Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Good afternoon. Welcome, everyone, to today's meeting of the Legislation Committee. I'd like to remind Members that the meeting is being broadcast on Senedd.tv, and the Record of Proceedings will be published as usual. The Senedd operates through the medium of both the Welsh and English languages, and interpretation is available during today's proceedings. Please make sure that all your mobile phones are turned to silent. And before we proceed, does anyone wish to declare an interest? No. Thank you.

Moving to item 2, instruments that raise no reporting issues under Standing Order 21.2 or 21.3. This is a standing agenda item and there are no instruments to consider under this item today. 

Moving on to instruments that raise issues to be reported to the Senedd under Standing Order 21.2 or 21.3. In your pack, at page 1, we have the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 (Age of Sale Notices and Consequential Amendments) (Wales) Regulations 2026. These regulations set the minimum size requirements for age of sale notices that retailers selling tobacco products in Wales must display on their premises from 1 January 2027 as a consequence of the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026. These regulations also make amendments consequential to the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 to regulations governing the display of tobacco products and prices in Wales. Senedd lawyers have identified one merits reporting point, and I'll invite Kate to talk us through it.

Thank you. The merits reporting point is identified under Standing Order 21.3(ii) as a matter likely to be of interest to the Senedd, and it simply notes the link between these regulations and the UK regulations also being made under the 2026 Act that were recently subject to the statutory instrument consent process in the Senedd. And as this is just a point to note, we've not requested a Welsh Government response. 

Thank you. Do Members have any comments to make? No. Thank you. Are we content to agree the report? Thank you. 

Issues that raise issues to be reported to the Senedd under Standing Order 21.2 or 21.3 previously considered—the Water Resources (Control of Agricultural Pollution) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2026. In your pack, at page 3, there is a letter to the Cabinet Minister for Rural Resilience and Sustainability, dated 4 November. This is the committee's outgoing letter, flagging concerns raised by Wales Environment Link in its letter, which was considered by this committee at the meeting last week. Are Members content to note the outgoing letter? Thank you. 

It has been sent, right?

Yes, we agreed it last week. 

Yes. 

Thank you. Moving on to the next agenda item, the Council Tax (Discounts, Disregards and Exemptions) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2026. At page 6 in your pack, there is a letter from the Cabinet Minister for Finance, dated 5 November 2026. The document comes in response to the committee's outgoing letter of 15 October 2026. The Cabinet Minister has noted the committee's concerns on the 21-day requirement, and confirms that she will write to the Llywydd. The Cabinet Minister also provides an interpretation of 'fair market value', and explains the omission from regulation 29, which arose from the process of manually importing the version of the regulation into the new software for laying. Are Members content to note the letter?

Chair, I have an issue. 

Sorry, Adrian? 

I have an issue—

Yes, please. 

—as an observation. 'Fair market value' is a literal term—basically, they're content with the literal meaning of 'fair market value'. It's extremely wide, in my view, and I think that needs to be tightened up, because, otherwise, it would invite maybe the courts to look at it for statutory interpretation, because, the way it's worded, it's not going to be uniform—it can't possibly be uniform throughout Wales, because there's a lot of subjectivity allowed within the definition. So, one local area might view 'fair market value' as not the same as another local area. So, we're going to have disparity throughout Wales. I feel that we need to point out that using the literal term 'fair market value' is far too wide.

Thank you, Adrian.

Yes. I would agree with Adrian that maybe it's a case of the Minister publishing written guidance to monitor consistency across the local authorities, because, as I said before, Monmouthshire is very different to Merthyr.

And in terms of the inconsistencies in terms of Lawmaker, it would be good to see if other instruments imported into that software have been checked for similar errors.

Thank you. Yes, Pred.

Yes, I tend to agree. The only point I would make is: is it for this committee, or is it more of a policy point that maybe a different committee, the housing committee probably, would be better placed to look at the policy aspect of what it means rather than the legal aspect of what we're looking at? It's just clarity there as to where the responsibility lies on the policy aspect of it. But discrepancies, potentially, from Lawmaker are something for this committee to take a view on. And I note there's another letter later on talking about that as well, isn't there?

Yes, on the interpretation—. I suggest we pause there, because the letter from the Counsel General to the Chair that we'll discuss under item 5.1 addresses that. Adrian and Sarah, I note your concerns. We can—.

It's completely up to Members, if you wish to write back. The committee has already written expressing its concerns about the consistency issue. If you wish to write back, the committee can do so. I think, from the letter, part of the intention is that it can be interpreted by different local authorities. But it's up to Members whether they wish to write back and ask about their guidance, if you want to.

I would suggest that perhaps some additional guidance would be helpful, because, ultimately, notwithstanding the remit of this committee, we need to ensure that law is clear and leaves as little room for litigation as possible.

