Government of Wales Bill

I welcome the amendments, even though I do not propose to support them. I welcome them because they allow me to tell the Minister that it is perfectly possible to support devolution and the evolution of devolution without supporting every measure that is proposed. During the course of today’s proceedings, we have heard ridiculous attempts to rubbish the commitment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) to devolution, not only in Wales but in Scotland. The Opposition understand that what we have now is asymmetric devolution, which means that not every provision of the Scotland Act will be replicated for Wales. I do not share the views of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) on the way in which energy provisions are working in Scotland. I have great concerns that nationalist elements in particular wish to use the difference between the powers that the Scottish Parliament has and the powers that the UK Parliament has to create a constitutional block and, if possible, crisis by presenting differences on energy policy. If the UK Government’s policy is to have nuclear power in the UK, it is not for the Scottish Executive and Scottish Parliament, using provisions relating to other matters, to attempt to block the Government’s energy policy. All such attempts to distort the devolution settlements should be resisted.