Clause 1 - Application of Part V of theCare Standards Act 2000
Children's Commissioner for Wales Bill
11:00 am
Mr Robert Walter (North Dorset, Conservative)
That is correct. The services at the Great Ormond Street hospital for children would be funded by the national health service in Wales—over which the Children's Commissioner for Wales would have some remit—but, because those services were provided by a hospital outside Wales, the Children's Commissioner would not be able to comment on or investigate any alleged abuse in that institution. That is why we have proposed this series of amendments.
Most of the amendments to clause 1, starting with amendment No. 1, the first before the Committee, deal with the questions of cross-border provision and non-devolved matters, which is why a number of the amendments delete subsections dealing specifically with Assembly functions, which are not non-devolved matters. As we progress through the Bill we can start to deal with non-devolved matters.
On cross-border matters I hope to be brief, because the point is clear. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent asked about children who are provided with services in England which are funded by authorities in Wales, which come under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly, the national health service being one of them. In other instances, children in care may well be provided for in homes in England. There is also the cross-border problem, which the Minister might like to address, of children from homes where the mother and father live apart, both with custodial responsibilities given to them by the courts, one living in Wales and the other in England. That brings us to whether a child is ordinarily resident in Wales if both parents have joint custody. In those instances, the Bill would result in confusion.