Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, I suppose that it would be open to a court to take that view if the matter was to litigate in front of it. I sincerely hope that it would not be a matter for regular litigation. The process is essentially a political one, in which one hopes that the politics of the matter would prevail. I have two final points. The Orders in Council approach is a bit over-paternalistic. The Government are in effect saying to the Assembly, ““Normally we can trust you to make reasonable requests, but there may be circumstances in which we in London know better than you in Cardiff and we think that you have overreached yourselves, in which case we will intervene to prevent it””. Nor is it at all clear what the Orders in Council will contain if they are to add a ““matter””—that is the phrase used—to Schedule 5. That schedule is in broad terms and I would be grateful to know whether the Government anticipate that the Orders in Council will be equally broad. It is envisaged that the powers transferred to Cardiff would include the right to amend existing primary legislation. That is Henry VIII writ large, because the right would be to amend not only existing legislation, but legislation that has not yet been passed. I do not have time to go through many of the issues in the Bill and compare them with my commission’s report. I share very much the views quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, that Wales is a separate nation; it is not a glorified county council in England. It deserves to be recognised as a separate nation and it deserves to be treated as a separate nation, and for that to happen it must eventually have legislative competence. I regard this Bill as a step in that direction and for that reason I support it. It is acceptable, but it is not permanent.