---

Government of Wales Bill

I seek to add to the impeccable logic of my noble friend. I am sure that he will address the points on the legal system which the Minister has made. However, Amendment No. 61 would replace Schedule 5 with a new schedule, which would specify reserved matters and those matters which are not reserved. Indeed it does, as the noble Lord said, make the Assembly into a similar body to the Scottish Parliament. Most people in Wales are concerned that whole areas will be subject not to the logic of primary legislative powers but to the managerial style of the Government, who bring in Orders in Council to get round some of the problems that arise. As my noble friend has said, the legal system in Wales is developing as time goes on. I can back him up in saying that there are strong voices in the legal profession in Wales who want a much more developed legal system in Wales to deal with the developing legislative system that is emerging via the Assembly. What concerns many people are the initiatives, particularly in those areas that impinge on primary legislation in education, health, agriculture—though some parts of the agricultural bodies have already been devolved—and local government. There are other issues such as Europe, broadcasting and transport and, as my noble friend has said, there is the whole issue of the imposition of a centralised solution for police forces in Wales. The record is that since devolution it has been an extremely long and at times tedious process to get even very few parts of primary legislation that affect Wales through Parliament in Westminster. The ratio is roughly one to eight for Wales, compared with the primary legislation that has gone through the Scottish Parliament in the same time. That is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. Maybe the managerial system of Orders in Council will produce—as I am sure it will—a hastening of the primary legislative procedure through this Parliament to benefit Wales but, as we know, there are a tremendous number of hurdles in the way. The Secretary of State and the veto powers of both Houses of Parliament are in the way of achieving many of the desirable primary legislative objectives of the National Assembly for Wales. I strongly support what my noble friend has said. I believe that Orders in Council are a managerial system and it would have been far better to have the straightforward competence of primary legislative powers for the Welsh Assembly.