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Government of Wales Bill

He went on holiday at the end of last week; there was plenty of time for the Secretary of State to speak to him before he went on holiday and before the press release was issued on 19 January. He was not on holiday then. Interestingly enough—as if to compound all this—the Secretary of State for Scotland was answering questions in the House on Tuesday. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) asked him a simple question: was he aware of what was happening, and would he rule out the introduction of the changes that he proposes in Scotland? The Secretary of State replied that he did not"““expect any early changes to be made to the Scotland Act 1998””," and that he had"““made it clear that I do not think any changes will be possible before the coming elections to the Scottish Parliament.””—[Official Report, 24 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 1291.]" Why would that be? Might it be that Labour Members in Scotland are in the list system, which does not apply in Wales? I leave the Committee to draw its own conclusions. Other Members may wish to allude to the subject, but I believe that more than one Member is in the list system in Scotland, and one may be a Minister. If that does not represent a level of hypocrisy, it is hard to understand why.