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

MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS

of the

EVIDENCE OF:

WELSH ASSEMBLY GOVERNMENT MINISTER FOR CULTURE

JENNY RANDERSON

held at

National Museum & Gallery, Cardiff

on

21^ST November 2002

LORD RICHARD: Minister, can I thank you very much for coming. What most of the witnesses have been doing is opening up the discussion with perhaps ten minutes and then we explore whatever it is you would like to explore. Before we start I think Eira Davies has got something she wants to say.

EIRA DAVIES: Yes. I want to declare an interest as regards broadcasting.

LORD RICHARD: Right, Minister, would you like to begin?

JENNY RANDERSON: Thank you. Can I start by saying thank you very much indeed for inviting me here and by introducing the people I have with me here. On my far right is Gwyn Griffiths who is in the Office of the Counsel General. Next to him is Adam Peat who is the lead official on sport, culture, Welsh language, museums, lotteries, broadcasting and all the other things in my portfolio. On my left is Margaret Evans who has responsibility for sport and the arts and lottery issues. On my far left is Prys Davies who has responsibility for broadcasting and the Welsh language.

LORD RICHARD: Thank you.

JENNY RANDERSON: Can I preface what I have to say by saying that I have problems hearing. I have partial hearing. I know from experience that this room is particularly difficult. I would be grateful if people could bear with me if I ask you to repeat a question. If you think I have misunderstood a question please do not hesitate to say you have got the wrong end of the stick and what we asked was because occasionally I do think I have heard correctly and I have not. You may think that is a slight disadvantage, perhaps, in a politician.

LORD RICHARD: Not in this forum. Quality I would have thought.

JENNY RANDERSON: Thank you. In my preparatory remarks I think I ought to mention that of course I have a brief which is specifically culture, sport and the Welsh language. It does fall very much into those three sections, although you might well suggest sport is part of culture in many ways. Also, it is worth noting from your point of view that for 11 months I was acting Deputy First Minister so I come with that experience as well.

Obviously you have had my written evidence and no doubt I think one of the key messages you will have gleaned is that I am under considerably less legal restraint than other Assembly Government Ministers. My evidence makes clear, I think, that the main powers available to me are extremely broad and supportive. Furthermore, for the most part, I achieve my policy aims and objectives through executive action rather than through legislation. Therefore, my experience of legal constraint is limited to a few specific examples which I have highlighted in my written evidence. I think it is important to emphasise that these examples raise a number of particularly complex legal issues. This is the case, particularly, in legislation dealing with the Welsh language and the question of where responsibility for the Welsh Language Act should rest. The same is true, also, of the lottery funding streams in Wales and I am sure you will be wanting to consider these matters in greater detail shortly.

My portfolio involves relatively little interaction with Whitehall, therefore, as a result of this structure, since responsibility for many of my policy areas is devolved to Wales clearly. However, experience shows me that achieving my policy objectives with Whitehall is far from easy. I would not attribute this, from my experience, to ill will, simply that devolution and the devolved administrations seem to be some way down Whitehalls agenda. We do not register on the radar screens very frequently. The nature and type of relationship, however, between the National Assembly and Whitehall is of crucial importance in terms of raising up their level of priorities. I think it is fair to say, also, that the number of times we register on the radar screens is improving rather than getting worse. I think there is a case, certainly at official level in particular, of the issues raised by the devolved bodies being taken into account more often than has been the case in the past sometimes.

The Communications Bill is a very interesting case in point because there is no disagreement between the Assembly Government and Whitehall about the principles contained in the Bill. However, the Assembly Government is unhappy with some of the detail, or it is right to say probably lack of detail in the Bill regarding the safeguarding of Wales’ interest and representation. The Assembly Government wishes to strengthen the Bill whilst Whitehall prefers a looser, more fluid approach. Although this may not present immediate practical problems, the National Assembly is likely to find itself without the statutory safeguards which might present problems for Wales in the future. Indeed, unless there are significant amendments to the Bill, we will be losing some of the safeguards which we have currently because there will be no Welsh representative designated on the new Ofcom Board whereas the three bodies which will be subsumed into Ofcom each have currently a Welsh member by statutory right and we will lose that statutory right.

I think probably you will want to pursue this and other issues with me in questioning. I think at this point it is better probably if I conclude my remarks and let you ask your questions.

LORD RICHARD: Thank you very much indeed. Reading your evidence and listening to what you have to say it does strike me that you have got the most enormous powers devolved to you already compared with, as far as I can tell, almost any other Minister in the Assembly.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

LORD RICHARD: Section 32 is a very wide and enabling provision and apart from one or two issues in detail on them you are fairly happy with what you have got.

JENNY RANDERSON: In practice on a day to day level, as I indicated in my remarks, we have extensive powers and we operate those powers through funding mechanisms, through strategies, policy directives and so on. I think the issues are very specific. The ones I have raised - lottery and communications - are ones which have been of significance to us so far where in the case of the lottery we are seeking more powers and in the case of communication we are not seeking additional powers, we want representation simply on UK wide bodies and a UK wide structure which recognises Welsh interest as, indeed, the current broadcasting environment does. We are wanting to retain some elements and aspects of the status quo there.

In terms of change, if we were to wish to change the set up in which we operate then we would move into very complex legal areas. I would specify two areas. One is the Welsh language, currently we work within the ambit of the Welsh Language Act and there has been a year long inquiry by the Committee into the Welsh language.

LORD RICHARD: Sorry, which committee?

JENNY RANDERSON: The Culture Committee. As a result of that I am producing government policy on the language. Now, we made a decision that the current Welsh language Act was adequate for our needs at this time but there was very real and strong representation of the need for a new Welsh Language Act. If we were to wish to have a new Welsh Language Act or to amend the current one significantly, we would have to ask for a legislative slot to get the Welsh Language Act amended by a parliament which consists overwhelmingly of English, Scottish, Northern Irish MPs. They would be amending or maybe rejecting a new Act, maybe refusing a legislative slot on a topic which is only of concern to the Welsh.

TED ROWLANDS: Would it be, Minister, because if you amend the Act to increase your powers over UK bodies in respect of their operation of the Welsh Language Act, you might be extending your powers to bodies which are not only Welsh?

JENNY RANDERSON: The way in which the detail of the Act works - and there is secondary legislation, yes - I have introduced two sets of regulations two years running to extend the powers of the Act in terms of the bodies which it applies to which operate in Wales but there is a great deal of discussion in Wales, of which I am sure you are aware, on the issue of what constitutes a public body. I am seeking currently to extend it to the utilities some of which when the Welsh Language Act was passed were in public ownership and are no longer in public ownership. I am looking, also, at housing associations and those aspects. Indeed, there are demands with which I do not concur but there are demands, and realistically strong demands, for the Language Act to be extended in some way to the private sector. It is not something on the political agenda at the moment but it is a debate which is alive in some quarters in Wales.

LORD RICHARD: How do you want to amend the Act?

