Draft Pharmacy (Premises Standards, Information Obligations, etc.) Order 2016
(8 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Pharmacy (Premises Standards, Information Obligations, etc.) Order 2016.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. The draft order makes changes to the pharmacy regulators’ powers to regulate pharmacy premises. In broad terms, the intention is to remove the General Pharmaceutical Council’s duty to set standards in rules; it will instead set them as code of practice-style obligations that are enforced through disciplinary committee procedures. The Northern Ireland regulator, the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland, will have a statutory duty to set standards for registered pharmacies, and the draft order will clarify what those standards can cover.
The draft order will make changes to the regulators’ ability to issue interim suspensions from the premises register. The General Pharmaceutical Council’s powers relating to improvement notices will be amended. It will be enabled to publish reports of pharmacy premises inspections. Its powers to obtain information from pharmacy owners will be changed. A correction will be made to the Pharmacy Order 2010 in respect of the notification of the General Pharmaceutical Council of the death of a pharmacy professional. All the changes have been developed with the agreement of the regulators, the Government and the devolved Administrations. The General Pharmaceutical Council’s pharmacy premises standards may relate to the regulation of pharmacy technicians, which is a devolved matter, so the draft order has also been laid in the Scottish Parliament. The draft order was debated in another place on Monday 22 February.
I will give the Committee some background. All pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who practise in Great Britain must be registered by the General Pharmaceutical Council. Pharmacists who practise in Northern Ireland are registered with the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland. Pharmacy technicians are not a registered healthcare profession in Northern Ireland. Unlike most other healthcare regulators, the pharmacy regulators are also responsible for the regulation of registered premises. The regulation of retail pharmacy premises is the subject of the draft order.
The key change for the General Pharmaceutical Council, and one of the Law Commission’s recommendations, is that it should no longer be required to set standards for registered pharmacies in rules. Instead, the standards should be aligned with other regulatory standards and be code of practice style-obligations, enforced through disciplinary procedures. This supports the General Pharmaceutical Council’s approach, since its inception in 2010, to move to an outcomes-based approach to pharmacy premises regulation. Overall, the draft order will align the legal status of registered pharmacies standards with the status of standards for individual registrants.
As a consequence of moving the standards out of rules, they will no longer be included in a statutory instrument that is subject to Privy Council approval. Increasing the autonomy of the General Pharmaceutical Council in this way is in line with Government policy. However, the draft order includes an explicit requirement for the General Pharmaceutical Council to consult Scottish Ministers, as well as English and Welsh Ministers, on changes to pharmacy premises standards.
The General Pharmaceutical Council’s standard setting powers are being extended to include associated premises; that is, premises at which activities are carried out which are integral to the provision of pharmacy services. This reflects the fact that, in some respects, the traditional model of pharmacy premises being entirely self-contained operations at which all aspects of the retail pharmacy business are carried out is outdated for some businesses. Integral parts of their business operations—for example, electronic data storage—may be elsewhere. Very similar changes are being made in relation to Northern Ireland.
The disqualification procedures for pharmacy owners and the procedures for removing premises from the premises register will be amended for both regulators: first, so the disqualification procedures apply to retail pharmacy businesses owned by a pharmacist or a partnership, as well as bodies corporate; and, secondly, to clarify that the test to apply sanctions, where premises standards are not met, is whether the pharmacy owner is unfit to carry on the retail pharmacy business safely and effectively. The General Pharmaceutical Council already has powers to issue improvement notices where a pharmacy owner breaches the standards for pharmacy premises.
The draft order will make two amendments to the sanctions provisions relating to breaches of improvement notices. The two changes mean that the General Pharmaceutical Council will deal with all breaches of premises standards as disciplinary matters. Both regulators are being enabled to make suspension orders, pending a full hearing of the case against the owners of pharmacy premises, and to make interim suspensions from the register prior to a disqualification decision or a removal decision taking effect. These changes reflect the move to better align the disciplinary provisions for pharmacy owners, in respect of breaches of pharmacy premises standards, with those for individual registrants.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
The power in article 18, which the Minister has already referred to, is that Ministers have to be consulted before a change is made to the rules. What is the point of that? It does not seem that Ministers have any right of veto, or to insist on anything different, so why do they not just trust the regulator?
Alistair Burt
Bearing in mind Ministers’ overall responsibilities to duties under the NHS, legislation about what pharmacies do and the general mandate of the NHS in relation to pharmacies, a consultation procedure is still required so that Ministers are made aware of the sort of changes that are being included, to ensure that those changes fit with other aspects of the NHS mandate for which Ministers are responsible. In no sense is that anything other than permissive. If there was disagreement and Ministers did not want to continue, that would be an important part of the discussion. But I do not think that a general duty to consult is necessarily a bad thing and it conforms with other responsibilities that Ministers may have.
The remaining changes are for the General Pharmaceutical Council. It is currently required to make rules in relation not just to premises standards but to the information obligation of pharmacy owners. The latter duty is permissive. The draft order will also clarify when the General Pharmaceutical Council can require pharmacy owners to provide such information and the type of information covered. Currently, there is no provision about how these information-gathering rules are to be enforced, and this gap is being filled by making use of the existing enforcement regime via the General Pharmaceutical Council’s improvement notice system. The General Pharmaceutical Council is also being enabled to publish reports and outcomes from pharmacy premises inspections.
The opportunity is being taken to correct an error in the Pharmacy Order 2010 to require notification of the death of a registered pharmacist or registered pharmacy technician by a registrar of births and deaths, or in Scotland a district registrar, rather than by the Registrar General, as the legislation currently states.
A full public consultation on the draft order was conducted across the United Kingdom from 12 February 2015 to 14 May 2015. There were 159 responses and the overwhelming majority supported the proposals, with many welcoming them. However, the need for guidance—whether from regulatory professional bodies or others—was raised in response to a number of the proposals, to help understand the proposed changes and their impact in practice. To supplement the consultation, a number of events were arranged across the UK for patients and the public. Participants at the events gave unanimous support to the proposals for an outcomes-based approach to standards for registered pharmacy premises. The emphasis on patient safety was welcomed and it was recommended that pharmacy users should have a voice in whether good outcomes for patients are being achieved by pharmacies. Publication of inspection reports in Great Britain was also welcomed.
In summary, the key proposals concerning the continuing development of an outcomes-based approach to standards for registered pharmacy premises build on best practice. The proposal that the standards should not be placed in legislative rules follows as a consequence of this approach and will enable the General Pharmaceutical Council, and eventually the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland, to respond quickly when reviewing and updating the standards to keep pace with the increasingly rapid changes in pharmacy service provision. I commend the draft order to the House.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I thank the Minister for his useful overview of the effects of the draft order.
No one will disagree with the overall aim of improving standards and practice in the distribution and use of medicines. Medicines are a critical and essential part of the healthcare system in this country, and the accurate dispensing of medicines and the quality of the advice given by pharmacists are of paramount importance.
Overall, the draft order is eminently sensible, but it must be looked at in the context of where community pharmacy is going. Around 1.6 million people visit pharmacies every day. Pharmacies are among the most high-frequency interfaces of the health and social care system, so they have huge potential to fulfil many of people’s most regular requirements of that system and potential to take the strain off accident and emergency departments and GP surgeries. I am therefore a little confused that the Government are pushing ahead with reductions in the community pharmacy budget, which I understand will be the subject of an oral question in the other place tomorrow afternoon.
Ministers themselves estimate that between 1,000 and 3,000 community pharmacies will have no option but to shut their doors. Those closures will mean job losses and worsening pay for people across the sector. Pharmacists are often seen as simply suppliers of medication that others prescribe, but I am sure that the Minister will agree that they are so much more than that. The Opposition worry that this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Pharmacists carry out legal and clinical checks, administer vaccinations and emergency contraception, and review the effectiveness of people’s medication. The changes in the sector will be regressive, and I hope that the Minister will reconsider them.
My colleague Lord Hunt of Kings Heath made an excellent point when the draft order was debated in the other place. When the Health and Social Care Bill was debated in 2012, there were discussions about whether community pharmacists could be represented on the boards of clinical commissioning groups. The Government decided against that, but I suspect that because pharmacists are not around the table we often miss their valuable contributions in discussions on various parts of the healthcare system, of which they are usually a crucial part. Lord Hunt was right to say that we are missing a trick here.
We are happy to support the draft order and we note that the responses to the Government’s consultation were overwhelmingly positive, but I have placed on the record the concerns of Her Majesty’s Opposition with the Government’s approach to the pharmacy sector and I hope that the Minister will take those concerns away.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Ms Dorries. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, who sits on the Front Bench, has anticipated the thrust of the argument that I want to present to the Minister.
The draft order looks broadly deregulatory. The Minister has consulted on it and there is support for it, but it should be considered in the context of the 6% cuts to the community pharmacy budget about which I have received significant representations from pharmacists in my constituency. Pharmacists in Bishop Auckland, Kirk Merrington and Cockfield, and the County Durham and Darlington local pharmaceutical committee have written to me and are extremely concerned about the impact of those cuts on their pharmacies.
I wrote to the Minister and he wrote in response that he had a marvellous strategy for pharmacies, which I could not quite square, and that they were going to do all these new, wonderful things. If they are going to do lots of new, wonderful things, it seems odd to be cutting the money, but he can no doubt explain to us what he means. He also wrote that it was not sensible to subsidise pharmacies if they were close to each other and that around two thirds or three quarters of them—I cannot remember the number—were close to another pharmacy. I have to tell him that Kirk Merrington and Cockfield are villages and it takes half an hour on the bus to get from those villages to anywhere else with a pharmacy. It is important that he addresses the rural dimension of not continuing to provide proper support for pharmacists who—as everyone on the Committee is no doubt fully aware—can provide significant benefits to public health.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Following my hon. Friend’s contribution, I also want to put something on the record. I have had representations from pharmacists in Newcastle-under-Lyme in north Staffordshire who face funding cuts. They are, quite frankly, baffled, because they are also expected to do more on the frontline to help patients and relieve pressure on GP surgeries, which, like much of our health service, are embattled at the moment.
Alistair Burt
I am grateful to the Committee for its response and appreciate the support for the draft order in that narrow part of our discussion. I did anticipate that one or two other issues might be raised. With your permission, Ms Dorries, if you feel that those contributions were in order, I am happy to respond briefly.
The draft order is set in the context of the changes being proposed to community pharmacy. Let me lay out, as best I can, what the Government have in mind. In essence, we want to see community pharmacy better integrated into primary care, by increasing the number of pharmacists who bring their skills to GP practices, care homes, and urgent care and public health settings. We need a clinically focused pharmacy service, better integrated with primary care and public health, in line with the five year forward view.
We are consulting with the pharmacy sector and patient groups on how to introduce, for example, the pharmacy integration fund. That will transform how pharmacists operate in the NHS, reducing pressure on A&E and GPs by making better use of pharmacists’ terrific clinical skills to help deliver seven-day health and care services. Proposals for discussion include more pharmacists in GP practices, working closely with GPs to optimise the use of medicines and promote healthy living; patients often seeing a pharmacist instead of a GP, particularly for minor ailments, adding capacity to the system and freeing up appointments; establishing a named pharmacist in care homes who can discuss and review medicines and work with the patients to get the best possible outcomes; and integrating pharmacists as part of all care processes as standard, as a key means of maintaining public health and preventing ill health.
We want to see that development in pharmacy, and to an extent we are going with the grain of what the pharmacy sector has been looking for for some time. Studies by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Nuffield Trust say that pharmacy needs to change, and needs to recognise that it can contribute further to the NHS, in addition to the excellent services that are based in more and more high street pharmacies. Not all high street pharmacies provide the same services; one issue is that some 40% of pharmacies are in a cluster of three or more pharmacies within ten minutes’ walk.
To address the point made by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, we are proposing an access fund whereby more NHS resources will be devoted to pharmacies in areas where the cluster argument does not apply. Quite sensibly, no one wants to lose a pharmacy; if a pharmacy finds itself having difficulties with the new financial regime, we want to make sure that it is able to continue. Discussions are already proceeding with pharmacy representatives about how the access fund will be set out, because there must be national standards—a set of rules to let people see how things are done.
We feel that the combination of the access fund, which will make sure that pharmacies in key areas can continue their work, with the integration fund, which will assist more pharmacists to work in different settings, is what pharmacy needs. Let me be honest among all colleagues: it would be great if that could be done against a background of no reductions in finance, or ever more finance going in, but we are not in that situation. We need to fulfil the commitment, made by my party at the general election, to put more funding into the NHS. That £8 billion commitment is now a £10 billion commitment by 2020. All colleagues know that it is not just about the extra money; it also depends on the £22 billion of efficiencies set out by Simon Stevens, chief executive of the NHS. All parts of the NHS need to contribute to those efficiencies, and that includes pharmacy. It is the Government’s genuine belief that, even within the new envelope that will provide £2.63 billion to pharmacy this year, it will be possible for pharmacies not only to continue their excellent work, but to develop it in the ways that I have set out and that we believe pharmacy wants as well. That is what we intend.
