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Government of Wales Bill

I am persuaded so far by what the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said in respect of what is, and what is to be. I look forward to the Minister’s response. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, said that his amendment related to what sort of parliament ““we wish to see””. That is an aspiration. As the Bill is drafted, even if there were 80 members, and STV, that would not alter its nature. Words have a baggage; they have a meaning. A parliament is very different from an assembly. A parliament may come in time but even with the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, the body could not amount to a parliament. As regards the word ““senedd””, some of us who attended the opening of the new building at the beginning of March were a little concerned about the use throughout of the Welsh words rather than the English. I yield to no one in being in favour of bilingualism. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord who introduced the Welsh Language Act some 10 years ago and the way in which that has effectively defused what could have been a highly combustible debate within Wales in respect of the language. The Conservative Party did a great service to Wales as regards that Act, preventing, say, the language division of Belgium and several other countries. Yet the Assembly has chosen to use the Welsh word for ““chamber””, for example. If we believe in bilingualism, we should be consistent. The sad thing is that those who were responsible for the naming of the parts of the Assembly have chosen Welsh words, suggesting that their commitment is essentially to monolingualism. I raise that matter as a pointer and a danger, but I hope that it will be recognised that it is not in the spirit of the Welsh Language Act and not in the spirit of bilingualism. I suspect that the noble Lord on the Benches opposite will have a certain sympathy for it.