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Government of Wales Bill

The purpose of Amendment No. 94 would be to allow anyone making payments into the Welsh Consolidated Fund under Clause 117 to attach conditions to those payments and set out specific consequences that may occur if they are not met. The effect of the proposed amendment would be to allow both the Secretary of State when making payments under Clause 117(1) and Ministers and departments when making payments under Clause 117(2) to impose conditions on how the money they are paying into the Welsh Consolidated Fund is to be used. The ability to impose such conditions on payments made by the Secretary of State under Clause 117(1) would subordinate Welsh Ministers to their colleagues in Whitehall and could lead to them being required to implement Whitehall policies instead of those on which they were elected by the people of Wales. The Assembly is a democratically elected body accountable to the people of Wales; it is not an agency of central government. In relation to payments made under Clause 117(2), any functions that have been agreed to be undertaken in Wales on behalf of a UK Minister of the Crown or a government department would have to be set out in a budget resolution. Where ministerial agreement has been reached for certain functions to be carried out in Wales on behalf of a UK Minister or government department, it would be inconsistent and unnecessary for legal conditions to be attached to this. Furthermore, Clause 137 requires the Auditor General, when examining Welsh Ministers’ accounts, to be satisfied that the money received by them for a particular purpose has been used for that purpose only. The provisions in Part 5 already provide sufficient control mechanisms to ensure that money paid to Welsh Ministers by the UK Government is spent only on the functions for which it was intended. Fundamentally, the amendment would fetter the democratic will of the Assembly government and is therefore, we believe, inconsistent with the devolution settlement. Given this explanation, with which I hope the noble Baroness will be satisfied, I would ask her to withdraw the amendment.