There will be an opportunity for further discussion and debate about this; I know colleagues are receiving letters about it, so the debate has some way to go. We are in discussion and negotiation with those who represent pharmacies; there is an interesting conversation taking place and we want to see it continue.
Helen Goodman
Is the £2.6 billion subsidy partly for medicine, or is it a subsidy for the infrastructure of the pharmacy network?
Alistair Burt
I would not say that this is a subsidy. It is payment made by the NHS and the taxpayer for the provision of premises and the work that pharmacists do. It is essentially more about infrastructure. The drugs bill is beyond that; that is the agreement. It is still a significant amount of money that will go into the provision of services. Where we find pharmacy services looking to work in different ways, which is already happening—there are pharmacists in GP surgeries and on some hospital wards—we want to encourage that process, without damaging the exceptionally good high street service that is provided by the majority of pharmacists, which we want to see continue.
The draft order fits in with that approach by changing the rules on the regulation of premises. It will make sure that the regulators can do their job in the way we all want to see—with procedures for guidance, as opposed to strict legislative rules. This is in line with the autonomy of professional regulatory bodies that the profession and the Government are looking for. I am grateful for the Committee’s support.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Patents (European Patent with Unitary Effect and Unified Patent Court) Order 2016
(8 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Patents (European Patent with Unitary Effect and Unified Patent Court) Order 2016.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I gather that the title of the order is already trending on Twitter.
It has long been a desire held across Europe—I know that Members will understand the significance when I talk about how important this is to Europe—to create a single patent system that supports innovative businesses and makes it easier for them to obtain and enforce patent protection. Obviously, given the way the debate on Europe is going, the order may only last three months.
The current European patent system is fragmented and expensive. Instead of a single patent covering the whole of Europe, businesses have to maintain a bundle of patent rights, each covering a single country in which they want patent protection. Each patent must be enforced separately in the national court of each country, which can be extremely costly and burdensome.
This Government want the UK to be part of a European patent system that supports growth and provides a cost-effective option for innovative businesses that want to protect and market their inventions across Europe. [Interruption.] I see that I have already lost one hon. Member with my unequivocally pro-European remarks. The unitary patent and the unified patent court form a package of European patent reforms that will achieve that ambition.
The unitary patent will give businesses the option to hold a single uniform patent right across all participating European states. The unified patent court will offer a means to enforce a patent across most of the EU single market, making it easier for innovative businesses to enforce patent protection across Europe in a single judgment. The importance of being able to obtain a single judgment that is valid across Europe should not be underestimated. For example, recent independent research shows that about a quarter of all patent cases heard at the UK courts between 2000 and 2008 were also heard in other European jurisdictions with the same litigant and the same defendant. I think it will therefore be clear to hon. Members what duplication we are trying to get rid of.
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was personally involved in negotiating the final stages of the agreement in June 2012. As part of that negotiation, he secured agreement that part of the unified patent court will be in London, thus cementing the UK’s global reputation as a place to resolve commercial legal disputes.
I turn briefly to the specifics of what the order will do. It will amend the Patents Act 1977 and will make three key changes. First, it will make clear where the unified patent court will have jurisdiction and where the UK courts will retain jurisdiction, so it will make clear where UK jurisdiction ends and UPC jurisdiction begins. The order will ensure that the 1977 Act correctly accounts for the unitary patent, in particular to recognise the wider territory covered by a unitary patent in comparison with a patent that is valid only in the UK.
Importantly, the order will introduce two exceptions to patent infringement that are provided for in the UPC agreement but do not currently exist in UK law. I will remind the Committee what those two exceptions are. The first allows plant breeders to use patented biological material to create a new plant variety. The second allows the very limited but none the less important use of patented computer programs.
We think that the new court and patent will be ready for business in early 2017. The whole system can come into effect only once 13 countries, including the UK, have ratified the unified patent court agreement. The Prime Minister has called for a clear long-term commitment to boosting competitiveness and driving growth, and for a target to cut the burden on business. The order will contribute to that. The implementation of the unitary patent and the unified patent court are part of that competitiveness boost in the single market, and it is right that we press ahead with actions that will allow the UK to ratify the unified patent court agreement. The order will make the necessary changes to UK law to enable ratification of the agreement, taking us one step closer to achieving the goal of a European patent system that supports innovation and growth. I commend the order to the Committee.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I know you will understand, Sir Roger, when I say dydd gwyl Dewi Sant hapus—happy St David’s day to all members of the Committee, and particularly the three other Opposition members who represent Welsh constituencies.
As ever, we are punching above our weight on European matters in this Committee. [Interruption.] Well, the Six Nations is yet to come, as is Euro 2016. The proposals in the draft order have largely been viewed positively, and one would after all think it sensible to have one patent covering 25 European Union countries rather than 25 separate patents in 25 different countries. The difficulties in pursuing patents in potentially 25 different languages—it may not be that many—with the time, energy and cost involved, would be much simplified by having the unitary patent. As the Minister said, this measure has been in the making since February 2013, when the UK signed the unified patent court agreement, so we have had several years to get to grips with the detail and to try to sort out any administrative problems.
Some questions have been raised about the mechanics of introducing the unitary patent. It will be interesting to hear whether the Minister can help us on any of those questions this afternoon while we have the opportunity to put them to him. He mentioned that the unified patent court is expected to start in 2017. Does he have any indication in which country the court is likely to be set up and who will adjudicate? Will it be a principal judge or a bench of judges, and what will be the system for appointing and getting rid of judges? Any information he can give the Committee on that will, I am sure, be extremely welcome. What sort of expertise and experience in this complex area of law will be expected of those adjudicating in the patent court? Will there be a way of monitoring the performance of the judges and of the court itself, or any system of performance indicators to judge the success or otherwise of the new court? How much will the administration of the court cost, and how will it be paid for? What will the UK contribution to the cost of the court be?
I know that the Government’s impact assessment says that the net cost to businesses will be zero—I presume because it is anticipated that there will be a net saving overall from having the unified patent court system—but is there any indication of what the cost of applying to the court to register patents will be and how that compares to the current cost in the UK? It would be useful to have some indication.
