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COMMISSION ON THE POWERS AND ELECTORAL ARRANGEMENTS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES

MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

EVIDENCE OF:

THE INTER FAITH COUNCIL FOR WALES

HELD AT

THE HILTON HOTEL, NEWPORT

ON

22 MAY 2003

 

In Attendance:

Lord Richard, Chair, Richard Commission

Tom Jones, Richard Commission

Paul Valerio, Richard Commission

Vivienne Sugar, Richard Commission

Dr Laura McAllister, Richard Commission

Peter Price, Richard Commission

Sir Michael Wheeler Booth, Richard Commission

Ted Rowlands, Richard Commission

Eira Davies, Richard Commission

Huw Thomas, Richard Commission

The Reverend Aled Edwards (CYTÛN), The Inter Faith Council For Wales

Daniel Boucher (Evangelical Alliance), The Inter Faith Council For Wales

Naran Patel (Hindu Community Representative), The Inter Faith Council For Wales

Alan Schwartz (South Wales Jewish Representative Council), The Inter Faith Council For Wales

Saleem Kidwai (Muslim Council for Wales), The Inter Faith Council For Wales

 

Lord Richard

Gentlemen, good morning, and thank you very much for coming. We are very grateful to you. We have been seeing an awful lot of people and it is very helpful for the people to come who are prepared to expose their views to us.

What I would ask you to do first of all, if you would be so kind, is to introduce yourselves for the sake of the record and then if each group here represented, could perhaps speak for 5 or 6 minutes and introduce the subject from their particular point of view and then we will perhaps pursue what issues we think would be helpful.

Alan Schwartz

My name is Alan Schwartz and I see that I am down as the Chairman of the South Wales Jewish Representative Council. This is a group of various bodies within the Jewish community. The Jewish community of Wales numbers probably less than a thousand, around about 1,000; roughly about the same number as the Hindu community and there are about 14 different bodies that we represent in the South Wales Jewish Representative Council, but apart from that I am also on the executive of the Cardiff Interfaith Association, the Cardiff Council of Christians and Jews, the Interfaith Network, which is the national body of the Interfaith Council, and also we are dealing at the moment with a mapping project to find out effectively where all the religious communities exist throughout the whole country and this is a form of project with which I am involved with a small number of us, and also of course, most importantly, on the Wales Interfaith Council. I am the Jewish representative on the Wales Interfaith Council.

From a Jewish point of view -- speaking from a Jewish point of view -- I would say that almost all the community in South Wales, as I am intimately connected with all of them, know that I am connected with the Welsh Interfaith Council and have a fair knowledge about what actually goes on, as they do about all the other associations I am represented with. I am also actually represented with two other national bodies, and that is a body which is at the beginning of a relationship between the Jewish and Muslim communities and also the Three Phased Forum which is Jewish, Christian and Muslim -- I am sorry to put Jewish first – Jewish, Christian and Muslim, and also that is the nascent organisation, but really we are starting to get more understanding between them there.

Lord Richard

Thank you very much. We will come back on the issues.

Reverend Aled Edwards

I will give my presentation in Welsh if that is acceptable.

In Welsh, then interpreted:

Fy enw yw’r Parchedig Aled Edwards ac rwyf yn gweithio fel y swyddog cyswllt rhwng Cytûn a’r Cynulliad Cenedlaethol. Mae CYTÛN, fel y gwelwch, yn cynrychioli 11 o eglwysi ac enwadau sy’n amrywio o’r Catholigion i’r Crynwyr. Gofynnwyd i mi heddiw gyfleu barn CYTÛN, eglwysi a dwy eglwys yn arbennig sydd wedi dod i gasgliad pendant am bwerau’r Cynulliad yn y dyfodol. Rwyf hefyd yn gwasanaethu cymunedau ffydd Cymru ar Gyngor Partneriaeth Sector Gwirfoddol y Cynulliad Cenedlaethol. Mae’n ofynnol i mi weithredu fel cyswllt rhwng Cyngor Partneriaeth y Sector Gwirfoddol a Chyngor Aml-ffydd Cymru. Hynny, yn gryno, yw fy swyddogaeth yn y cyflwyniad hwn

Interpretation:

My name is the Reverend Aled Edwards and I work as the liaison officer between Churches Together in Wales and the National Assembly. (CYTÛN), as you see, represents 11 churches and denominations that range from the Catholics to the Quakers. I have been asked today to convey the views of (CYTÛN), churches and in particular, two churches that have come to a firm conclusion concerning the future powers of the Assembly. I also serve Wales’s faith communities on the National Assembly’s Voluntary Sector Partnership Council. I am required to act as a link between the Voluntary Sector Partnership Council and the Inter Faith Council for Wales. That, in a nutshell, is my role as regards this presentation.

Lord Richard

Thank you very much indeed.

Daniel Boucher

My name is Daniel Boucher. I am the Evangelical Alliance Churches National Assembly Liaison Officer. The Evangelical Alliance (Wales) is an ecumenical body within the Evangelical tradition that represents 20 plus denominations within Wales, and it is my job to represent them to the National Assembly. I think that probably will suffice.

Lord Richard

Thank you very much.

Naran Patel

My name is Naran Patel, and I am the Hindu Community representative. I am also a member of the Interfaith Council for Wales. We represent three Hindu communities in Cardiff. We have a very small number, just around 1,000, very similar to the Jewish community.

Saleem Kidwai

My name is Saleem Kidwai. I am representing the Muslim Council of Wales, which is an umbrella organisation for about 53 Muslim organisations, mosques and other associations throughout Wales.

According to the new census performed, 78 per cent of the ethnic community from the religious point of view, so 78 per cent of the people are from the Muslim community. They come from Albania to Zimbabwe, from every part of the world, and I am also connected with the Association of Muslim Professionals, which is a body bringing people together on the professional arena.

Lord Richard

How many Muslims are on it?

Saleem Kidwai

According to the census, about 24,000. I am also representing the Muslim Faith and United Faith Council for Wales.

Lord Richard

Perhaps individually on behalf of the organisations you could move on to the issues as far as the Assembly is concerned, in relation to the Assembly, how do you think it is working, how it can be improved. Do you think the existing powers of the Assembly are sufficient to be able to deal with the problems in your own professional fields and really how you would like to see improvement? Perhaps we could go in the order in which we started.

Alan Schwartz

To give a background to the setting up of the Welsh Interfaith Council, I think first of all the whole thing started on January 1st 2000 when there was a big meeting at the Westminster Hall in London, where all the faiths were in attendance. People were making presentations and that particular religion would introduce the member of the next religion and it was the first time I had seen this on a national scale. It was actually televised and it was the first time it had been done. It was the first acknowledgement that there were faith communities which were intimately connected with the Government and with the United Kingdom as a whole.

