As the president of Welsh Tribunals states, a substantial part of his report focuses upon how the Welsh tribunals have dealt with the disruption brought about by coronavirus. As the report states, tribunal members and the staff of the Welsh Tribunals unit deserve a great deal of credit for their determination to ensure that the work of the Welsh tribunals has run as smoothly as possible. The report refers to the Law Commission project on Welsh tribunals and to the provisional recommendation in the commission's consultation paper that the Welsh Tribunals unit should become a non-ministerial department. As the report states, the reasoning for supporting this recommendation is compelling and such a development would be of substantial benefit.

Speaking here in September, I asked the Counsel General for his response to this and other proposals in the consultation paper, including to standardise the processes for appointing and dismissing members of the tribunals, to standardise procedural rules across the tribunals, to replace the existing separate tribunals with a single unified first-tier tribunal, and to bring the Valuation Tribunal for Wales and school exclusion appeals panels within the unified new first-tier tribunal. In his response, the Counsel General told me that he looked forward to receiving the commission's recommendations. It would be helpful if he could now clarify his position, if these recommendations are maintained in the Law Commission's final report. 

I welcome the president of Welsh Tribunals' membership of various UK bodies, which ensures, he says, that he is well placed to keep abreast of all important developments in the tribunals that exist in all four countries of the UK. Referring to the Commission on Justice in Wales, this report states that the recommendation that courts and tribunals that determine disputes in both civil and administrative law should be under one unified system in Wales can be achieved only if there is substantial devolution of the justice function to Wales. However, devolution of justice powers would risk exacerbating the jagged edge of how devolved and non-devolved powers intersect and could cost up to £100 million a year. Further, as the Law Society states, a jurisdictional solution to accommodate Welsh law needs to be developed without creating barriers for the operation of justice or the ability of practitioners to work across Wales and England

Finally, the report refers to the Special Educational Needs Tribunal for Wales, SENTW, referring to the clear need to ensure that the education of vulnerable children is not compromised, and to the transition from SENTW to the new education tribunal. In this context, it is of extreme concern to the families I have represented that neither SENTW nor its successor body can take any further enforcement action when the relevant bodies fail to carry out their orders.