Government of Wales Bill

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am far from satisfied. The Minister has not assisted us very much on amendment No. 158. We have had a discussion, and he has said certain things about it, but I am still unclear. From my reading of paragraph (b), I still believe that, were the Assembly to decide to introduce a measure to prevent the creation of any more dams or the drowning of any more valleys in Wales for any purpose, Parliament could lawfully override that measure via the Secretary of State. That is quite plain, because the provision does not use words such as ““current”” or ““historical””. It does not relate to the here and now; it is for the future. Let us be straight about this; all legislation is about the present and the future, not the present alone. We do not legislate for tomorrow alone; we legislate for 10 years from tomorrow, and for 20 and 30 years from tomorrow if the Bill is reasonable. Unfortunately, I am dissatisfied. I know that time is short for our debate generally, but I wish to put amendment No. 158 to the vote.