Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill [HL]

I shall follow my noble friend with some figures from the CAB. In its last report, it stated that 88,777 questions were put to it regarding benefits. The commissioner could not deal with them because benefits are not in his remit. There were 6,442 questions regarding tax, but the commissioner could not deal with them, as we shall hear later. The Law Society made the mistaken assumption that the commissioner’s role is not limited to areas where the Assembly has functions, but in fact it is. On non-devolved matters such as pensions, taxation, police, prisons and benefits, the commissioner will not be able to act. The Cardiff Community Health Council mentioned the requirements of war pensioners, but the commissioner will not be able to act. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy stated that there should be,"““consideration on any matter, devolved or non-devolved, which may relate to older people””." I can go on. The Parkinson’s Disease Society stated that,"““to limit the bodies susceptible to review or investigation to those wherein the NAW has a function...is to severely hinder the real effective support and protection of older people””." There are many similar comments. Following my noble friend, we need the remit of the commissioner to be revisited by the Government to enable these sorts of problems—the major problems of older people—to be open to investigation by the commissioner. Some time ago, we agreed that we would amalgamate the three ombudsmen in Wales into one ombudsman and we have done so. The argument for that was that, because people now know where to go, a one-stop shop, single ombudsman who could investigate in all directions saved confusion. If there are two sources of remit, one very limited and the other the ombudsman, then people, especially old or frail people, are not going to know where they can go for investigation into the problems that concern them. One could make similar arguments that unless the commissioner has the power to look at United Kingdom responsibilities as well as Welsh Assembly responsibilities, he is doing the job with one hand tied behind his back. We must extend this. Later on this year, we are going to have, we hope, a Government of Wales Bill. If it is anything like the White Paper, the responsibilities of the Welsh Assembly will be increased. They could be. The Minister looks a little surprised; I do not know what is in the Bill, but I have read the White Paper. If we have that extension, then surely we could take a step in that direction by widening the remit of the commissioner to functions other than those devolved to the National Assembly for Wales. I support the amendment.