National Assembly for Wales (Transfer of Functions) (No. 2) Order 2006

My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords for their overall support for this order. On the first question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, regarding the plenary debate on 18 October, I note his concern. I also note that he is sitting with two colleagues this evening. However, the level of debate that Assembly Members enter into is a matter for the Assembly, and it really is not appropriate for me to comment on that. The noble Lord’s second point concerns funding. I can confirm that funding of the census in England and Wales will remain the responsibility of the ONS, as will the conduct. The Assembly will have only to meet the costs of any variations it wishes to make to the census in Wales. Assembly committees will discuss the 2011 census over the next few months. It is not yet possible to quantify the extent of additional costs, if any. The noble Lord’s third point concerned penalties for offences under Section 156 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. I can confirm that the level of penalties has no specific significance for the Assembly seeking these further powers. It will simply ensure that the Assembly is competent to legislate in this area to the same extent that the Secretary of State for Defra can in England. Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, questioned why unconnected items were contained in this single order. This is not the first time unconnected functions have been transferred to the Assembly in one order. It merely reflects different departments within the Assembly seeking to transfer functions within a common parliamentary timetable. It also means that we do not have to take up parliamentary time with individual orders, some of which are very small. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, asked what type of questions could be contained within the Welsh census, and made a number of very important points. This is a matter for the National Assembly and, as I mentioned earlier, will be discussed in committee over the next few months, but I am sure that representatives of the National Assembly will be very interested to read the noble Lord’s comments. The transfer of the Water Industry Act functions has not been subject to public consultation because its purpose is merely to amend a technical anomaly. The Assembly will consult interested parties as and when regulations using the stated powers are brought forward. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, also raised some interesting points about the water industry’s cross-border concerns. The Assembly does not have cross-border concerns in relation to this industry. However, any future concerns or problems that may occur can now be resolved following the transfer of this function. Finally, I can confirm that the Assembly would have been heavily involved in the consultation on transferring powers under the Water Industry Act 1991, as it was the instigator of the transfer request. On Question, Motion agreed to.