The Welsh Conservatives can't still 100 per cent sign up to these regulations. Under the regulations, councils will be forced to participate in new corporate joint committees, public bodies that will make regional decisions on everything—education, transport, land use and economic well-being. The purpose of these regulations is to improve collaborative and regional working between councils and, essentially, tidy up the collaborative structures. CJCs will comprise of elected members in their constituent principal councils, as well as co-opted members who will be capable of employing staff and holding assets and funding. These regulations would transfer a number of functions to these CJCs, such as the economic well-being function, transport, and strategic planning function.

During Stage 1 of the proceedings on the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, a number of concerns were raised about corporate joint committees. Community Housing Cymru raised concerns about the limited provision of the CJC accountability arrangements, which is at odds with the Bill's commitment to enhance access and participation in local decision making. Meanwhile, One Voice Wales argued that services are going to become more regionalised and further and more remote from local electorates.

The WLGA, while supportive of voluntary CJCs, were concerned about the impact that Welsh Government-mandated CJCs would have on councils, intending that it has fundamental concerns over the principle of mandation, which is seen as undermining local democracy.

Whilst we broadly acknowledge the intentions of the corporate joint committees, they must not result in collaboration for collaboration's sake. We need to be sure that any CJCs will enhance collaboration rather than simply duplicate what already exists. However, we are concerned that mandated CJCs undermine the internal devolution and local partnership working already established and will lead to back-door council mergers in all but name. We believe that collaborated working arrangements work best when they are organic, in which all constituent members actively seek to work together to improve regional service provision for social and economic benefit for the residents, and that the autonomy of local councils must be respected by Welsh Government. Put simply: we need to work with local authorities, not impose things on them. As such, we've put forward a suite of amendments during the passage of the local government Act, in recognition of the concern that stakeholders had about the creation of CJCs. However, we were very disappointed that the Minister decided to reject all of our amendments, which were constructive in nature and intended to respond to the concerns of stakeholders, and particularly local government representatives.

The arguments used by the Minister were also directly contradicted by the comments made by stakeholders that we worked with throughout the amendment process. Once again, Welsh Government has placed ideology above the expert opinions of stakeholders. Concerns have continued to be raised by various stakeholders about corporate joint committees, with these regulations seemingly ignoring the legitimate worries of many within the local government sector and beyond. At a time when people want decision making to be closer to voters and by representatives who are directly accountable, this will create bodies that put power into the hands of unelected individuals and further away from communities. That's why we will be opposing most of these regulations.