compulsory purchase, again dealing with the compulsory purchase-related provisions rather than the planning. Then you've got another third that does touch upon the Town and Country Planning Act, but because planning is devolved in Wales, it is only in England that those changes apply. But there are, obviously, aspects where we are amending the Town and Country Planning Act, and the UK Government is amending the Town and Country Planning Act, and this is where James now can explain the technicalities of it all.

There are some references to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill in our Planning (Consequential Provisions) (Wales) Bill, because, as Dion says, in some cases we need to make an amendment to a particular provision, and they're also making an amendment to it, and what amendment each of us needs to make depends on who goes first. So, we sometimes have got alternative versions of amendments in our consequential provisions Bill, depending on whether their amendment has already been made or not. That's something we did on the basis of their Bill, as it stood, when we introduced ours. I know their Bill has since had further amending stages—I think there's one that's concluding today. So, assuming that that Bill is passed, when we see the final text of it, we will need to assess what changes are needed. So, we may need to change some of the cross-references, or—

So there is that interdependence.

Yes.

But we've split this Bill into two, remember. So this is for the consequential provisions Bill rather than for the main Bill.

But we would anticipate the Government bringing forward amendments to that at Stage 2.

Well, it depends. My law professor, years and years ago, always used to say that credit can be given for writing 'It depends' in the margin. So, I'm going to write, 'It depends'. 

It'll depend on whether the House of Commons accepts the House of Lords amendments to the Bill, and then it'll depend on the timing. As things stand, we understand that their Bill should complete its passage in time for us to do all that at detailed committee consideration stage, if necessary. 

Hopefully.

But the burden of my question is that there is the capacity and the time available to us to take a view on the interdependencies at an appropriate time and still time to take actions that may or may not be required.

It's a perfect example of why we separated this into two Bills.

Yes, absolutely. Okay, I understand where we are on that. You'll have been aware from the evidence that the committee has heard a range of views on the terms 'material considerations' and 'relevant considerations'. You've written to us, I suspect it was last week, on this matter. Could you put on the public record now the rationale for the Government's position?

Again, I'm going to say the layperson's view, which is that it's just an easier phrase to understand. We've used it in other legislation. We think it's as comprehensive as 'material considerations'. We think that's a less accessible phrase. Other views will exist. But, for example, I took the infrastructure Bill through and that used 'relevant considerations' as the terminology. So, you know, it's becoming more—

But they both mean the same thing. 

It means the same thing, yes. It's becoming more the thing that's used rather than the old—

So, it's modernising the language as much as anything. 

Yes, it's modernising the language, effectively. 

I'm content with that, as it happens. If you feel we need a more technical explanation, then—

Yes, there's a more technical explanation, if you want.

I suppose the only point to add to that is that obviously we do think 'material' and 'relevant' mean exactly the same thing, but also that has been confirmed by the highest court. The Supreme Court has made decisions where it says, 'What's material? Well, it's just what's relevant'.

I'm content. 

Okay. Adam Price. 

Diolch, Cadeirydd. Standing Order 26C.2, which we're all deeply familiar with—obviously we read our Standing Orders as a bible as Senedd Members—sets out the various requirements to achieve the status of a consolidation Bill. I want to delve into two particular examples, which relate, in the questions that I'm going to ask, to 26C.2(ii).

The first one relates to subsection (5)(b) of section 319 of the Bill, which adds a provision that mandatory conditions relating to the duration of minerals permissions must be ignored, in the same way as conditions relating to when development must start or reserved matters must be approved must be ignored. The drafters' notes state that this change

'fills a gap and ensures consistency with the equivalent provision in relation to purchase notices in section 110(4).'

You relied in this instance on ground (ii) of that Standing Order, which relates to clarifying the application or effect of the law. Why did you do that in this particular case? Could it not have been related to one of the other subclauses?

I really want to give you a gold star with merit for this, because you've found a mistake. I'm going to get James to talk to it. But either you or your researcher, Adam, needs to get the gold star for having slogged your way through the detail and found what I think James is accepting is an error.

It's our fantastically excellent clerks. 

There we are. Well, somebody needs a gold star. I think James is about to tell you that you're absolutely right.

Yes, there's a mistake in the notes. We're grateful to the clerk for spotting that and pointing it out. Rather than referring to paragraph (ii), which is about clarification, that note should have referred to paragraph (iv), which is about minor changes for the sake of achieving a satisfactory consolidation. So, with the Counsel General's permission, we'll correct that when the drafters' notes are relaid before the Senedd.

Somebody's got a serious insomnia problem, in my view.

The next question, I think, is the same scenario, but in reverse. So, let's see if we've got a run here of successes. Paragraph 1(4) of Schedule 5 adds wording stating that the power to amend the 60-year periods specified in the Schedule includes the power to amend the Schedule. The drafters’ notes state this change

'improves accessibility by ensuring that any regulations amending the periods will be able to amend the text of the Schedule so that it refers to the correct periods.'

Now, in this case, you are relying on sub-clause 4, making minor changes for the purposes of achieving a satisfactory consolidation, to make the change, which broadens an existing Henry VIII power. In this case, might not ground (ii), clarifying the application or effect of the law, also have been engaged?

I'm definitely going to let James explain this one.

Thank you. In this case, we think that we have cited the right paragraph. So, yes, this is a very rare case where the provision in the Bill has exactly the same number as the provision in the existing Town and Country Planning Act. So, paragraph 1(4) of Schedule 5 to the Town and Country Planning Act already allows the regulations to be made to modify this default 60-year duration of a minerals permission. Now, at the moment, if regulations were made, that change would just sit in the regulations. We're making a change to say that you could make the change by actually amending the provision in the Act itself, so that the text would reflect the new period. So, obviously, we think that that results in a more accessible outcome because the legislation will mean what it says. But we think that that change is not really a clarification of the existing law. It's a slight extension of an existing power. So, we think that it's best described as a minor change for the sake of achieving a satisfactory consolidation.

Okay. I'm grateful for that explanation. Thank you.

