STANDING ORDERS (Hansard, 7 March 1978)

§ Mr. Brittan
I beg to move Amendment No. 220, in page 7, line 17, at end add— '(4) The standing orders shall not have effect until they have been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.'. In this part of the Bill we come to consider the detailed operation of the Welsh Assembly, thereby adding flesh to the skeleton of the Assembly's creation. This amendment gives the House of Commons the power to approve the standing orders of the Assembly and requires those standing orders to be approved by the House of Commons if they are to have effect.
1315 I stress that this is not a case of the House of Commons taking over from the Assembly a specific function. It is not suggested that the House of Commons should decide what the standing orders should be. It is merely a matter of the House of Commons having a reasonable degree of supervisory power and the right to veto standing orders proposed and formulated by the Welsh Assembly.
In moving this amendment, I stress that in the Wales Bill we are creating what is in effect a written constitution for Wales. The fact that the Welsh Assembly does not have penary legislative powers, although it has very substantial legislative powers, does not any the less make the Bill a constitution for Wales. As such, the standing orders of the Assembly assume crucial importance.
The reason for this is that the way in which the Assembly is to operate, the way in which it is to exercise its very substantial powers, appears in the context of this Bill only in the barest and most general outlines. All the rest is to be left to the Assembly.

Mr. Dayell
I wonder whether I am in order in bringing to your attention, Sir Myer, the fact that there are present on the Government Back Benches a Scot who thinks this whole idea preposterous, my hon. Friend the Member for Stock-port North (Mr. Bennett), who is interested in freedom of information, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis), who has his own view of world government. There is no one else connected with the Government side. Who on earth wants this Bill?

§ Mr. Brittan
I welcome that intervention. It is a salutary one. It is all too easy to go on absorbed in the detail of the Bill, which requires careful analysis, and not realise the artificiality of the debate. The Bill has no significant or substantial body of support. It does not appear to attract sufficient interest among those who support a Government who choose to put it forward for there to be other than the scantiest representation of the Bill's supporters.

§ Mr. Brittan
No. I must not give way to the hon. Member, especially in view of the guillotine. I think that it would be better for me to carry on with my argu- 1316 ment about the standing orders of the Assembly.

Mr. Ellis
Hear, hear.

