Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, I know that my noble friend on the Front Bench is getting restive—I detect that from the back of his neck. He obviously wants to get on with the debate, but perhaps he will allow me to say two or three words as I have been involved in this exercise for a considerable time. I think that, however one looks at it, on the whole one should support the structure proposed in the Bill. It gives increased legislative competence to the Assembly and that is the object of the exercise. The whole thrust of the report of the commission which I had the honour to chair was that more power needed to be devolved to Cardiff and that it should have the power to legislate directly in certain areas. The Government have come up with a set of proposals which, I am bound to say, I find complicated and complex. But if they can do what the Government claim they can, that will go a very long way towards implementing exactly what the commission recommended and was in favour of. The danger in the proposed procedures is that the relationship between the request by the Assembly and its consideration by Westminster is still unclear. I do not know what that relationship will be. How will it work? One has to hope that, although the devil is in the detail, perhaps there is a bit of virtue as well, and that once it has bedded down and been given the opportunity to work, one will achieve the Government’s objective of greater legislative competence in Cardiff. I would not claim that this is a good Bill; I could not do that because it does not do what we are recommending. When the White Paper first came out, I said that in all the circumstances I would give the Government a B+; I would not give them an A. That is still my position. It is a respectable B+; in university terms, it is a respectable 2:1. It is not quite a first, but it steps in the right direction, so for that reason we should support it.