Carrying on in this vein, subsections (7) and (8) of section 137 restate section 276 of the Public Health Act 1936, but omit its subsection (3). Can you provide further detail and clarity as regards the omission of subsection (3) of section 276 of the 1936 Act from section 137 of the Bill?

So, I think that this is a similar thing to the Historic Environment (Wales) Bill, and we had some exchange on that, but I'm going to leave James to explain it to you. I guess, Chair, it depends on how much detail the committee actually wants, because we can just explain how it was dealt with in the previous consolidation Bill, or we can give you chapter and verse for this one. I'm going to leave it to James, for sure.

So, which would you prefer? Would you like me to refer you to the—?

Just a simple 'why?'

Okay, well, it's quite hard to give a simple answer to that, but I will try. So, it's about cases where an enforcement notice hasn't been complied with, and a planning authority sends somebody onto the land to do the things that the enforcement notice required. There are regulations that have been made that apply certain provisions of the Public Health Act 1936 in that situation, which includes section 276. Section 276 says that, if a local authority removes materials from premises when doing works under the 1936 Act, it can sell the materials but has to pay the proceeds to the owner of the materials, once it has taken out its own costs of doing the works. Subsection (3), which is the bit we've left out, then says that that doesn't apply to any refuse that an authority removes from premises. So, we think that that exception for refuse made sense in the context of the 1936 Act when it was originally enacted, and it might still be relevant in the context of waste collection. But we don't think that it's relevant in a case where an authority is going onto land to do works required by an enforcement notice. The reason that we think that is that Part 2 of the 1936 Act used to be the legislation that gave local authorities all their waste collection powers. That included section 76, which gave the authorities a separate power to sell the refuse that they removed from premises. But there wasn't any duty to account for the proceeds to the owner in section 76, whereas there is one in section 276.

So, if an authority wanted to sell refuse, there would potentially be a conflict between the two sections: if you sell the refuse, do you have to account to the owner for the proceeds or not? So, we think that section 276(3) was just there to resolve that conflict and make clear which provision applied in that case. None of that is relevant if an authority is going onto land to take down a structure that's been put up in breach of planning control, and an enforcement notice hasn't been complied with, and you're taking away the building materials. The authority when it's doing that is not acting as a waste collection authority, so that's why we think section 276(3) doesn't need to apply in that situation.

Thank you. I'm going to ask another question along similar lines to which I expect to have a similar answer. The provision in subsection (3) of section 276 of the 1936 Act has been omitted from section 258 of the Bill. Can you provide further details and clarify?

Yes, that's the same.

It's exactly the same answer. 

Okay. Over to you, Sam.

Thank you very much, Chair. Section 105(9) restates section 108(4) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The restatement includes a reference to a local development order that would have been inserted by section 40(2)(h) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchasing Act of 2004. The drafters’ notes state that this section 40(2)(h) of the 2004 Act was, quote,

‘repealed by the 2011 Act shortly before section 40 was brought fully into force in Wales.’

It then states that

‘the intention must have been that the amendment to section 108(4) should take effect in Wales.’

So, is the Welsh Government aware of any person having missed out on compensation by this omission, and, secondly, if you are not aware of any such person, do you consider that to be an example of the reason for why this consolidation was necessary?

I can answer your question very simply—

Brilliant.

The answer is, no, there isn't anyone affected, and, yes, we do think that. But if you want a more detailed answer, I can get James to give it to you. 

It's not very much longer. That section 108(4) is just a power for Ministers to make regulations that would limit rights to compensation in certain cases, but no regulations have actually been made, so at the moment this doesn't affect anybody. If Ministers at some point in the future did want to make regulations, this would just mean that the regulations worked better in the context of that section.

Okay, that's helpful. Moving on to section 116(2), which adds a power for Welsh Ministers to authorise entry on land to determine whether a stop notice should be issued, the drafters’ notes state that this ‘rectifies an anomaly’, and describes the nature of the anomaly. Can you clarify why you consider it appropriate to address this apparent anomaly on the ground that it is a minor change for the purpose of achieving a satisfactory consolidation?

I'm going to get James to explain that, because that's quite a complicated set of things.

Yes, thank you, Counsel General. We do think it's a minor change just to fill in a small gap that was created by accident in 1991. Before then, as we said in the drafters’ notes, local planning authorities and the Welsh Ministers both had powers to authorise entry onto land in connection with proposals to issue notices under any of the enforcement provisions in the 1990 Act. So, that definitely included authorising entry to decide whether to issue a stop notice. There were then some changes made in 1991, and the result of that is local authorities still have all the powers they had before, and more, and the Welsh Ministers still have the power to authorise entry to decide whether to issue an enforcement notice, but not a stop notice.

Now, entering land to decide whether to issue either of those notices will generally involve considering the same issues about whether there's an ongoing breach of planning control. And each stop notice has to be linked to a specific enforcement notice anyway. So, really the only additional issue that you're considering when you decide whether to issue a stop notice is whether there's an ongoing breach that needs to stop sooner than it would otherwise. So, we don't think actually adding a power to enter land in connection with that particular issue of whether to issue a stop notice really adds very much at all to what can be done already, but still there is a slight anomaly there, or gap, which we think it makes sense to fill to produce a more coherent picture.

That seems quite rational. Moving on to section 186(6), which relates to the collection and payment of the community infrastructure levy and amends a provision enabling replication or application of any enactment relating to the collection of tax so that it is limited to enactments relating to the collection of local taxes, the drafters’ notes state that, quote,

'limiting the ability to replicate or apply enactments to those relating to the collection of local taxes seems more appropriate as the Community Infrastructure Levy is similar to a local tax.'

Now, subsection (6) as drafted provides that, quote,

'regulations under this section may replicate or apply (with or without modifications) any enactment relating to the collection of a tax'.

So, do you consider that a more appropriate consolidation would have been to refer to ‘devolved taxes whether local or otherwise’? Did you seek the views of the Law Commission in respect of this change?

Again, that's very much a drafting question, so, sorry, James. 

