Government of Wales Bill

I suspect that the Minister and I agree on one thing—amendment No. 59 encapsulates the criticism that my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) made of the Liberal Democrats. When faced with a difficult choice, they decided that the best way to proceed was to eliminate all form of democratic scrutiny from the legislation to enable the Secretary of State to have a free hand with the Assembly without any intervention from Parliament in part 3. I do not know whether they intend to press their amendment to vote, but I wish to concentrate on amendment No. 4. The Minister has been wholly unpersuasive on the matter. One of the most telling comments that we have heard during the debate was the confession made for the first time by the Government that they considered that part 4 would not pass a referendum in Wales. Regrettable though that might be to my right hon. Friend and others, it highlights the absurdity of the Government proceeding by means of part 3. The justification offered to the House was that the Assembly would otherwise wither on the vine, whereas in fact it can have a perfectly respectable and separate existence implementing secondary legislation, if that is what the people of Wales want. There is no reason why the Executive cannot be split from the Legislature in order to improve that, which is why we supported the part of the Bill which does exactly that. Our position is that in the absence of an assurance from the Government that there would be a referendum on the implementation of part 3, the only proper course of action is to remove part 3 from the Bill entirely. The people of Wales will lose nothing thereby. Part 4 offers them real change if they want it. The other parts of the Bill, particularly the splitting of the Assembly and the Legislature, offer them a new format for governance along current lines, if that is what they want. Part 3 should have no place in the Bill, and I urge every hon. Member in the House to support us in opposing it. If we do not succeed in removing part 3, I hope at the appropriate moment later this evening to press new clause 1 to the vote. Question put, That the amendment be made:— The House divided: Ayes 133, Noes 337.