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Government of Wales Bill

I wish to speak briefly to these amendments. At Second Reading I expressed grave concern about the d’Hondt formula, and that still stands. There seems to be a choice here. If I had to choose one amendment, I would plump for Amendment No. 32, which would make the system a little more open to the public in Wales regarding how people become elected Members. It also recognises the reality of a committee; namely, that the chair has enormous influence on the way it works and, indeed, carries a huge amount of responsibility in the process. I too have gone through the document—I assume that it is the same document—and looked at the different ratios and formulae for the size of the committees, and my reservations about d’Hondt were reinforced. I agree with the statement made tonight that there is a principle here that if we are giving powers to the Assembly, it has to be able to determine the details of its workings itself. However, we need to provide some checks and balances in the system. Hence we cannot just say, ““The committee is set up as and whenever””. Both Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 have a degree of checks and balances by this Parliament regarding the Assembly to ensure that there is representation as determined by the voters at the time that they elected the Assembly Members.