So, we have narrowed the powers that currently exist. It's about how we're restating section 217(6) of the 2008 Act, and that allows CIL regulations—community infrastructure levy regulations—to make provision about the collection of CIL that, as you said, replicates any enactment relating to the collection of any tax. But our view and the view of policy colleagues was that CIL is like a local tax—it's imposed, collected and enforced by local authorities. It will be different in different areas. And the provision that's in the existing CIL regulations about collection is very similar to the legislation about collection of council tax and non-domestic rates, which are obviously the local taxes that exist.

So, the conclusion that we reached was that we didn't need any more. We didn't need it to be any wider than applying the legislation about collecting local taxes, so that's why we narrowed it in that way. It would have been possible, obviously, to say that you can apply enactments about the collection of any devolved taxes, local or not, but we just didn't think that was necessary, given the nature of the community infrastructure levy.

And on the question about whether we've spoken to the Law Commission about it, we didn't speak to the Law Commission because we thought this was a minor change that we could make under the Standing Order without needing a recommendation from them that we could do it.

Okay, thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Alun Davies. 

Thank you. In terms of clarity of the legislation, I think in section 1 you list all the enactments contained in or made under various Acts, which the consolidation includes. In terms of the structure and architecture, if you like, of this legislation, would it not make more sense for that list of enactments to be in the second part of the legislation in the consequential provisions Bill, since that does deal with some of those more technical aspects, rather than in the enactment itself—the consolidation Bill itself, if you like—which is supposedly a clean slate start, where you go through the provisions and the clauses of the legislation? So, is there perhaps a means of finding a different balance in terms of clarity?

I will defer to James in a minute, but the idea of the two Bills is that we hope that the consequential provisions Bill will never be consulted by anyone other than legal historians, really. So, the idea is that the first Bill, the consolidation Bill, will start off by saying, 'This is a consolidation Bill', so you know that you don't have to go further back in time. And then it will put the things that you need to know, and you'll not have to refer to anywhere else, on its face, and then be self-contained, whereas if you put the signposting about what's changed in the other Bill, you'd have to cross-reference it. So, I think, in layperson's terms, that's what we're talking about. There are obviously technical things about what's included in one and not the other.

There's not really much to add to that, I don't think. The first two sections of the main Bill are introductory provisions that explain what the Bill's doing and what it contains. And we thought it was helpful for section 1 to indicate, 'This is a consolidation Bill and here's broadly what it's consolidating.'

Okay, I accept the explanation provided. In terms of taking forward the clarity issue, the Bill replaces the term 'local planning authority' and provides that the planning authority for an area in Wales is the county council or county borough council for that area, except in the case of national parks and joint planning boards. But of course, Welsh Ministers also have a role in terms of planning, both as an appellant authority but also in terms of some powers that are held by Ministers. I'd just appreciate a bit more clarity, then. Should the Bill clarify that Welsh Ministers are the national planning authority, with the functions conferred upon them by the Act? Is there a requirement for an additional level of clarity as to the role and position, if you like, of Welsh Ministers?

I'll defer to James again in a minute, but I think, generally, trying to find a term that doesn't then confuse everybody with the difference between the national planning authority, the national park, the local planning authority and so on is problematic. And also it doesn't tell you what the Welsh Ministers' powers are; you've still got to read the whole Bill to find that out. So, I think, in the end, the judgment was it just didn't clarify it. In fact, if anything, it might be slightly more confusing. But I'll defer to James for a more technical explanation.

Well, the reasons why we didn't do it are really what the Counsel General just said. We did think about whether there was any merit in mentioning the role of the Welsh Ministers at the beginning of the Bill, where we talk about which authorities are the planning authorities, but we didn't think there was anything that we could usefully say, really. We've clarified, in a couple of places in the Bill, the status of national planning policy made by the Welsh Ministers, and its relevance to local plans and to planning decisions, but we didn't think there was anything we needed to say about the functions of the Welsh Ministers themselves. 

I think it would just confuse matters. What we're trying to drive is that planning authorities are the main delivery body of the planning system, really, and Welsh Ministers don't have all the powers that the planning authorities have either, so I think it would just get quite confusing.

Okay. But Welsh Ministers, of course, have quite discrete powers in terms of the system itself. Okay, fine. Thank you.

Adam Price.

Diolch, Gadeirydd. So, I turn to some further evidence by Parc Bannau Brycheiniog. They've raised concerns about the way that section 4A of the 1990 Act has been consolidated in section 7 of the Bill, and they argue that that has changed the role of the national park authority status as the sole local planning authority for the area of the park. Now, in your letter to the committee, the drafters have included an explanation in respect of this point, but, Counsel General, could you, as the Member in charge, respond further to their concerns?

Yes. Thank you, Adam. So, I was interested in seeing that exchange. You won't be at all surprised to find that we don't think it has changed the effect of section 4A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. We're very confident it restates the law in its existing form. I think it's very clear, and the committee will be very clear, about the fact that we know that the national park authorities are important local planning authorities in their own right. They are, in fact, single-purpose planning authorities; that's what they are. I think it's very clear that that's the case, and section 7 presents that provision in a much clearer and more straightforward manner.

I do think there's a little bit of confusion around the role of the CJC, which I was also the Minister in charge of at the time, just to say. So, just to be really clear: the existing legislation makes it abundantly obvious that a corporate joint committee is not a planning authority for the purposes of planning legislation. They're a separate corporate entity with the responsibility of preparing the strategic development plan for their region, not as the local development planning authority. So, it's great that the national parks are taking an interest in this and so on, but I think it is really important to understand that that is not changing. They've expressed views—policy views, I would say, not planning law views—over the years since we put the CJC in place, which has now been some five years, around how that interacts. But I do think that's a separate matter from the restating of their position as a local planning authority.

Okay. Does that cover it? So, there's a misinterpretation of the role of the CJCs and also some, maybe, reference to English legislation, which doesn't apply to Wales. So, you're quite satisfied that there's clarity.

Yes. So, just to be really clear, the CJC is not a planning authority. It wasn't set up as a planning authority, and it still isn't the planning authority, and this Act doesn't do anything to change that. You wouldn't expect it to; that would be a change in the law. So, it isn't. The CJC has responsibility for developing a regional strategic plan that then becomes part of the relevant considerations for planning applications in its area, but it's still adjudicated on, if you like, by the national park as the local planning authority, and it's for them to give the relevant amount of weight to the relevant consideration that would be the strategic development plan. But they're still the deciding authority. CJC has no locus to decide that. And of course, that's as it is now and as it will be after this consolidation Act.

