SENIOR Pembrokeshire councillors have backed the early stages of a purchase of a second council-run children’s care home in the county.

Sentry Cottage, formerly known as Ty Cariad, previously operated as a privately-run children’s home registered with Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) used by the council; the home closing in 2025.

A report for members of the November meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council’s Cabinet, presented by Cabinet Member for Young People, Community, Well-being and Future Generations Cllr Marc Tierney said that, following a visit of the property and its grounds it was concluded that the property is suitable for undergoing extensive refurbishment and repurposing as a four-bed children’s home.

“This project proposes to acquire the current empty property, and subject to intrusive survey outcomes, undertake the preferred option of extensive refurbishment to bring it up to regulatory standards, as a four-bed children’s home. In addition, the plan includes the potential to transform the two-storey garage/outbuilding into a step-down semi-independent provision for a 16 or 17-year-old young person.”

It added: “This project forms a part of the authority’s wider ambition to expand its in-house residential portfolio. This would provide significant mitigation against the possible negative impacts of the not-for-profit agenda on the wider provider market.”

It said bringing the services in-house through the purchase would result in a potential cost avoidance of between £195,811 and £485,084 per year, when compared with current average external costs.

The report finished: “Whilst there are undoubtedly risks associated with purchasing this property and pursuing its redevelopment – either by refurbishment or rebuilding – we believe that the risks represented by not pursuing an ambitious plan to develop further in-house residential care, especially in light of current financial pressures and future market risks, is off-set by the significant likely benefits.”

Members backed recommendations in the report to approve the acquisition and subsequent capital costs for its renovation into the capital programme of up to £2,855,784.

Funding of £150,000 previously approved by Cabinet in June 2025 for feasibility studies will be capitalised to provide match funding for the project, with £2,705,784 from the Welsh government’s Integration and Rebalancing Capital Fund (IRCF), the initial application being approved last month

Members were also asked to note an application for the second stage of the grant process will be submitted to Welsh Government, with a further report to Cabinet if external funding is not secured.

Back in 2022, the council purchased West Lodge, St Ishmaels to turn it into a children’s home.

THE WELSH Government’s chief legal adviser flatly denied reports a separate Welsh legal jurisdiction is off the agenda, telling the Senedd: “I said no such thing.”

Julie James, who is counsel general, said a legal jurisdiction for Wales is inevitably developing and “at some point in the future somebody’s going to have to acknowledge that it exists – but it exists whether you acknowledge it or not”.

Adam Price, Plaid Cymru’s shadow counsel general, had expressed concerns about any prospect of a separate Welsh legal jurisdiction being “kicked firmly into touch”.

Ms James gave a speech at a conference in Bangor and a Law Society Gazette report suggested she was “unequivocal” in stating separation was off the agenda.

Mr Price asked: “Do you take the opportunity now to confirm that the Welsh Government does remain, unequivocally, in favour of establishing a separate Welsh legal jurisdiction?”

Ms James replied: “It’s another good example of you shouldn’t believe what you read in the headlines. I said no such thing… A separate Welsh legal jurisdiction is inevitably developing.

“The more laws we make in this place, the more separate they become from the England jurisdiction and, regardless of whether you view it as a separate jurisdiction, a separate body of law is growing up in Wales and lawyers need to be cognisant of that.”

Mr Price echoed concerns from Baroness Carr, the lady chief justice of Wales and England, about the Welsh Government shelving plans to reform the Welsh tribunal system.

Conservative Janet Finch-Saunders questioned why it has taken more than two years after a 2023 paper described Welsh tribunals as “outdated, inflexible and lacking coherence”.

Ms James blamed a legislative logjam in the fifth and final year of the Senedd term, saying a draft tribunal will be published for consideration by the next Welsh Government.

During today’s (November 11) counsel general questions, Rhys ab Owen, who sits as an independent, raised plans to expand the Senedd from 60 to 96 members at May’s election.

Mr ab Owen said one of the main arguments to enlarge the Senedd was to have better scrutiny, improving the lives of the people of Wales.

He told the Senedd: “It’s probably fair to say that maybe that argument hasn’t cut through to the general public yet, but… the Senedd has historically passed a low number of pieces of legislation compared with other legislatures such as Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

The former barrister highlighted that 22 laws were passed in the fifth Senedd – between 2016 and 2021 – compared with 76 in Scotland and 46 in Northern Ireland.

He said: “In the past, that may have been explained by lack of capacity in this place but that’s not going to be the case after next year’s election.”