There have been a number of concerns. The Library briefing for our proceedings today included some concerns expressed by the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law in Germany about the proposed unitary patent and court. Does the Minister have any information on that, and do the Government have any views on the concerns that have been expressed? It would be useful to the Committee to hear that. Lord Justice Kitchin was also critical of the proposals in a speech in October 2012, highlighting the difficulty for companies having to fight court cases in different locations. Do his comments have any merit?
Finally—it is a rather obvious question—what would be the effect on all this of a decision to leave the European Union in the forthcoming referendum? In practical terms, would it mean that we would join the system on a temporary basis and then withdraw, or would there be any possibility of maintaining the benefits to business of some kind of unified patent system even if we were no longer a member of the European Union? I would be very grateful if the Minister could give us an idea of the implications of a no vote and a decision to withdraw. How long would it take for there to be an effect on Britain’s participation in the new unified European patent court?
Subject to a satisfactory response to my questions by the Minister, I do not intend to divide the Committee today.
Mr Vaizey
I am extremely grateful for the chance to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s points. Let me deal first with the geographical basis of the unified patent court and the costs of the court and of patents. It is important to stress that the court will have a single jurisdiction and a single set of rules of procedure, but it will be spread across different locations.
There will be a court of first instance and a court of appeal. The court of first instance will have a central division, and there will be a number of local and regional divisions that have been set up partly at the request of individual member states. The central division will be located in Paris—the French won that fight. There will be also specialised central divisions, so although Paris will have the headquarters, Munich will have the specialised mechanical engineering part of the central division, and I am really pleased to say that London will get the bit of the central division specialising in chemistry and life sciences. That is particularly relevant to pharmaceuticals, in which, of course, the UK has a strong record. There will also be local divisions that one can visit to register a patent—one in London, four in Germany—in Munich, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Mannheim—and one in Stockholm for the Nordic and Baltic region, covering Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The court of appeal for the unified patent court will be in Luxembourg.
Court fees will be a combination of fixed fees and fees based on the value of a case, so they are likely to range from as little as €100 up to €300,000, but a €300,000 case would be one in which at least €50 million was at stake. Fees will actually be much lower in the unified patent court for small and micro entities than they have previously been. There will also be options for mediation and arbitration.
There are approximately 350,000 patents in force in the UK alone, which goes to show the level of work that the unified patent court will potentially be undertaking. The cost of a patent is also important. It will cost less than €5,000 to renew a patent for the first 10 years. The cumulative cost of maintaining a patent over its full 20-year term will be about €35,000. That compares with a cost at the moment of potentially about €160,000 to have a full patent in the 26 different jurisdictions in which the unified patent court would apply. The renewal fee scale adopted for the unified patent court corresponds to a reduction of about 78% compared with the cost of maintaining protection in 26 states.
Judges will be appointed from across Europe, and they will be experts in patent law. We expect to start the recruitment process soon. Whether the court sits as a single judge or a panel of judges will depend on the case.
I have something that Brexit Ministers cannot see—a brief about the impact of the referendum. It says absolutely nothing, really, so I do not know what people are getting so worked up about. The briefing seems to me to be completely meaningless, so let me busk it. I do not want to get into trouble with the Mayor of London or anyone else, but if we left Europe as a result of the referendum, I suspect it would be a decision for the UK Government whether they wanted to rejoin the European patent court. Of course, we would have to rely on our European partners to decide whether the UK could be a member.
Kevin Brennan
There was reference in the Library briefing to a blog from Bristows, the starting point of which is that it will not be possible for a non-EU member state to take part in the proposed unified patent court regime. I presume that, if that is the case, we would not be able to apply to be part of it, and British business and UK plc would lose the benefit of being able to register a single patent.
Mr Vaizey
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his clarification on that point. I think that that was sort of what I was saying: clearly, were we to leave the European Union, we would no longer be members of the unified patent court. It would then be a matter for the UK Government to ask the European Union whether we could be a member, if we thought that was a good thing. I suspect the European Union would have something to say about that. For people whose lives are dominated by thoughts of having a European patent, it would be a bad thing if we were not a member of the European Union. I hope that that is clear.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Electricity Supplier Payments (Amendment) Regulations 2016
(8 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Electricity Supplier Payments (Amendment) Regulations 2016.
Sir Edward, it is a pleasure to serve under your guidance. This instrument amends regulations concerning the contracts for difference scheme and the capacity market. As a reminder to hon. Members, these two schemes were key elements of the electricity market reform programme that was introduced in the previous Parliament. Both the CfD scheme and the capacity market are designed to incentivise the significant investment required in our electricity infrastructure to keep costs affordable for consumers and to help meet our decarbonisation targets, while keeping our energy supply secure.
Contracts for difference, or CfDs, provide long-term price stabilisation to low carbon generators, allowing investment to come forward at a lower cost of capital and therefore, at a lower cost to consumers. The capacity market provides regular payments to reliable forms of generation in return for such capacity being available when needed, thus ensuring that enough capacity is always in place to maintain security of supply. In both schemes, participants bid for support via a competitive auction, which ensures that costs to consumers are minimised.
As hon. Members will be aware, the first CfD allocation round was held in October 2014, delivering 25 large-scale renewable generation projects at a significantly lower cost than the renewables obligation scheme, which is being phased out. The first capacity market auction was held in December 2014, with a second auction held last December, securing 46 GW of capacity at a price of £18 per kilowatt per year, along with a recent transitional auction for demand-side response held earlier this year.
Hon. Members will be aware that the Government today announced a number of changes to the capacity market framework to ensure that it remains fit for purpose to meet our security-of-supply needs, including bringing forward delivery by holding a new early auction for delivery in winter 2017-18. A consultation on those changes has been launched and we will make final decisions in due course.
However, the regulations that we are considering today have a different purpose. The Government are simply seeking to make a number of technical amendments relating to how money is collected from electricity suppliers in Great Britain in order to fund the schemes. Specifically, the proposed amendments would improve the efficiency with which CfD costs are recovered from electricity suppliers, which will ultimately reduce costs to consumers, and set the rates for the operational levies relating to both schemes.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
The Minister has indicated that the amendments are largely technical. Will she tell the Committee whether her Department has received any objections to what is proposed, and if so, the nature of such objections?
Andrea Leadsom
There has been consultation with industry and respondents have been largely supportive of the proposals. They are technical in nature and are not controversial.
The instrument under consideration builds on the instrument that established the CfD supplier obligation mechanism. The CfD supplier obligation is levied on all licensed electricity suppliers in Great Britain to meet the costs of the support received by generators that hold a CfD. That levy on electricity suppliers in Great Britain is set on a quarterly basis by the Low Carbon Contracts Company, which is a Government-owned company that acts as the counterparty to CfD contracts. The Low Carbon Contracts Company sets the levy and a reserve amount based on forecasts of payments to CfD generators, which are then reconciled against actual payments in arrears.
