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Government of Wales Bill

I have some sympathy with the amendments proposed. The office of Counsel General has suffered a sea change within the past few years. When the Assembly was first created, the role of the Counsel General could probably have been said to be akin to that of a conscientious clerk to a county council in the old days when such a clerk was a lawyer and intended to act as the solicitor, as it were, for that body. With the development of the Assembly, and particularly with the developments enshrined in the Bill, it is entirely proper that the role of the Counsel General should be regarded as more comparable with the role of an Attorney-General than with that of a clerk to a county council. I agree completely with what has been said: it is essential that the Counsel General is a person of the highest legal standing and, indeed, of considerable experience. I do not comment on what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said about the difficulties relating to appointment. I have shared chambers with both Mr Roddick, whom I regard as a person of the highest distinction, and Mr Elias—the candidate whose candidature caused such controversy—again, a person of the utmost probity and the first rank of legal experience and expertise. Nevertheless, if the role is to be comparable with that of an Attorney-General, one may very well have to accept that it is a quasi-legal appointment. That does not damn that appointment for all time. Attorneys-General perform two roles: they are members of a government and political creatures, but they also exercise quasi-judicial functions. I believe that in all parties over the last 100 years one has found, almost invariably, an adherence to such standards. I had the very splendid experience in this Chamber of being an understudy to the late Lord Elwyn-Jones. I cannot imagine anybody who so portrayed those qualities of judicial independence as well as he did. I would accept, therefore, that the development of the Assembly justifies a change in the role of the Counsel General. It is inevitable that there should be some prospect of that person being a political appointment. I am not entirely happy with the idea that he should be a Minister; I would prefer him to be independent of that system. However, I doubt very much whether one can have it both ways. One has to accept, therefore, his political involvement. What I unfortunately do not accept is that there should be consultation with the Attorney-General before an appointment is made. The Assembly is given great powers and much trust is to be invested in it. It would be insulting and wholly unnecessary for there to be a necessity for that consultation.