JENNY RANDERSON: If we were to want to extend the Act to the private sector as opposed to other public bodies we would need a new Welsh Language Act, it would not be considered as a minor amendment, we would need a new Welsh Language Act. For that we would have to go to parliament and I would judge - and I think probably most of you here would judge - that it would be a tricky issue if parliament refused us the legislative slot or rejected a proposal put forward by the Welsh Assembly Government for a new Language Act.

LORD RICHARD: How do you want to change the existing structure?

JENNY RANDERSON: My personal view is that the powers over the Welsh language should be devolved to Wales so we could change the Act. I think Gwyn might be able to give you details of how that could happen. We could make minor amendments at the moment with the agreement of parliament short of having a whole new Act, but if we needed a whole new Act currently it has to be done by parliament.

PAUL VALERIO: Are you saying that on your experience in these matters you would prefer to have primary legislative powers?

JENNY RANDERSON: If there was to be a demand for a significantly different Welsh Language Act I think this would need primary legislative powers, certainly, over that particular issue.

Can I refer to Gwyn who might have a way in which that could be done without going as far as primary legislative powers.

GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes. I suppose the simple straight forward way of doing it is to extend the provisions which exist already in the Government of Wales Act whereby the Assembly does have powers to amend the Welsh Language Act in relation to the functions and role of the Welsh Language Board. The Government of Wales Act could be amended to extend the range of aspects of the Welsh Language Act which the National Assembly had power to adapt as it thought fit.

SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: This would be a Henry VIII provision.

GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes.

LAURA McALLISTER: Can I ask a question about the relationship with the Assembly sponsored public bodies, Minister.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

LAURA McALLISTER: Clearly in your book you have some quite distinctive ASPBs there which are fairly disparate as well in terms of how they have arisen, some by Royal Charter, others by other mechanisms.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

LAURA McALLISTER: I just wonder, if there is a template, if you could give some sort of outline of the policy development relationship that exists between yourself and the culture committee as well and the ASPBs? The second part to my question really is that you mentioned somewhere I think when you were talking about culture in particular that you no longer regard the ASPBs as having a monopoly on developing an area, I suppose you could apply that to sport equally. How do you ensure that the other agencies out there buy in to a strategic approach to the development of an area? As you know I sat on your own forum and we had severe problems and difficulties there in terms of involving the Football Association of Wales in the strategic development. How can you do that? It is a two part question really.

JENNY RANDERSON: It is a very wide question. If I could just preface my answer by saying before I diverted on to the Welsh language I was going to say that the way in which the portfolio operates is very broad at the moment but one of the issues which would cause us some legal complexity is if we wanted to abolish or combine some of the ASPBs because we would have to do it by a system which would be pragmatic. You would take their funding away, basically. It is not a neat way of doing it.

LORD RICHARD: Brave.

JENNY RANDERSON: Some of the ASPBs are Royal Charter bodies and, of course, we do not have the legal power either to abolish them or indeed to change their governance and the way in which they govern. For example, the building we are in, the National Museum, we are in discussions with the National Museum currently to see if they will petition to change the way in which they are governed as a result of the latest quinquennial review which has indicated they need to modernise their system of governance. There are legal complexities about the ASPBs we have and whether we can set them up or not. The Welsh Language Board is not a Royal Charter body and we could abolish that one effectively but we would still have to subsume its powers into the Assembly. If you want detail on that, Gwyn could supply it.

In terms of the relationship with the Culture Committee, I have developed a relationship with the Culture Committee in which I see myself very much as a member of that committee in terms of policy development. It is an interesting two sided approach. They have a very strong role in policy development. I mentioned earlier on that for a whole year they reviewed the Welsh language and took evidence and they produced a very weighty response. I have responded to that report in terms of policy development. The policy development, of course, is mine, it is Welsh Assembly Government policy, it is not tied to that report in any way but the information that was produced was very useful and very helpful and, indeed, key to producing consensus on the language which is the way I would want to operate.

They have a dual role, of course, because agenda item one will be policy development; agenda item two will be interrogate the minister, and I produce monthly reports. Also they have a very useful role in that once a year they see all the ASPBs and they discuss with them the way in which the ASPBs are delivering on the Assemblys wishes and of course I consult them on the budget as well. Although the final decisions on the budget are mine, the Assembly Governments, in terms of priorities clearly the way in which the committee decides its priorities is something which I very much bear in mind.

In relation to the way in which my relationship has developed with the ASPBs I believe that devolution has made them very much more accountable, publicly accountable not just accountable to government but publicly accountable. There has been a spot light thrown on their activities and their decisions in a way which was not the case, certainly, before devolution. They are a very important part of my portfolio because we have ASPBs which preserve our heritage, the National Library, the National Museum, and ASPBs which are funding bodies, basically, developing strategic policy in terms of the Arts Council and Sports Council, for example. The Welsh Language Board has a bit of policy development but also has a regulatory function because it has legal obligations to police the Welsh Language Act, basically, which it does on our behalf.

The way in which I operate with the ASPBs, is clearly I set the framework within which they operate. There are the financial regulations, there are the administrative regulations which apply to all ASPBs but what they are finding very different, perhaps, is the nature of their remit letters. The remit letters which are produced once a year are very much more detailed now and set out very clearly my priorities in terms of funding.

LAURA McALLISTER: Sorry to interrupt you, Minister, is there a lot of negotiation in terms of remit letters with the ASPBs?

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes, it does not come as a surprise to them.

LAURA McALLISTER: They would almost expect the content?

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes, because there would be something wrong with the relationship if you were imposing things which were a surprise. One main reason, by the way, why it does not come as a surprise is because those remit letters are sent after a strategic framework has been developed. The strategic framework for most of the ASPBs has been my culture strategy, Creative Future, and that sets out in a great deal of detail what my policy priorities are and it does detail the year in which it will be done. For the Welsh language we are at the very last stages - if we were sitting here in a month’s time I would be able to give you the document - of producing a similar action plan on policy development for the Welsh language based on the outline statement I produced, Bilingual Future, earlier in the year.

LORD RICHARD: Based on the powers you have got?

JENNY RANDERSON: Very much based on the powers we have got.

LORD RICHARD: Not on the basis if you had more?

JENNY RANDERSON: No.

TED ROWLANDS: Those powers are exactly the same, are they not, as the ones the previous Secretary of State exercised?

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes, they are, yes.

TED ROWLANDS: They are unchanged?

JENNY RANDERSON: No, not changed.

TED ROWLANDS: They have not been improved or amended?

JENNY RANDERSON: I think I am right in saying there is one exception based on the powers we have got. We do say we will seek more powers on the lottery in Creative Future.

TED ROWLANDS: Over the Sports Council and Arts Council and other quangos which have been formed in your jurisdiction, the powers you have are those exercised previously by the Secretary of State?

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes. There are no changes, are there?

ADAM PEAT: There are no changes to the powers but I think there is one important change to the context in which the powers are exercised and that is the very broad power you have, which Lord Richard referred to previously, in Section 32 of the Act. In a situation - putting it very bluntly - if the funding ASPBs did not exist the Minister and the Welsh Assembly Government nonetheless would have the power to carry out all of the activities that they carry out. Clearly if you have an alternative through which you could act I think that gives you rather more leverage in terms of the directions you get.