Okay. Thank you for that, Counsel General. Just moving on to another matter, then, raised by Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority, where they claim there to be a lack of clarity about retrospective application of some of the provisions in the Bill that were introduced by the Planning (Wales) Act 2015. Now, the drafters stated in their letter to us of 23 October that they don't agree that there is any uncertainty. However, the submission from Bannau Brycheiniog did cite a letter issued to planning authorities in 2020, which sought to provide clarity on this issue. Are you aware of that letter, Counsel General? Do you believe there is further scope for further clarity to be provided within the Bill, as they contend?

So, I am aware of the letter, because I was the Minister that sent it. I've been in the Government a long time with various hats on. So, I was at that time the Minister for Housing and Local Government and I'm the one who sent the letter. I have to say that we thought the letter resolved the issue, because the provisions were about the expiry of plans that were introduced by the Planning (Wales) Act 2015, and it applied to plans that already existed. So, we thought it resolved the issue, but I'll invite James to comment on whether he thinks that that's the case.

Yes. As was said in the annex to the Counsel General's letter to the committee, we don't think there's an issue here. I should say that I also have some background in this, because I was the drafter of the relevant section of the Planning (Wales) Act 2015, so you've got all of the people from the past in front of you.

I think, in the current Bill, it would have been possible for the Schedule of transitional and saving provisions in the consequential provisions Bill to say something about this, but we just don't think there's any need to, because we don't think there's an issue that really needs clarifying. We could have said in that Schedule that sections 19(5) and (9) about the expiry of plans don't apply to local development plans that were adopted before 4 January 2016, but we think that's clear anyway, so we don't think we need to say that.

Thank you. Sam Kurtz has got a supplementary on this.

Yes, thank you. This is slightly tangent to the question, but around retrospective planning, and I know, Counsel General, that you're not the planning Minister—that sits with Rebecca Evans's portfolio—and maybe it's slightly more a policy question, but a constituent case—. And there are examples across Wales of retrospective planning applications going in a number of times—three, four, five times—and then stopping enforcement being taken on an application. Is there anything within this consolidation that tidies up that element, or would that be new legislation and therefore hasn't been encompassed in this? I can see some nods ahead to my second point there, so—.

That would be reform.

That's a reform.

A reform issue. Okay.

It's one of the ones that quite a few of us think we should do, but—.

Yes, okay. That's really helpful.

Obviously, this Bill doesn't change the law; it just states what it currently is.

No, that's a really helpful clarification. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

[Inaudible.] Over to you, Adam. Or back to you, Adam, sorry.

Yes, thank you. Finally, turning to evidence by the RTPI Cymru and Planning Officers Society Wales, they both called for a statement on the purpose of planning currently contained within section 2 of the Planning (Wales) Act 2015 to be included as an overarching statement at the top of the Bill, instead of being included within sections 11 and 51 of the Bill only. Now, in your letter of 28 October, you explained that extending this duty would be a change in the law, in your view. Could you perhaps elaborate on that? And do you believe that there would be any benefit in applying the duty more widely if you were to introduce reform legislation for that purpose?

So, we do think that it would be a change in the law, because that's not how the current law is. The current Government has no plan at all to bring a planning reform Bill in the remaining months of this Senedd. Quite frankly, we're struggling to get the remaining legislative programme through, never mind embarking on a planning law reform Bill, although I think Sam's question made it obvious that there are a number of us who think that there are planning reforms that ought to be carried out. I think that if you were going to extend a sustainable development duty then you would need to carefully evidence how and where to extend it, and it wouldn't necessarily extend to all planning. So, a certificate of lawful use, for example, how would you extend it to that? You are saying that the thing that you've been doing for the last 12 years is okay; I'm not sure how you'd apply a sustainable—. Anyway, there are a number of things that you might want to have a look at to see whether they would or wouldn't benefit from having it extended, but, for the purposes of this, that is a change in the law, and obviously this isn't about changing the law.

It would have to be discussed with stakeholders to understand the consequences. So, as the Counsel General alluded to, with the certificate of lawfulness, you're not considering the principle of the development at this point in time, you're only looking at lawful compliance. So, even the development plan isn't a consideration in that instance. There are regulation-making powers to introduce procedure; you’d question its applicability in that context as well. So, it's about making sure that we understand what it can apply to and what may not be appropriate for it to apply to. But it's, yes, a reform in our view.

But it's a change anyway, regardless, isn't it?

Yes.

Okay.

If I might add as well, Adam, just in terms of the conversation we were having earlier about the edge of this Bill, one of the things about the sustainable development principles is whether a future Government would want to have a look at consolidating agricultural and environment law, which I, for one, as a citizen of Wales, would definitely be in favour of, because it's extremely complicated. If you're a farmer in Wales, trying to figure out what you're supposed to be complying with is no simple thing either, and that might an appropriate point in time to consider whether you might want to look at extending or otherwise the sustainable development principles. You'd also have to look at the interaction with the new Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Bill that's going through and with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. So, it's not a straightforward set of things to look at, I would say, but it's definitely not part of this, because we are obviously consolidating the law as it exists.

Yes. I must admit, and forgive me, I'm not familiar with all of the detail of these sections, but can you understand that maybe from a wider public accessibility perspective, though, it would be ideal, wouldn't it, that the planning code had at its beginning an accessible statement of what the purpose of the entire body of law is, what is it trying to achieve? I think what I understand from your contribution, though, is that, just in policy terms, extending the section that only applies to certain parts of the code to the whole of the code would be a change in policy. But, from a public understanding of law perspective, it would be good, wouldn't it, to have a concise statement of what the intended outcome of the entire body of law is.

I think you might need to have a Nobel Prize if you can do a concise statement of the purpose of planning, actually. But maybe Dion has a view on that.

Well, in a sense, didn't the Town and Country Planning Act of, when was it, 1947 have that in its genesis? There was a vision, really, of what the purpose of town and country planning was and it has, of course, been added to and added to and added to over the years, and sometimes you can't now see the wood for the trees. But there's still an underlying purpose, isn't there?

