Government of Wales Bill

I fear that we may be straying somewhat from the purpose of the lead amendment. The view taken by my party is that, at present, we should concentrate on seeing whether the way in which the Assembly operates can be improved, and that is what we will seek to do in the course of the passage of the Bill. In doing that, we are prepared to consider whether the Assembly should have more powers, although we believe that if it is to have powers, they should be the powers in part 4 and should come into force only if a referendum has taken place beforehand—a democratic process with which, I would hope, most hon. Members would find it difficult to disagree. We favour the splitting of the executive and legislative roles, because they have not worked. I think that there is general agreement on that point. We have anxieties about some of the other details of the Bill, including the gerrymandering of the electoral system, to which we shall return later, but for present purposes, I enjoin the Committee to concentrate on the issues in part 3.