HUW THOMAS: Minister, you have raised a lot of issues about the relationship between ASPBs, yourself and the Assembly committee.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

HUW THOMAS: I am just wondering who is accountable for delivery? If you are spelling out remit letters in more detail than they were before, what freedom does the ASPB have to do any more than deliver what you want and, therefore, why have an ASPB?

JENNY RANDERSON: You have touched on a fundamental issue. A good pragmatic answer to that is because they exist already and we do not have clear powers to rearrange them perhaps. Maybe if one had more legal freedom one would have rearranged them slightly. I think there are strong reasons for having ASPBs, certainly in certain cases. You may recall that nearly three years ago now there was a real crisis in the Arts Council in Wales and basically it had to be taken apart and put back together again. A report - and this was before my time - into the Arts Council came to the conclusion, and I accepted that conclusion, that there should be an Arts Council largely because although as an Assembly Government we want to set the outlines and, to give you an example, we want to develop the following types of music, for example, in general we would not want to be in charge of every day grant giving decisions down to the level of £, 5,000 to this organisation. There is still an arm’s length principle but, if one could put it this way, the arms are getting shorter. The accountability is getting greater. One of the developments which has taken place is that this year in the budget I have created a culture fund so that we concentrate in the way in which the budget is set out on two things. One is the running costs of the ASPBs and, secondly, on the actual delivery of policy which will be done via the culture fund. That could be done, therefore, by one ASPB or another but it leaves me the freedom, also, very specifically, either to choose perhaps to deliver some of the cultural objectives via local authorities - because one of my priorities is to encourage local authorities to support creative activity - or it could be done directly by the Assembly itself, and there are some small examples, not always small in terms of money. One of the things the Assembly is doing directly is funding the Wales Millennium Centre, for example.

LORD RICHARD: How big is the culture fund going to be?

JENNY RANDERSON: It starts this year at £45 million and goes up in two years time to £64 million in rough terms.

LORD RICHARD: What is the budget of the Arts Council?

JENNY RANDERSON: Margaret will elaborate.

MARGARET EVANS: For this year the budget of the Arts Council in terms of grant in aid, the money from the Assembly is around £20 million. The Arts Council is also, of course, a lottery distributor and will be expecting to distribute around £18 million in lottery funds.

LORD RICHARD: In terms of Assembly expenditure your culture fund will be twice the size of the Arts Council?

MARGARET EVANS: More.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes, but remember it includes, also, certain activities undertaken by the museum, the National Library, the Sports Council, Welsh Books Council, which is not an ASPB but is funded directly by the Assembly.

LAURA McALLISTER: Where does the WNO come in?

JENNY RANDERSON: Sorry?

LAURA McALLISTER: Where does the Welsh National Opera come in?

JENNY RANDERSON: They are funded by the Arts Council.

LAURA McALLISTER: That will come out of this?

JENNY RANDERSON: That is the kind of example where I would make it clear now that I want the Arts Council to fund the Welsh National Opera. The details of how they would do it would be down to them very much working within our regulations.

TED ROWLANDS: Under the lottery fund, of the sum total of money spent in the areas of expenditure you are talking about - sports, culture, arts, museum - how much of that money falls within your budget or how much is outside your budget?

JENNY RANDERSON: In the case of the Arts Council and Sports Council, the only income they have, other than money from the Assembly, is lottery.

TED ROWLANDS: That is quite big.

JENNY RANDERSON: That falls within our indirect remit through lottery direction. In the case of the museum and the library, they have some other funding, private trusts, and the library has some income from investments in the past. Substantially the ASPBs are funded via the Assembly on a year on year basis. It is important to bear in mind, I think, though, that local authorities fund, also, a lot of sport activity, a great deal of arts activity. They are given funding to deal with their library responsibilities and so on. The Assembly via the local authority route, supported by council tax, of course, also funds that way.

TED ROWLANDS: There was one very surprising omission from your observations to us - and it is a very big budget over , 80 million, it is publicly funded - and that is S4C’s budget.

JENNY RANDERSON: That is done by the UK.

TED ROWLANDS: I know it is Home Office, but you do not mention that area of expenditure which is a huge investment in Wales, in language and broadcasting. Do you have any view about the accountability of that money? Do you think it should stay in a part of the Home Office budget?

ADAM PEAT: It is DCMS.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes. It is DCMS. That is an issue I think which we see very much as part of the overall infrastructure of broadcasting in the UK. You draw attention, quite rightly, to quite an anomalous position but it is funded by a formula which is set down in primary legislation. We would have no power to change that formula so, therefore, there is not much point in asking to have the , 80 million devolved to Wales so that we could give it a formula that we cannot change to S4C.

I think that within the context of the Communications Bill there is some concern, and I have explained it already, about the importance of a Welsh voice on Ofcom so we can make clear the very particular and totally unique needs of Wales because of the language. We would see, nevertheless, S4C sitting within the overall environment of broadcasting in the UK because once we separate it out there come in all sorts of issues because, of course, there is the BBCs obligations to producing programmes for S4C and so on and, therefore, it is very, very difficult to disentangle it.

TED ROWLANDS: Is not the issue worth rehearsing anyway? It seems a striking anomaly that an 80 million budget lies in a Whitehall government department’s remit which affects both broadcasting in Wales and particularly affects language policy, either a case for or against, it needs rehearsing.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes. It is a very complex issue because clearly S4C is paid for by DCMS. It comes from their budget according to a legally set down formula. We have no power over it. We have no control over S4C as over directly any other broadcasting but equally S4C has a crucial cultural impact on the language. The language is devolved to Wales as an issue. Therefore, I think we have a key issue on devolution probably in terms of if you were to be in favour of the idea of Wales becoming completely independent you would see Wales broadcasting as separate but that does not happen to be the view of the Welsh Assembly Government. Certainly I would not want our broadcasting to be operated in a separate way because it is not realistic in any way, not least because about 25 per cent of people in Wales could not get S4C if they wanted to, so they are dependent on other channels therefore.

HUW THOMAS: There are two subsidiaries, if I can follow on that. Firstly, we do not need to have actual statutory responsibility to be able to influence the way in which S4C operates.

JENNY RANDERSON: No.

HUW THOMAS: I would like to hear a bit more about how you work to overcome that? Secondly, of course, the Communications Bill is much wider than broadcasting and it raises issues which are to do with the economy of Wales and Wales’ ability to function as a modern country. I am just wondering was any consideration given to ensuring that specific Welsh clauses were written into the Communications Bill to further the objectives of the Assembly?

JENNY RANDERSON: In terms of the issues associated with the Communications Bill beyond traditional broadcasting, those were not issues on which I was leading - directly involved - because that was a matter for the Economic Development Minister. Prys, I think, could probably answer your question in detail because, of course, he has been liaising at an official level.

