Now, last month, Llywydd, I spoke in the debate on the legislative consent motion for the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill and I noted that our final report on that Bill was our fortieth report on legislative consent memoranda in this sixth Senedd—the fortieth report. Since then, we've reported on a further four legislative consent memoranda.

So, my comments this afternoon will focus on the large number of memoranda for the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the Minister has laid five legislative consent memoranda for this Bill, demonstrating the extent to which the Bill introduced to the UK Parliament has both changed since its introduction and the extent to which such changes impact on devolved areas. Our consideration of all the memoranda for this Bill serves to highlight the profound inadequacies of enabling a different Parliament to legislate for Wales on devolved matters.

In our latest report we have welcomed the Minister’s action to lay memorandum No. 5 before the Senedd within a few days of the relevant amendments being tabled in the UK Parliament. That is truly welcome. However, given that the debate was scheduled for today, Senedd colleagues on the Local Government and Housing Committee, as you've just heard, who have been trying to look at the important policy detail and implications of this Bill, haven't been able to scrutinise the latest amendments and the supplementary consent memorandum. It's only because the committee timetable enables our committee to meet on a Monday afternoon and we were able to consider the memorandum yesterday and report straight afterwards, ahead of this debate, that we're able to make these remarks right now. This is not the way, though, to scrutinise primary legislation that will have an impact in Wales.

John Griffiths, my fellow Chair, the Chair of the local government committee, has summarised this predicament well in his remarks today and in his recent letter to the Business Committee. The increased use of UK Bills and the legislative consent convention to legislate in devolved areas means there is insufficient opportunity for Members of the Senedd to scrutinise proposed new laws and to fully understand the impact of these provisions on the lives of people in Wales.

Now, at this point, I will highlight again the timing issues with the first memorandum and memorandum No. 2. It took the Welsh Government 10 weeks to lay the first memorandum, by which point the Senedd had actually entered the summer recess period, and there was a six-week delay between the tabling of relevant amendments to the Bill in the House of Lords and the laying of memorandum No. 2. So, in our report on those early memoranda we did take the opportunity to remind the Minister—and challenge the Minister and all Welsh Ministers—of the importance of providing timely information to Senedd Members so as not to add to the democratic deficiencies caused by UK Bills making provision for Wales in devolved areas and the associated consent process. But, in that spirit of being a constructive and critical friend, in our report on memoranda Nos. 3 and 4, we welcomed the fact that memorandum No. 4 was laid before the Senedd within 14 days of the relevant amendments being tabled before the UK Parliament. This is really welcome and the Government has clearly listened and we do welcome that.

So, before closing, Minister, we've also noted, as you did in your remarks, that further amendments were tabled to this Bill yesterday, so we may be back here again. These amendments may also impact on devolved areas and therefore engage the legislative consent process, so Minister, again, perhaps you could just continue to reflect on these concerns in the way forward on this and in your closing remarks, but we welcome the timeliness of the recent laying of this, even though it's given very limited time for committees to consider it.