I wasn't born in 1947, but—

I hasten to say that neither was I.

I'm not aware that they have that statement in there. But, saying that, the planning legislation covers such a wide variety of provisions, from trees to statutory undertakers to blight to acquisition. So, where it currently bites on, it's biting on the core areas that the public are more familiar with—so, the development plans and the determination of planning applications. So, there are other powers and other areas where planning permission is granted, so it could be extended to those areas, but I think it would be extremely difficult, I guess, to be able to provide a summary. I think it could be easily one of those that people could argue and argue and argue over for hours and hours and hours.

Which we all like doing, of course.

Yes. I just checked; it was 1947, but there we are. [Laughter.] For the record. But, yes, okay. I'm grateful to the Counsel General and to the team.

We could discuss the 1947 Act, and there were good reasons behind it, but it's not before us today.

Several of those who have given evidence to the committee have been calling for clarity on where subordinate legislation on planning would fit after the Bills have received Royal Assent. In particular, the Royal Town Planning Institute Cymru and the Planning Officers Society Wales have said that it is essential there are no unintended gaps to prevent the functioning of the planning system when the planning Bill is enacted. Can you provide further information about how many Welsh statutory instruments will be required to implement the Bills once enacted, and how will you prioritise the making of those instruments? 

Yes. So, again, I'll give the sort of straightforward simple answer, and I'll defer to various people for the technical detail. Just to state, very clearly, that there's no need for alarm. It will not alter the continuing operation of existing planning subordinate legislation. That will continue to be in force and there will be no gap, but there will be a need to have a new instrument to make consequential amendments to existing subordinate legislation, so that they refer to the correct part of the consolidation Act and not to the Town and Country Planning Act or to whatever else it is that they refer to.

That's quite a substantial Welsh statutory instrument to do, and it will need to be completed early in the new Senedd term in order to give a coherent set of laws to make sure that the consolidation project, if you want, continues on, so that it's simplified all the way through, and you don't have my proverbial poor lawyer, who's attempting to argue a case in front of a judge, having to try to look at the consolidation Act and then look at a piece of subordinate legislation and try and follow through with what it refers to. So, I would expect the incoming Welsh Government to enact the new statutory instrument as one of its first priorities, and indeed this Government will make sure we've done a lot of the preparatory work necessary to make sure that that can be done early doors.

But just in terms of the extant law, the old subordinate legislation will stay in force until the new legislation is put in place. I don’t know if you want to say anything sort of technical about how that works.

Well, I suppose on the technical side of how that comes about is that the Legislation (Wales) Act 2019 has a set of standard default saving provisions that mean that when we re-enact a piece of legislation, subordinate legislation made under the old legislation carries on as if it had been made under the new legislation, so that's what will ensure that regulations don't all just fall away when the consolidation comes into force. But that, obviously, as the Counsel General said, leaves things hard to understand, and there are still a few statutory instruments around that were made under the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which was just mentioned, and so they have references to that Act in, and trying to work out which is the corresponding provision of the current legislation is very difficult. So, partly just for accessibility reasons, we would want to consequentially amend subordinate legislation to make sure it's citing the right provisions of our Act, especially in a situation we’ll see in the future where you'll have different provisions needing to be referred to in England and Wales, and some of the subordinate legislation still applies to both, so it's going to be quite hard for people to work out unless we do it.

From a non-technical perspective, I just see it as a kind of making the correct connections into the main primary legislation. The Counsel General mentioned that that is one of the core areas, but we do have plans that we have to bring forward new tree regulations, because we are bringing forward the existing provisions around trees, but with amendments from the Planning Act 2008 that haven't been commenced in Wales, and they require new legislation. We have consulted upon those already, and that is something that will be coming forward as well as part of the commencement of the Bill. We hope to be able to do a small number of consolidating some of the smaller—. Well, there's a large package of subordinate legislation that fits under the primary legislation, so we're hoping to be able to do a small number of those as part of the implementation of the Bill, but we've also got to bear in mind that we want to try and commence the Bill as quickly as possible at the same time. And that wider consolidation of subordinate legislation will be a programme, then, that will follow after the Bill comes into effect, basically.

And then, just to add, Chair, if it's helpful, one of the conundrums that all Governments have is how much resource to put to tidying up the law and making it more accessible and how much resource to put to policy and reform Bills. And we're always trying to balance off, you know, 'This is required to tidy it all up. Here's a—.' I mean I can tell you there are pages and pages of SIs that are needed to tidy stuff up, but they require a resource from parliamentary draftspeople and others that would otherwise be able to be used on developing policy and reform Bills. So, the incoming Government, whoever they might be, will face that conundrum. This outgoing Government will have lined up as much as possible. The committee will have heard me talking about the tribunals Bill, for example, which we're very keen to have ready to go for the new Government. But, in the end, the new Government is going to have to make decisions about how much of its resource to devote to continuing this piece of work, which I very much hope they will, and how much resource will have to be diverted on to new reforms and other projects.

And I think stakeholders, in the evidence provided to the committee, have acknowledged that as well, really. It's such a big package and I think some have quoted that it could be even more difficult than actually doing the Bill itself in some instances, because some of the subordinate legislation is extremely technical—things like the permitted development order is extremely, extremely technical.

I'll carry on along those lines and with not the least bit of trepidation. The explanatory memorandum states that

'Simplifying and modernising planning legislation into a consolidated and bilingual Act will produce real practical benefits to all stakeholders in the planning system'.

However, considering that the consolidation and updating of much of the planning-related subordinate legislation will be undertaken in a 'phased approach', as also stated in the explanatory memorandum, how would you respond to the view that those benefits will not be realised until that programme is completed?

