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Government of Wales Bill

I probably should have raised this point on the previous amendment. My noble friend has referred to the role of the Treasury in these affairs and, as we debated an earlier amendment, I kept saying to myself, ““I wonder what the Treasury is going to do about this””. In his response, the Minister constantly referred to the Assembly being responsible for the expenditure of the Welsh Consolidated Fund, but under Clause 135, which deals with examinations by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we learn that the Comptroller and Auditor General may report the results of any examination carried out under subsection (1) to the House of Commons. Paragraph 486 of the Explanatory Notes explains:"““This is because the Welsh Consolidated Fund will be largely made up of monies voted by Parliament to the Secretary of State for Wales, and, in Parliament, the House of Commons controls the supply of finance to the executive””." So it is not quite as simple as the Minister indicated previously—that the Welsh Consolidated Fund is a matter for the Welsh Assembly—because if it does not manage the fund sufficiently well to get approval from the Comptroller and Auditor General, the House of Commons can become heavily involved. So there are two ways in which the UK Parliament can become involved—in the form of Treasury interference and House of Commons participation—and it would therefore be very helpful before we get on to the next stage if the Minister could give some explanation of the exact relationship between the two and the circumstances in which he can envisage the House of Commons perhaps taking a fairly strong and hostile view if there was an adverse report from the Comptroller and Auditor General. These things happen. In a recent case, the Home Office was castigated by the Comptroller and Auditor General for not having had its accounts approved. If a major department of state such as the Home Office can get things disastrously wrong, the Welsh Assembly might get things disastrously wrong. If that happens, what follows from it? I should be grateful for some clarification.