Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, of course I accept that there would have to be a referendum before primary legislative powers came down from Westminster to Cardiff; all of us accept that. The noble Lord is perhaps misapplying the situation if he attacks the Orders in Council procedure on the basis that it is a matter being dealt with by stealth. Much will depend on how the Orders in Council will work in practice. In a recent devolution policy paper produced by the Economic and Social Research Council, Alan Trench observed:"““When and how exactly Orders in Council would be made is far from clear””." I agree with that. He continued:"““One suggestion is that they would be made as and when the Assembly seeks them. That would imply varying frequency, but with the possibility of much Parliamentary (and Assembly) time being spent on them””." Another suggestion is that there would normally be only one Order in Council per year, the result of a bid by the Assembly in a bargaining process between Cardiff and Whitehall. I would be grateful for some indication from the Government of how they see this. The devil, or the virtue, is very much in the detail as far as this procedure is concerned. I heard my noble friend say that a letter had been placed in the Library. I am afraid that it was placed in the Library too late for me to look at it. If in fact it deals with the details, I can only say to my noble friend that I will read it with enormous interest and care. There is a considerable lack of clarity on the way in which this interim stage will be managed and effected. It is by no means clear how the Assembly would formulate its requests, or to what extent that would be purely a function of the Assembly Government, which presumably would negotiate with the Secretary of State on what they consider appropriate. That illustrates one of the dangers still inherent in the proposals; the scope that the Secretary of State would have to reject a request by the Assembly is as yet unspecified in detail. Parliamentary procedure in relation to Orders in Council is fluid, to say the least. It could well mean that the Secretary of State would take the view that it would not be appropriate for the Assembly to be given the powers that it is asking for, particularly if the political affiliations of Cardiff and Westminster were different. It is equally unclear what role the Westminster Parliament would play in considering requests from Cardiff. Scope for debate on Orders in Council is very limited; they are not capable of amendment. It is difficult to see at the moment how the formal Westminster legislative procedure would be adapted to meet the requirements of this new Order in Council suggestion. If reliance is to be placed on pre-legislative scrutiny, what would happen if there was disagreement at that stage of the process? I do not know; it may be in the letter that we have not yet seen.