I know that 9/11 sparked off a great deal of interest, but I would say that the Welsh Government, the Welsh Assembly as it was at the time, certainly was very quick off the mark, and that was Rhodri Morgan -- Rhodri's idea -- in getting an Assembly started, getting a Welsh Interfaith Council started, and not only that, putting it on a national basis. In other words, not only was he having it connected with the Assembly, but making it a sub-committee of the Welsh Assembly.

This is unique in this country because you do not have that in England and you do not have that in Scotland. Although there is a greater financial support for the organisations, they are not a sub-committee of the Assembly, and because of that -- or shall we say in Parliament -- and in Wales what you have are two meetings a year between not only the political leaders but the Civil Service and all the major religions and, although 9 religions are acknowledged by the Interfaith UK Network, about 8 of them really exist around Wales and those 8 are represented on those two council meetings that we have a year, and I think we have now had I think two or is it three meetings -- three meetings -- and they have been very interesting because all the political leaders have had their input and also the various religions, and in particular two big points have come up: one is the introduction of Muslim and faith schools in general but Muslim schools in particular in Wales and also religious holidays, which were acknowledged by Government bodies and by the councils.

Lord Richard

Which was the missing one of the 9?

Alan Schwartz

Zalawestrians. There are not that many of them and very hard to find. JJin is probably the minority one. There are a few JJins around this area.

Reverend Aled Edwards

If I may, I will give a brief perspective on the issue. I will not go through our submission in detail. Broadly speaking, what you will find in our document is an emphasis first of all on subsidiarity - that is bringing decisions as close as you can to those they affect and we very much welcome the intimacy and the openness of the Assembly to that element.

We have also noticed that there is an opportunity post-devolution to impact very positively on UK politics and European politics and to emphasise ‘solidarity’. There are other examples in the paper, but the one I will highlight is that during the objective one debate in Wales, not only did ‘additionality’ benefit Wales, but it probably benefited deprived areas in England to the sum of about £600 million. We would align ourselves very much to the conviction of emphasising the needs of Wales, but also benefiting the wider community.

We have benefited enormously from the activities of the Voluntary Sector Partnership Council, not only in terms of broader issues such as that of three year funding, which has been a huge help, but also impacting upon issues vis-à-vis the UK; for example, persuading the Home Office to waive the fee on volunteers for the Criminal Records Bureau checks. I know that the debate in Wales was part of a UK debate, but still that particular emphasis was a very positive one.

Faith communities would share a concern over one issue – the detaining of asylum seekers in Cardiff prison. There was a consensus particularly in Wales that this was not the way in which we would want our people to be treated. There was a call for change and it found expression through the Equal Opportunities Committee in the Assembly. I think that we are right in saying that the detainees in Wales' prisons were removed several weeks before they were in Walton and in other areas within the UK. We very much welcome the intimacy and the closeness of the Assembly politics within that particular context.

We have found, in terms of the powers of the Assembly, a degree of confusion. I will not quote chapter and verse exactly on this, but we did notice, for example, that the Assembly was given powers over mink farms in Wales but that some powers over the Welsh language were retained by Westminster. We noted that we didn’t have any mink farms in Wales, but that we did have the Welsh language.

There is for us a huge issue of being able to deal with a process which is very complicated, because the Assembly's powers, as you know, will change sometimes overnight and it is difficult to catch up with what is happening.

The one area that we felt we could give a positive contribution here is to plead the case, when primary legislation is passed, for a specific ‘Welsh’ clause to be inserted within every UK legislation, so that we know what the impact is on Wales. It is difficult at the moment to work through acts of Parliament and to know what the powers of the Assembly are.

We have also very much welcomed the lack of conflict experienced in the bulk of what the Assembly does - in particular the work of the committees. We have found that very positive - not just in its scrutiny role, but in policy formation.

You will find, from our perspective, that some of our faith communities will not be able to come to a common conviction about the Assembly's powers because they do not believe that they have the right to impose that on individuals or on congregations, but two of our churches have come to a clear conviction that the Assembly's powers should be increased. They are the Presbyterian Church of Wales and also the Union of the Welsh Independents. They have a long-standing tradition of pleading that case. I merely note that none of the other churches have come to the conclusion that the Assembly's powers should not be increased. They have remained silent on the issue.

I hope that gives you a broad parameter of where the (CYTÛN), churches stand.

Daniel Boucher

Well, as with Aled, the churches from within the constituency that I represent have not formed a common view on some of the big questions as to whether the Assembly's powers should be increased or not, so the contribution that I want to make to this discussion is somewhat removed from that big question but actually does touch on it, and it relates to the whole issue of clarity and a form of politics that is readily understandable.

The Assembly it has been said has not been as innovative as it might have been in the use of its legislative powers and I know of at least two Assembly Members who have gone on the record saying that part of the reason for this is that the Assembly members themselves do not fully understand their legislative powers. I know of another Assembly Member who pleaded with the voluntary sector when addressing them last year to help Assembly Members think more creatively about how to use their legislative powers more effectively. There is no doubt to my mind that this difficulty is not helped by the fact that the Assembly has powers, not over entire subject areas, but over bits and pieces within a subject area, which means the only way in which you can find out what its powers are is through that eminently readable tome, the Transfer of Function Orders. This lack of clarity for the electorate and for Assembly Members I do not think makes for efficient and effective and hugely accountable Government. It seems to me that one does not just avoid transparency by being deliberately secretive. One can effectively avoid transparency by circumventing it through tomes whose magnitude render their content utterly impenetrable, and anybody who has sat down with the Transfer of Function Orders will be able to relate to that, and of course the people of Wales have not sat down with it and so they are not aware of what the powers of the Assembly are, and I think this is a real problem for the Assembly as it is currently organised and currently structured.

Whether the imperative, the clarity, is sufficient enough to demand that the powers of the Assembly are increased so that it has powers over entire subject areas rather than powers through primary legislation to Westminster in those areas, whether or not that decision is made, it seems to me that if it is not made that there is an imperative for this Commission to look very seriously at how the powers of the Assembly can be made more accessible and more readily understandable to the people of Wales, to the electorate and also to Assembly Members themselves and to people like me and Aled, who have the job of working with Assembly Members in trying to help them creatively develop policy for the nation.

