6. Will the Counsel General make a statement on efforts to improve the quality and scope of commentary on Welsh law during the fifth Senedd? OQ56272

The Senedd has seen the Government progress its ambitions for increased content about Welsh law, including steps to improve explanatory notes, to develop a new Law Wales website and to begin the work to organise and publish law by subject, rather than chronologically.

Thank you for that reply. And I do welcome the efforts that have been made, which I think are quite considerable. And do you agree with me that good quality legal literature is really important, not only for the informed citizen, but for the many high street solicitors out there that will be the initial point of contact for people having a query on Welsh law in key public service areas, and so that they can signpost and, then, see where they may need to develop more knowledge and seek that advice, that they can, at least, have that sort of portal, which will give them a good place to get a summary of current law?

Yes, indeed. I do support that ambition. I would have hoped by now to have been able to make sure the Law Wales website, in its new revamped format, would be live, and also I think to have made more progress on the bilingual publication of legislation on the legislation.gov.uk website. Both those projects were somewhat delayed during the response to COVID, if you like. But we have made progress in building the new Law Wales site. Work on transferring content to it was under way when resources unfortunately had to be diverted to tackle COVID. But I absolutely hope we'll be in a position very soon to make that go live, and for that to be a way of attracting comment, both from practitioners, but other industry bodies about their legal perspectives. It is essential, as he says, to make sure that that rich commentary on the law that we pass is available and readily available, both to the interested member of the public, but also, importantly, to practitioners and intermediaries. And I hope we'll have more to say about that before the end of the Senedd term. 

Thank you very much, Counsel General.