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Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, I am wary of referendums and of the changed attitude towards them on the part of the Conservative Party. Following my experience of the 1979 and 1997 referendums and of campaigning on the Maastricht referendum in France, I am convinced that the outcome will depend most frequently not on the text but on the context. For example, in 1979 and 1997 it was a question of whether the Government were popular and who was campaigning. As President Mitterrand said, the French always gave an answer to the wrong question in their referendums. I simply repeat that I fear that any referendum on the more limited and, I concede, step-by-step, devolution process would have a very low turnout and would lack credibility.