Government of Wales Bill

I speak as a former member of the Whips Office. The Secretary of State would be laying a Government order, so I would expect my hon. Friends to follow the Secretary of State’s suggestion of supporting it. We have had a long exchange on the detail of amendment No. 161. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield raised several points when he spoke to amendment No. 162, so it worth putting our thinking on record. Amendment No. 162 would remove the protection afforded to an Assembly Measure against legal challenge on the ground of a procedural invalidity in the proceedings of the Assembly that led that to its enactment. The Bill provides for the legal separation of the Assembly Government from the Assembly, as is the case here, in the Northern Ireland Assembly and in the Scottish Parliament. The Assembly should not be impeded in its primary function of making legislation by legal challenges, some of which could be wholly spurious and based on a technical invalidity during proceedings. In respect of Parliament, that principle is enshrined in article 9 of the Bill of Rights, which provides that freedom of speech, debates and proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place outside Parliament. It is also reflected in respect of the Scottish Parliament in section 28(5) of the Scotland Act 1998, and in respect of the Northern Ireland Assembly in section 5(5) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Clause 92(3) and the equivalent Measure in clause 106(3), which relates to Acts of the Assembly, will put the Assembly on the same footing as Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament.