Rt Hon Elfyn Llwyd, Counsel General for Wales
Today I am laying before the Senedd the Welsh Government's second Programme to Improve the Accessibility of Welsh Law, prepared in accordance with section 2 of the Legislation (Wales) Act 2019.
This month marks fifteen years since the Welsh Government first set out its ambition to develop an accessible and bilingual statute book for Wales. In October 2011, the then First Minister, Carwyn Jones, spoke at the Legal Wales conference about the growing body of distinct Welsh law and the need to improve its accessibility, including through consolidation. In the same month, my predecessor as Counsel General, Theodore Huckle KC, made a statement to the Senedd on Access to Welsh Laws and Developing a Welsh Statute.
Much has changed in the fifteen years since those statements were made. The Senedd has become a constitutionally entrenched legislature with primary law-making powers, and a substantial and increasingly distinct body of Welsh legislation has developed. The commitment made in 2011 has also been placed on a statutory footing through the Legislation (Wales) Act 2019. That Act requires the Welsh Ministers and the Counsel General to prepare a programme in each Senedd term to improve the accessibility of Welsh law. The first such programme, The Future of Welsh Law, covered the Senedd term ending in May 2026.
The Legislation (Wales) Act 2019, as amended last year, is itself a significant development. As well as encapsulating the Government's long-term commitment to consolidate and codify Welsh legislation within devolved areas, it sets out rules for the interpretation of Welsh legislation and the procedures for making subordinate legislation. It also imposes duties on the King’s Printer for Wales to publish Welsh legislation and on the National Library of Wales to maintain an archive of our legislation.
As Counsel General, I regard this work as both a practical necessity and an important part of the continuing development of our nation. The ability to make our own law carries with it a responsibility to care for that law: to ensure that it can be found, understood and used by the people whose rights and responsibilities it determines.
I am very proud that we are developing a distinct and codified body of law in two languages, drawing on a legal tradition of our own while creating a statute book capable of meeting the needs of modern Wales. Our task is not simply to add new legislation to the statute book, but to ensure that Welsh law becomes an increasingly coherent, accessible and recognisable body of law in its own right.
The programme I am laying today builds on the considerable progress made to date, most notably through the development of Codes of Welsh law on the historic environment, planning and tourism, as well as the creation of a distinct body of Welsh law on social care and taxation. It includes projects to further consolidate and codify the law, including the consolidation of allotments legislation; the codification of wildlife management and forestry legislation; the establishment of a code of tribunals law; and the beginning of work to consolidate and codify agricultural legislation. We will also incorporate subordinate legislation into the existing Planning Code and continue to identify areas of law where further consolidation would bring real benefits.
But accessibility is about more than consolidation and codification. The programme also includes work to improve the way Welsh law and information about it are presented; make explanatory material easier to access; keep revised legislation up to date; identify and correct errors and ambiguities; and remove provisions that are no longer of practical utility or benefit. We will also further explore how technology, including artificial intelligence, can responsibly support the preparation, maintenance and understanding of legislation.
Central to the programme is our commitment to Welsh as a language of law. We will continue our work to establish authoritative Welsh legal terminology, publish bilingual glossaries for every new code of Welsh law, make more use of technology to make Welsh-language law easier to access, develop and understand, and support the practical use of Welsh in the Welsh tribunals.
These individual projects are important, but collectively they represent something more. A mature legislature needs legal infrastructure to support it. Improving the accessibility of Welsh law therefore contributes to the wider development of Wales as a nation: strengthening the practical operation of devolution, supporting Welsh as a modern language of law and helping to establish a body of law which is recognisably, coherently and confidently our own.
We have always known that this work will take a generation and more to complete, but fifteen years on, we have come a long way. This programme sets out the next stage of that journey. Our ambition remains straightforward: that the law made for Wales should be law that the people of Wales can easily identify, understand and use, in either of our national languages.