Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, as I outlined in Committee, we firmly believe that this is a matter for the Assembly. Indeed, I am slightly mystified by the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Livsey. If I heard it correctly, he implied that the Assembly auditor wants this change. I can tell him that in its consideration of the Bill, the Assembly has expressed a view that a name similar to that of the Public Accounts Committee should be avoided and that it is happy with the name of the committee as set out. The Government believe that the Assembly should be able to initiate a change of name for a committee if it chooses to do so. Under Part 3 there is a clear mechanism by which the Assembly may achieve this. It may apply for an Order in Council to confer legislative competence on the Assembly to reform the name and functions of the Audit Committee by Assembly measure, but I wish to stress the point to the Liberal Democrats that this is the name the Assembly wants for the committee; it does not want a change. Furthermore, as I attempted to explain in Committee, Amendment No. 15 inserts a provision that the Assembly may give the Audit Committee,"““any other name . . . through its standing orders””." That is simply not practical. Standing orders could not authorise the Assembly to change references to the Audit Committee in other legislation such as the Care Standards Act 2000. This would cause legal inconsistency and confusion, none of which would be in the public interest. As I acknowledged in Committee, it is very important for the Audit Committee’s role to be made clear; that is, to scrutinise the use of financial resources by Welsh Ministers and the other persons and bodies funded out of the Welsh Consolidated Fund, and to hold those persons and bodies to account. The people of Wales have not had any difficulty in understanding that this is the role of the current Audit Committee. Given that we are talking about an Assembly and about something that it wants, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.