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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

I fully support the amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig). When the Government of Wales Bill was being considered in the Chamber—it involved major constitutional change to our country and to Wales—the question of the scrutiny of how we devolve primary powers to the Assembly in Cardiff was a matter of great debate. Behind that lay the desire for proper scrutiny of such legislation. Normally, it would be done by legislative Orders in Council. That would involve pre-legislative scrutiny by the Welsh Affairs Committee, which is chaired my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), together with a Committee in the Assembly. Letting these things go through in primary legislation avoids that proper scrutiny. We have a new dispensation in Wales. We are told that we are in a new dawn of politics. That means that the spotlight on Welsh Members and on the business of Welsh legislation in this place is much stronger than it used to be. There is also the problem that if what we might call English Whitehall Departments are charged with legislation that involves scrutiny of the devolution of primary powers, they do not take too much notice of that because they see it simply as being something Welsh. Unhappily, that can also be the case among Members of the House. We have to beware of how we scrutinise our legislation. When my hon. Friend the Minister winds up, will he assure me that the Wales Office will take particular care to ensure that when dealing with the National Assembly, and particularly with other Departments, there is proper scrutiny and that we avoid the mess that we have got into over devolving this issue? We had a debate earlier about the awarding of foundation degrees at further education colleges in Wales. That would have been resolved had there been a proper system in this place to deal with these matters.