In terms of influencing broadcasters, every politician would like to do that, would they not? I do have a very strong relationship with the broadcasters in Wales in terms of meeting them regularly, talking to them about issues. In terms of our responses to the Communications Bill I met them all, I discussed their views, they sent me copies of their responses, I took them into account, they came to the committee to put their points of view and eventually our responses were all taken to a plenary debate and were subject to cross-party unanimous support to be presented to DCMS.

What we have done in terms of linking with the broadcasters is all that we can realistically do, I think, within the powers that we do not have. All we can do is develop a good relationship with them and listen to their point of view and make sure that we are attuned to their point of view and that they know what the people of Wales want. There are lots of technical issues about availability of certain channels and so on which we have discussed.

Through Cymru’n Creu - actually Laura McAllister referred to something which relates to Cymru’n Creu and that is a forum, a Cultural Consortium - all the cultural ASPBs, non ASPBs, like broadcasters, are members and also non cultural ASPBs like the Welsh Tourist Board and the Welsh Development Agency are members and the purpose of that is to get them to work better together. It has worked very well in producing Culturenet Cymru and through that forum, once the parameters of communications in the future are well known, I will be setting up a group to look at broadcasting and its needs in Wales. It is a way of getting everyone to work together on policy issues.

Can I refer to Prys to talk about the non broadcasting aspects of the Communications Bill.

PRYS DAVIES: When the Communications Bill was presented for consultation in May, the Assembly Government consulted very widely then with the broadcasters and all other organisations, lots of other cultural organisations around Wales, about the content of the Bill. A lot of the Bill - if you have seen it - is extremely technical. There are quite detailed issues concerning broadband and communications issues as well. What we tried to achieve was to get a comprehensive view which took into account lots of different organisations from across Wales. This included areas outside broadcasting specifically but also covered economic development as well. We presented those to the Culture Committee and also to the plenary for debate. Both the committee and plenary endorsed the Assembly Government’s response quite fully. That response suggested a number of changes to the Bill which were submitted then to the UK Government for consideration.

TOM JONES: Before democratic devolution in Wales, the Secretary of State in those days would have been expected to find a person from Wales to sit on any new UK body. Since then there have been continuous drafts of new bodies and this is another one, more complicated even, and yet you seem to be satisfied that as long as you can fight to get a person from Wales to sit on the new board that is immensely acceptable.

Do you not think that since we have had devolution you could expect to demand a stronger framework in terms of accountability? For example, if there was a person from Wales the head office would still be in London presumably, most of the senior policy staff of the organisation would be elsewhere, would you have an office in Wales at all and how would the accountability of them to yourself work in terms of a dotted line? Would it be the person from Wales you would expect to respond to you or would you expect the chair of the new body and the chief executive to respond to you? There is confusion there and not an awful lot of progress in terms of a newer and stronger Welsh framework.

JENNY RANDERSON: I think I have given you the wrong impression if I suggest for one minute I am satisfied with what is being offered. We have lobbied very hard on this. It is an issue which is of equal concern, I think, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland.

I mentioned earlier on that I found it unsatisfactory that the Ofcom Board although its first personification happens to include a member who has roots in Wales he is not there to represent Wales. There has been a very strong view from DCMS that they are not going to have designated representatives on the Ofcom Board. The original point put to me was that they wanted a board of up to five or six. I believe now they are looking towards a board of up to nine but there is still no right to appoint a member or even consultation on the appointment of a member. There is a cross-party view here that is not satisfactory. I do not think it is logical or sensible in a devolved set up for Ofcom not to have that representation and, as I have pointed out earlier on, the three organisations which are becoming Ofcom all have that representation.

We are pleased there are provisions in the draft Bill for a designated member for Wales on the Ofcom content board and consumer panel. There is, however, a reluctance still on the part of the UK Government to include clauses in the Bill stating that Ofcom must establish national committees to support this work, they want to leave this to Ofcom’s discretion. This is another erosion of the current arrangement because, as I am sure you know, we have a Wales Advisory Committee on Telecommunications, the ITC has a viewer consultative panel and we have no guarantee of replacements.

What we believe is that the commentary which goes along with the Bill indicates there will be a stronger Welsh representation than is on the face of the Bill. The suggestion is some of this representation will be done through memoranda of understanding. I would rather have a memorandum of understanding than nothing but I do feel very strongly that what we need in Wales is a statutory guarantee of our position for the future which is in practice no more than a replacement for the current situation. We are not asking for more devolution, we are asking for a replacement set up which is the same as the current position literally.

PAUL VALERIO: Can I just pursue this a little bit further. You have been saying that there have been discussions and meetings. It is said 25 per cent of the population are not able to receive S4C, we have no representation on the appropriate bodies and in fact you said you did not want to see communications as devolved per se. That being the case, how do we pursue it?

For example, as I understand it the Assembly in the promotion of broadband has put money into it.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

PAUL VALERIO: Your budget is limited, so with the situation at present being based on goodwill and discussion am I correct in saying that although it is unsatisfactory you are content with that or are you saying you are not content with it and you wish to see statutory legislation to enable you to deal with it effectively?

JENNY RANDERSON: The current legal situation is based on a certain number of Welsh representatives appointed statutorily on to the appropriate bodies and by a number of bodies which exist in Wales to provide advice on broadcasting. We see that as a satisfactory set up.

In principle we understand that the modern broadcasting world, the convergence of media and so on makes it necessary really to look at a new set up. We have no objection in principle to Ofcom or to the structures under it but what we want, strongly, and what we do object to is the lack of guarantee of a Welsh voice and representation in that structure. I think I have probably made that clear now, that we have no objections in principle to the concept, it is the detailed lack of guarantees that we have grave concerns about and have been pressing for.

LORD RICHARD: You do not need primary legislative powers to achieve that?

JENNY RANDERSON: No.

LORD RICHARD: The Assembly does not?

JENNY RANDERSON: No.

LORD RICHARD: You need something if the Bill is going to work.

JENNY RANDERSON: If we had primary legislative powers over broadcasting you would be in a position then where you would be separating yourself out from the rest of the UK which is not realistic ---

LORD RICHARD: I agree.

JENNY RANDERSON: --- given the current set up on broadcasting and certainly it is not something which the Welsh Assembly Government would want to do.

TOM JONES: Is there anything short of primary legislation that is required in terms of a framework for working with a devolved administration whenever new administrations are created? In other words, is there a way of getting your concerns much higher up the level of response than happens to be the case? This should apply to all Assembly bodies created. Should there be a framework in place, which may not need primary legislation, with which the government has decided that if the National Assembly wishes to have a strong representation then that should happen? These bodies should not be created in the way that bypasses the devolution process.

ADAM PEAT: Fundamentally this is about the willingness of the UK Government to listen to and respect the wishes of a devolved administration. Essentially it is difficult to legislate for that, that really depends on the political relationship, if I may, which the government wishes to maintain.

LORD RICHARD: Supposing you have a different party in government in London?

