People of Wales – give us your views on law making powers
Anyone interested in expressing their view about whether more laws should or should not be made in Cardiff Bay are to be invited to meetings in the region next year to learn more about the options.
It is being organised as part of the "Get Informed, Get Engaged" campaign by the All Wales Convention, the independent body set up by the Welsh Assembly Government to engage the people of Wales in a debate on the Assembly's law making powers.
The Convention is charged with gathering their views to feed back to the Government, which will then decide whether to hold a referendum on the subject.
A series of 18 public events are being organised across Wales by the Convention in local authority areas including Conwy (25 February), Carmarthenshire (5 March), Powys (24 March) and Merthyr Tydfil (13 May) [see full lost below]. It is also setting up 11 evidence gathering sessions at which individuals and organisations will be able to present formal evidence to members of the Executive Committee. Full details of venues and times of the meetings will be made available nearer the time.
Sir Emyr Jones Parry, Chair of the All Wales Convention, stressed that the organisation was not campaigning for a yes or no vote in any referendum:
Our job is to provide people with information on the current devolution settlement and a balanced view of the arguments around further law-making powers
At the moment, the Assembly can only pass laws, known as Measures, in certain devolved policy areas which have previously been agreed with the UK Parliament.
If voted for in a referendum, the Assembly could gain law-making powers across the full range of devolved policy portfolio areas all at once, and not have to seek Parliament's agreement on a case by case basis.
Sir Emyr said the public meetings and the evidence gathering sessions would be a fundamental part of the process of informing people and gathering their views.
We want the debate to be full and lively, with people telling us what they think are the pros and cons of both the current case-by-case approach to agreeing policy areas where the Assembly can pass laws, and the possible move to acquiring a package of lawmaking powers in one go.
More information about the events across Wales will be available soon. In the meantime, anyone who wants to find out more or contribute their view on the subject can do so by logging on to the All Wales Convention website - www.allwalesconvention.org, emailing info.convention@wales.gsi.gov.uk, phoning 029 2089 8187 or by joining the All Wales Convention group on Facebook.