Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, especially the previous two contributions, which have made my case for me. As noble Lords will recognise, I simply do not agree that the provisions on Assembly Measures represent a fundamental change to the devolution settlement. It follows that I reject Amendment No. 39. It would be unprecedented for a referendum to be held on whether Parliament should adopt a new procedure for legislating on certain issues. The first question that any intelligent voter would ask would be, what are the issues? You would need to define them. It would be a most eccentric referendum. No one could promise that any matters would be devolved to the Assembly if there were a yes vote. It would remain, as now, a matter for this Parliament to decide. So what would be achieved by the referendum except great confusion in the Welsh electorate’s mind? I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, brushed that point aside. He said that on the previous occasion we spent rather too much time on the wording of the question. I shall not spend much time making that argument today, but it is obvious that if it is well-nigh impossible to phrase the question, how on earth can you hold a referendum on an issue? It is impossible to phrase the question. That is why every attempt that has been made by those in favour of this unacceptable proposal has floundered on the basis that they were inadequate. As my noble friend Lord Anderson said, the step-by-step process would lack credibility in a referendum campaign. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, committed himself and the Conservative Party, if Part 4 were implemented and a referendum were necessary, to giving strong campaigning support. We note that point, but we do not think that the amendment would do anything other than cause great consternation in Wales and would not lead to an effective deliberation on how devolution should develop.