Therefore, we will move to the item itself, item 8, the supplementary legislative consent motion on the Environment Bill. I call on the Minister for Climate Change to move the motion—Julie James. 

Motion NNDM7817 Julie James

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 29.6, agrees that provisions of the Environment Bill relating to single use material, in so far as they fall within the legislative competence of the Senedd, should be considered by the UK Parliament.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. I move the motion. 

Today's debate on the supplementary legislative consent motion to the UK Environment Bill is brought without notice, and I thank Members for their time today. Members will recall the legislative consent motion on the UK Environment Bill passed on 28 September. My intention today is not to reopen debate on the provisions extending to Wales, but to notify Members of an amendment to the Bill that I believe improves our ability to tackle commonly littered single-use items.

On 20 October, I was made aware of a further Government amendment to clause 56 and Schedule 9—charges to single-use plastics. The amendment will provide the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with powers to charge for single-use items beyond the scope of plastics to any materials. I've requested, and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has agreed, to introduce an amendment within the current legislative process to clause 56 and Schedule 9. The extension of this power to Welsh Ministers will ensure we have the same powers as the Secretary of State to make regulations about charges for all single-use items regardless of their material. These regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure within the Senedd for the first occasion when the charge is introduced for a new product, and subject to the negative procedure thereafter.

Reducing use and availability of unnecessary single-use items and the negative impacts they have on our environment is a top priority for the Welsh Government. As litter and waste do not recognise borders between countries, counties and continents, I believe it is important that we all have the right tools to incentivise a shift away from single-use items towards more reusable and sustainable alternatives. Indeed, this is why we have committed in 'Beyond Recycling', our circular economy strategy, to phase out unnecessary single-use items in Wales for this very purpose.

The Welsh Government has always supported broader powers, and, as noted in our response to the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee in May 2020, consideration would have to have been given to amending the UK Environment Bill if the opportunity had not arisen. A broader charging power provides a strong disincentive to producing single-use products, and I recommend acceptance to Members of the Senedd. Diolch.

I now call on the Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, Huw Irranca-Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. As the Minister has outlined, this debate follows on from the Senedd's decision at the end of December to consent to the UK Government's Environment Bill. We considered the supplementary memorandum and the correspondence related to it at our meeting yesterday, but the Senedd will understand that we've not had time to report formally. But can I say right at the outset that we really do welcome the decision to lay the supplementary memorandum and to hold this debate today, when the first piece of correspondence that was sent to us by the Minister on 25 October suggested that neither could happen because of time pressures? Holding this debate today is a helpful precedent, we believe, and should be followed if there are similar circumstances that arise in the future.

I do wish to highlight some of the points made by the Minister in her second letter to us of 28 October 2021. In that letter, the Minister told us that, due to the lateness of the original England-only amendment to the Bill tabled by the UK Government, without the amendment detailed in the supplementary memorandum being debated today, the Wales power could have remained constrained to cover plastic single-use items only, and curtailed the Welsh Ministers' ability to act in such an important area relative to England. She's touched on that in her remarks now as well.

However, to go back a few steps, it's clear that this situation itself would not have arisen had the Welsh Government chosen to legislate itself on these matters through a Welsh environment Bill. Indeed, a Welsh environment Bill could have enabled the Welsh Government to propose legislation that met its needs directly, and those of Welsh citizens, potentially, of course, in more ambitious ways than exist in the UK Bill. This is a particularly important point, as the Minister told us again how this policy area is indeed a top priority for the Welsh Government.

In light of today's debate, this is an opportune time for the committee to draw the Senedd's attention to the Welsh Government's principles for legislating through UK Government Bills. They were provided to us recently by the Counsel General. We believe they seem to contain some inconsistencies, which we'll explore at future evidence sessions with the Counsel General. But, overall, when the principles are considered, alongside some of the correspondence we've received in response to specific questions on individual legislative consent memoranda, we are concerned as a committee at the direction of travel that the Welsh Government appears now to be taking—whether out of its own volition or out of necessity.

The default position adopted would now appear to be that the Welsh Government is increasingly comfortable with the UK Government legislating not just on the boundaries of devolution, and not infrequently either, but at the heart of devolution. In doing so, it is using inter-governmental working to deliver some of its legislative objectives, whilst at the same time citing a lack of resources for legislating within the Senedd. Overall, the committee feels that these are worrying developments, which should concern us all here in the Senedd, because it risks bypassing and risks undermining the Senedd's role as a legislature, and indeed our role as Senedd Members within it. So, we'll continue to press strongly on these matters.

As the Counsel General indicated recently, our role as a committee is an important one in the Senedd, particularly given the unicameral nature of our Parliament. So, along with other committees, we're seeking to try to protect the integrity of devolution and to stand up for Welsh parliamentary democracy in the process by making these points on record. Diolch, Llywydd.

Can I say at the outset that I agree with the Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitutional Committee? Part of the work that I’ve enjoyed most is the committee work when we look at the evidence, when we hear from the expert, and cross-party consensus can develop. And this is the case here. Parliamentary scrutiny goes to the very heart of any real democratic country. It improves Government policies, it improves legislation, and through that, it improves public services and the lives of the people that the Parliament serves. If amendments are suggested, scrutiny helps to make sure that they are fit for purpose and that they are justified. Today, we see the role of this Senedd being curtailed—not by the Westminster Government. The curtailment isn’t by the Westminster Government. This is not the work of the Prime Minister’s muscular unionism; this is the work of the Welsh Government. The Prif Weinidog is happy to hand back environmental powers at a crucial time to Boris Johnson’s Government. Remember, only last week, the Prif Weinidog called the Prime Minster 'bottom of the barrel'.