So I think that would be my main point and I want to echo very much of what Aled has said in terms of the accessibility of the Assembly. Assembly Members are very accessible and that is great, and I think we have found the whole style of politics in the Assembly something to be welcomed. People have talked a lot about the new politics. Of course, you cannot transcend the inherently conflictual nature of the politics, and if you did I think that would worry me, because I would be a little bit concerned that free speech was being squashed, but what you can do is use organisational innovations to try and make politics less conflictual, make it so that conflicts which are not necessary do not happen, and I think the Partnership Councils that have been developed have been very helpful to that extent. The Partnership Council would go down as one of those testimonies to an innovative way of doing politics which we would applaud. Thank you.

Lord Richard

Thank you very much indeed.

Naran Patel

As I said earlier, we are a very small community, and the community generally is not politically minded; we have not got many politicians in the community who they could approach and express their community's views.

Generally the community has come from East Africa and India where the politics have been left with the people who are more interested in politics. People who have come here are normally generally hardworking people. They like people with grass root work.

With the Assembly we found that the current members have been approachable, as Alan and Daniel have said, but we do still find that if you want to approach a certain subject and approach somebody we still find ourselves lost as to whom to approach and how to approach them, because we need somebody else like Alan and Daniel to guide us.

There are other difficulties that we also find, that the powers that are there are quite complicated. Myself even -- we find it very difficult to understand as to which approach to take. Whether we should have more powers or not, the Hindu faith communities would stay away from those thoughts, because we would not like to be politically involved in any area as such, but when the powers are there we would like to use them.

That is the general view of the Hindu community.

Sir Michael Wheeler Booth

Could I just follow up that with a short question, when you think of making representations on a particular subject, do you tend to think of Cardiff first or Westminster first?

Naran Patel

We would prefer to think of Cardiff first and then Westminster, because since the Assembly was set up we have approached the appropriate Ministers, but the Ministers generally do not know the full rules and regulations of the Assembly, so we have to find other ways of doing it.

Saleem Kidwai

I would like to add what my colleagues have said is what we find the Muslim community, that the Assembly Members and the Ministers are very approachable. We feel we can have somebody's face to the name whom we can talk to but, again, the problem comes back to whose has the power, what authority has it got and the three problems which Muslim communities are still facing and one is the Faith School, Muslim School, which I understand has been with the local authorities, either the Local Authority or the Assembly. It has not been separated yet. We have approached both of them and they are putting us on each others -- to go there and there, and the other thing was the religious holidays which have been brought to the Assembly and the First Minister said it is out of his power because it comes within the DTI Department. The Department of Trade and Industry decides when holidays are given.

The third one was the circumcision thing which, along with the Jewish community, it is very important for us, which is not done under the NHS, and David Melding is sitting here, because we have approached him also on this matter, because what we feel is that at the moment that has been done by unauthorised people and when the complications come it costs the NHS much more to sort that out rather than doing it in the first place and in the medical environment and it saves a lot of money from the NHS.

So these are the problems the community is facing, but I think the major thing our community has felt is the lack of communication about the Assembly to the community, and when I say the Muslim community I am sure the Hindu community will feel the same, that our community is not aware what are the powers, or what help, or when to approach the Assembly, what are their remits and what is the remits of the MPs in Parliament, and I think if we can have some sort of -- I am sure the Assembly has views, but it is much more available to the community people probably something in their languages would be very useful, what they have got to offer and what they have achieved; not about problems but also talk about success of the Assembly, which I think could be brought to the attention of the community, and at least the community then feels they are a part of the community.

Obviously we also want our representatives now -- I am not talking about the Muslim; I am talking about from the ethnic community -- in the Assembly, but the community feels, as the community particularly feels, that through election it would be possible to get our representative in the Assembly, and the only way would be on a regional basis and it obviously depends on the political parties, but I am sure there are other groups who would like some sort of representation in the Assembly where their voices could be heard, and we feel our community and the whole ethnic community has a lot to offer in the political process and I am glad that the Assembly is there, we feel we are a pat of it and we would like to make a positive contribution to it.

Lord Richard

Thank you very much indeed.

I wonder if I could start off by asking you about the practicalities. You have obviously got a close-ish relationship with each other. Is that on the basis of regular meetings, or is it on the basis of seeing Ministers as and when you want to? Are you a structure within the National Assembly structure? Or how does it work?

Reverend Aled Edwards

We find it works very well, both formally and informally. Formally, we have the Partnership Council and its biannual meetings with ministers.

Lord Richard

With individual Ministers?

Reverend Aled Edwards

Yes, with individual Ministers, and that has been very positive, and we have tried to spread the work out. Daniel, my colleague, for example, would go to the Edwina Hart meetings and then we would communicate with each other about what went on in these meetings.

The Christian community has also established the practice of meeting with the First Minister once every 6 months and that has been a very positive experience for us.

The thing that we have noticed is that, in comparison with my colleagues in London or in Edinburgh, when they ask us what happens when we want things done in the Assembly. When I tell them all I do is send an e-mail to the Minister or give him or her a ring, they are surprised with that level of informality. That is actually what happens, and was certainly the case regarding the asylum seeker issue and the pioneering refugee doctor scheme which basically flowed from sending an e-mail to Jane Hunt. The formal structures work quite well, but the informal day-to-day way of working is also something quite creative.

Lord Richard

Who decides the agendas for your meetings?

Alan Schwartz

Both of us do.

Lord Richard

What sort of issues are raised? Give us an example of the last meeting's agenda that you want to talk about.

Alan Schwartz

We knew what we wanted to talk about, but we did not know how the agenda was actually arranged.

Lord Richard

What was the issue?

Reverend Aled Edwards

Can I give you an example? We all felt that we needed to gather together with the politicians and the faith leaders to discuss the possible impact of the Iraq war; not in terms of the international issue but how the war would affect the way in which ethnic minorities and faith communities would be approached in Wales. A particular was expressed that some of the ethnic minorities had been badly handled by the press and we wanted to come together to indicate our concern about that.

What tends to happen is that I, as a co-ordinator, will ask the faith communities what items they wish to discuss and discuss that with the civil servants. Then we will communicate mainly by e-mail and fix the agenda that way. We wanted to make a statement about others not using faith as the reason for bigotry in the light of international crisis. We drafted a policy statement together, myself and the officials, and distributed it. The formal statement was agreed at the Interfaith Council. The way of working is very flexible. It depends on what the faith communities want and just occasionally the Assembly will want to know something of us as well.

Lord Richard

On your faith and bigotry point, why should that go to the Assembly?