I wonder if it might be for individual Members to take this up as a policy point, rather than as a point from this committee, and that any of us can write to the Minister to ask for clarity on anything.

Adrian, any views?

I just think that we have a responsibility as the Legislation Committee to ensure that legislation is tightly worded and that if it invites statutory interpretation by the courts later then we won't be doing what we should be doing. So, I think that a letter asking for clarification, tightening up the wording somewhat, might be useful. And it's not a political issue; it's purely simply based on a legal point.

Yes. I think there's no harm in asking, going back. Thank you. Do we agree? Thank you very much.

The next item—in terms of outgoing correspondence, there are no items of outgoing correspondence further to that which has already been considered by the committee in other agenda items.

In terms of papers received, items 5.1 to 5.5 are incoming papers to note. I would like to highlight some of those papers in particular in your packs. Item 5.2 is the Welsh Government's response to our report on the statutory instrument consent memorandum on regulations laid under the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026. The response states that the Welsh Government agreed to the application of the regulations to Wales via inter-governmental engagement, which they state is separate to the Senedd's consideration under Standing Order 30A. The Senedd debated the consent motion last week on 3 November.

Next, item 5.4 is from the Cabinet Minister for Rural Resilience and Sustainability, notifying us that he has given his consent to the Secretary of State to make the Sea Fisheries (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026. Some notable points: our predecessor committee secured commitments from the previous Government to identify domestic legislation that implements international obligations. Unfortunately, the written statement does not specify which UK-EU agreement the regulations put into place, giving rise to uncertainty over which international obligations are under consideration. International obligations often intersect with devolved competence and cover a wide range of topics. Welsh Ministers, the Senedd and the Welsh public bodies can all be responsible for their implementation. The Welsh Ministers and the Senedd are responsible for ensuring compliance.

As a committee, we have already welcomed steps taken to improve transparency in this area. I want to point out that we expect the Minister to confirm which UK-EU agreements and international obligations these regulations relate to and that all Welsh Ministers ensure that this important information is included as a standard in the future. I will come back to this in a minute.

And finally, item 5.5 is from the Cabinet Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning. The letter notifies us that the Cabinet Minister has consented to the Secretary of State making the Transport and Works (Applications, Objections, Listed Buildings, Inquiries and Decisions Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 2026, which apply to Wales. Do Members have any comments on any of the papers to note? Yes, Sarah.

This includes the tobacco regs, did you say? Yes. So, the response says that the Senedd process was acknowledged, but it never says that her agreement was conditional on the Senedd's decision. So, if the only consequence of the Senedd withholding consent is a message to the UK Government, then why was it the other way round? That's how it feels like. I appreciate she clarified that in the Senedd, but it's not quite clear as to what the proper process is here.

Thank you. Any other comments? Anything from you, Tom?

No. Do Members want to take any further action in response to Sarah?

Yes, perhaps we should write back to the Minister, seeking clarification, and just reinforcing the procedure, actually. I think that would be advisable under the circumstances.

Yes. It would be good to get some precise justification as to why it was done in this way.

Yes. Thank you. Are Members content to note the correspondence?

Are we looking at 5.1 as well? We've skipped over 5.1, have we?

It's noted, but we can come back to any of the papers.

It was just with regard to that Lawmaker because in the previous item we were talking about it slightly, so—.

Yes, just one second.

Chair, if I may do so, in response to the comment that was made earlier about other instruments that could be affected by this, the letter does address that directly. So, on pack page 9, there is a list of the regulations that were manually imported into the software, and the letter confirms that it was only the council tax regulations that were considered before that were subject to errors as a result of that. So, if that responds to Members' concerns. And there's some guarantee in the letter about those other regulations, and that they've been quality assured.

And going back to the letter from the Counsel General to the Chair, Tom, would you like to talk us in top detail about it?

So, with respect to the council tax regulations, in particular?

It's the letter from the Counsel General to the Chair of the Legislation Committee on the Welsh statutory instruments and Lawmaker.

Yes, so I wouldn't want to—. Their letter's there in the papers, in the pack, but it talks about the concerns that the committee had about instruments that were manually imported into Lawmaker software, and it provides guarantees or assurances about the regulations that were manually imported. It says that other than the one that was raised by this committee in correspondence, the others have been checked and that there shouldn't be any errors in them. 

Thank you.

I was just glad to see now the next to last paragraph—

'satisfied that Lawmaker has now been fully rolled out'—

and that those assurances have been given. So, that's good to know. Diolch.

Thank you. So, do Members have any comments on any of the papers to note? Are Members content to note the correspondence? Thank you.

In accordance with Standing Order 17.42(vi) and (ix), I invite the committee to resolve to exclude the public for the rest of today's meeting. Do Members agree? For the record, we are now moving the meeting to private.