Local Government (Wales) Measure 2009 (Consequential Modifications) Order 2010

My Lords, I am grateful for the scrutiny that has been vouchsafed on this order by the Committee today. If there is any suggestion that it has not been scrutinised enough in the past, we have certainly made up for it over the past 20 minutes or so. I assure my noble friend Lord Rowlands that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has scrutinised the order, so he can rest assured that the House has done its job in those terms. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, indicated that he thought that the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, had been pertinent in his questions. I did not. I thought he was extremely pertinent in one question but extremely impertinent in another. He said that we would be surprised to see him in his place but I am absolutely delighted to see him in that position. As we all know, he has graced that position for many years and has served in a ministerial role in the past. However, the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, believes that today is the occasion when we can scrutinise and challenge the principles of the measure passed by the Assembly—not this order, but the principles of the measure. The legislative Assembly thinks that the narrow concept of best value ought to be replaced, as the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, indicated, by a concept more appropriate to a strategic approach to local government in Wales. If the Assembly reaches that judgment in the age of devolution, I am not going to have the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, come to this Committee and say, "But I disagree with the principles on which the legislative Assembly is working". That is its rightful power. I described the order as being largely technical and I will come to the points that have been appropriately raised. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, raised some entirely appropriate points but his main point was not appropriate. It strays too far and I am not prepared to accept it. My noble friend Lord Rowlands never strayed from accuracy in his analysis of the issue, save in one respect. This is not a mistake; there is no oversight; this is not covering up a slip. It covers up, over a minor and technical area, for the fact that the settlement does not include this minor, technical aspect but covers the broad issues. That is why I am in dispute with the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, on whether the broad issues should have been the subject of any controversy within the Committee. It could have been dealt with in another way. We could have had a new legislative competence order to deal with this minor matter which involves no new principle. Everything to do with the order follows principles which obtain across the rest of the United Kingdom and have already been in practice over a long period. Nothing new is suggested here but it was outside the competence of the Assembly to establish this. Consequently, the Assembly has this principle in its new make-up. I am not prepared to countenance the noble Lord’s point except in general terms. I am always grateful for his views in general terms, but not if he is going to knock over the measure on an issue of principle of that kind. The Assembly does not have the competence for this technical aspect. It was not thought that a major legislative competence was necessary for this, but rather that it could be dealt with through a relatively minor order that was restrictive, specific and dealt with well established practice. I hope my noble friend Lord Rowlands will accept that answer.