Reverend Aled Edwards

Because there are contacts in the Assembly, for example, with the Society of Editors in Wales. We can also assess what is happening to certain minorities in schools. There is a huge concern. Saleem is more competent than I to deal with this issue, but the way young Muslim people are treated in schools is an issue. That is a local authority issue and a Wales specific issue that we could deal with as is the way in which, for example, asylum seeker and displaced people are dealt with within the Health Service in Wales. That is again a devolved issue. These are issues that we can discuss with the Assembly, and while they may impact on the UK legislation, they are primarily devolved issues.

Lord Richard

Really what you mean is that you are looking at the sort of issues as they surface, for example in your organisation, then seeing whether the Assembly has the powers to deal with the issue and then going and talking to the Assembly about it. That is the line.

Daniel Boucher

I think there is another dimension inasmuch as bringing the different faith communities together under one roof is quite a powerful statement of the commitment to harmonious relationships between ourselves, as indicated from the top of the faith communities, and that is quite a powerful statement.

Lord Richard

That I understand, but it is the relationship between that and the Assembly, whether the Assembly needs it.

Daniel Boucher

That is the innovative part of the equation. Obviously there have been interfaith councils before. The innovative part of this development is its relationship with the Assembly.

Ted Rowlands

Are you funded by the Assembly?

Reverend Aled Edwards

The way in which it works is that the National Assembly, through its Voluntary Sector Scheme has a capacity fund and Faith occupies one slot in 21 of the multi-sector Partnership Council. So we do receive limited funding to develop our faith network and the Interfaith Council for Wales.

Alan Schwartz

£4,000.

Vivienne Sugar

I was very interested in the examples Saleem gave, areas of confusion about powers, Muslim schools, religious holidays, circumcision and wondered whether there were any other examples, perhaps the right to time for prayer and how that impacts with employment law, or access to appropriate diet, and so on, and whether what your feeling is about whether the Assembly has sufficient power to have a general duty to promote equality issues, because we have heard from one or two other organisations, and perhaps this is not as clear, the Assembly has a duty to promote sustainability in the environment, but its duties on the whole broad area of equal opportunities does not seem to be as clear as you would want them to be.

Alan Schwartz

There would be one big issue: the Muslim and Jewish problem and that is one of slaughter of animals. I notice it was a very big article in The Times last week concerning this and we do not know what the situation regarding Wales is, because there is the Kosher and Halal method of killing animals which conflicts with the general idea that they want to stop all of these methods in the UK in general, but I do not know how it affects Wales and I do not think any of the communities, either Muslim community or the Jewish community, understand how it affects Wales.

Peter Price

You have mentioned a number of ways in which you have been able to approach the Assembly about different issues. Some of them have been UK views that the Assembly has acted as a vehicle for getting involved and making representations. Before the Assembly where did you take those sort of issues? What sort of channels were open to you and how did you use this?

Alan Schwartz

Well, I tell you very briefly, the way we did it was all those issues were taken to the representative of Wales, to bring it to their attention and they would deal directly with the Government.

Reverend Aled Edwards

From the CYTÛN point of view, contact with UK legislation was sought through the Churches’ Main Committee which discusses points deemed particularly important to the Jewish and Christian faiths in terms of the legislative processes. There has been a paradigm shift. CYTÛN will remember one memorable meeting with John Redwood a few years ago. It lasted about half an hour. I am not being party political here, it is just the nature of the beast! I am not referring to John Redwood personally, but it was one of those events where we condensed about 10 years of politics into half an hour. That no longer happens in Wales and I think that has been the huge paradigm shift in the wake of devolution.

What tended to happen is that churches would make declarations and issue statements about issues and that they would go straight into the political ether. What I think is happening now is the Assembly is becoming more attentive to churches and I think MPs are as well. We are learning new skills and are moving away from protest politics into process. That has been a huge learning curve for us, not only in terms of Welsh politics, but also in terms of the way in which we relate to the UK. It should also be said that the Secretary of State for Wales is also allowed to sit on the Interfaith Council and Don Touhig has represented him, so we do establish that two-way dialogue vis-à-vis the Assembly and the Wales Office on the Interfaith Council.

Daniel Boucher

One of the interesting points in response to your question, because of course from my point of view it did not exist before devolution, and I suppose it is an interesting testimony to the way in which devolution actually energises a Welsh civil society. Previously all contact in Westminster would be made through the Evangelical Alliance UK Westminster office in London which has been lobbying Parliament for decades from there.

Naran Patel

As far as the Hindu community was concerned, I think there was very little communication. The only person we would approach would be the local MP. He would then perhaps approach the Secretary of State. In my time, 30 years, we have never approached the Secretary of State, or any of our community members. We would normally approach the local MP.

Tom Jones

In Welsh, then interpreted:

Roeddech chi, Aled, yn ymwneud â phroblemau’r Swyddfa Cofnodion Troseddol, yr asiantaeth honno’n benodol, yn enwedig o ran yr iaith Gymraeg. Ond beth yn gyffredinol yw eich profiad o weithio gydag adrannau yn Llundain y tu allan i’r Llywodraeth sy’n gyfrifol am waith dyngarol yng Nghymru? A pha brofiad gawsoch chi gyda’r Swyddfa Cofnodion Troseddol?

Interpretation:

You, Aled, were involved with the problems with the Criminal Records Bureau, that agency, particularly regarding the Welsh language, but what generally is your experience of working with non-devolved Government departments that are based in London that are responsible for humanitarian work in Wales? And what experience did you have with the Criminal Records Bureau?

Reverend Aled Edwards

In Welsh, then interpreted:

Anawsterau technegol. Yn y lle cyntaf, y stori gadarnhaol oedd fod y Cyngor Partneriaeth wedi darbwyllo’r Swyddfa Gartref, gydag eraill, wedi anwybyddu’r ffioedd ar gyfer gwirfoddolwyr. Roedd hynny’n gadarnhaol: yr anhawster oedd nad oedd CRB yn deall anghenion Cymru. Dangoswyd hynny’n bennaf yn eu hamharodrwydd i ddarparu ffurflenni Cymraeg. Rydyn ni wedi darganfod bod rhai adrannau yn San Steffan yn dda wrth redeg datganoli. Eraill heb fod yn dda. Mae’r Adran Addysg, er enghraifft, yn dda, fel y mae Iechyd. Yr adran sy’n achosi fwyaf o drafferth yw‘r Swyddfa Gartref, a daeth hynny’n amlwg yn yr achos hwn. Roedd amharodrwydd gwleidyddol yn y Swyddfa Gartref i orfodi’r Swyddfa Cofnodion Troseddol i ddarparu ffurflenni Cymraeg. Cymerodd lawer iawn o bwysau i lwyddo i wneud hynny.