This instrument makes a number of minor and technical amendments to improve the efficiency and transparency of the supplier obligation to minimise costs to suppliers, and ultimately, to consumers. The most significant aspects of the amendments are as follows. First, the regulations amend the calculation of the levy that is paid by electricity suppliers on each unit of supply, so that it is a better reflection of suppliers’ likely actual liabilities. Secondly, they allow the levy to be reduced without notice when the Low Carbon Contracts Company anticipates collecting significantly more than required, in order to reduce the likelihood of electricity suppliers paying more than they need to pay. Thirdly, they require the Low Carbon Contracts Company to forecast CfD costs for at least the next 12 months and to publish the date from which each generator is expected to begin receiving CfD payments. That is to provide greater transparency on the costs that electricity suppliers and consumers will face in future.
All the proposals implemented by the instrument were consulted on publicly, and received a largely favourable response. We estimate that the changes, in addition to further regulations which we plan to lay in due course, will reduce the costs to consumers of CfDs by approximately £38 million over the period 2016-20. This instrument also sets the annual operational cost levy for the Low Carbon Contracts Company, as well as setting the settlement costs levy that funds the annual budget of the Electricity Settlements Company, which is responsible for collecting and making payments to capacity providers under the capacity market. The amendments revise the levies for 2015-16 to reflect the operational requirements and objectives of the companies in 2016-17. Both levies were subject to public consultation, giving stakeholders the opportunity to scrutinise and test the key assumptions in the budgets and, importantly, ensure that they represent value for money.
Subject to the will of Parliament, the changes to the CfD supplier obligation, the operational costs levy for the Low Carbon Contracts Company and the settlement costs levy for the Electricity Settlements Company are due to come into force by 1 April 2016. Finally, I would like to assure all hon. Members that the Government will continue to evaluate and monitor the reforms following implementation, ensuring that the measures put in place remain effective and continue to represent value for money for the consumer.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Sir Edward, to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon. The Minister has set out the reasoning behind the proposals in the statutory instrument. At first sight, these appear to be fairly minor changes in the regulations and their consequences for capacity market bodies, but there is broader point to be made about the CfD counterparty body, and, to a lesser extent, about the settlement body for capacity payments.
With the indulgence of the Committee, I shall spend a moment reflecting on how the CfD counterparty body came to be and consider the thorny question of how to undertake the operation of 15-year CfDs for generators. Over that period, we have to have a known supply of money to reward those generators under the terms of the CfD, and we need to ensure that there is money from the suppliers to fund the levy, and that the generators can have confidence that they will secure that levy funding to underpin their operation over the period. When the Energy Bill from which this legislation is derived was going through the House there was a considerable debate about what the counterparty should consist of.
In many people’s eyes, the counterparty should simply have consisted of a Government guarantee that those payments were anticipated and should be passed on, and if there was any problem or shortfall the Government guarantee would step in. That has indeed been the case in similar arrangements over the years. On this occasion, it was felt there could be no such Government guarantee and that an alternative procedure that looked as close as possible to being a Government guarantee should be adopted. That was how the CfD counterparty body came to exist. It is a company limited by shares: it is owned wholly by the Government, empowered under section 7 of the Energy Act 2013, but it is a freestanding company that does not have any Government guarantee as such. Among other things, that means that money passing through the Treasury does not have any public borrowing implication and also that the Government are not liable for the success or failure of those counterparty operations.
In order to make sure that the company is as close as possible to a guarantee, various things have had to be built in. Not only is a levy charged to cover payments to generators based on suppliers’ market share at the time of the payment—it has been a quarterly payment—but a reserve fund has had to be set up through the counterparty body to cover the possible costs of default by the supplier. It is effectively a travel agency bond, so that if a supplier defaults there is a reserve fund to cover the costs and ensure there is sufficient money in the settlement body to ensure that payments are made.
There is a lump sum quarterly payment to cover the operational costs of the counterparty body, which are around £14 million a year. Three separate components are required to take the place of a simple guarantee from the Government. None of those would be necessary if there were a Government guarantee body. The changes in this statutory instrument effectively cover all those areas of the original operating arrangement for the counterparty body. Those changes have been made in the light of a consultation that took place when the counterparty body was first set up. There was a consultation with industry as to whether the arrangements that I have described really were fit for purpose and sufficient to do the job that it was thought the counterparty body would do.
The consultation led to substantial concern about the costs of the arrangements as they related to suppliers, particularly small independent suppliers. If a small independent supplier is supposed to issue a bond to cope with possible default, and if it is supposed to make a lump sum payment for the operational costs of the body, in addition to what it is paying based on its market share, as well as putting money into a reserve fund, that is an onerous burden. It was just such companies that the Government were keen should succeed in order to widen the market and encourage switching, with benefits for people in changing how their supply works. The consultation suggested how the counterparty system would work: in principle, it would be possible to introduce working capital from Government sources which, without a full Government guarantee, would underpin the security of the reserve fund.
Strong representations were made during the consultation, but they were not acted on by the Government: as the levy was an industry arrangement it was considered that it should remain entirely within the industry. Those concerns have not gone away and, one way or another, the changes in the regulations accentuate them. I certainly welcome the change in the notice period for an interim rate to go down—it will be immediate—and the 30-day period for the interim rate to go up. That is a sound idea, and the industry has welcomed it substantially. Changing the date by which notice has to be given to suppliers about the reserve fund from the date on which the amount was determined to a later date means that for suppliers, particularly small suppliers, there is less certainty about the sum and how long they have to raise it.
The totals allocated for the running costs of the CfD counterparty and the settlement body for capacity auctions appear to have been increased. The allowance for the CfD counterparty will go up, according to the measure, from £14.2 million per annum to £14.4 million per annum. I have a query about an anomaly in the costs of the settlement body. Regulation 24 appears to suggest that the operation obligation in the Electricity Capacity (Supplier Payment etc.) Regulations 2014 rises from £3,891,000 to £4,283,000. The explanatory notes suggest that the total obligation for the two bodies for operating costs remains the same, and that the total for the settlement body for capacity payments goes down from £4,474,000 to £4,283,000. There appears to be a discrepancy in those figures.
