What we did was look at four pieces of legislation that were passed by the previous Assembly to ensure that the method of assessing the financial cost of introducing legislation and turning it into an Act was sufficient and effective. What we’ve tried to do is look at whether the assessment of costs in introducing a Bill are correct, whether the methods used by the Government to assess the legislation hold water, and whether we could improve the processes so that we get better outcomes in the future. The purpose of that, very simply, was to safeguard the public purse and to ensure that public funds spent by the Government on legislation are assessed properly and spent properly. So, even though that description perhaps doesn’t make it more exciting, I hope it does explain why we held this inquiry. It was worth doing, I think, certainly for the members of the Finance Committee.

So, the situation is that every Bill that is introduced to the Assembly has to have an assessment that includes the best estimate of how much funding will be spent or saved—spent, usually—as a result of implementing the legislation. As a Finance Committee, we always report on the financial implications of Bills during the Stage 1 process. In the current financial context especially, the use of public funds needs to be scrutinised more than ever. Also, the costs associated with implementing legislation are an integral part of forming a view on whether it is reasonable to support a Bill. So, very often, one might see a Bill and say, 'Well, the Bill is a good idea, but if it costs too much then the value of the impact that you receive is lost.' So, it’s important that we do understand, at the beginning of the process, how much it’s going to cost.

We are, as a committee, careful that our scrutiny work happens early on in the legislative process to make it easier for Assembly Members to decide whether a Bill is worth supporting or not. We examine the financial estimates provided at the start of the process, but we don’t always have an opportunity to formally consider any changes that might result from updated impact assessments or amendments that might be made to a Bill during its passage through the Assembly. So, in other words, we look at the full cost of the Bill as it’s introduced. Some Members will know that Bills change significantly by the time they become an Act. We haven’t always had the opportunity to see whether that affects the costs and whether we should consider reassessing the value of the Bill because the costs have changed as the Bill has changed in its journey through the Assembly. So, this was an inquiry by the committee, and it was important for us to ensure that we had the tools for the remainder of this Assembly to do this work, and perhaps to change our minds on a Bill because the costs have changed.

Now, we made 16 recommendations in the report and I am pleased that the Government has accepted, or partly accepted, 15 of these, and I don’t want to go through them all in turn, but I’ll speak to some of the ones that are important to the committee and to the one that the Government didn’t accept. It’s important—and it’s important to us in the Finance Committee—to ensure that people can understand easily what the financial implications of Bills that come before the Assembly are. In the past, the Welsh Government has been criticised for not providing this information in a clear and consistent way, so we do welcome the steps taken by the Welsh Government recently to implement the recommendation made by the Auditor General for Wales that costs should be clearly presented in a summary table—not in the Bill, but in the explanatory memorandum, of course. We note, from scrutiny of Bills introduced during the fifth Assembly, that this has aided transparency, So, we are of the opinion that we have seen definite improvement in the way that the Government puts forward this information.

Now I’ll turn to one issue that leads many of us to question how these Bills are put together. It’s clear that any Bill that’s put forward includes several assessments. I think it’s up to 26 possible assessments that can be made on a Bill. So, one of the things that we did ask, in our inquiry, and we did ask the Government was, 'What’s the role of the well-being of future generations Act?—this is the first time that the Act has been mentioned today, but what’s the role of that Act in trying to co-ordinate the assessments that happen around a Bill, and to ensure that the assessments, with regard to the budget, are relevant to whether the numerous assessments done to accompany legislation can refer to a project that is an Act that the Welsh Government does want to use to shape policy in the future. So, we do look forward to seeing whether the Welsh Government can adapt the framework of the Act in order to co-ordinate—not cut down, as such, but to make more sense of, to rationalise, the different assessments. I understand that the Government is undertaking a piece of work to look into this, and I know that the public policy institute has done a piece of work on this, and we look forward, as a committee, to seeing how the Government can respond.

Now, as I’ve already said, the Finance Committee doesn’t necessarily have the opportunity to re-examine the financial implications once it’s reported as part of the Stage 1 process. So, any updated regulatory impact assessment published at the end of Stage 2 may not reflect the same level of scrutiny work. Now, that’s not always important. Very often, there’s no change between Stage 1 or Stage 2, or very little change, but there are sometimes substantial differences—for example, with regard to the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Bill, which is no longer a Bill, as we heard today, but now an Act, having received Royal Assent. We had to, and we felt that there was a duty on us, as a committee, to reconsider very carefully the costs of that particular Bill, or the Act, as it is now, because the figures had changed so significantly. Indeed, they changed significantly in Stage 1 and Stage 2, so it was important that we did look at that Bill again. The response of the Government to our report with regard to that acknowledges that there is room for improvement on the current processes. So, I hope that we can learn from that process. So, the Welsh Government’s commitment to include a draft RIA as part of the consultation in putting forward a Bill should add to that process of understanding the costs of the Bill very early on.

I’ll now turn to the one recommendation that was not accepted by the Welsh Government. That stemmed from the fact, of course, that a number of the Bills that are put forward at the Assembly increase the financial pressures faced by those who have to implement the provisions, especially in local government. There’s no certainty every time with regard to how those costs are going to be met, whether it’s the Welsh Government that’s going to respond to those costs, or whether those costs are to be shouldered entirely either by local government or other bodies that are funded by the Government. Now, we were of the opinion that specific reference should be included in any RIA to how any costs should be paid for and by whom. The Welsh Government doesn’t accept that, depending on the wider context, I think, around legislation that any Bill should receive financial consent during the process, but it’s certainly an area that the Finance Committee will be keeping an eye on and will return to, in due course, I’m sure. 

If I can conclude by just drawing attention to the importance of reviewing legislation once it’s implemented, therefore, if we are going to learn how to make better legislation and to assess the costs better, sometimes we need to look back at a piece of legislation to see how it was implemented and how the real costs, or the real savings, correspond to the original estimates, but also to understand whether the methodologies and approaches used in preparing the RIA worked. This is an opportunity where the Cabinet Secretary has met with us and has understood that that is a worthwhile process for the Government, and for us as a Parliament that legislates, and it’s an area where the Welsh Government can make improvements. I am pleased that there has been that acknowledgement in the response by the Government to the report, and we look forward to seeing more appropriate assessments—not too many of them, but appropriate assessments—to see how the costs of Bills have turned out, ultimately.

And, if I may say so, to conclude on a very personal level, Deputy Presiding Officer, because I am taking a Bill through this place at present on behalf of the Finance Committee, I’m painfully aware that I’ve made a rod for my own back in putting forward such a comprehensive report on how to put forward a Bill. But I am willing to face that head on, if the Government is also willing to pay the price.