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Government of Wales Bill

moved Amendment No. 69:"Page 53, line 25, leave out subsection (2)." The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 69 and other amendments in the group—Amendments Nos. 70, 71 and 72—deal with the internal proceedings of the Welsh Assembly on considering Assembly measures. They are, to a considerable extent, probing amendments and I hope that they will not arouse great passions during the course of the debate. Amendment No. 69 relates to Clause 97(2), which states:"““Subsection (1)””—" which deals with the normal procedure—"““does not prevent the standing orders making provision to enable the Assembly to expedite proceedings in relation to a particular proposed Assembly Measure””." If you have a well recognised legislative process—which we have, of course, in your Lordships’ House—it is quite a serious matter to derogate from that for one reason or another. It is true that, in the case of emergency legislation, law can pass through both another place and your Lordships’ House very quickly. This is because the measures are uncontroversial—or, at least, uncontroversial in the sense that everyone recognises their necessity, whether or not they are completely happy with the detail. But, in doing this, we go through each recognised procedure very swiftly and forgo the traditional time limits between stages which are otherwise an essential part of the ability of the House and another place to reconsider the position before the next stage is embarked upon. Subsection (2) suggests that ““a proposed Assembly measure””—and it does not seek to define further what it means by that—could be subject to something called ““expedited proceedings””; but we do not know what those expedited proceedings are. Would they involve missing out a stage stipulated in Clause 97(1), or would they simply involve collapsing the time differences between the various stages? I think we need, if not more detail on the face of the Bill, a clear explanation from the Government of what this entails. Amendments Nos. 70 and 71 seek to amend parts of Clause 97(3). We have no quarrel with the substance of subsection (3)(a) and (b), and we leave those paragraphs intact. Our concerns are with subsection (3)(c), which deals with private proposed Assembly measures. Why should private proposals be dealt with differently from public Bills? We know, of course, that private proposals have a particular political status but, as far as your Lordships’ House is concerned, once a Private Member’s Bill is on foot, it has to go through all the stages that a public Bill would go through in your Lordships’ House. So what is it about private proposals that ought to give them a privileged legislative procedure which public Bills do not have? Of course, one does not know how this provision will be interpreted. It may be that those who draft the standing orders in the Assembly will place greater hurdles in the way of private Bills than those placed in the way of public Bills. I do not know what is likely to be contemplated and it may well be that the Minister cannot give a complete answer. The Minister looks surprised that he cannot give a complete answer. We are always surprised when he cannot give a complete answer; but, in this case, I, myself, would not be surprised because this is a matter that is within the compass of the responsibilities of the Welsh Assembly. I should be most grateful if the Minister would be kind enough, to the extent that he is able, to explain in more detail what lies behind these provisions. I beg to move.