Ar nodyn cadarnhaol gyda’r Cynulliad, dechreusom ar y broses o sefydlu uned mewn gwirionedd a fyddai’n ein helpu i ymgymryd â’r broses o archwilio cofnodion troseddol. Ni fyddai hynny fyth wedi digwydd cyn datganoli, a gobeithio y bydd yr uned yn barod ac wrth ei gwaith erbyn mis Hydref. Felly, mae hynny’n gadarnhaol iawn yn wir, ond mae’n dibynnu pa adran sydd dan sylw. Mewn gwirionedd mae’n dibynnu ar ba was sifil y digwyddwch ddod ar ei draws ac ym mha adran. Cawsom anawsterau dychrynllyd gyda’r Swyddfa Gartref, ac rwy’n credu y byddai rhannu’r pwerau rhwng y Cynulliad a’r Swyddfa Gartref o gymorth mawr. Roedd ariannu Wythnos Ffoaduriaid yng Nghymru hefyd yn broblem. Wn i ddim a yw hynny’n ateb eich cwestiwn.

Interpretation:

Technical difficulties. In the first place, the positive story was that the Partnership Council had persuaded the Home Office, with others, to waive the fees for volunteers. That was positive, the difficulty that the CRB did not understand the needs of Wales. They showed that primarily by their unwillingness to provide Welsh forms. We have discovered that some Whitehall departments are good at running with devolution. Others are not. The Education Department, for example, is good as is Health. The department we find greatest difficulty with is the Home Office and that became evident in this case. There was a political unwillingness in the Home Office to compel the Criminal Records Bureau to provide forms in Welsh. It took a great deal of pressure to succeed in doing that.

On a positive note with the Assembly, we actually started the process of establishing a unit that would assist us in taking the process of criminal records checks. That would never have occurred pre-devolution and we hope that the unit will be up and running by October. So that is very positive indeed, but it does depend on which department it is. It just really depends on which civil servant you strike upon and which department. We had dreadful difficulties with the Home Office and I think sharing out the powers between the Assembly and the Home Office would be of great assistance. The funding for Welsh Refugee Week was also an issue. I do not know whether that answers the question.

Tom Jones

In Welsh, then interpreted:

Diolch, Aled. Dau bwynt yn fyr: un am y swyddfa. Os yw uned i gael ei sefydlu yng Nghymru, o ble y daw’r arian ar gyfer y swyddfa honno? A yw’r Swyddfa Gartref yn mynd i’w hariannu , neu a fydd yr arian yn dod o gyllideb y Cynulliad? Dyna yw un cwestiwn.

Mae’r ail bwynt yn hollol wahanol. Rwy’n adnabod yr eglwys Bresbyteraidd yn y dystiolaeth hon a rhaid i mi ddatgan diddordeb yma fel Blaenor Methodist, a oedd yn sôn am ddefnyddio’r deisebau yn yr Alban ar gyfer mesurau. Sut fyddai hynny’n gweithio yng Nghymru?

Interpretation:

Thank you, Aled. Two brief points: one about the bureau. If a unit is going to be established in Wales, where will that funding come for that bureau? Is the Home Office going to fund it or will the money be coming out of the Assembly's current budget? That is one question.

The second point is totally different. I know the Presbyterian church in the evidence here and I must declare an interest here as Methodist Deacon here talked of the use of the petitions in Scotland for bills. How would that work in Wales?

Reverend Aled Edwards

In Welsh, then interpreted:

Yn gyntaf, o ran ariannu’r uned, mae hwnnw wedi dod yn uniongyrchol o gronfa wirfoddoli’r Cynulliad. Nid oes unrhyw nawdd o gwbl gan y Swyddfa Gartref tuag at y gwaith hwn, a gallaf ddweud wrthych fod hynny wedi rhoi pwysau ar y corff gwirfoddoli. Fodd bynnag, mewn gwirionedd mae’n mynd i arbed miliynau o bunnau i wirfoddolwyr yng Nghymru yn y pen draw. Beth oedd eich ail gwestiwn, mae’n ddrwg gen i?

Interpretation:

Firstly, as regards funding the unit, that has come straight out of the Assembly's volunteering funds. There is no sponsorship at all from the Home Office coming towards this work and I can tell you that it has placed pressure on the volunteering budget. It is however, going to actually save millions of pounds for volunteers in Wales at the end of the day. What was your second question, sorry?

Tom Jones

In Welsh, then interpreted:

Y dulliau deisebu yn yr Alban i ddod â’r bobl yn nes at y Llywodraeth.

Interpretation:

Regarding the petitioning methods used in Scotland to bring the people closer to the Government.

Reverend Aled Edwards

In Welsh, then interpreted:

Rwyf mewn cysylltiad parhaus â’m cydweithwyr yn yr Alban, a’r fantais fawr sydd ganddyn nhw yno yw eu bod, oherwydd bod ganddyn nhw dref ddeddfwriaethol, yn gwybod pryd i ymyrryd. Yr anhawster a welwn yng Nghymru yw nad ydym yn gwybod beth sy’n digwydd. Gall polisi ymddangos yn ddisymwth heb unrhyw gysylltiad â phroses agored. Rwy’n hollol sicr y byddai’n beth da pe bae rhyw fath o broses. Fodd bynnag, mae ein ffrindiau yn yr Alban yn dweud wrthym bod y ffordd rydyn ni’n gwneud pethau yn Cynulliad yn fwy hyblyg a phersonol. Hwyrach y byddai’r Cynulliad yn elwa o broses ddeddfwriaethol ffurfiol a gallu cyflwyno deisebau.

Interpretation:

I am in constant contact with my colleagues in Scotland and the great advantage they have there is, because they have a legislative process, they know when to intervene. The difficulty we find in Wales is that we do not know what is happening. A policy may appear just out of the blue without any link to an open process. I am quite certain that it would be a good thing if there was some kind of process. However, our friends in Scotland are telling us that the way in which we do things in the Assembly is more flexible and more personal. Perhaps the Assembly would benefit more from a formal legislative process and being able to bring petitions forward.

Ted Rowlands

I wonder if you could pursue -- you identified for us some of your key issues, and let us take food as an example, the first one, and said this demonstrates the profusion of power. Let us take the faith schools first. Is it the argument of the First Minister that it is a Local Authority issue and not an Assembly issue or do both say that they do not have the legislative power to establish faith schools?

Alan Schwartz

It depends where the problem arises. I think I am going to ask Saleem to answer this one.

Ted Rowlands

Saleem has gone. You are left on your own!

Daniel Boucher

I can come in here. The Assembly's policy -- and it is not an constitutional power -- the question is the Assembly given policy on the matters, and it is not looking to go out of its way to establish faith schools.

