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Government of Wales Bill

We owe a great debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, for raising these important issues in the way that he has. I also strongly support the remarks of the noble Baroness. As I listened to my noble friend Lord Kingsland, I was reminded of the important contribution made in another place by Mr Paul Murphy, who, after all, has great authority to speak on the topic. He made it very clear that he was not at all happy about the adequacy of the arrangements for considering these Orders in Council and what was to be in them. He said that he was not convinced that these arrangements should be dealt with simply by the business managers. He argued that there was a case for the Assembly and Parliament to meet together in a committee structure to look at the arrangements. He said:"““The arrangements for the Assembly Government, or the Executive as it is likely to be called, and the British Government in terms of working out what happens with the Orders in Council are well defined in the Bill. Checks and balances exist, but there is a gap as far as this place is concerned””—" he was referring to the other place. He continued:"““My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister would do well to return to the issue with colleagues, whether it be the Leader of the House or whoever, to consider again whether to establish formally in writing—in Standing Orders, in legislation or wherever—a system by which pre-legislative scrutiny is defined more closely and adequately, and Orders in Council themselves are not limited to one and a half hours’ debate upstairs in a Committee. That is not good enough for the issues that we are dealing with””.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/1/06; col. 1195.]" That is another aspect of the limitations, referred to by my noble friend Lord Kingsland, under which we would be operating. Having read the debates in another place, I am not at all clear that there has been an adequate response from the Government on how these matters are to be dealt with. The Minister has no doubt been considering very carefully the remarks of the right honourable gentleman in another place and other points that have been raised, including those of the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, about how we are adequately to be apprised of what really is involved in the orders that come before us. The noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, made it clear that this was a probing amendment and that he was looking for information. It is therefore very important at this stage that we hear a pretty coherent account from the Minister so that we can consider the adequacy of these arrangements when we come to a later stage of the Bill.