Government of Wales Bill

I am interested to hear talk of a Lib-Lab pact. I presume that the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) is referring to two parties working together in the common interest, just as the Conservatives and the Labour party did when they voted together to take us to war in Iraq. What is going on here, however, is a genuine commitment to furthering democracy and devolution in Wales. I almost said Northern Ireland then, because I saw the Secretary of State leaving the Chamber, no doubt to deal with other important matters. Our concern is, to an extent, the same as that described by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield, namely, that retrospective legislation is open to attack on the basis that it can be abused. Something achieved by an individual or an organisation acting in good faith, on the assumption that the law is there to protect them, can be modified by the institutions of Government to favour themselves. That point was made by Lord Thomas of Gresford in the upper House. He said:"““A person may engage in litigation and say, ‘I’ve won.’ Then the Assembly may pass a measure that says, ‘No, you haven’t, you’ve lost””, because they have retrospectively changed the provision on which his claim rested.””" That has been my concern, too, and it may be why the hon. Member for Beaconsfield could see an uneasiness among Liberal Democrat peers during that debate. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will also have read the further debate in the upper House on this matter and the dialogue between Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Evans of Temple Guiting, in which Lord Thomas challenged the Government to clarify two things. I hope that the Minister, by way of intervention or in his concluding comments, will respond explicitly to these points. Lord Thomas’s concern was that it had to be underlined that the power would be used only to correct situations in which a measure had been made that was ultra vires through no fault of people acting in good faith and, presumably, within the law. I note that Lord Evans responded that that was correct. I would like the Minister explicitly and for the record—we know that the record can be used in a court of law—to underline that that is his understanding of the Government’s intention, and that it would be utterly unacceptable for the legislation to be used for any self-seeking purposes by an Administration—not Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, but any Administration in the Welsh Assembly. The second specific concern expressed by Lord Thomas of Gresford related to the question whether the Assembly could use the legislation to remove from a litigant a victory achieved in litigation. Once again, Lord Evans of Temple Guiting underlined the point that it would not be acceptable under any circumstances for the Welsh Assembly Government to reverse successful actions by litigants by using the Bill as a blocking mechanism to change legislation retrospectively. I seek the Minister’s assurance—once again, for the sake of the record—that that is explicitly the Bill’s intention. I recognise that however hard we try to close these loopholes, there is a danger of abuse of any legislation. Despite the assurances given to Lord Thomas of Gresford on those two points in the upper House, and in anticipation of the Minister underlining them today, I acknowledge that we are still vulnerable to the abuse of power by individuals in government or whole Governments, should they be so minded. We are talking about a limited insurance policy here, but it is probably the most that we can ever expect when we are discussing legislation. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield usefully requested that the Minister put on the record some form of words to encapsulate the assurances that we seek. I suggest that one of the best forms of words is offered by Lord Kingsland, who tabled an amendment debated in great detail in another place. It would have inserted the words:"““provided that such an Order is not to the detriment of those who have either benefited from or acted in reliance upon the state of the law before the retrospective Order is made””.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 July 2006; Vol. 684, c. 840-41.]" It strikes me that a small modification to that amendment, expressed by the Minister, could be helpful without in any way being detrimental to what the Government are seeking to do. It would be helpful if the Minister confirmed that the Government want to modify the legislation as they have set out, but also explicitly to require such an order not to be to the detriment of those who have benefited from, or acted in reliance upon, the state of the law before the retrospective order was made. That would be a very helpful clarification. I can see no contradiction between the Bill as it has been put forward by the Government and the intentions as they have been reasonably expressed by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield.