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Government of Wales Bill

We have had an interesting debate, which has gone on longer than I anticipated because of the significant contributions by some hon. Members. Deferring to the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) summed up the situation well. The Secretary of State is a man in a hurry. He does not want to wait. In a devastating critique, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West outlined that there is an element of political opportunism. What came through was that the Secretary of State is not showing any duty of care to the people of Wales by allowing the Bill to stand in the form that is before us. What I derived from the Father of the House’s contribution is that this is an experiment with the constitutional position of Wales, which is not advisable and will do no good. The fact that the Secretary of State was invited to place papers in the Library and papers were there none is also fairly significant. The consultation appeared to be only within the party and not with the public. That also goes some way to revealing the mindset behind the Bill. I shall touch only briefly on the comments by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), because his contribution was not one of his best. However, I want to defend him. The Secretary of State was unnecessarily cruel in his taunting. It is understandable that his arguments were not be as comprehensive as usual in the circumstances.