§ Mr. Brittan
If that was the hon. Member's point, I am happy to relieve him of the necessity to make it.
The Bill sets out only in the most general terms the powers of the Assembly and the way in which it is to operate. In Clauses 18 and 19 and the subsequent clauses, the Bill sets up for the Assembly this very curious hybrid, concealed form of government in which there is a Cabinet system which is concealed as being other than a Cabinet system, an Executive which pretends to be other than what it really is, and a Chief Executive, who is not what that name means to anyone who is used to the term.
The Bill also contrives to set up a committee structure of a particularly undesirable kind which we shall consider in greater detail later, and it really seems to consist of the worst possible features of the local government system in the creation of an Assembly which is purporting to be an Assembly acting for the whole of Wales and exercising powers at the moment granted to and exercised by central Government.
That aspect of the operation of the Assembly is provided by the Bill, and this curious form of Cabinet government under another name—the crime which is not prepared to disclose its identity—is a matter which we shall want to debate.
Apart from the operation of the Assembly, there is little in the Bill about what is to happen. We are told in Clause 16(2) that The standing orders shall include provision for the election of a presiding officer". Is it necessary to insert that in the Bill? Then, in Clause 16(3) we are told that The standing orders may include provivision for preserving order in the proceedings of the Assembly, including provision for excluding a member from such proceedings. That is an extremely important provision. It means that, if we do not retain some form of scrutiny of what the standing orders actually say, the standing orders may include provision whereby a Member who is elected by the people of his constituency can be excluded from proceedings for an indefinite period which is not specified in the Bill and which is up to the 1317 Assembly to decide, for reasons which are described in the most general terms as the preserving of order, which can cover almost anything or nothing.
I am not suggesting that a Welsh Assembly elected by the people of Wales is likely to abuse that power of the standing orders. But I think that as it is a subordinate body deliberately created as such by this Parliament, it is not unreasonable that so Draconian a power should at least come under a measure of supervision by the House of Commons with the House of Commons having at least a power of veto, if no more than that, which is al] that this amendment proposes.
I shall not go into the implications of Clause 16(3) in great detail. However, I draw the attention of the Committee to the debate that we had on the comparable clause in the Scotland Bill. On that occasion the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) pointed out that under that innocent provision there were fundamental constitutional implications and that merely to say in an innocent sort of way, as though it was like saying that a teacher could control traffic in a school playground, that the Assembly could prescribe standing orders which might include excluding Members from its proceedings was a totally unsatisfactory way of legislating if we were seriously electing an Assembly which had any right to that title.
In Clause 17 one sees that the standing orders shall include precision for securing that members with pecuniary interests, as defined by the standing orders … disclose them". Of course, the standing orders can define "pecuniary interests" in any way that they like.
Clause 21 gives an even clearer indication of the importance of the standing orders for the future of the people of Wales and their Government. But there is a total absence of control by regulation as to what those standing orders should say. Clause 21 states that subordinate legislation which is handed over to the Assembly, but which would continue to be exercised by the Welsh Office, would be subject to annulment or approval by either or both Houses of Parliament". 1318 In those circumstances, the Assembly cannot exercise the power of making such subordinate legislation by means of one of its infamous committee. It has to be done by the Assembly as a whole. So far, so good. But Clause 21(3) goes on to say: In such cases of urgency as may be specified for the purposes of this section by the standing orders of the Assembly, a committee may be charged with the exercise of a power. in respect of the previous provisions of Clause 21. Therefore, one is saying that if the standing orders state that the case is an urgent one, then, in spite of Clause 21, the Committee alone can exercise legislative power—because that is what it is—and if the enactment is couched in wide terms, the legislative power can be a very substantial one.
As we saw in the debate last Thursday, a major change of policy, such as the abolition or the creation of direct-grant schools, can be secured by subordinate legislation and not by primary legislation. If the standing orders of the Assembly are so couched as to enable the situation to be regarded as one of urgency, then a Committee of the Assembly can pass an enactment of that kind and there will be nothing that anyone can do about it.
If we are to have a provision of that kind, if the Assembly is to have a power of that kind and if a Committee of the Assembly in cases of urgency is to have a power of that kind, it does not seem too much to say that the House of Commons should at least have the power, not to define what cases of urgency may be, but at least to be satisfied that the description of cases of urgency in the standing orders devised by the Assembly itself is adequate and reasonable. Only if this amendment is passed would that power lie in the hands of the House of Commons.
I have concentrated on the vaguenesses of the clauses which specifically related to the standing orders of the Assembly. But I prefaced my remarks by saying just how few such clauses were. For the most part the Assembly can create the standing orders at will and in whatever shape or form it wishes. In that situation, it seems to me, the proposal that the House of Commons should have a veto over the standing orders—and no more than a veto—is not a case of interference in the domestic affairs of the 1319 Assembly or trying to keep the Assembly on apron strings; rather, it is saying that if the constitution of Wales is in part to be created by the Welsh Assembly itself—and the standing orders will indeed form part of that constitution—at least the body which creates the constitution should have a final say with regard to such matters.
I believe that this is of great practical importance as well as constitutional and theoretical importance. Some hon. Members who are interested in what goes on in Scotland may have read in the Press recently suggestions—I do not know how authoritative—to the effect that the Labour Party in Scotland, which may have an influential role in the Scottish Assembly, proposes to use the Scottish Assembly as a laboratory of constitutional and parliamentary change and to turn parliamentary procedure upside down.
One reads from the reports that the Scottish people are less than happy about the changes that are proposed in the operation of the Assembly. It is suggested that certain proposals will be subject to the control of outside bodies and so on. That is a vivid illustration of what could happen. Already, before the Scotland Bill is anywhere near enactment, let alone approved by the people of Scotland, we have a situation in which one of the major interested parties is telling us of the major constitutional and parliamentary changes that it proposes to use through the standing orders and through its hoped-for power to control those standing orders.
It may be entirely healthy that the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies, if they are to be set up, should be used as a laboratory for constitutional and parliamentary change. I do not rule out the possibility that one or other or both of the Assemblies, through their standing orders, may have a great deal to teach this House of Commons about the reform of it's own procedures, which we Conservatives in no sense regard as perfect or the last word. But the proposals that have so far emerged are in some respects alarming. Let us hope that they will be as healthily invocative as one could wish. If that is so, there is nothing in the amendment which prevents this House from taking note and adopting or adapting such procedures. If anything, it ensures that 1320 the standing orders—if they are so invocative—will come formally to the notice of this House and we shall learn the better for being required to approve or to disapprove of them.
If those opportunities for constitutional and parliamentary change are abused—at this stage I do not think that can be ruled out as inconceivable—it is not asking too much of the House of Commons to be the arbiter not of the contents of those standing orders but of their adequacy and reasonableness. If they are rejected, it would still be for the Assembly to have another go in order to produce an alternative set of standing orders which would exclude the parts objected to or which would alter them in a way that would render them unobjectionable.
For these reasons I ask the Committee to give serious consideration to what we regard as a wholly constructive proposal. It would not be inconsistent with the measure of devolution granted by this Bill—strongly as we oppose it—and it would give a safeguard to the constitutional viability and desirability of the scheme for Wales as a whole.

§ Mr. Dalyell
May I place on the record that the reason that you called me first on the issue of the nuts and bolts of the Welsh Assembly, Sir Myer, was that no Welshman was standing up to be called.

§ The First Deputy Chairman
Order. I think that the hon. Member is wrong. I shall let him into a secret. While I have been sitting here occupying the Chair I have been listening carefully to the debate, and I am sorely tempted to offer my services as the First Chairman of the proposed Assembly.

§ Mr. Peter Temple-Morris (Leominster)
On a point of order, Sir Myer. May I point out that not every one who is a Member for an English constituency is necessarily English. A Welsh Member did stand up but he was on this side of the Committee, not the Government side.

