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Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, we are distinguishing between a Welsh Minister who is responsible to the Executive and Ministers who may have been in a UK Government, whom the Assembly has no right to summon. The Assembly may ask them to attend because it has discovered that they may be able to offer valid evidence, but they cannot be summoned before it; only the Welsh Executive can be summoned. I emphasise what I said in my opening remarks; they cannot be summoned to be questioned about the exercise of their functions outside their Welsh responsibilities because UK Ministers are answerable to the UK Parliament, not to the Welsh Assembly. As I said, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, through his amendment is trying to bring about a circumstance where UK Ministers would be answerable to the Welsh Assembly. I indicated that if that were what he was about, I would be stout in resisting that notion for all the obvious reasons on the boundaries of devolution. However, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, presented the argument in those terms and that is why I did not stress it too significantly.