Government of Wales Bill

I agree with my right hon. Friend; that is the matter that was of such concern to us in Committee. We tabled amendments to try to beef up the procedures, but they were all rejected. That is why I shall invite the House to take out the entirety of this part of the Bill. In my view, it has no place in the architecture of the legislation—and indeed, it is completely unnecessary. If the Government were honest and true to their principles they would have no hesitation in putting the idea of Acts of the Assembly to a referendum, getting the necessary powers and handing those powers to the Welsh Assembly. There are arguments both in favour of and against further devolution, but at least that would have some intellectual honesty about it, whereas what is now proposed is a hybrid system that will grossly undermine this House’s ability to scrutinise legislation, but will not give the Welsh Assembly any measure of sovereign control over its own legislation. The matters in schedule 5, part 1—all important areas of legislation for the people of Wales—will be determined by a sort of minuet danced between the Secretary of State and the Assembly, in which the Secretary of State ultimately exercises all the control. A measure more calculated to undermine the principles of parliamentary democracy would be difficult to find. However, having seen the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, and what the Government seek to impose on the country more generally in that legislation, we should not be surprised by what they are doing to the people of Wales, who are being treated as guinea pigs for their proposals elsewhere. The longer we debated this issue in Committee, the less persuaded I was that these measures were necessary. If the Government had the courage to bring devolution a further notch forward, they would accept the need for a referendum and Assembly Acts. Moreover, there are so many downsides to the proposals, which risk producing an environment in which the ability to scrutinise legislation and determine it properly will be seriously undermined.