Wales: Governance

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, for his comments. I agree that when we talk about Wales as a world-class country we are certainly not saying that the Secretary of State, or Westminster, is responsible for that. The responsibility lies firmly with the Welsh people and their skills. The noble Lord raised an interesting point about the barriers to full devolution, arguing that if the Welsh people were totally in favour we should not have any barriers here in Parliament to prevent their wishes being heard. That is an interesting point that we will consider. I am grateful for the general welcome to the White Paper from the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, even though he has a number of reservations.