We are told that a lack of resources and time is a factor for using Westminster Bills. Well, if resources is an issue, then more resources need to be found for such important work—key work for any Parliament. And I don’t accept that time is an issue. After six months of the sixth Senedd, we’re yet to have one Bill in front of us. In a recent letter to the committee, the Minister noted that the amendment being discussed was not included in the Bill originally because of the lack of wider evidence. Then, all of a sudden, these amendments appear, yet there is no indication from the Minister how those amendments have come about. Where is the evidence that those amendments can now be laid, let alone the evidence that Welsh stakeholders have been consulted? These are matters that could and should have been tested with stakeholders here in Wales in a committee when scrutinising a separate Welsh Bill.

That is how you secure the best outcomes for the people of Wales. That is what real scrutiny looks like. That is our role. Nobody disagrees with the Minister that we need to eradicate single-use plastic. The Minister says, and continues to say, that this is a priority for the Welsh Government and that Welsh Ministers need these powers, but this is the point and this is what goes to the heart of our devolution settlement: it is our role here in the Welsh Parliament to delegate those powers to Welsh Ministers, not the role of Westminster.

At the end of her letter, the Minister expresses her commitment to the Sewel convention and giving the Senedd the opportunity to scrutinise and vote on any new provisions in a UK Bill. Minister, a take-it-or-leave-it vote without hardly any notice or scrutiny is not good enough. A quarter-of-an-hour debate in a graveyard shift on a Tuesday evening is simply not good enough. As the constitution committee said in a report earlier this year, Members of the Senedd should have the ability to hear expert evidence, listen to the views of stakeholders in Wales, and through that, ourselves, table amendments to test, challenge and scrutinise the Welsh Ministers. This has not happened. That is what scrutiny is about, and that has not happened with this Bill here. Plaid Cymru will be voting against this supplementary LCM. 

The Minister, from hereon in, must commit to bring every environmental Bill before this Senedd so that real scrutiny can happen here, carried out by Members of this place and stakeholders in Wales. This is our role, and this is our duty to the people of Wales. Thank you.

In many ways, the contribution I’ll make to this short debate will echo that of the previous speaker and the Chair of the committee. We’ve had this conversation as a committee, and it is important. As somebody who has sat in this place for a number of years now, we’ve seen LCMs come and we’ve seen them go, and they normally exist in order to provide a mechanism for a marginal change in policy or to enable Welsh Ministers to ensure a level of continuity on both sides of the border, where that is necessary.

The current Counsel General and the previous Counsel General have been clear that the role of LCMs should not be expanded in order to meet the policy objectives of the Government as a whole, and I feel that is what we are seeing—a creeping growth of LCMs to bypass democracy here in Cardiff. This causes me some real, significant problems, because what we have here—. I sympathise with the Minister. If she put her proposal, in policy terms, in front of us, I’d be first in the queue to vote for it. I think the policy objective is absolutely right. But what she’s doing is seeking the consent of the Westminster Parliament to provide Welsh Ministers with powers, and she’s not seeking the consent of this Parliament for those powers. She says she’ll go through the affirmative procedure when those powers are granted, and I accept that, and I’m glad she’s doing that. However, this is profoundly wrong. The Counsel General has made it very, very clear, and previous Ministers have made it very clear as well, that our democracy and our legislative processes have to be protected.

Unlike the previous speaker, I will vote with the Government this afternoon, but I will say as well to the Government that that is not a carte blanche in order to bring through LCMs in order to avoid our democracy, to avoid our scrutiny and to bypass our legislature. I suspect that we need a fuller debate on these matters. Presiding Officer, this might be a matter for yourself in the Chair. I raised this matter, as you know, during business questions earlier today, and the Minister in answering was very clear: 'We need these powers', she said. Well, when she said 'we', of course she didn’t mean us; it wasn’t a collective 'we' in this Chamber. It was the Welsh Government who wanted those powers, and the Welsh Government is accountable to this place. I would suggest that whilst we might wave this through on this occasion, we have a wider and more profound debate about the place of LCMs, because I’ve seen, and we’ve all seen, the United Kingdom Government roller-coaster through our democracy. They’ve put a steamroller through our democracy and our powers over the last few years, and the Welsh Government have been absolutely right in standing up for Welsh democracy. Ministers know I’ve supported them 100 per cent on that, but it’s for the same reason that I can’t allow them to do the same thing.

The Minister for Climate Change to reply to the debate. Julie James.

Diolch, Llywydd. I just want to express my gratitude to the Members who’ve contributed. I fully understand their frustration. We are ourselves frustrated with the lack of engagement at UK level. Just to reiterate the point that I fully intend to bring a single-use plastics Bill to the Senedd. We are, of course, however, embroiled in specific problems relating to the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and the legal arrangements surrounding it. I have, as you saw in my opening remarks, committed to the regulations being subject to the affirmative procedure within the Senedd, because I absolutely want the Senedd to have the full amount of scrutiny of any regulations that come forward using these powers. I absolutely accept that it would be better if the Senedd was legislating itself, which is why we will bring forward a Welsh Act in due course. However, I did not feel it would be appropriate at all for Wales to be lagging behind the rest of the UK in its ability to move swiftly on the issue of single-use plastics and other materials that have a negative impact on our biodiversity here in Wales. We are, after all, in a climate and nature emergency, and therefore, these measures are, in my estimation, necessary to ensure that Wales can stay in the vanguard of the fight for both our climate and our natural world. So, on that basis, Llywydd, I recommend the LCM to the Senedd.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There is an objection. I will therefore defer voting on the motion until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.

And that brings us to voting time. So, we will take a very short break, hopefully, in preparation for that vote. So, a short break.

Plenary was suspended at 18:30.

The Senedd reconvened at 18:34, with the Llywydd in the Chair.