Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, may refer to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, as probing, but by heaven it terrifies me, if I follow the dire implications that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, has read into this conjunction between Clauses 37 and 84. I want to disabuse him, I hope, of any justification for his fears. I would first like to explain our intent in how the Bill is constructed. Secondly, I hope to prove that that intent is fulfilled in the clauses. We had some anxiety about this amendment, as I was not quite clear on the nature of the worries of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. I now understand them. Whether I have understood them sufficiently to assuage them is a different matter altogether, but I will do my best. The simple fact is that the Assembly will be able to summon the First Minister, the Welsh Ministers, deputy Welsh Ministers and the Counsel General. They are all subject to Clause 37. Ministers of the UK Government and their civil servants, or former UK Government Ministers, or civil servants working for the UK Government, cannot be summoned to be questioned about the exercise of their functions because that is properly the role of this Parliament. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, agrees with me there. If the intent behind his amendment is to guarantee that such Ministers can be summoned before the Welsh Assembly, I have reservations about that and would express them very strongly. However, I do not think that that is his intent. It will be perfectly possible for the Assembly to invite any UK Ministers or their civil servants to attend Assembly committee proceedings voluntarily; in fact, it would be the normal expectation that people would voluntarily attend Assembly proceedings and produce information requested by the Assembly. Such requests would undoubtedly be entirely reasonable. It is proper that those in positions of public responsibility respond to reasonable requests, but that would be voluntary; there is no power to summon. The power to summon relates to the Welsh Ministers, the Welsh Executive. There is no connection between Clause 37 and Clause 84, to which the amendment refers. Clause 84 does not convert references to Ministers of the Crown elsewhere in the Bill into references to the Welsh Ministers. Clause 84 simply ensures that where functions have been transferred to the Welsh Ministers, references to Ministers of the Crown, such as a Secretary of State, in the relevant legislation or any other documents are read as references to the Welsh Ministers, but only so far as may be necessary for the exercise of those functions by the Welsh Ministers. Clause 84 is equivalent to Section 43 of the Government of Wales Act 1998, which also produced this result. All that we are guaranteeing is that where it is relevant, appropriate and accurate that the legislation should refer to Welsh Ministers, the concept of Ministers in the legislation refers to the Welsh Ministers. What it does not do is subject United Kingdom Ministers to the control of the Assembly in the same way that Welsh Ministers clearly are. Welsh Ministers and the Welsh Executive are answerable to the Assembly, but clearly UK Ministers are not directly answerable to it.