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Government of Wales Bill

I thank the Minister for the measured and courteous way in which he responded to my amendment. I also thank all noble Lords who have spoken for their support. I refer in particular to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, whose experience in Parliament, in the courts and as Lord Advocate is very helpful to your Lordships when considering matters of this sort. I am pleased that we agree that the idea of bolting on bits and pieces to the legal competence of the Welsh Assembly is highly unsatisfactory—that is, that we should from time to time in incremental stages take this bit and that bit and simply say through an Order in Council, ““Well, you can now legislate on this or on that””. It is a very unsatisfactory solution. I agree with the noble and learned Lord that the solution proposed for Scotland in 1998 was much better. I do not accept the argument about there being a single legal system for England and Wales. I tried to address that when I moved the amendment and to point out that a corpus of Welsh law is developing which does not apply in England. In the early days of our devolution discussions—perhaps as long ago as 1997—I suggested that the Court of Appeal should sit in Wales and also that divisions of the Divisional Court should sit there to deal with administrative law. I do not suppose that this has anything to do with what I said but subsequently the Court of Appeal sat in Wales and so did the Administrative Court. It is highly appropriate that that should happen because we do not want a system whereby judges with absolutely no experience of devolution or Welsh legislation come to Wales and are presented with a completely new problem and new legislation. It is inevitable that a separate system will grow up, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser, pointed out, just as has been the case within the National Health Service. We regard this as such a strong matter of principle that I intend to test the opinion of the Committee. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 60) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 56; Not-Contents, 134.