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Government of Wales Bill

Clause 119 deals with those sums that need to be paid into the Welsh Consolidated Fund and those that do not. The normal position is that sums received by the Welsh Ministers, the First Minister, the Counsel General, the Assembly Commission, the Auditor General for Wales or the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales are to be paid into the Welsh Consolidated Fund unless one of the exceptions in Clause 119 applies. However, the clause includes a provision for the Treasury to make an order designating certain categories of receipt. This would mean that the Welsh Ministers would have to pay an amount equivalent to those receipts into the UK Consolidated Fund via the Secretary of State for Wales. Once the Welsh Consolidated Fund is established, the presumption is that moneys received by the Welsh Ministers, the Assembly Commission, the Auditor General and the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales will stay in Wales; that is, those sums will either be paid into the Welsh Consolidated Fund established by the Bill or be authorised by the Assembly to be retained by the relevant persons for use on their functions. However, a mechanism is still needed—albeit as the exception rather than the rule—which allows receipts which are collected on behalf of central government and which properly belong to central government to be paid back to the Treasury. The Treasury has a similar power under Section 64(5) of the Scotland Act 1998 to designate receipts which would otherwise be payable into the Scottish Consolidated Fund to be paid instead into the UK Consolidated Fund. An example of the sort of receipt which the Treasury might include in a designation order is the £100,000 a year which Pembrokeshire County Council is repaying against a loan made to it by the Wales Office for repair work to the Cleddau bridge. The Government are persuaded of the need to continue the facility for the Treasury to claim for the UK Consolidated Fund those receipts which properly belong to it. I therefore invite the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, to withdraw Amendment No. 95, which would remove this facility completely. Amendment No. 96 would subject Treasury designation orders to affirmative parliamentary procedure. The Government prefer such orders to be subject to negative parliamentary procedure. Treasury designation orders under the Scotland Act are subject to a similar procedure to that proposed for Wales. The power is exercisable only after consultation with the Scottish Ministers. Under Section 115(1) of and Schedule 7 to the Scotland Act 1998, such Treasury orders are subject to the negative procedure in another place. This order-making power, with its use of negative parliamentary procedure, was specifically drawn to the attention of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the memorandum on this Bill. In light of the limited scope of this power, and the fact that such orders would require prior consultation with Welsh Ministers under Clause 119(3), the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee was satisfied that negative parliamentary procedure was appropriate for Wales, just as it was for Scotland. I hope that, with the benefit of this explanation, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.