JENNY RANDERSON: For clarification, what we have asked for specifically, beyond membership of Ofcom’s main board, is a Wales office for Ofcom, a duty of Ofcom to consult the Assembly Government and a duty for them to receive representations from the Assembly Government. If that was to be put in primary legislation we would be happy with the framework but, of course, the primary powers do not lie with us and so currently, although the current set up gives Wales a voice, and although the future set up may well give Wales a voice, it will not be a guaranteed voice such as the one we have at the moment.

TED ROWLANDS: I understand the preoccupation with getting representation, although I must say sometimes it is over-assessed because then that person becomes a board member and loyalty is to the board, not to Wales or to Jenny Randerson and everyone else. That is the nature of just depending on a representation of this kind, that is the first point.

I just want to ask you as a veteran of two Broadcasting Acts, old style Broadcasting Acts - I worked closely with S4C to build legislative provision to enhance S4C’s interests in two of the Broadcasting Acts - do they need any legislative protection in the new Bill at least to carry over the existing arrangements and existing legislation or, indeed, even additional legislation? Are they seeking in the new Ofcom Bill specific references to S4C?

JENNY RANDERSON: There have been some technical representations and Prys, I am sure, can give you some detail on that.

PRYS DAVIES: Yes. As far as contributing to our response when we consulted on our views, S4C have made their own specific response also. S4C have quite a direct relationship with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

TED ROWLANDS: A very effective one as a matter of fact.

PRYS DAVIES: They are more than happy to take their points directly up with them rather than through ourselves. Whilst they were more than happy to comment on the general principles and concerns which we had from an all Wales perspective they had some specific technical concerns as well relating to their funding arrangements and other aspects.

TED ROWLANDS: There will be clauses in this Ofcom Bill which will cover S4C’s interests?

PRYS DAVIES: There are specific S4C clauses in the Bill.

PETER PRICE: There are some very major disappointments that you have expressed about the content of this Bill. I am interested in both how far the lessons from this can be widened or whether this is very much an individual situation and, secondly, how this is pursued in terms of the mechanics of relationships with you and DCMS and where the Wales Office comes in and so on? Just to spell that out in terms of the disappointment, to what do you attribute this? Is it limited to the specifics of how they are setting up Ofcom and the very specific issues in this Bill? Had you had a fair hearing but there were very good reasons why they felt they wanted to include them or was this a symptom of being rather low down on the agenda in Whitehall? Is it limited to the relationship with DCMS or is this just fairly typical of the relationship with other Whitehall departments? I will stop there for a moment.

JENNY RANDERSON: It is difficult for me to say that it is typical of the relationship with other Whitehall departments. I do not even know that it is typical of the relationship with DCMS. I think really possibly there is a failure to recognise how important some of these issues are to us.

If I give you what I see as DCMS’s general thrust which is freeing up broadcasting, as little regulation as possible, and here we come along saying We want this more precise. We want that more precise. To them that appears to be going against the flow of what they want to do. From our point of view this is a guardianship of devolution and it is an important matter of principle because actually we are going to have fewer guarantees than we have under the current set up. After all, the current set up reflects a previous time when there was very much less devolution to Wales.

I have worked closely with the Wales Office. I have put my points of view via the Wales Office on this. One of the interesting points is, of course, that this particular Bill was subject to the House of Lords/House of Commons Joint Scrutiny Committee earlier in the year. It will be interesting to see how many amendments are made to the Bill as a result of their comments, some of which reflect our point of view but which go very much broader than our point of view, of course, because we are dealing with the whole process. Also, of course, I have directly discussed this with Tessa Jowell. I have written to her directly. The plenary motion for debate and the record of the debate has been sent through as well. I do not think it can be a lack of awareness of our interest in the issue, I think it is that they are looking at it from the point of view of seeing communications and broadcasting in a global environment and, therefore, to be asking about the concerns of Wales rather runs counter to that philosophy.

LORD RICHARD: Could I ask a mechanical question. You deal directly with DCMS?

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

LORD RICHARD: You do not see the Wales Office therefore as the only conduit pipe to get the Assembly’s view into Whitehall?

JENNY RANDERSON: No.

LORD RICHARD: You deal directly with individual ministers?

JENNY RANDERSON: I deal directly with DCMS and officials deal directly with DCMS. I make the Wales Office aware on a regular basis, I have meetings about once a month, maybe slightly less often with Don Touhig and I make him aware of the issues and concerns that I have.

LORD RICHARD: You do not have to get a Wales Office chop on it before you go to DCMS?

JENNY RANDERSON: No. No, out of courtesy and in the interests of good government we keep them informed on a wide range of issues which reflect progress or lack of progress or just important issues which are going on in Wales which they should be aware of within my portfolio.

LORD RICHARD: Can I just ask one more question. From your experiences as Deputy First Minister, you have been saying about going directly to ministries, would that apply to other ministries in the Assembly?

JENNY RANDERSON: I think so, yes. I think it is very much the case that ministers work directly with the appropriate department and build up relationships which come in various formats. Within my own portfolio we have one example which is the sports cabinet where sports ministers meet a couple of times a year and discuss key issues and at the same time we have bilateral meetings as appropriate.

I had a meeting with Richard Caborn, for example, and with Tessa Jowell over sport earlier in the summer and my experience is that other ministers have similar structures which are meetings of all the ministers at the home countries or on a bilateral basis as needed. I do not know whether Adam wants to add anything from the official point of view?

ADAM PEAT: No. Both at ministerial and official level it is not a question of using the Secretary of State for Wales or the Wales Office as a conduit but very much looking to enlist them from time to time as an ally.

LORD RICHARD: Physical muscle really?

ADAM PEAT: Yes.

PETER PRICE: That was the ground I was pursuing.

SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: I have three factual points. The first is about the Communications Bill which you have just referred to which was subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a joint committee. Did you make any representations to that committee on what should go into the Bill and with what effect? That is my first question.

JENNY RANDERSON: No, we did not. We considered it and it was a new procedure and we decided that as at that time we were in direct and very frequent contact with DCMS and with the Secretary of State the appropriate way for the Assembly to put its point of view officially was via that procedure with the Secretary of State. However, there were members of that Joint Scrutiny Committee who were well aware of the issues raised in Wales: the Welsh MPs who were on it and one or two others who had shown an interest and were well aware of the Welsh point of view on this cross-party basis.

SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Minister, my second question is in your opening statement you referred to a number of policies which as Minister you had initiated and been able to pursue. It was a pretty impressive picture. Unless I misheard you, you did not refer to the Assembly Committee with the relevant responsibilities. I have read that the rationale of the devolution settlement and the Assembly proceeding is that more is done consensually than is as we all know at Westminster. Therefore I was surprised, you have referred to it once or twice in answering later questions, and you have referred to it specifically on the Communications Bill but on all the other things it has been my policies. Is that the truth of the matter and has the fine Wordsworthian vision of consensuality not worked in practice?