Ted Rowlands

That is all I wanted to establish.

Tom Jones

This is not an issue of legislative power. This is an issue of priority or political inclination by the Assembly.

Daniel Boucher

They have not said they will not.

Alan Schwartz

They put forward a very strong argument, they put forward a very good paper, several good papers, concerning setting up Muslim schools. At the end of the day, it is quite clear that there is a delay in the Assembly.

Lord Richard

They took the decision not to do it.

Alan Schwartz

No, I do not think they took the decision not to do it. I think it is a bit put on the back burner.

Sir Michael Wheeler Booth

A related issue has been reacting to September 11th and the public perceptions and the popular perceptions of Muslims in England and the Midlands and Yorkshire were that there were cases of prejudice both in public on occasions and in schools. Now that would seem to me a very obvious example where you would want to make your views known and where, indeed, the views of those who are not the leaders in any faith or agnostic should also be made public and representation made. What actually happened on this issue?

Reverend Aled Edwards

What happened is we aired it formally on the Council to begin with. There was a commitment on behalf of the First Minister to then liaise as thoroughly as he could with the police service in Wales to make sure that was working well and also to speak to the society of editors. One of the things we found which I think is particular to Wales is that we have not followed shall we say the agenda of the Daily Mail and the Daily Express over these sorts of issues.

The South Wales Echo has ploughed a very different furrow in terms of its inter-racial coverage, and that has come about in part not only from the voluntary sector and faith communities saying, "We are going to give you quality information. We are going to convey the views of the faith communities". That was done very well, and I think that was a crucial issue. There was as well a degree of consultation with local authorities in terms of how we responded, if you like, to the situation in schools.

I think the big plus for us was that we could actually come together with all the key players into the Interfaith Council and decide what was to be done. I think that impacted on the way in which the whole thing was approached in Wales.

Alan Schwartz

Yes. I think there was general consensus that it was a good idea to set up the Muslim schools and surprising as it may sound there is wholehearted support from the Jewish community for the setting up of the Muslim school. The Jewish community would not want one in particular because we do not have that many Jewish children.

Where I think the real problems come is from the local councils. We have noticed that, for example -- and it does not particularly refer to a Muslim school -- in a particular council in Gwent there was opposition to the setting up of a mosque. I will not name the town.

Ted Rowlands

The important point to establish is first of all it was not an issue of primary legislative powers.

What about issues of circumcision? Are they a matter within the health argument debate, within the Assembly and its arrangements, or is this a matter of legislative capacity or incapacity?

Alan Schwartz

I cannot imagine why it should be a legislative problem because from the Jewish point of view it is called the Initiation Society where you have a group of people which are all well-known, all medically trained and they deal not only with the Jewish children but with Muslim children as well, and they are prepared to go anywhere throughout the country. I think the Muslim problem is that there are certain Muslim parents who do not want to use these particular rabbis or, as they call them, Moils. They do not want to use them. They want to use somebody from the Muslim religion, who is Islam, and they are finding it difficult. They are not trained in this country. Usually many of them come from abroad, and it is the same problem you have with documents coming from abroad doctors coming from abroad; they do not have British qualifications.

Ted Rowlands

It is not a question of powers?

Alan Schwartz

No.

Ted Rowlands

What about the slaughter of animals?

Alan Schwartz

The slaughter of animals has not come up yet.

Ted Rowlands

I can see it could be on the horizon.

Alan Schwartz

Yes, I can see it being on the horizon.

Ted Rowlands

Let us try to establish the legislative or executive competence in relation to slaughter of animals.

Alan Schwartz

I do not think it has actually been discussed -- in fact I am certain it has not been discussed -- within the Assembly yet, but you have a similar sort of situation in Europe where you have certain countries which will allow it and certain countries will not allow it and therefore the populations of those countries get their meat supplies from those countries which do allow it. If the situation arose in this country whereby the Parliament in London decided that they would go along with the stopping of the slaughter of animals by either the Filcher or the Halal system they would look certainly towards the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly to provide other legislation so that it would be carried out.

Huw Thomas

That might well be a question of powers.

Alan Schwartz

Yes, certainly.

Ted Rowlands

This is not subject to European directives of any kind? It is not a European legislative issue?

Alan Schwartz

No.

Dr Laura McAllister

Can I ask you about the question of representatives generally in terms of the profile of the AMs and what that conveys to your own particular communities, and I think there are cost cutting issues here; ethnicity and religion are different but overlapping in some degrees, but I just wonder, have you any comments for us about the profile, the overall profile of the AMs and what kind of messages that sends out to your representative communities, whether you think there should be any changes and what kind of changes in terms of electoral methods?

Alan Schwartz

I would like the others to talk first.

Naran Patel

Within the Hindu community I think we have in the past not been able to approach anybody else, even in the present situation we do not find many MPs visiting the mosques, or the temples or other places of worship to express their views or to ask us if we have any problems. Perhaps they have not any time to do it. But we would prefer if just once in a year to approach the community to see whether there are any problems that we would like to air them out. We have got a vehicle now which is the Interfaith Council where we do approach, and in the past this was not the case, and I am wondering whether -- I do not want the Interfaith Council of Wales to become just a talking shop. We want some action to be done which would mean they should have some powers to act upon. If they do not know what powers they have then we will not know what we can ask questions on.

Daniel Boucher

We certainly had a large number of Assembly Members visiting churches who I represent, so I think we are generally aware of them. I have not had anyone raise questions about the representativeness of the Assembly. I do not think I can bring anything to bear on that side of this, but certainly in terms of their profile and accessibility locally I suppose my comments about accessibility earlier were accessibility from the perspective of the lobbyist being able to pursue Assembly Members in the lobby of the Assembly, but I think in terms of local accessibility it is there. If people take the initiative to ask Assembly Members to come and visit, we have certainly never had any problem when we have done that. Assembly Members have been very ready and willing to engage with community groups within the faith communities that we represent.

Reverend Aled Edwards

We would not, for example, look to count the number of Christian heads in the Assembly. That is not the way in which we approach the issue. What we would look for is an accessibility concerning things that are of concern to us within that representation.

Again, concerning the legislative process. The maintenance of churchyards is different in Wales to England, in the sense that when you have a redundant churchyard in England, it then becomes the responsibility of the local authority. Thanks to Lloyd George that does not happen in Wales and we have a huge financial bill as a consequence of it. Now the question for the churches is how do you then change this? Now what we would find is that Sue Essex will be accessible, I am sure. We will have a meeting with some of the people to be able to discuss it through, but the problem for us is that we will have to rely upon primary legislation, either a private bill or play piggy back on another Act of Parliament to get that process through. We have already spoken to Don Touhig.

That is the sort of problem that we have in terms of accessing the process. In terms of profiling accessibility, we know who the AMs are; we go to them, and what we find is that they are very open to being informed. I am sure Sue Essex, say, in that case would say, "I haven't got a clue what you are talking about" - and there is no reason why she should. But she would be willing to be informed, and I think that level of accessibility is helpful.

Ted Rowlands

I certainly knew about the maintenance of church yards.

Lord Richard

Can I just pursue this, because it is leading on to a question I wanted to examine with you. In your paper, and you said again this morning, you talk about in effect the new style of politics of the Assembly; it is less conflictual, but you deal with the Ministers do you not? You go to a Minister and say, "Look, Minister, this is what we would like", and they would examine it and you have a sensible discussion and something might happen, but you do not actually deal with the legislature as such.

Reverend Aled Edwards

No, that is the huge problem, and again --

Lord Richard

Why is it a problem?

Reverend Aled Edwards

Because I have to speak to a wide array of people in the voluntary sector, whether in the environment or whatever. You have to work exceedingly hard to ascertain what process you need to put into place to come to a given end, whatever issue it is. I think the first problem is to know how the Assembly can make a difference? Or is it a Westminster issue? Inevitably you do have to bring both parties in just by the complexity of the issue.

Lord Richard

Give me an example.

Reverend Aled Edwards

Going back to an issue that was raised earlier. There were some Christians who felt that we should have St David's day as a public holiday. They felt that was an issue unique to Wales, and obviously, it is. The process is horrendously complicated. One could go directly to Westminster or seek to persuade the Assembly to place it on its annual legislation ‘shopping list’ knowing full well that in the legislative process it would be ignored. Due to the lack of time granted to such issues at an UK level some faith communities were left with a deep sense of frustration that the Assrembly could not implement something in Wales that was uniquely Welsh. I think that is an example for us of the complexity.

Lord Richard

That is nothing to do with the complexity of the Assembly's position. That is just the power does not exist. That was known.

Reverend Aled Edwards

Can I ask a question: if there was, for example, a piece of primary legislation in the UK that dealt with the issue of public holidays we would then ask is there a means by which the Assembly could amend that legislation through support and appeals, or by changing draft legislation in the UK, and I think those are the skills that I think that the Assembly has yet to acquire and I think the voluntary sector and the voluntary world would have to have an expertise in it which I think would be quite extraordinary in order to get the thing done.

Peter Price

The essence of what you are saying seems to be that if something is uniquely Welsh, irrespective of whether you are talking about funding, policy formation or primary legislation, it should be decided in Wales and one of your interests in that happening is that you feel that you have access and potential influence over what is decided.

Reverend Aled Edwards

Can I give another example which may be informative: it is this issue of the Criminal Records Bureau again. We have the Welsh language in Wales, but we discovered that despite the Welsh Language Act the Welsh Language Board was powerless to deal with the issue of bilingual forms.. It came at the end of the day to the Home Office passing a statutory instrument at Westminster in order for us to get a Welsh form. That describes the frustration and the complexity of the situation to us. Whereas, should there be a degree of legislative flexibility, that would allow Wales to deal with that sort of issue without having to go to the Home Office.

Tom Jones

Was the issue that the Criminal Records Bureau in the Home Office itself was less subservient to the Welsh language act? Yes or no.

Reverend Aled Edwards

No. If I may be blunt, we did not discern a political will on the part of the Home Office to deal with the issue, and if that political will had been there, it would have been dealt with instantly because it does not take that long to pass a statutory instrument, in that sense, certainly not 12 or 15 months, but that was the frustration level for us. Once the decision had been made this was the right thing to do, it was passed very quickly. That again is part of the legislative frustration for us and I think surely the Welsh Language Act should have been broadened in to allow for that sort of issue to be dealt with.

Dr Laura McAllister

I am sorry to interrupt, but we have not dealt with the question I asked, but maybe I did not phrase it in the way I wished to. If I can rephrase it, just to get to the nub of it, when the recent election results would be analysed I would guess they would show that certain communities in Wales showed a greater propensity not to vote than others and we were guessing from some ethnic minority communities, amongst young people, and so on. Without pre-empting that, what I am saying or asking you is does the composition of the Assembly as it presently stands, without representatives from the ethnic minorities and certain faith groups, prejudice its chances of appealing to those communities? If here were representatives from those communities would it enhance the engagement of your own communities with the whole devolution process?

Alan Schwartz

This is the point I wanted to make. I do not want to underestimate the value of the twice yearly meetings with the Welsh Interfaith Council, because there is a difference between something and nothing. Anything is better than nothing, so that is a very, very important thing and I wish to put that forward very strongly, that that should continue and that the importance of that cannot be underestimated. However, the Jewish community is about 1,000 people. The Hindu community is about the same and the Jewish community in many ways is a modern community; it has been around in Wales for about 150 years. It has played a full part. It has many institutions where it can take care of its own problems and it has played a full part, not only in the local community, which produces council members, Lord Mayors, and so forth, and in the business community and it has no crime.

In other words, we are a whole load of Mary Poppins, too good for this world! However, knowing most of the community almost on a daily basis I will tell you most of them find the Welsh Assembly almost irrelevant, not because it is irrelevant, but because I am almost alone in the Jewish community as being one of the people who voted for it. I think it is symptomatic of the fact that the English speaking areas did not vote for the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh speaking areas did, and even now -- and it is a couple of years, 4 years since that vote took place -- even now they still say, "Well, I didn't vote for the Welsh Assembly and therefore I am not going to give it time", and I would say that many members of the Welsh community, the Welsh Jewish community did not vote in the local elections which took place recently. I cannot tell you whether they did or not, but that is my feeling.

On the other hand, they are not alone because only 30 per cent of people, in the English speaking areas spoke, and 50 per cent in Ceridigion but you might have expected that there. It does not mean to say that they felt that it is irrelevant if they do not have representation, but it was very noticeable that at particular times when there were several Jewish members of the Cardiff City Council and Lord Mayor at that particular time were Jewish, they were far more interested in local politics within the Jewish community, and I would wonder whether there would be from the various religious communities more interest if there was, for example, a Muslim member of the Welsh Assembly, a Hindu member of the Welsh Assembly. I wonder whether they would, because they would certainly be a target. You have that in particular in Westminster where you have Jewish Members of Parliament and members from the various ethnic communities who, despite the fact that they represent their particular constituency, effectively represent the Jewish community of Great Britain, the Hindu community of Great Britain, the Muslim community of Great Britain in a way that if they have any problems they represent them and voice what they think.

