5. Statement by the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution: Codes of Welsh law: A programme to improve the accessibility of Welsh law

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:20 pm on 21 September 2021.

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Photo of Rhys ab Owen Rhys ab Owen Plaid Cymru 4:20, 21 September 2021

(Translated)

Thank you very much, temporary Presiding Officer. Counsel General, I welcome this statement greatly. I also welcome the talk about the laws of Hywel Dda at the outset of your statement. It's important that we destroy the myth here in the Senedd that we don't have a rich history and heritage of laws in Wales. According to the yardstick of the age, the laws of Hywel Dda had much greater status than other legal systems and they gave much higher status to women than other different legal systems in the period.

The accessibility of Welsh law is a problem—it's a problem for the public and it's also a problem for practitioners. Developing websites such as Law Wales is vital, but the work on legislation.co.uk is more important still. Because that, counter to what Mark Isherwood referred to, is used extensively by the public, particularly, as you referred to, Counsel General, following the extensive cuts by the Tory Government in Westminster to legal aid. What discussions have you had with companies such as Westlaw and Lawtel, which provide a lot of information to legal practitioners? It's those that legal practitioners use very often.

Codification is vital as well, and we're in a very fortunate situation in Wales that we have a relatively small number of laws, so we can do this, and we can do it early in the history of redeveloping laws in Wales. It would be much more difficult, of course, for other legislatures to do that. I'm very pleased to hear that there is an annual report that's going to be published on the development of the work, but what is your objective in terms of codification and the accessibility of the law by the end of this term?