JENNY RANDERSON: Can I preface my response by saying I work very closely with the committee and there is a great deal of consensus. On the Welsh language specifically we started on a one year evidence taking exercise and at the end of that there was a very detailed and extensive document from the committee which provided vital information to inform policy. I think I could say that if we had not been through that year there would not have been consensus on the language and there is consensus on the language in the Assembly. I think that important to draw attention to.

Can I give you another example which is not the Culture Committee but the predecessor to the Culture Committee did an extremely lengthy investigation into cultural policy, a big evidence taking exercise, which produced a lengthy report called Culture in Common. Some of the things in Culture in Common, in fact a number of the things in Culture in Common are in my culture strategy, Creative Future, which is my policy, as a member of the Welsh Assembly Government, it is Welsh Assembly Government policy. You will see an awful lot in Creative Future, my document, which is not in Culture in Common. Although the Committees policy making process is very much evidence taking, development of ideas, the eventual Welsh Assembly Government policy is not in any way tied to that. It can be, and in my case, certainly, is strongly informed by that process but is not tied to it.

To go back to your comments on the issue of the way in which the Assembly was first set up and the role of the committees, I think the role of the committees is a strength of the Assembly and it does aid consensus in many ways. I believe you are going to be seeing the chairs of committees and what you will find out is that different committees operate in different ways and some committees are much less into policy making and far more into interrogation of the minister and so on whereas my committee takes a very strong interest in policy making and evidence taking. Currently we are looking at sport.

Also I usually do things entirely with the backing of the committee - they support me and I always take things to the committee - but I can do things on my own initiative without any preamble from the committee. I will give you an example. I set up a football forum to look at the state of football in Wales and to look at producing proposals for football development. I did that long before the committee had taken any interest in sport as a specific policy making aspect of its work so I am not bound by them but what they do is very, very useful background information and ideas development.

TOM JONES: Can I just go back to the National Lottery. You have some very clear and timely points to make. As far as the public of Wales is concerned, we are looking at the governance of Wales, how to make the Assembly suitable to the people of Wales in five and ten years time and the National Lottery is an example of confusion. The public are not aware of to which body they make applications. You are seeking greater policy directions and I presume you are about to submit your thoughts so it is a good exercise for us to look at both in terms of DCMS once again and its relationship with the National Assembly.

On the second Lottery Act, there was discussion in the House of Lords about secondary policy directions being available to Wales and Scotland. I think it was the late Donald Dewar and Lord Crickhowell who were involved in trying to develop that. There was a strong public perception that seemed to be doubling government. You had DCMS giving policy directions and then suddenly the National Assembly was seeking secondary policy direction and it was a recipe for confusion, therefore, and double government, obviously. It will be interesting to see how you manage to persuade DCMS to take on board your recommendations having consulted widely throughout Wales. We wish to follow that process, perhaps we can have some feedback on it.

It will be interesting to see how you play the Celtic card, which I used to play when I was involved in the lottery for Scotland and the Northern Ireland elements to this review. To what extent do you see what is the Scottish perspective on this issue?

JENNY RANDERSON: I am not familiar in great detail with the Scottish perspective except that I am aware that it is roughly along the same lines as ours.

In terms of the lottery, one of the problems is that all five distributors have a different set of regulations but for ease one would divide them into the Sports Council and the Arts Council which owe their directions to us. They do have financial regulations that they have to adhere to set down by DCMS but we decide the priorities for them. The other three, and the Millennium Commission, are operated by DCMS according to a UK remit. First of all it is important to say that most of the lottery distributors are now very much more sensitive to Wales in terms of having a Welsh presence. The remaining fact which we regard as a problem is that the broad outlines are set by DCMS, the strategic policy is set by them, and we have the power more or less to tinker around the edges. In practice that means that announcements are made very often by the UK Government which do not fit us.

One of the examples I would give particularly is the New Opportunities Fund and the recent Fair Share Initiative. The announcement made by the UK Government fitted the way in which it needed to be configured in England. Potentially it did not fit at all with our Communities First policy in Wales and so therefore we had a lot of work to do at official level to make it fit. I think it fits well now. It will be better if we set the strategic direction. I do not know how far DCMS will listen to this but I am encouraged by the fact that the lottery review in the summer was a joint review by all four ministers and signed by all four ministers so I am encouraged by that symbolic gesture. We are seeking the devolution of the powers of the Secretary of State to the Welsh Assembly Government so that we can set our own direction.

Now we would find that clearly the three UK based distributors would still be operating within an overall UK structure. We would have no wish at least at this stage to change that. There would possibly still be all UK pots of money but one of the key issues, of course, that we are discussing is the percentage lottery share in certain cases ---

TED ROWLANDS: Barnett formula for lottery.

JENNY RANDERSON: Interestingly enough the New Opportunities Fund has a Barnett formula for lottery which recognises deprivation or an equivalent of the Barnett formula. It recognises deprivation and gives us six and a half per cent whereas the Sports Council and the Arts Council get a straight five per cent population share based cut and that becomes an increasing problem with the Sports Council because of their five per cent, half a per cent is then top sliced by the UK Government to give to UK sport.

TOM JONES: The problem with that, I had to fight for the 6.3 per cent that the Community Fund had. This comes back to the tokenism of the one member from Wales or the two or three members from Wales, it can be a very lonely battle to fight. In my days Northern Ireland were supporting and Scotland was not. Sometimes Scotland takes the view that its bidding for the UK gives them a good advantage.

It is important that these frameworks are stronger than being dependent on individual representatives to argue the case otherwise it depends on the strength of the person or the sheer bloody mindedness of the person to stick it out.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

TED ROWLANDS: Is there any chance of obtaining a Barnett formula for all lottery funding so we know we are going to get six per cent or whatever it is of the total. Will that not be a simpler solution rather than getting involved in this combination of UK battles?

JENNY RANDERSON: There are two issues to this. One is that the percentage formula we have asked to be subject to the current review.

TED ROWLANDS: Right across the board.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes. There would be a recognition for deprivation because after all both the Sports Council and Arts Council recognise deprivation when they give out their grants.

TED ROWLANDS: It will be six point something per cent?

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes. We would like that to happen. In terms of the overall structure and being part of a UK picture we gave three options. One was do nothing, one was what I have suggested we are going to go for and the third was to have a single lottery distributor for Wales and that was not supported. The people of Wales who responded to the consultation said no. Although initially I was quite attracted to that idea because of the flexibility it would give us it was not supported and I think, therefore, it is not an option.

TED ROWLANDS: 3.1 is where you most strongly comment about a major barrier to strategic development direction. Do you exercise these powers that you refer to there? Are they called current powers? You and the Secretary of State for DCMS have concurrent powers and therefore anything she wishes to do needs your approval as much as vice versa?

JENNY RANDERSON: Margaret Evans will answer.

MARGARET EVANS: Can I explain. It differs, it varies, and again it is an example of further complexity in terms of the bodies. Clearly in terms of the Wales based bodies, the Arts Council, the Sports Council, the Minister issues the policy directions, the financial directions come from DCMS so that is clear.

TED ROWLANDS: Yes.