If we look at the figure in the measure, and the question of costs for the CfD counterparty, it appears that the total costs for administration have increased by a substantial amount. Alternatively, the total budget, which is £18,690,000, stays the same, but there has been a change. Given the changes that are going to be introduced, all of which create additional pressure and problems for suppliers in meeting the terms of the counterparty, has the Minister reconsidered the points that were made in the consultation when the bodies were set up? In particular, has she reconsidered working capital arrangements to deal with the question of the reserve fund in the middle of the counterparty arrangements? Is she confident that the additional costs that are being placed on small suppliers will not discourage the widening pool of supply participants, as we are all anxious that that should not happen?
Lastly, if the costs of the counterparty continue to rise, and administrative costs are automatically defrayed against the levy supply provided to supply companies, what constraints are there on the activities of the counterparty body to ensuring that its costs stay within reasonable bounds? Or is it the case that there is an automatic relationship, as may appear to be the case in the measure? If those costs increase are they just passed on, through the levy, to the suppliers? As this is effectively a Government-owned company, does the Minister have any way of keeping those costs within reasonable bounds and can she guarantee that we will not be here in a year or two passing a further measure with a further increase in costs and a further levy, to the inconvenience of those smaller supplier companies in particular?
Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his review of how this all came about. I can tell him that, in this consideration, we have not gone back and reviewed the original proposal to set up the Low Carbon Contract Company, or the Electricity Supplier Payments Company, because it was agreed at the time of implementing electricity market reform that it would be an industry-led and managed arrangement as far as possible. I note the hon. Gentleman’s point that a Government guarantee would be much simpler, but he will recognise that that introduces an element of taxpayer risk as well as implications for the public sector balance sheet and so on. This was always intended to be an industry-led arrangement.
In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s specific question about whether small energy companies would be discouraged, the evidence is that they have not been discouraged. As he will be aware, there are considerably more energy companies supplying to the UK market than there were in 2010. If my memory serves me correctly, there are well over 20—I am thinking 28, but I will have to confirm that number for him. Certainly, there is no evidence to suggest they have been put off by these arrangements. This measure seeks to simplify and improve the capacity of supplier obligations to be actualised so that they are not made in anticipation of payments but are much more closely related to the actual costs.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether there was any means to control costs. As he would expect, costs are scrutinised very carefully. He will also be aware that a number of contracts for difference and a number of capacity market bids have been undertaken, although payments have not been made. Nevertheless, there is a big burden of contractual work that needs to be undertaken and that is where those operational costs have increased, but only by a small amount: in fact, it will be around 20p in additional operational costs on household electricity bills in 2016-17 at 2014 prices. As the hon. Gentleman would expect, we are very alert to the need to keep costs down—both the companies concerned and the Department of Energy and Climate Change—as well as to the importance of public consultation, and to scrutiny and debate in Parliament. We do not expect further significant increases in either budget, based on our expectations of current and future duties over the next couple of financial years.
Dr Whitehead
I would be grateful if the Minister wrote to me to confirm, ideally, or otherwise explain the true position on the overall costs of the counterparty body and the settlement body as far as capacity payments are concerned. As I have said, there seems to be a discrepancy between what is in the measure and what appears to be the total set out in the explanatory notes. It would be good to have that cleared up at the earliest possible stage.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I note that regulation 16 amends regulation 23 of the Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) Regulations 2014 by increasing the operational costs levy from 0.0397p to 0.0509p. That is a significant increase, and if the Minister is going to write to the Committee, I would like her to explain what that increase relates to, as it is a levy in relation to the operational costs of the CfD counterparty, and what she will do to bear down on that increase and make sure it does not go any further.
Andrea Leadsom
I do not think it is necessary to write to hon. Members, but I am happy to do so if my hon. and learned Friend would like me to. As I have explained, the purpose of the Low Carbon Contracts Company is to be the counterparty to contracts for difference. As those CfDs have begun to be allocated, the contractual work that the company is undertaking has escalated significantly. The operating costs have been reviewed closely by DECC and by the companies, and through parliamentary scrutiny, so further significant increases are not expected. However, as my hon. and learned Friend would expect, with the establishment of contracts and the potential for new contracts coming on board all the time, there has been an adjustment. I am happy to write to the Committee if my hon. and learned Friend would like me to—[Interruption.] He would like me to do so, so I certainly will.
As I am sure Members are aware, a key objective of the Government’s energy policy is to keep costs as low as possible as we transition to a low carbon economy. The changes we are seeking to make forward that objective by implementing a series of technical and administrative amendments that ensure the CfD scheme and the capacity market continue to operate with best value for money for consumers. I commend the order to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
DRAFT NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES (REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE) (AMENDMENT) ORDER 2016
DRAFT NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES (REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE) (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) ORDER 2016
DRAFT POLICE AND CRIME COMMISSIONER ELECTIONS (AMENDMENT) ORDER 2016
(8 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2016.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2016 and the draft Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Amendment) Order 2016.
John Penrose
It is good to have you in the Chair, Mr Howarth, guiding us with a deft touch as always. It is a wonderful coincidence of, I am sure, intentional parliamentary scheduling to have a statutory instrument about Welsh elections on St David’s day. I begin with an abject apology to the rest of the Committee for not sporting a leek or a daffodil. With a Celtic name like Penrose, I thought I would be pushing my luck as a Cornishman by turning up wearing Welsh apparel. Points of order would have been raised and all sorts of terrible things, but I am with everybody in sympathy at least.
These rules are a vital but, I hope, uncontroversial and rather humdrum piece of electoral plumbing. In this country, we often take it for granted that elections will be run professionally and efficiently by high-quality electoral administrators, but to run smoothly the system depends on detailed legislation such as the orders before us.
The draft orders make changes to the rules for the administration and conduct of elections to the National Assembly for Wales and of police and crime commissioners. In particular, they make provision for the combination of polls at Welsh Assembly and PCC elections when they are held on the same day. They also apply provisions in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 and associated secondary legislation, which makes a number of changes to the rules for UK parliamentary elections, to Welsh Assembly elections as well.
All three draft orders are similar to measures that have been considered in earlier debates on the conduct of other elections and referendums. The changes have already been made to the PCC elections in a previous instrument that was considered and approved in an earlier Committee sitting. We have consulted on the instruments with the Electoral Commission and with other stakeholders such as the Association of Electoral Administrators and the Welsh Government, and we have incorporated many or all of their conclusions and proposals in the draft orders.
