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Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, Amendment No. 61A, on which I believe Amendment No. 61B is consequential, would prevent any addition to, or alteration of, the fields listed in Schedule 5 by Order in Council under Clause 94. Such additions or modifications to those fields could be achieved only by or under another UK Parliament Bill. The amendments seek to preclude any possibility of the Assembly’s legislative competence being expanded into new fields. The Bill does not confer any legislative competence on the Assembly, other than in respect of those matters listed under ““Field 13: National Assembly for Wales””. Any decision to confer additional legislative competence on the Assembly, or to add to the fields in which it may acquire such competence, will be taken on a case-by-case basis, with the agreement of both Houses of Parliament. The amendments would mean that even if the Welsh Ministers were to acquire new functions in a field other than those listed in Schedule 5, the Assembly would not be able to seek to gain legislative competence in that field through an Order in Council under Clause 94. That would be unnecessarily inflexible. The Government’s intention is that if functions in a new field are transferred to the Welsh Ministers then the Assembly should have the ability to acquire legislative competence over those matters, subject to Parliament’s consent. As drafted, the Bill provides that a field cannot be added to Schedule 5 if the Welsh Ministers, First Minister or Counsel General have no functions in that field. That is consistent with the policy set out in the White Paper, Better Governance for Wales. Amendment No. 61B would remove this condition. It would be unreasonable to seek to limit the potential legislative competence of the Assembly in perpetuity. If Welsh Ministers were to acquire functions in a new field, as they could do under Clause 58 of the Bill, it would be inconsistent to say that the Assembly should not be able to acquire legislative competence in that field as well. Why should that field be different from all the others? It would still be a matter for Parliament to decide under Clause 94 whether Schedule 5 should be amended in that way, so Parliament would still be in control. I hope that what I have said reassures the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, and that he will feel able to withdrawn his amendment.