Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, I support Motions B and C and inform the House—I know that many noble Lords and Members in another place follow events in the Assembly in detail—that, by using the device for electing Assembly committees, we have established the shadow commission which has met formally on at least three occasions. It indeed includes a member of each political group. Therefore, I very much welcome the amendment. I hope that, when the commission becomes statutory under the Bill, it will be able to pursue its activities in a non-party-political, non-partisan way. Having representation from each political group will help us to do that. On Motion C, I also welcome the reference to independent Members. We seem to have more and more independent Members in the present Assembly. In the post-2007 Assembly, there may be even more. I hope that no such Member represents Dwyfor Meirionnydd, otherwise I am in difficulty. However, that proposal is very welcome—as, indeed, is the whole compromise on this matter. I have been particularly concerned about the establishment, selection or election of committees and their size and function. I was especially concerned when d'Hondt appeared rather late in the day. D'Hondt did not appear in the White Paper or in early versions of the provisions; d'Hondt suddenly appeared in the Bill. I publicly admit to having carried on a bit of a campaign on this matter because d'Hondt would not have been an appropriate way to establish committees in the first instance. I accept the compromise that it is a backstop, but to set down in the Bill that all committees, with a few exceptions, would have to be constituted in that way would have meant that all committees would have had to have 10 members. Already, half of the Assembly would be committed to being members of committees. There is clearly inflexibility in that approach. Now, we will have three stages: I hope a negotiated agreement for committee structures; if not, a two-thirds majority approving them by resolution. My noble friend Lady Finlay said that she is concerned that committees should ask critical questions of government. I hope that all Assembly committees will be willing and able to ask much more critical questions of government than they have done so far. She referred to a free vote in the establishment of committees. That is a very important principle. I am sure that she has already read the detail of Sir Jeremy Beecham's report. She will find a section there on scrutiny that advocates that very principle: that scrutiny committees in local government should be elected without a party whip and on a free vote. I hope that we can pursue that matter. I am especially anxious to encourage the scrutiny of government policy by its own supporters, those who are part of its vote, in any parliamentary institution. We have not perhaps seen as much of that in the Assembly as we might. I had better not go on in this vein because I might be accused of being negative, which I would never want to be. I warmly welcome the willingness of the Government to compromise and the way in which Ministers have sorted this out. I pay tribute to the Liberal Democrats and all Members who have helped to bring this about.