Yes, we started to explore that there, didn't we? I mean, it's a movable feast, basically. So, what you want to do is make sure as a Government—and whoever the Counsel General is will inherit this as well—that the law is both practical and accessible, but also enforceable during the process. So, all of that's about what's currently in force, what we need to change, when is that enacted, when does the thing come into force in the first place, and all of that has to be carefully calibrated. So, at what point in time does the consolidation then Act, hopefully, come into force is a matter for judgment around how accessible is the law, how enforceable is it, how usable in the courts is it, how usable is it for local planning authorities. And these things are not instant—you know, the Bill doesn't get Royal Assent and then it's instantly implemented. Committee members will remember that the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 took absolutely forever to get implemented and then even after implementation, we've had at least four major pieces of litigation on it. So, if you do a major reform piece, it can be quite complicated.

This isn't a major reform piece; this ought to be making it more accessible, and therefore I don't think we're in the same position as we are with a major reform. Stakeholders will know the law already, they can see what's coming up, they have to get used to a little bit of terminology change, perhaps, and a bit more modern language, but otherwise we are simply restating the law as it is. And then it's a judgment call for how much of the SIs need to be in place to make it a coherent piece.

Members of the committee will be familiar with the use classes order; it's one of the things most of my constituents know about. That might be one of the things we want to have a look at first, because that's one of the most common things people use and complain about, for example. There are a couple of others, aren't there? We were discussing earlier various things that Mr and Mrs Jones from Bargoed mostly care about: how do applications for extensions on homes or conservatories, or whatever it is, interact with the new set of regs and what are the SIs necessary to make those accessible? And then, Dion has just mentioned that there is a whole series of highly technical ones where we may want to wait a little while because the practitioners can be expected to understand the complexity of the cross-referencing. I think that's very much a judgment call. But we'd expect, you know, within sort of a year, 18 months, to have most of it up and running, assuming the new Government incoming has a similar attitude to wanting the law to be accessible.

Yes. I think that's what we put in the explanatory memorandum—we think within 18 months. Obviously, depending on the new Government coming in, I think the plan is that we would look at the use classes order and the development management procedure order as two of those to be done as part of the implementation of the Bill and everything else will follow after that.  

Okay. Thank you. Sam.

Thank you, Chair. Just building on, Counsel General, your talk there about, 'It's the same law just tidied up', in our evidence Charles Felgate has said that the suggestion that it will only be a one-off cost for private law firms is not accurate, and he quotes

'is an oversimplification of a system that takes many years of experience to grapple with',

in terms of the time taken to familiarise themselves with this legislation. So, are you confident that the assessments you've made in the EM are robust?

I'll try and be—. You know, how long a planning lawyer is going to take to learn to use the word 'relevant considerations' instead of 'material considerations', I mean, really?

So, it's the same law, it's just tidied up—

Absolutely. 

—and it's just a slight tweak.

I'm afraid, I'm very long in the tooth now. So, I was recounting earlier, because, you know, all politicians like anecdotes, that when I was still a practising lawyer somebody changed all the civil procedure rules and all the terminology, and most of us spent a lot of time standing in courts, going, 'Disclosure, discovery, whatever it's called, you know, that thing where we exchange papers—what's it called now?' So, you just have to get used to it. When I started practising law most of it was in Latin. I don't remember anybody saying that as a result of it going into English we all had to take a year off to learn the new terminology. So, I'm not trying to minimise it: of course you have to do that, and of course it is extra work for people to cross-check that they've got the right reference to the right sub-clause or whatever it is. Of course they have to do that, but you would expect them to be able to pretty rapidly do that, given that the law itself hasn't changed. 

Sorry, Dion.

I'd come in on that as well. I think you're drawing the committee's attention to the Planning and Environmental Bar Association. They talked about the fact that they see it as just part of their professional development, ongoing professional development. You know, if we were having to take into account people familiarising themselves, then we wouldn't be changing policy, we wouldn't be changing anything in that respect. So, there has to be a part on the individual and the profession themselves to continue that professional development.

We're also doing things to support that process. There is the table of origins and destinations that explains the old section numbers, the new section numbers, the guidance, 'Planning Policy Wales'. All these things are being updated—templates, things like that. We recognise it's an issue, but it's just a part of—

You feel that there's mitigation going on to try and make it as seamless as possible. 

We will make it as easy as possible as we can. So, if it's for planning authorities, we've heard some evidence around templates and they've got notices, et cetera. Well, we can provide a table to identify what are those notices and what changes need to happen. We can't physically change it for them, because we don't have access to their back-office systems. But we can give them the information, so that they can do it relatively quickly and easily. So, we will make life as easy as possible, but there's still an individual accountability as part of that.

But also some of them will see it as an opportunity, as part of continuing professional development. There are many private practice law firms—I worked for one myself—that make a fair amount of their income from teaching other lawyers how to adapt to changes in the law. So, here's an opportunity for that. Some of these law firms will rapidly get themselves up to speed and then give seminars for other law firms and, indeed, for local authority practitioners and others on what the cross-references are, they'll produce charts of it—probably copy ours, but with a logo on it. It's an opportunity as well.

Okay. That's quite interesting. I hadn't thought of that perspective on it. And then, finally from me, Counsel General, to what extent will 'Planning Policy Wales' and its related planning policy documents require updating to reflect the terminology and provisions of the planning Bill if enacted?

Absolutely, they will need to be updated. All the terminology will have to be properly done, but we have a standard review process for all of those kinds of policy documents, and, as part of the ongoing review process, you'd expect them to be updated. We do that as a matter of course all the time anyway; the law is not static or a science.

You seem quite content that that's all in hand.

Yes. I mean, you know, the Supreme Court could decide tomorrow that something has completely changed and all the documents have to be updated accordingly. So, addenda go out and we'd send things out to local planning authorities saying, 'Please be aware of "somebody" against "somebody else". The judge said this about the interpretation. Please be aware.' We do that kind of stuff all the time.

I would add as well that, with the review that we've undertaken, I think there are about 200 documents that we're potentially going to have to update, but the scope of that update will vary. 'Planning Policy Wales' is a policy document, therefore its referencing to legislation is very minimal in that respect. You have then what we call the development management manual, which concentrates on the planning application process and is linked more to the subordinate legislation, and there's guidance on that. So, there will be that document that will need more significant changes to it than perhaps 'Planning Policy Wales'. And, as the Counsel General says, there is a review of 'Planning Policy Wales' that will happen in time. At that appropriate time, those kind of minor adjustments can be made. But we will be looking to update the development management manual as part of implementation of the Bill, because of the technical nature of the changes that are happening to that piece of guidance.

And I ought to say as well, here's a chance for us to be really grateful to stakeholders, because they are also all over it. We're very grateful to them, because they will write in and say, 'Have you noticed that chapter 4 says something or other and you need to update it?', or, indeed, the committee clerks do that for us as well. We had an example earlier. We're not the font of all knowledge. Actually, this is a pretty close-knit community, the planning community in Wales. They will be all over this, and they won't be shy in telling us that the document needs amendment if we haven't spotted it ourselves.

Okay, that's reassuring. Thank you, Chair.

Adam Price.

A good answer anticipates the next question. So, on the development management manual, can you say how far you are down the line with completing that revision work that you referred to? Is there a timeline that you can share with the committee?

If you're happy for me to take the question—

Yes. Go on, Dion.

The development management manual will be updated within that 18-month period—the implementation period for the Bill—as will, perhaps, other pieces of guidance and documents at the same time. We have started to work on the guidance to support the Bill in terms of stakeholders, but if the Senedd passes the legislation, then we will accelerate that work up until a commencement. Although the development management manual is being updated as time goes on—I think the most recent was about a couple of months ago—we will make sure that it is in time for that 18-month implementation period. So, when the Bill comes into force, that will also have been updated.

I think it's worth saying as well to the committee that we've got evidence from the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023, and, anyway, we just know from from long experience that, in the early days, these things are poorly attended, and it's not until you've got clients coming through your door asking you questions and you're trying to implement it in real time that people get interested in what this is all about. So, trying to run the right kind of support packages and webinars and all the rest of it at the appropriate time for practitioners to start realising it's actually implementing in their day-to-day work is really important. So, it's trying to calibrate it for that. Then, the manual itself is much in demand by local authority practitioners and so on, and they have a very active planning officers group that meets very regularly. They'll be helping Dion and his staff to put that together as well. It's a very close-knit, small community in Wales, and it's a real strength in this instance, I think.

You mentioned there the webinars as a means of raising awareness of the new code. Could you say a little bit more about the outline of your plans in that regard?

Obviously, from the Government's point of view, consolidating the law so it's more accessible is only successful if it is in fact more accessible and people feel the benefit of it. You can tell from the stakeholders' attitude to what they've seen already that it's welcome. I think Alun was the one, at the beginning of this committee, who said, largely, this is welcome. It is just about familiarisation. We will support stakeholders with a whole range of things, including guidance notes, drafting and webinars. Dion and his colleagues go to the planning officer—. I can't remember what it's called.

—society Wales.

Planning society—. What are they called? I can't remember.

POSW—Planning Officers Society Wales.

POSW—that's right, yes. They meet very frequently, and many of them are actually part of the commentariat as well, actually, so they have dual hats. We have a timetable for it, but, as I said, my own view, Adam, would be very much that you have to make sure that you've got the stuff available for when people start to realise they need it, and that won't be immediately; it will be when it's in force and people start coming through the doors of various planning offices or legal offices and ask questions. And at that point, people think, 'Oh, I wonder if there's a webinar that I can have a look at on this,' or some continual professional development-type structure, and we'll be assisting with that. 

In terms of these webinars, we'll see what the demand is in that respect. We are factoring in to hold them. But also, anyway, as part of our business as usual, we go to, as the Counsel General says—. We're invited to various events to talk about what's going on in the planning directorate more generally, and we've been using that network to be able to get up to the point that we have now, really, and we'll continue to do that, moving forward, as well as holding more formal events in that respect.

I would add that the legislation, obviously, has been out since June, I guess, in draft form—recently introduced—and, obviously, if passed, then there'll be an implementation period. So, it will be in the public domain for quite a while in that respect. And also, I would add that the tailoring of the guidance will come towards closer to the commencement. We'll be making sure that, obviously, local authorities are getting ready for it. So, within that six-month period, we'll be looking to try and issue guidance out there, to make sure that they're getting ready, and then other guidance will drip feed through as we get closer to that commencement date.

Some respondents have talked about the need to update textbooks in Welsh planning law. Is this something that the Welsh Government is aware of as well, and is it something that you would welcome—that updated textbooks are provided for professional development and for students in planning departments as well?

Absolutely, Adam. One of the things, as any practitioner in law in Wales will tell you, that is very annoying is to look something up in some encyclopaedia, find an asterisk, look up the asterisk at the bottom of the page and find, 'Not in force in Wales', without it telling you what is in force in Wales. It drives me mad. So, yes, it's encouraging people to put the textbooks in place, to make sure this happens.

We're aware that the University of Wales Press published Welsh Planning Law and Practice in 2017. We hope very much they'll commission one based on the new law and that they're all aware of this legislation. We'll try and make sure that we do. In anticipation of a question I'm sure one of you is about to ask me, the Government will probably have to intervene in some way to make sure that this works. One of the problems we have in Wales is that it's not commercially viable sometimes to do these things. Well, certainly this Government, and I imagine any future Government, is going to want to take the view that they are happy to assist with that, and we publish our own planning policy documents, and so on, for that reason. But I express a very personal view in saying that I have myself many times looked up the law only to find it says, 'Not in force in Wales', without telling you what is in force in Wales. It's extremely frustrating. I don't know if anybody else wants to add their frustration to mine.

'For Wales, see Wales', you could say. Thank you for that, Counsel General.

Alun Davies.

We've had a good conversation this afternoon on the legislation in front of us, but the purpose of it all is, of course, to create a code of Welsh law on planning. I'm just interested to understand whether you could outline this afternoon to us, or for us, the final content of that code. What can I expect to see when I turn to this?

Well, again, I'll defer to colleagues in a moment, but 'it will grow' is the answer. So, it will start off with the Bill and any subordinate legislation enacted under it, and that will grow as it goes, and then eventually you would expect it to include any guidance that’s been put out, and any interpretation advice that's been put out, and so on. The idea is that, again, if you're this poor chap who I'm currently saying 'good luck' to, who's going to chance their arm in court, you would have something that could comprehensively tell you what it is that's in force in Wales and how to interpret it.