The draft National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2016 requires a poll at an Assembly election to be combined with a poll at a PCC election when both polls are held on the same day, as will happen on 5 May 2016. The order therefore designates the constituency returning officer at the Assembly election as the lead returning officer when an ordinary Assembly election is combined with an ordinary PCC election. It ensures that voters will cast their vote at the same polling station for both polls and that a different coloured ballot paper is used for each poll. Returning officers will be able to issue a single poll card and may issue to postal voters one postal ballot pack with two different sets of voting papers inside instead of two separate packs for each election.
The order updates the forms used by voters, such as poll cards and postal voting statements, to make the voting process more accessible, and includes Welsh language versions of the forms. The order provides for names of candidates to appear on the ballot paper for the election of regional members; for police community support officers to enter polling stations and counting venues under the same conditions as police constables; and that voters waiting in a queue at the close of poll can still vote. It also brings postal voting in Welsh Assembly elections in line with other elections elsewhere in the UK.
In response to a recommendation by the Electoral Commission, the order increases the spending limits for candidates at Assembly elections to take account of the effects of inflation, which means that the maximum amount that candidates standing in an Assembly constituency may spend is increased from £7,150 to £8,700 as well as an additional 9p, up from 7p, for every elector in a county constituency and an additional 6p, up from 5p, for every elector in a borough constituency.
Following a recommendation by the Electoral Commission, the order provides for a fee for a returning officer at an Assembly election to be reduced if they have performed inadequately at the election. That mirrors equivalent provision made for UK parliamentary elections in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013.
The second order simply corrects errors that appeared in the Welsh language sections of some of the forms set out in the National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2016. [Interruption.] I hear tutting from the Labour Front Bench. I am sure that the hon. Member for Caerphilly will put right any interpretations in the language of heaven that are needed when he makes his contribution.
The third order complements the Assembly order by making equivalent changes to the rules for PCC elections held on the same day as Assembly polls. It also provides that when PCC and Assembly elections are combined, the voting areas for the purposes of the PCC election in Wales are Assembly constituencies rather than local authority areas. That ensures that both polls are administered on the ground using the same area—Assembly constituencies—and a single returning officer. For the PCC poll, the returning officer for a voting area will be the local returning officer who is the constituency returning officer for the Assembly constituency. The Electoral Commission and electoral administrators in Wales specifically requested that we aligned the voting areas in that way to help the effective running of the combined polls. The commission commented that the change reflected its view and that of returning officers in Wales, and it prevents a potential risk to the effective administration of the election.
I believe and hope that the changes in the orders concerning the conduct and administration of the two sets of polls will help to increase voter participation, support the integrity of our electoral system and ensure that the polls scheduled for May 2016 are run effectively.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be here on St David’s day. Even though we are considering matters Welsh by accident rather than design, it is nevertheless great to be here and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. As the Minister said, many of the changes have been discussed and debated in a different form. Many of the proposals apply to the National Assembly for Wales and bring legislation into line with the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013.
I want to focus, in particular, on police and crime commissioner elections. As we all know, the first PCC elections, which were held in November 2012, had a lamentable turnout: 15% over England and Wales and a mere 14.9% in Wales. Many of us can refer to incidents where no one turned up at polling stations. I can think of at least one where only one ballot was cast, and that was a postal ballot. All of us who believe in democracy want to see a bigger turnout and greater public engagement, so it is important to learn lessons.
One clear lesson is that it was a mistake to hold those first elections in the middle of winter; these elections, of course, will be on 5 May. There is also an important lesson to learn on publicity. Information was provided by post and websites were established to give information to all electors about the system and the role of PCCs, but no collective support was provided by the Government to allow candidates to disseminate their message; it was essentially up to them to take on that responsibility.
It is true to say that in Wales we had a bit of a shambles with regard to the bilingual forms, which were provided but only late in the day. The Opposition said at the time that a special order was required to allow for bilingual PCC election ballot papers and the Government did not accept that initially. They did accept that eventually but, because that was late in the day, locally ballot papers were provided, according to the law, in English-only in Wales.
When the Government eventually brought forward a statutory instrument, bilingual forms were created. However, that meant that the forms produced initially had to be destroyed, and the total cost was £130,000. We might say that that is not a massive amount, but nevertheless that was £130,000 wasted. Had the Government only listened to the advice provided by Her Majesty’s Opposition, that money would have been saved. I am pleased that that lesson has been learnt and that the hands of the Home Office, who I think were the guilty culprits, are no longer to be seen and that the Cabinet Office has dealt with it in what is hopefully a more efficient, effective and sensible way.
These elections, which will be held at a better time of year when people will be more likely to come out of their homes to vote, will coincide with the local elections in England and with the Welsh Assembly elections. That they will be held at the same time as the Assembly elections is to be welcomed, but there are risks and potential difficulties nevertheless. The Electoral Commission, in an appendix to a report entitled “Combination with the Welsh General Election in May 2016”, identified three potential “significant risks”. First, it said:
“There will be two different electoral systems in use, incorporating three methods of voting, and three ballot papers.”
That is perfectly correct. The additional member system is used for Welsh Assembly elections, so constituency and regional list Members are elected, providing a proportional representation top-up. The PCC elections, of course, will use a supplementary vote system, as they did last time. That is a form of PR, but it is a different form. Understandably, there is the potential for a great deal of confusion among electors if they are being asked on the same day, in the same voting booth, using two different forms of proportional representation and on three ballot papers. That puts great responsibility on the Government to ensure that proper information is provided and proper guidance is given to voters so that there is no unnecessary confusion.
The Electoral Commission’s second point is:
“The voting areas for the two sets of elections are different. In Wales, the PCC elections are based on 22 local authority areas within four police areas whereas the Assembly general election is based on 40 Assembly constituencies within five electoral regions.”
That is complicated in itself, although I know that the Government recognise that, so hopefully they have introduced measures to minimise confusion and have more streamlining in place.
The Electoral Commission’s third point is:
“Police area returning officers are appointed by the UK Government while Assembly Regional Returning Officers are appointed by Welsh Government Ministers. Consequently, different individuals may be appointed to cover the coterminous electoral areas of North Wales and Dyfed Powys/Mid and West Wales. In South Wales and Gwent police areas and the three South Wales Assembly regions, there will be two PAROs but three Regional Returning Officers”.
That is immensely complicated, so I would welcome further explanation from the Minister on how those complications are to be tackled so that we have smooth elections and smooth counts afterwards.
Those risks must be effectively surmounted and tackled. The Minister noted that I tutted earlier on because one of the orders is to correct an error in the use of the Welsh language. The explanatory memorandum says:
“Errors in the Amendment Order were identified by deputy counsel to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments prior to formal consideration by the Committee. The department was invited to withdraw and re-lay the draft but decided against doing that, and instead has corrected the errors in a combination of correction slip and this instrument.”
