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Government of Wales Bill

moved Amendment No. 95:"Page 65, line 24, leave out subsections (3) to (7)." The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 95, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 96. Both amendments seek to amend Clause 119, which concerns receipts by Welsh Ministers and others. In general, receipts go into the Welsh Consolidated Fund except where an Assembly budget resolution or an enactment requires otherwise. But subsections (3) to (6) state that the Treasury can designate certain types of sum and have them paid to the Treasury. We should not perhaps be surprised to find that the long arm of the Treasury will be able to reach into the Welsh Consolidated Fund, but I think we are entitled to an explanation of why this power is necessary and for what purpose it is intended to be used. I turned to the Explanatory Notes to find out what sorts of sums the Treasury would appropriate under these powers, but the Explanatory Notes at paragraph 452 confine themselves to repeating the mechanism set out in Clause 119 without a single word of explanation. Amendment No. 95 seeks to delete subsections (3) to (7). I hope that the Government will be able to set out clearly their intentions in relation to these powers. Amendment No. 96 confines itself to subsection (7) and replaces the negative statutory instrument procedure, which will be used by the Treasury to designate sums under Clause 119, with an affirmative one. It seems to me that the powers of the Treasury to stage a smash and grab raid on Welsh money by virtue of Clause 119 should be constrained by something a little more meaty than the negative procedure—that is to say, the Government should have to come to explain to both Houses of Parliament why the Treasury should be allowed to act in this way. I beg to move.