Ms James replied: “It’s an interesting assumption that more legislation equals good and less legislation equals bad. I don’t necessarily hold to that. I think we should make laws that are required and not laws for the sake of it… to show some kind of league table position.”

She added: “In the past, the Senedd has passed a small number of bills but they tend to be very big bills and the previous First Minister [Mark Drakeford] characterised it to me… as ‘if the bus only goes past occasionally, then everybody crams on’.”

Mr ab Owen also called for the roll-out of family drug and alcohol courts across Wales.

Ms James pointed to challenges including inconsistent service availability, geographic barriers in rural Wales as well as financial constraints “at multiple levels”.

The former solicitor told the debating chamber or Siambr: “Frankly, if we can’t solve the financial issues, then we won’t be able to solve it at all.

“Whilst the court is a very effective court, I think, and solves a number of problems from a judicial point of view – it’s entirely paid for out of the devolved service budget, so we do need to sort that out as well.”

A FORMER minister has accused the Welsh Government of “piling up laws” that are “never delivered”, painting a picture of a pattern of incompetence over the past decade.

Labour’s Alun Davies criticised a seven-year delay in introducing an environment bill to plug post-Brexit gaps which left Wales with some of the weakest protections in western Europe, according to environment charities.

Mr Davies, who is first on Labour’s list for the new Blaenau Gwent Caerffili Rhymni seat at next year’s election, said: “We’ve got to do more than pass declaratory legislation… [which] doesn’t have any bite… All too often the vanity of politicians takes over and we believe we can change things quite fundamental and, usually, outside our control simply by passing laws.”

He added: “I remember when this was important and an emergency back in 2018.”

He accused Huw Irranca-Davies, the Deputy First Minister, of being able to offer “no credible explanation” of why it has taken seven years to bring forward the environment bill.

Mr Davies stressed the delay was not a one-off, questioning why it took ministers about a decade to implement public health and renting laws too.

Calling for a parliamentary inquiry, he asked: “Why is it we’re asked to vote for this legislation, time and time again, but the government isn’t able to deliver?”

He warned: “There are real failures of parliamentary and governmental processes here.”

The backbencher, who has twice been sacked from government, added: “We are creating increasingly bureaucratic and cumbersome new structures, targets, which probably won’t be met and, in fact, if you read the bill, won’t even be set until the end of the next Senedd.”

He made the comments as the environment bill, which would establish a watchdog and set a framework for biodiversity targets, passed the first stage in the Senedd. Similar watchdogs were set up in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England in 2021.

Mr Davies told the Senedd: “It’s increasingly worrying to me that what we’re doing is piling up laws… which are never delivered, never implemented and which create burdensome and cumbersome demands on public bodies which they themselves are unable to deliver.”

The Conservatives’ Janet Finch-Saunders was similarly scathing, describing delays as a “point of national shame” and a “serious political failure”. She suggested the Welsh Government will go down in history for kicking the can down the road.

She warned the bill pushes key decisions, such as actually setting targets, beyond the 2026 Senedd election when cross-party consensus on the issue could collapse.

Labour’s Mike Hedges, who chairs the Senedd’s legislation committee, concluded the bill “appears to have been deprioritised by the Welsh Government”.

He described the biodiversity target-setting framework as “ill-conceived”.

Delyth Jewell, Plaid Cymru’s shadow climate secretary, questioned why the Welsh watchdog was set to receive £300,000 less than its Scottish counterpart despite a wider remit.

And climate committee chair Llŷr Gruffydd warned last-minute government concessions “undermined” scrutiny as he called for the new watchdog to be “genuinely independent”.

During the debate on Tuesday November 11, Huw Irranca-Davies agreed to accelerate the timeline for setting targets from three years to two and bolster the body’s independence.

The Deputy First Minister and climate secretary also pledged to introduce a framework for short- and long-term targets, halve the time to report on missed targets to six months, and ensure the watchdog’s enforcement powers are active within two years.

Turning to his colleague’s criticism, he joked: “I very much welcome all of the comments that members have made today and the spirit in which they were made – you too, Alun.”

Mr Irranca-Davies then rejected the charge that the legislation was weak, insisting the targets would not be “half-arsed” and telling Mr Davies: “I do think you’re unduly pessimistic on this – this is more than declaratory legislation. This has got the benefit, because it has taken a bit longer, of being exceptionally, exceptionally well-worked, well-crafted.”

Senedd Members voted 50-1 in favour of the general principles of the bill, which now moves to amendment stages, with only Reform UK’s Laura Anne Jones, who represents South Wales East, voting against.