That seems a rather strange way of correcting drafting mistakes. As is stated later in the explanatory notes, the mistakes appear
“in the Welsh language sections of the forms that are included in the Amendment Order.”
With regard to the procedure, I wanted to ask a Minister whether that is the right way to correct mistakes. Would it not be better to have an entirely new document so that we can be clear about what is being corrected and the mistakes that were made?
Although election administration is not really yet a devolved matter, would it not have made sense in this time of devolution to have liaised properly with the Welsh Government, who have more expertise and knowledge of the Welsh language than the central Government, to ensure that such mistakes were not made in the first place? It always makes sense to have co-ordination and co-operation. Devolution, as the Government often say, is based on mutual respect, as it should be, and the Welsh Assembly is the custodian of the Welsh language, so would it not make sense to have a much stronger dialogue with the Assembly and the Welsh Government to ensure that such mistakes do not happen?
My other question is fairly detailed, so if the Minister wants to respond in writing, I am happy to accept that. It relates to the boundary between the South Wales police area and the Gwent police area. Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, which is both a parliamentary constituency and a Welsh Assembly constituency, straddles two local authority areas—Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and Caerphilly County Borough Council—and the two police areas. What exactly is proposed to streamline that particular situation does not seem clear. There is a duality of contradictory boundaries. Will the Minister provide some explanation regarding the boundaries in that case, which seems to be anomalous in many ways and requires particular attention?
Following those few remarks, I can indicate that the Opposition will of course support the sensible, constructive and necessary amendments in the draft orders. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
John Penrose
I will happily respond to the hon. Gentleman’s points, taking each of them in turn. First, however, I want to welcome the general support with which he finished his remarks. It is welcome to hear that the proposals have cross-party support. I was hoping—indeed, he has confirmed it—that this would be an uncontroversial piece of important electoral plumbing and that there would be no need to find party political differences in it.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned that turnout at the first police and crime commissioner elections was relatively low. He and I are both hoping for a dramatically higher turnout this time. I agree with him that the omens are propitious and positive, partly because, as he says, the elections will be held in May, which is usually reckoned to be a better time of year, but also because other elections are taking place on the same day. Given the overlap with other elections, there may be occasional concerns about complexity, but there is no doubt that it can also help to drive up turnout. I hope that democrats on all sides of different political divides will want to see a better turnout than last time at polling stations in early May. I obviously cannot comment on whether the Cabinet Office will do a better job of electoral administration than the Home Office, as the hon. Gentleman kindly suggested, so we shall have to wait and see. With any luck it will be a step in the right direction.
The hon. Gentleman then talked about some risks—as opposed to serious issues—that were flagged up by the Electoral Commission, particularly in relation to the three different forms of voting being used on the same day. There are two varying forms of alternative or proportional voting and one more traditional first-past-the-post system. He is absolutely right that there is always the potential for confusion, but when we have combined polls in all parts of the UK, in practice we tend to see that voters are pretty canny and capable of coping. Providing that the electoral administration is done in such a way as to have separate ballot papers for each election—most commonly the ballot papers are of different colours—that allows voters to draw a mental distinction between the one, two or three different polls on the same day and to politically and intellectually change gear, as it were, as they fill out one and then move on to the next.
The only time we have had serious concerns about that sort of thing was in Scotland back in 2007, when there was an attempt to combine some ballot papers. That created some concerns but, broadly speaking, electors seem to be capable of coping pretty well. One would obviously not want to push the point too far, but we are not expecting the different elections to be a major problem on this occasion.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned voting errors. I did mention in my speech the point about electoral administration, but it bears repeating. The instrument provides that where PCC and Assembly elections are combined in the voting areas, the polls for the PCC election will be administered on the ground using the same voting area—that is, the Assembly constituencies—and by a single returning officer. That is a crucial point. The returning officer for a voting area will be the local returning officer for the PCC poll, who is the returning officer for the Assembly constituency. I hope that means that the administration is a great deal clearer and that lines of accountability and responsibility are very clear indeed. The arrangement directly matches the recommendations of both the Electoral Commission and the electoral administrators in Wales. I hope that has maximised our chances of success and clarity on that point.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned concerns about Welsh language forms. As I said, there was a great deal of concern last time when problems were discovered with the accuracy of the translation of Welsh language forms. I can confirm that two things have happened since then. First, additional checks are now in place to ensure that such a thing is much less likely to happen—it was not terribly likely in the first place, but it is even less likely now. Secondly, as I think the hon. Gentleman mentioned, electoral administration is one of the matters that will be devolved when the Wales Bill has passed through Parliament and become the Wales Act, so this might be the very last time we have to debate the issue in this place; in future it will be dealt with by the Welsh Government in Cardiff.
Wayne David
I very much hope that such matters can be dealt with by the Assembly in Cardiff, but over the past few days things have moved on, with the Secretary of State indicating that his own draft Bill is not fit for purpose and going back to the drawing board. It might be quite a while before we have such a Bill before us.
John Penrose
I hesitate to put words in his mouth—I am sort of paraphrasing—but I think that the Secretary of State said that the Bill would none the less be reintroduced in the second Session of this Parliament, so the hon. Gentleman will not have to wait too long. If he can possess his soul in patience, I hope that he, and everybody else who is in favour of devolution—I hope that is everybody—will be reassured and will look forward to the result.
The hon. Gentleman asked a rather technical question about the running of the poll in the Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney constituency. I have been searching for inspiration and will now assay an answer for him—we will see how it goes. He is absolutely right to say that the constituency is the only one to cross a police area boundary. The PCC order amends the definition of voting area for PCC elections where they are combined with Assembly elections so that both sets of elections can be administered on the basis of the same voting area—that is, Welsh Assembly constituencies, as I was just reminding the Committee—by a single returning officer. That will facilitate the running of the polls.
The Electoral Commission also issues guidance to returning officers to help them in their planning for the poll and to carry out their duties. I am sure that the commission will be able to give specific help to the administrators running the poll in that constituency, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that it will perhaps require some special focus and some special guidelines or guidance to ensure that it is done cleanly and effectively.
I hope that I have covered all the questions and provided everybody with answers. With that, I commend all three orders to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
DRAFT NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES (REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE) (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) ORDER 2016
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2016.—(John Penrose.)
DRAFT POLICE AND CRIME COMMISSIONER ELECTIONS (AMENDMENT) ORDER 2016
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Amendment) Order 2016.—(John Penrose.)