Okay. So, how would they find it? What platform will it exist on?

We would hope that it would be published generally, but certainly the Government—

You would hope. You would surely—

Yes, I would expect UK legislative sites to carry it, because it's a piece of extant law, but we would make sure that we were carrying it as well, basically.

Currently, the historic environment code is published on Cyfraith Cymru. We would expect, if enacted, the planning code to be also on there, or maybe, if in the future we change that system, it would be on gov.wales. But it would be a Welsh Government website that is publishing the code—so, that's the primary, the subordinate and the quasi legislation. We can signpost out to other legislation that might be of relevance to planning authorities. This committee will be familiar with the King's Printer for Wales. The King's Printer for Wales retains the ultimate responsibility for the publication of the legislation, particularly the Acts of the Senedd and the Welsh statutory instruments.

Okay. That certainly makes perfect sense. If we're looking at accessibility, then the legislation itself is only the starting point, of course, to be able to understand how you actually find it, and the rest of it.

Then, the final point that I'd wish to make in this session is about preserving the future history, if you like—so, how modifications would clearly be made by people sitting in our seats in years to come, and the rest of it. But there's also a requirement, of course, to create a history of those modifications and changes that are made to this code, and when they're made, and the historical code, then, which has been replaced. So, how would you envisage that happening, because I think there’s a very great danger—and this is a conversation we've had with the national library on different subjects—of not ensuring that the history that we're creating today is actually preserved for the future?

Again, I'll defer to Claire, but if you're familiar with the gov.uk site, the legislation site, you can do exactly that. You can look up the law—

Yes, but I'm anxious to ensure that this piece of law—

I would expect, on a UK level, for Welsh legislation to be included, and it's one of the things that we fuss about all the time, so you ought to be able to do that. But we will ensure that our own websites also pick that up, so that you can look up the law as it was in force in 2016, or as it is in force now, because, actually, sometimes that's relevant even in active cases. It's not just a historical interest. Sometimes you're looking at a certificate of lawful use or something, and you might need to know what the law said in the first place. There are occasions on which you actually require that for current practice. Also, it's incredibly frustrating if you're trying to find out what the law used to say to only be able to find 'this was repealed in 2016', or whatever it is, which we're all frustrated by.

So, I think we're on the same page. We will fill in the gap on gov.wales, and I imagine any future Government would also do so, but we do expect the UK legislative sites to do it as well.

Okay. I'm content with that for this afternoon, but it might be useful for you to write to the committee outlining those things in a bit more detail when you have the opportunity to do so. If the Counsel General is content with that, then I have no further questions.

Going back to constituency matters, there was historical planning permission for a coal duff plant in Swansea vale, and they kept it going and kept it going so it could not be taken out, because they had planning permission pre 1947. I assume that all those sorts of things will be picked up by that as well. 

There are numerous pieces of litigation the Welsh Government is embroiled in that are to do with historic rights, and so on, and whether or not they can be currently enforced. So, there are ongoing issues of that sort all the time.

The consequential provisions Bill corrects several errors in the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023, the first consolidation Bill. This illustrates the need for Government to undertake a post-legislative review of the planning Act, if passed by the Senedd, and I think it probably will be. How and when will you seek to review the new legislation and evaluate the success of this consolidation exercise?

Of course we need to review all Acts. I think I appeared in front of this committee when I was the member in charge of the legislation Bill, and said that we needed to do reviews all the time but that we need to make sure that we review them in context and so on. I think it's particularly important to review legislation where the law is changing so that you make sure that you're doing it properly. But in this case, as you've rightly pointed out, Chair, the intention is that the legal effect of the current legislation is generally maintained. So, the review or evaluation should be focused on whether the consolidation has delivered the accessible and clearer understanding of the law, rather than the policy review that you would get with policy legislation, if that makes sense. It's also important that it happens, but what you're reviewing is: did the consolidation work? I can't commit the next Government to that review, but it absolutely—. I agree that it's very important that it's done.

You can say it's essential for the next Government to do it.

I would. And can I just take this opportunity to say that I think—? I'm very proud of the team that has done this piece of work. I'm in awe of them, actually. The amount of work that has been done, the sheer detail of it, is breathtaking. First of all, I want to say 'thank you' to my team who have worked on this for years and have done an incredibly good job, I think. You can tell from the reaction to it the good job that they've done, actually—any comment is minor; they've done a very, very good job. But it will only work if the benefits are realised. It will only work if the law really is more accessible and it really does hold to itself. So, a review is essential, if only to give credence to the fact that I think the team's done an excellent job.

Okay. I think I know what the answer is going to be to this when I finish the question. The explanatory memorandum sets out why some matters are not included in the planning Bill, such as provisions on felling licences, hedgerow removal, compulsory purchase and infrastructure. Can you explain why these areas of law are not thought to be suitable for inclusion, or whether you're just setting a boundary and they fall outside the boundary?

It's that, really. As I said right at the beginning, you've got to draw the line somewhere. We've taken a view on where that line should be drawn. Other lines were possible, but that was the view we took. I think there really is, for a future Government, a piece of work to be done on codification of agricultural law that will touch up against this in a big way. There are others that we are looking at—compulsory purchases were mentioned just recently, for example—but we've drawn a line where we think it makes sense.

Okay. Can I thank you very much for coming along? Can I thank you for bringing your officials along, who've been incredibly helpful? As you've said, and I want to reiterate it, everybody we've spoken to has been very positive about the legislation. We've talked to two or three minor items, the only thing we've had from anybody, and the number of people who spoke very highly of Dr Mynors is almost everybody we've had in here, so I just want to put that on the record. Thank you for giving evidence and for bringing your colleagues along. I have to tell you that you'll receive a transcript, which you can check for accuracy. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Chair. I really do think it is important to acknowledge the sheer hard work, right from the Law Commission on and the interaction with a large number of people, that has made this possible. I am not taking any credit for this at all. The expertise of the team that's produced this and got us to this point I think is plain for all to see, and I'm very grateful to them. Diolch.

Thank you very much. Can we move into private session?