Government of Wales Bill

My hon. Friend is right to say that the hon. Gentleman made a bit of a hash of his question, but I do not think that the proposal is that complicated. It is certainly more transparent than the current process. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham asked how many pieces of legislation the Assembly had asked for. I shall not deal with every request since 1999, but at present there are three proposals for Bills that it would like to have on the statute book. In this Session, the Government are dealing with this Bill and two others. In addition, there have been requests for Bills on tourism and accommodation registration, housing, and local government community councils. There is no way that those Bills could be fitted into the legislative programme for this Session, as they would have to compete with Bills coming from all the Departments in Whitehall. The main purpose of these proposals is to ensure that the Assembly can get the legislation that it needs in a reasonable time and without encountering the logjam that exists as a result of our processes in this Parliament.