Newsletter – April 2025

With elections to the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments and Northern Ireland Assembly just over a year away (on 7 May 2026), it is an opportune time to reflect on the Wales devolution journey and what it means for Costs Lawyers.

With an expanded Senedd and new arrangements for electing it, and several very senior politicians announcing they will not be standing, 2026 will be the beginning of a new era of devolution in Wales with new challenges and new opportunities.

The Wales devolution journey

This September will be the 28th anniversary of the 1997 devolution referendums in Wales and Scotland. They were held four months into the Blair / Brown New Labour administration, at the height of Britpop and Cool Cymru, and days after the tragic death in Paris of Diana, Princess of Wales.

The people of Scotland voted first. With a turnout of 60.18%, 74.29% agreed there should be a Scottish Parliament.

The story in Wales the following Thursday (18 September 1997) was rather different. The turnout was 50.22% and the result could hardly have been closer. Voters in half of the 22 local authority areas agreed there should be a Welsh Assembly, while those in the other 11 areas did not agree. Overall, 50.30% voted for the Assembly.

The following May, the Good Friday Agreement received significant support from 71.12% of people who voted in the referendum in Northern Ireland (with an 81.14% turnout) and 94.4% in the Republic of Ireland (with a 55.6% turnout) to set the foundations for the peace process.

The political reality of the very narrow “yes” vote in Wales resulted in a far more limited set of functions and powers being devolved to Wales than those devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Essentially, the functions of the old UK Government Welsh Office (established in 1965) were transferred to the Assembly with powers to make only secondary legislation.

Between 2002 and 2004, the Richard Commission reviewed the Assembly’s powers and electoral arrangements in the Government of Wales Act 1998. That led to the UK Government legislating for a second Government of Wales Act in 2006 to:

• Replace the National Assembly for Wales as a single corporate body with a separate legislature (which retained the National Assembly for Wales name) and executive (the Welsh Assembly Government (renamed Welsh Government in 2011)).
• Give the Assembly enhanced powers to pass Assembly Measures in 20 subject areas (‘Fields’), subject to seeking consent to legislate from the UK Parliament.
• Make provision for a referendum to be held about whether the Assembly should be given full primary legislative powers in the 20 Fields.

A referendum was held in March 2011. The turnout was 35.2% and the primary law-making powers were supported by 63.49% of the people who voted and by 21 of the 22 local authority areas in Wales.

The growing body of Welsh law

Since the Government of Wales Act 2006 came into force at the Assembly election in May 2007, a significant amount of Welsh law has been made:

• 22 Assembly Measures using the framework powers between 2008 and 2011
• 44 Assembly Acts between 2012 and 2020
• 19 Senedd Cymru Acts (the Assembly was renamed Senedd Cymru (Welsh Parliament) in May 2020)

The most recent Senedd Act, the Health and Social Care (Wales) Act 2025, received Royal Assent on 24 March. It removes private profit from children’s residential and foster care to ensure money invested in the system is reinvested in children’s welfare. In future, care for looked-after children in Wales may only be provided by the public sector, and charitable and not-for-profit organisations.

Wales being the first UK nation to legislate for this is a pertinent example of the increasing divergence between the law applicable in Wales and the law applicable in England. At the time of writing, 6,499 Wales Statutory Instruments have been made since 1999. Of course, the law is diverging through a combination of the significant amount of primary and secondary legislation made for England in Westminster by the UK Parliament and UK Ministers and the growing body of Welsh law.

The rule of law

It is vital that citizens – along with policymakers, lawyers, judges, academics and commentators – are aware there is an increasing body of Welsh law that may affect their lives which differs from the law applicable in England.

Since the May 2021 Senedd election, steps have been taken to improve the accessibility of Welsh law. Welsh Government published The future of Welsh law: A programme for 2021 to 2026 in September 2021 followed by a revised accessibility programme in January 2024. The law schools in Wales have been working on a Welsh law curriculum through the Law Council of Wales, which was set up following a recommendation of the Commission on Justice in Wales.

Action to make the law in Wales (as in England and elsewhere) more accessible needs to continue and keep pace with the rate of changes in the law. Ensuring everyone has access to justice, particularly the most vulnerable members of our society, is fundamental to a healthy democracy. Legal services regulators have a vital contribution to make to ensure the law is accessible to all consumers of legal services.

Accessibility of the law, together with the protections and safeguards the law provides, are integral to access to justice and upholding the rule of law. This is as important today as it has ever been, in the UK and across the world. Recent seismic events have provided daily warnings about the need to uphold the rule of law domestically and internationally. The law is vital for maintaining order, protecting the rights of vulnerable people and nations, and holding the powerful to account.

Everyone involved in making, practising, regulating, teaching and studying law has a crucial role to play in promoting awareness of the law, and of rights and responsibilities in law. Collaboration is key – harnessing the benefits of sharing our perspectives and insights and working together to find and deliver solutions.

In November 2023, we established a forum with the Legal Services Board (LSB) that brings all the legal regulators together with the Welsh Government to consider legal services in Wales. The forum has facilitated new collaborative relationships and strengthened existing ones. The LSB’s Reshaping Legal Services conference in March highlighted many excellent opportunities to contribute to innovative and vital work. We all have vested interests in ensuring access to justice is improved, that the legal professions maintain the highest ethical standards and are fully inclusive, and that public confidence in legal services is restored.

The future

The Senedd election next May will usher in the next phase of devolution in Wales.

The Senedd is expanding from 60 to 96 members to take account of the many significant developments on the long journey since the Assembly’s first meeting on 12 May 1999.

The new electoral arrangements are replacing the Senedd’s 40 constituencies and 5 regions of 4 seats (which comprise the 60 members currently) with 16 new Senedd constituencies. The Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru (an independent body sponsored by Welsh Government) was tasked with pairing the 32 UK Parliament constituencies in Wales into 16 Senedd constituencies. Voters in each constituency will elect 6 members through the closed list proportional representation system.

While there may be uncertainties about the composition of the expanded Senedd following the election, and how the new arrangements will work in practice, the changes will present opportunities for Costs Lawyers and their fellow practitioners across the legal sector.

It is important that lawyers are actively involved with devolution in Wales, so they are well equipped both to deliver their vital legal services to clients and help shape Welsh law and policy. There are various ways of engaging with the devolved institutions, including responding to formal policy and legislative consultations.

The next 12 months provide an excellent opportunity for those less familiar with devolution in Wales to become well versed in it, in readiness to embrace the coming changes and play their part in shaping future law and policy in Wales.

Andrew Felton
Head of Justice Stakeholders, Welsh Government