Government of Wales Bill

moved Amendment No. 75:"Leave out Clause 135." The noble Baroness said: My Lords, it is a pleasure to be returning to the House this evening to debate matters financial at such a pleasant hour. Amendment No. 75, which the Whips will be pleased to hear is probing, would delete Clause 135, which deals with examinations by the Comptroller and Auditor General—that is the UK’s Comptroller and Auditor General and not the Auditor General for Wales. The C&AG can carry out examinations into the Welsh Consolidated Fund payments and can report to the House of Commons. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Crickhowell raised the question of the role of the UK Parliament in Welsh financial affairs generally. He did not get an answer from the Minister, and so I have tabled Amendment No. 75 to tease out how the financial relationship will work. In Committee, the Government ran a nice line in pro-Welsh democracy rhetoric. For example, when I moved an amendment to probe whether UK Ministers could impose conditions on payments made to Welsh Ministers, the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Temple Guiting, said:"““The ability to impose such conditions . . . would subordinate Welsh Ministers to their colleagues in Whitehall . . . The Assembly is a democratically elected body accountable to the people of Wales; it is not an agency of central government””.—[Official Report, 6/06/06; col. 1227.]" Minutes later, the Minister said that there were mechanisms that ensured that money was actually spent on the purposes specified by UK Ministers. That would be via the Auditor General, who would audit against ministerial agreements. The Minister set that out in more detail in his helpful letter to me, which I received on 19 June. Further, when I probed on the ability of the Treasury to grab receipts by virtue of Clause 119, the answer again was that the UK Government had to have that power. Despite the rhetoric, the UK will retain some significant influence over receipts and payments under the Bill. That brings us to the audit arrangements. The Bill re-enacts the public audit arrangements for Wales in the shape of the Auditor General for Wales. He will pursue propriety and value for money issues in respect of the Welsh Consolidated Fund. Why, then, do we need Clause 135 and the powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General to do the same thing as the Auditor General for Wales? What happens if the Comptroller and Auditor General issues an adverse report? In Committee, my noble friend Lord Crickhowell raised the recent case of a critical—indeed, a very damning—report on the financial management of the Home Office. What would happen if a similar report was issued in relation to Welsh finances by the UK’s Comptroller and Auditor General? Would that report go to the PAC? Whom would the PAC call? What happens in the UK Parliament about such reports? Clause 135 calls into question the robustness of the accountability arrangements in Wales. It imposes a separate accountability from Wales to the UK Parliament. I hope that the Minister will explain why the clause is necessary. I beg to move.