MARGARET EVANS: In the case of NOF - the New Opportunities Fund - the Assembly can issue policy directions but only with the agreement of the Secretary of State and that is an important issue currently for us in relation to the NOF fourth round which is starting just now.

TED ROWLANDS: Can I turn it on its head. Can the Secretary of State, DCMS, Ms Jowell, issue directions without the Minister’s approval?

MARGARET EVANS: Fine. In the case of the Community Fund and HLF, Heritage Lottery Fund, the Secretary of State issues policy directions with the agreement of the Assembly.

TED ROWLANDS: NOF does not require Ms Randerson’s approval?

MARGARET EVANS: Yes.

TED ROWLANDS: It does?

MARGARET EVANS: Issued from here with the agreement of the Assembly. It is concurrent but not always in the same direction.

JENNY RANDERSON: It has some practical implications. For example, recently in the New Opportunities Fund the Secretary of State announced that money was going to be moved from the New Opportunities Fund to NESTA.

TED ROWLANDS: What is NESTA?

JENNY RANDERSON: Not quite a lottery distributor.

ADAM PEAT: Basically it is a foundation endowed by the lottery.

JENNY RANDERSON: It deals with science and technology innovation. We would have preferred the money to stay with the New Opportunities Fund.

TED ROWLANDS: If you had said "No", the Secretary of State could not have done it without your approval?

JENNY RANDERSON: It was just announced.

TED ROWLANDS: I thought you had concurrent powers?

MARGARET EVANS: In relation to specific bodies. It is body specific.

TED ROWLANDS: So with NOF you do not have concurrent powers? If this money is moved from this fund to that fund does it require your approval?

ADAM PEAT: No, because the Assembly’s powers are in relation to what is done by the body once it has got the money; but it is the Secretary of State who determines uniquely how much money is going to go to each body.

TED ROWLANDS: Right.

TOM JONES: We must not dismiss the lack of financial responsibility. If we say yes the goal is to get policy direction to the National Assembly and the financial directions to stay in DCMS are not important. They are, in fact, because they govern how the body administers itself in terms of auditing and financial controls. If the purse strings are there it is more difficult to develop your policy in a way in terms of creation of offices, accountability, director for Wales, chief executive and financial officer. I think we should not dismiss the tension of these financial directions in the Whitehall departments.

JENNY RANDERSON: No. I think that is a key aspect for us. That is why we are seeking the devolution of the Secretary of States powers to Wales so we will be able to make sure that things fit the needs of Wales and importantly there are so many initiatives going on in Wales now which diverge from what is happening in England that it is important it fits with Communities First which is such a key policy for attacking poverty. Clearly the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund have a very important role in assisting that and we would want things like those policies to work together with the grain of government policy rather than being a sticking plaster put on afterwards.

LAURA McALLISTER: Bearing all that in mind, Minister, why did you say so categorically a little while ago that you did not see any reason for those three distributing bodies to be organised on a Welsh only basis? I think you said that.

JENNY RANDERSON: No.

LAURA McALLISTER: I thought you said that as far as you were concerned - Heritage Lottery, Community and so on - that there was not a strong case for those.

JENNY RANDERSON: There are issues about expertise. There is a lot to be gained by the cross-border links and in particular, for example, with the Heritage Lottery Fund we have benefited greatly in Wales from being able to tap into the central funding there for the UK as a whole. Money, for example, for the refurbishment of Cardiff Castle would be well beyond any one year= s Welsh pot of money from the Heritage Lottery Fund. There are advantages in being part of a UK scene in some ways in terms of keeping the actual structure but we would want that structure to exist with separate regulations for Wales.

LAURA McALLISTER: In terms of arts and sport at the moment, do they lose out then in terms of now having as direct a UK context because they are the distributing bodies for art and sport?

JENNY RANDERSON: There are other arts and sport distributing bodies in England and Scotland, yes, in the same way but they operate very separately in Wales. I think the amount of contact they have in terms of being part of a UK scene is actually quite minimal. I am sure they have contact because the Arts Council of England has extensive contact with the Arts Council of Wales but the Arts Council of Wales, for example, integrates its lottery funding very well into its core funding. It does not fund the same organisation from both streams at once but it looks at it from the point of view of the client and says which stream of funding will be better for them rather than making people apply in a separate way.

The Sports Council does pay close attention to what happens in England because of this slice off for the funding of UK performance sport. The most elite athletes are funded from a slice of the Sports Councils lottery money.

TED ROWLANDS: For completeness sake, your concurrent powers are they exactly the same as your Scottish counterparts and your Northern Ireland counterparts? Are you worse off?

MARGARET EVANS: Broadly they are similar but I would not like to mislead the Commission in terms of detail.

JENNY RANDERSON: We could find out.

MARGARET EVANS: If it would be helpful we could give the full details of that in writing. It is the case that they are broadly similar and the issues around the review which we have discussed extensively, of course, with Scotland and Northern Ireland, are coming out the same issues as here.

TOM JONES: Can we go to the Home Office now and the Criminal Records Bureau and 3.3 in your submission which is a very clear plea for help or concern again. Perhaps you can explain to me the niceties of this. The Criminal Records Bureau is described as a Home Office executive agency and then suddenly it becomes a Crown body and because it is a Crown body it cannot listen to even an appeal from the First Minister of the National Assembly for better understanding and responsiveness to the needs of the Welsh Language Board and voluntary organisations using the Welsh language as well.

JENNY RANDERSON: Can I point you to either Adam or Gwyn who will answer about the difference between a Home Office executive agency and a Crown body.

ADAM PEAT: Any executive agency, any part of central government as a Crown body is not subject to the Welsh Language Act, it is not directly bound by it. As a matter of voluntary good practice most Crown bodies comply. We have been seeking similar voluntary compliance from the Criminal Records Bureau. Of course they do have their problems as anybody who reads the newspapers will know. In the midst of those problems they have not felt so far that they are prepared to give priority to giving a service through the medium of the Welsh language despite the representations that we have made to the Home Office and the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary has not been disposed so far to oblige the Criminal Records Bureau to provide a Welsh language service although he has the powers to, he has full control over them.

LORD RICHARD: They do not provide any service or the service they provide is not a good one?

ADAM PEAT: They do not provide any service through the medium of the Welsh language.

LORD RICHARD: If somebody goes to the CRB, for example, they would get it in English not in Welsh?

JENNY RANDERSON: I am sorry, we need to correct that, they do provide but not an adequate service, a minimal service not by any means a comprehensive service.

LORD RICHARD: You get somebody speaking in factory Welsh?

PRYS DAVIES: Some forms are not available and cannot be filled through the medium of Welsh. I can present you with the detail - it is quite complex - of what is and what is not available. It does not meet the requirements which the Welsh Language Board would expect of bodies in approving their language schemes, they do not come up to scratch in that respect.

EIRA DAVIES: There is a particular problem with the Welsh language and the total means of communication and they had a particular problem with the Criminal Records Bureau. How do we solve that problem?

