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Government of Wales Bill

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) and her colleagues for speaking so briefly on the preceding new clauses. New clause 11 deals with the allocation of funds. It returns us to the age-old debate, which I have initiated many times over the past nine years, about the principles of fairness, transparency and a needs-based formula for conveying money to the Welsh Assembly and thus to the Welsh people. Currently, as all Members know, we have the Barnett formula, which is so discredited that Barnett himself—the inventor of the formula—says that he is ashamed to be associated with it. It was good for its time but its time has long gone, and for that reason we Liberal Democrats propose new clause 11, which would require the Secretary of State to"““appoint a panel of not less than four and not more than six experts to recommend the sums of money to be allocated to the Welsh Consolidated Fund.””" The Secretary of State would also be required to publish in full the terms of any funding recommendations made by the panel. Moreover, the panel would have specific regard to"““the principle of fairness . . . the principle of transparency . . . and . . . the particular needs of Wales.””" The problem is that the Barnett formula is not needs-based and does not take account of the social and economic conditions of Wales. Furthermore, it has random unintended consequences that create difficulties in allocating funds to Welsh expenditure. If we compare what Wales is given with what it needs, it is clear that it often loses out. The levels of deprivation in Wales and its economic circumstances are often quite different from those in the rest of the UK. So our request is very simple: that the Government take on board a recommendation that has come from all quarters, including from the inventor of the existing formula himself; and that, for once, they listen to recommendations—made, on this occasion, by Opposition politicians—based on common sense.