Government of Wales Bill

This will really enlighten the Committee. The reason that the word ““effect”” is used is because it relates to the legislative environment. The reason that the word ““impact”” is used is because it relates to the physical environment. I hope that everyone is happy with that explanation. As I was saying, the intervention powers are extremely limited, but they are important. It is absolutely right that the Secretary of State should be able to prevent proposed Assembly legislation from having adverse consequences of the kind set out in clause 100(1). It is unlikely that that would be necessary, but it is important that that power should exist. Amendment No. 175 would give the Secretary of State the power to override proposed Assembly legislation just because he or she thought that it would have a bad effect. That would be completely unacceptable. We must strictly constrain the powers of the Secretary of State, and I would urge hon. Members not to support that amendment. Amendment No. 176 would provide that an order preventing an Assembly Measure from being submitted for approval by Her Majesty should be subject to the affirmative rather than the negative resolution procedure. I suspect that it has been tabled in this way because the previous amendment, amendment No. 175, is so powerful. The reason that we have proposed to use the negative procedure, which could be implemented by either House of Parliament, is that the Secretary of State must make an order within four weeks. It would not be possible to do that, or to be properly accountable, if we were to use the affirmative order procedure. In conclusion, the Conservative amendments and the Plaid Cymru amendments are poles apart, in that they seek to do completely opposite things. Any of them would unbalance devolution in one direction or another. The position that we have outlined in the Bill strikes a perfect balance, and I would therefore ask the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy not to press his amendment to a vote.