ADAM PEAT: Either we have an extension of the Welsh Language Act to bind Crown bodies or alternatively the minister of the UK Government responsible exerts pressure on the Crown bodies to comply voluntarily.

JENNY RANDERSON: I think this goes back to the discussion we had towards the beginning of this. Within the terms of the Welsh Language Act this body is not bound by the Welsh Language Act and it would need an amendment, which would be well beyond my powers under the Act to get a Crown body subject to the Act. We have not had an issue up to now because, as Adam Peat has said, Crown bodies in general have complied with the Act as have many other organisations which do not have to out of good practice. The general atmosphere in Wales now is for organisations to comply with the Act and to produce adequate Welsh language schemes, many of them voluntarily. We appear to have a situation here where access through the medium of Welsh is important. Perhaps it is for many people a complex body to approach and where accuracy of information is crucial and hence accuracy in the language of your choice is important. Here is a body which has chosen not to comply and where we have not been able to reach agreement yet with the UK Government that it should comply.

HUW THOMAS: Is the fault that of the body or of its sponsor department? Do you have problems with other Home Office sponsored executive bodies? Is this an illustration of what can happen if you do not have goodwill on the part of the sponsor departments in terms of delivering the Assembly side of policy?

JENNY RANDERSON: I think actually, to take your last point, it is an illustration and it is really an illustration of the core problem as I see it with the Assemblys powers. You must have ascertained already that the complexity of them is one of the issues. There are a lot of things which work all right on the basis of goodwill and our lengthy discussion on the Communications Bill illustrates that the current government has goodwill on a number of these issues. It wants to settle them by a memorandum of understanding, a succeeding government could turn around and say A We are not going to abide by that memorandum of understanding@ and it could go.

In the case of this particular example, without primary legislative powers we cannot amend the Welsh Language Act in the way which would bring this within the scope of the Welsh Assembly so currently we are reliant on goodwill. Now Prys can tell you if there are any other examples of problems with Home Office bodies. I do not think we have problems with any other bodies.

PRYS DAVIES: No immediate examples of course. The process of preparing and approving Welsh language schemes has been going on for some time now. Some bodies react more positively than others to this duty. This is the first time that a situation has become quite as critical as it is at present.

ADAM PEAT: If I might just add to that, subject to correction in detail by Prys who is closer to this. I think that all government departments with activities in Wales do have a policy about their use of the Welsh language. In general they do take the advice of the Welsh Language Board. The Home Office does have a general policy about the use of the Welsh language. The Criminal Records Bureau are out of compliance with the Home Office’s own general approach to the Welsh language. I think it is the case, putting it bluntly, that the CRB is in such a mess at the moment that the Home Office are not willing to put additional pressure on them to get their act together on the Welsh language.

PAUL VALERIO: Therefore you think that in time it will be solved?

ADAM PEAT: I would like to hope so.

PETER PRICE: I would like to ask you in your role as a Cabinet member about the obtaining of legislative slots at Westminster. When the Welsh Assembly Government Cabinet has decided on what bills to seek to promote in Westminster, what are the criteria which determine the number of bills put forward? How is that decided? Do you put forward a prioritised programme and, if so, on what basis are the priorities determined?

JENNY RANDERSON: Right. First of all, I think when we decide as a Cabinet we do so with a very pragmatic eye. We realise that the Westminster legislative programme is very packed and we will only get one or if we are really lucky two in a year. What we do try to do is to make sure that where possible we piggyback on another piece of legislation so that we can have Welsh clauses in something like the Welsh NHS, for example, currently. So we are able to piggyback on others.

Currently our priorities have been dictated very much by achieving anything which needs primary legislation which is in the partnership agreement between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party. Hence the request that we might have legislation to make St Davids Day a public holiday which was rejected, of course. That was not rejected on the grounds of time that was rejected with reasons given which the Assembly Government is considering how to deal with currently. It is an interesting example of outright rejection whereas occasionally one puts forward things which may be deferred to another year because there is not time. Do you want to add anything, Gwyn?

GWYN GRIFFITHS: No.

LORD RICHARD: Can I just ask one more question. When it comes to the legislative timetable in Westminster, presumably the Secretary of State for Wales is then your primary advocate? Is that the way you see it?

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

LORD RICHARD: He may not be on the legislative committee.

JENNY RANDERSON: It is very much the case, also, that the First Minister would be putting a point of view to the Prime Minister on this as well.

LORD RICHARD: Yes.

JENNY RANDERSON: It works at official level where there will be negotiations and discussions on the possibility of getting Welsh clauses integrated into UK bills or England only bills. Do you want to add something Adam?

ADAM PEAT: I was just going to say I believe as a matter of fact the Secretaries of State for the devolved administrations are on the committee.

PETER PRICE: In terms of the bids you are putting forward there are more bids put forward than just the one or two slots which you expect to obtain, is that right?

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes. We put a priority order.

PETER PRICE: You put a priority order?

JENNY RANDERSON: Well, not a one, two, three, I think, from my recollection, it is more a case of A These are our two or three preferred options@ . When you are at the position of being on the outside asking for a bit of time to a certain extent you do not want to be too prescriptive on what you are putting forward because you want to put forward a selection of things but they are all our priorities. Of course we start with a very much longer list which we do narrow down to those which have to go forward because they are in our priorities as a government, and as I say based very much on the partnership agreement.

PETER PRICE: The final choice then is made in Whitehall and Westminster of what you put forward?

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

PETER PRICE: They determine what goes forward.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes. There is no question of us having a guaranteed slot and we put in what we want. There is probably goodwill towards finding us time. So much of this set up is based on goodwill. The decision lies with the UK Government.

SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Have you ever asked a private Member to sponsor a Welsh Bill? On St David’s Day I would have thought it was just the sort of thing which would be suitable for a Private Member’s Bill.

JENNY RANDERSON: It is something, certainly, that we might well be considering now. I am not aware of us ever asking for a private Member to put forward something, no. It is one route, certainly, that we might well be considering.

LORD RICHARD: The problem is in the government, is it, you have to win the ballot.

JENNY RANDERSON: Yes.

TED ROWLANDS: Absolutely.

LORD RICHARD: You can get it through the Lords quite easily.

SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: You have to have a Welsh MP.

ADAM PEAT: Is not the problem also that if a Private Member’s Bill is to have any chance of success the government has to have some degree of benevolence towards it and basically the government does not agree with the proposition for St David’s Day.

SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: If they are strongly against it, it will not succeed.

LORD RICHARD: You have to smile not scowl. Minister, can I thank you very much indeed for coming this morning and being so generous with your time. Can I thank you, also, for adjusting your own timetable to suit the needs of the Commission which was kind of you. I must say from my point of view it has been an enjoyable and useful session.

JENNY RANDERSON: Thank you very much indeed. I think there are one or two issues on which we will be writing to you to provide certainty on certain key points and technical issues.

LORD RICHARD: We might ask you to come back then.

JENNY RANDERSON: Thank you very much.

LORD RICHARD: Thank you.