Sir Michael Wheeler Booth

There is one very significant difference and that is that in the case of England there are significant, numerically and statistically, minorities who are Jewish, Muslim, et cetera. 1,000 Jews out of 3 million is a very small fraction.

Alan Schwartz

Actually the percentage is about the same, because there is a quarter of a million Jews in Great Britain, and that percentage out of 60 million is about the same percentage.

Lord Richard

There are no seats at Westminster, the "Jewish" seats.

Ted Rowlands

Not Jewish members.

Alan Schwartz

That is representative of the Jewish community.

Ted Rowlands

I am not sure where we go from here. Let us take the discussion forward. Do we have kind of sort of a piece of electoral political engineering to achieve this kind of representation? Do we somehow say that we have to skew the PR system to ensure it happens in one way, or go to a national list, which is what some are recommending. How do you arouse interest when you have a national list as against a constituency list?

Alan Schwartz

My problem is I do not approve of proportional representation.

Ted Rowlands

You have a problem.

Alan Schwartz

I admit it; I am honest.

Naran Patel

With the Hindu communities it would be probably encouraging and I think they would probably take more part if there was some sort of representation from the community itself. In other words, part of the proportional representation.

Daniel Boucher

We certainly have ethnic minority churches within the constituency that I represent. They have not approached me expressing a sense of frustration that there are not any members from within the ethnic minorities that they represent. That is not to say that they do not feel that frustration, but they have not expressed it to me. I think that part of my role as a liaison officer is to try and provide the kind of bridge between the different parts of the constituency and the Assembly and I see there is a responsibility here with civil society to help -- civil society umbrella bodies to help the civil society to engage in the Assembly, so I certainly see a responsibility there, and in the recent election there were a very considerable number which help to provide contact between candidates and constituents.

Reverend Aled Edwards

For me, just as a reflection on the broader issue, rather than an actual participation, it is interesting -- I think I am right in saying this -- that the greatest decline in the percentage vote in the recent elections was to be seen in Welsh speaking Wales, where you have adult white, ex-Christian people dwelling. I think that is indicative of a general distancing from the political process and in particular for that part of the world. Again, like Dan, we worked together in terms of the hustings and I think the greatest factor that came back to me is that people simply did not know what the Assembly did. That was the big problem we faced. Once we began to discuss issues with people they warmed to that process. What we also found is that if you go, for example, to North East Wales, what we inevitably found is that people had their television aerials directed towards England, and the same I think probably in parts like the South East

I am not sure -- again, like Dan -- we did not get people saying, "If the Christian conviction was more obviously represented then we would be more engaged with it". I think it is more of a problem of information and general apathy.

Lord Richard

I read some of your book which if I may say so I thought was an admirable collection of what the Assembly had actually done.

Alan Schwartz

I agree. It was an eye opener to me. I did not know until I read that book and I think that that is the real problem with the Assembly: there is no PR, public relations. There is no advertising about what it actually does. I think that is where the real problem comes. But it is the same with Westminster as well.

Lord Richard

There is plenty of PR in Westminster.

Alan Schwartz

Yes. Unfortunately, it tends to be on both sides, good and bad.

Ted Rowlands

Do you think this new politics we talked about was the structure of the Assembly, the notion of a corporate body, a committee based structure, as opposed to a cabinet based ministerial Parliamentary structure was one of the reasons why it was designed was to try to foster the concept of politics. Now we have seen growing divorce between Assembly and Government and, de facto, everybody is telling us it ought to be confirmed, but do you think that in doing so that we would lose something of this new politics, that this new politics, slightly less confrontational at the Westminster end, would end up?

Daniel Boucher

I do not think it would, because it would not threaten them with a partnership; it would necessarily have to remove the coalition approach to policy making and committees necessarily. I would certainly want to see that safeguard continue. I think that actually might make politics a little less conflictual. The opposition parties, as you know, got very annoyed with having policies attributed to them as part of the National Assembly for Wales, which were issues they were always responsible for, so I think this is the clarity that I think helps the political process and breathes life into it, and at the end of the day it is healthier to have that distinction for purposes of accountability.

Lord Richard

It has to be a real distinction, a functional distinction for Wales. There will be the two different parts to the one organisation.

Tom Jones

A list of things achieved by the Assembly, had that been sent to every household in Wales --

Lord Richard

They would not have read it.

Tom Jones

The question I was going to ask is: is it because of the conceptual and consensual relationship, who would have been able to claim that list of achievements? ie., Is it partly the Welsh Assembly Government but also lots of those things that have come from potential committees and joint working of the Assembly itself? Therefore was it a problem for either who should actually claim that list, the Government or the Assembly?

Lord Richard

They all claim it.

Tom Jones

In terms of printing an official list.

Reverend Aled Edwards

It will be interesting to see what happens in the second Assembly with a single party rule as it were. One of the things that we noticed in the first Assembly was that the fact that the Committees when they worked well could actually make a very real difference, and I think that belongs to the corporateness of the National Assembly which I think is very, very useful.

Ted Rowlands

You have induced, to support this principle, Ministers as an integral part of the committee structure.

Reverend Aled Edwards

Yes, the two elements that I always found positive there was, first of all, that they had to work really hard every fortnight to give evidence and to present their case and to explain themselves, and the level of scrutiny is good. The impression that we got, particularly in health for example, ministers would listen very carefully to what the breadth of that committee would say. Obviously, the minister would sometimes accept what was said, but sometimes not. One little technical thing which I think has annoyed some of us is that the title Welsh Assembly Government is something that we do not find particularly useful. A form of Welsh Government Parliament is not useful. It does not make the necessary distinction. When the Assembly was formed primarily legislation adopted an inclusive approach by indicating that the ‘National Assembly for Wales’ was there for all the people of Wales and not just for the ‘Welsh’. I think possibly that the issue needs to be revisited, because we are heavily committed to a civic nation rather than just to an ethnic nation.

Eira Davies

One of the problems that you have had with the Home Office would you recommend devolution of further powers; for example, in referring specifically to the police. Do you have any particular opinion on that?

Reverend Aled Edwards

Certainly, most churches have not come to a firm opinion on that policing question.

In terms of drugs and crime, I would see a rationale in providing more powers for the Assembly; particularly, if I may say, as it is such a problem in places such as the Valleys. I think you will see that in our reports. In some of these areas some churches, I do believe, would see the rationale of extending the powers of the Assembly

Lord Richard

Thank you very much indeed. Can I thank you first of all for coming. Can I thank you even more for the evidence that you have given. I think we have all found it very useful and very helpful. Thank you very much.