Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, the Secretary of State has powers with regard to the process of devolution, and so he should. No one is suggesting that the process of devolution should involve the main legislative power and the Executive elected by that main legislative power casting a body adrift without any recognition at all of the relationship between the devolved Assembly and nation and the United Kingdom as a whole. That would be nonsense. Of course there are aspects which guarantee that the process of devolution is subject to parliamentary scrutiny, which I have described, and to the powers of the Secretary of State. I see from the debate this evening that we shall have some fairly lively exchanges about the powers of the Secretary of State. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, will guarantee that, and I shall not disappoint him. I want to emphasise this evening the extent to which the broad principles of devolution have been strongly advocated, of course by noble Lords on the Government Benches. I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lord Richard, aided by the support of others, which underpinned this fresh development. I should emphasise, however, that this support for devolution needs to be translated into a Bill that clearly advances the framework of devolution, consistent with democratic principles and subject to proper scrutiny by the Parliament that represents the whole of the nation and by the Secretary of State who has responsibility as executive member of that Parliament. I maintain that we have got the broad balance of the issues right in the framework of the Bill. I recognise the challenges that have been made this evening. I particularly recognise the challenge of my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies, who identified what he thought was a weakness in the Bill—namely, that it had no clear commitment to the maintenance, support and extension of the Welsh language, nor to guaranteeing its equality with the English language in the future. I think that I am equipped with a proper response to that and will be able to assuage his fears. But I have limited time at my disposal today. He will forgive me if I do not go into great detail at this stage: I hope the whole House will forgive me that I am not able to match up to all the detailed arguments in a debate which has lasted nearly four hours. From the strength and clarify of the views put forward today, I am aware that we are due to have an extremely interesting and exciting Committee stage and subsequent stages. However, I would emphasise that the Government believe that they have placed before this House, subject to the work that has been done in the other place, a Bill which merits detailed scrutiny, but, nevertheless, represents an advance for the people of Wales and an extension of democracy. In those terms, it is a Bill which deserves the welcome that it has largely got from all quarters of this House today. On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.