§ The First Deputy Chairman
Order. I know that the hon. Member qualifies under the heading that the hon. Member for West Lothian has outlined, but I do not think that I shall change my mind about whom I shall call.

Mr. Tom Ellis
On a point of order, Sir Myer. May I point out that in the previous debate nine Welshmen spoke, six of whom were in favour of the Bill and three against?

§ Mr. Dalyell
I still think that it is very odd that if there is an overwhelming desire for a Welsh Assembly, at the critical moment when we are discussing the nuts and bolts of the Bill—

§ Mr. Hooson
This is not critical.

§ Mr. Dalyell
If it is not critical, then I do not know what we are doing here.

§ Mr. Hooson
Many hon. Members consider that the amendments that follow this amendment are more important. That may be why they want to curtail the debate on this one so that they will have time left to discuss the more important amendments.

§ Mr. Dalyell
That is the reason why I shall be brief in my contribution. I simply want to ask the Front Bench one question. Before I do I might add that I believe it rather strange—with respect to the Under-Secretary—that on this kind of issue there is no Law Officer present. I would have thought that the presence of a Law Officer was highly desirable to answer the points put forward by the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan).
I shall confine myself to one question. Is it conceivable that if there is an elected Welsh Assembly, it will have more powers than those outlined in the Bill? I go back to an intervention earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis), with which the Government Front Bench agreed. He suggested that there would be no trouble of this kind and that the Welsh Assembly would not ask for more powers. He claimed, and the Government Front Bench agreed, that the Assembly would be content to be circumscribed within the powers in the Bill.
However, my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham and I are Members of another Assembly—the European Parliament. That is not a powerful body. However, its members spend an unconscionable amount of time in Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Brussels bemoaning the fact that that Assembly does not have sufficient power. Its Members spend hour 1322 after hour, day after day, complaining about the nature of the Parliament. Our colleagues in Italy, Germany and France say that if only they had other powers they could do so many more things. That is the very nature of any Assembly—

§ The First Deputy Chairman
Order. I am beginning to realise that I may have made a mistake in calling the hon. Member for West Lothian. The argument that he is expounding has nothing whatever to do with the amendment, which says that the standing orders of the proposed Assembly shall not have effect until they have been scrutinised and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

§ Mr. Dalyell
I do not wish to delay the Committee, Sir Myer, but as I said on the Scotland Bill, this is a discussion of the nuts and bolts issue. This cannot be swept aside as a matter of order. In fact, it would be very dangerous to do so. This is the nitty gritty of the whole scheme under discussion. If the Assembly will not ask for more powers, what on earth are these Committees going to do with themselves?
I ask the Front Bench a very simple question. Are the Welsh Members to be full-time or part-time? If the Undersecretary would answer that it would curtail my speech considerably.

§ The First Deputy Chairman
Order. The Chair can curtail the hon. Member's speech by ruling it completely out of order.

§ Mr. Dalyell
This Bill is even more ill-thought-out than the Scotland Bill. I do not usually make bargains with the Chair, Sir Myer, but I shall make a bargain with the Committee. I shall sit down straight away if the Under-Secretary will tell me whether the Welsh Assembly will be full time or part time.

§ The First Deputy Chairman
Order. The Under-Secretary is not answering. This is not the proper time to answer that question.

§ Mr. Dalyell
But it is a simple matter. If the Under-Secretary would say whether the Assembly will be full-time or part-time I could finish my speech.

§ Mr. D. E. Thomas
Perhaps the hon. Member for West Lothian would tell us 1323 whether the House of Commons is full time or part time.

§ Mr. Dalyell
This is a full-time House in my opinion. Will the Welsh Assembly be meeting for 37 weeks a year? Can Members of that Assembly expect to earn a reasonable living out of the Assembly? Will this be their main job and will they be able to support their families on their Members' salaries? I find it absolutely astonishing that the Under-Secretary will not answer. Here we have a Bill that has been guillotined and yet I still cannot get an answer from the Minister to the most simple down-to-earth question.

§ Mr. Alec Jones
That has nothing to do with the amendment.

§ Mr. Dalyell
If the Under-Secretary wants to shut me up he will tell me whether the Welsh Assembly Members will be full time or part time.

§ Mr. Budgen
Perhaps the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) would inquire whether Welsh Members of the Assembly will be paid on the basis of the Assembly being full time or part time. There is a distinction between Members and the Assembly. We could have a full-time Assembly which had part-time Members. Perhaps the hon. Member could lever out of the Government Front Bench some information on the basis of how the Welsh Assembly Members are to be paid.

§ The First Deputy Chairman
Order. The next question that the hon. Member will ask is whether the Members of the Welsh Assembly will be males or females. That is the sort of situation that we are getting ourselves into. The hon. Member for West Lothian can raise this matter on Report or Third Reading. He may get an answer then. Obviously, he will not get it this evening.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Some hope, Sir Myer! I did ask questions about the Scotland Bill on Third Reading and the Lord President said that he would devote his speech to these points. However on reading his speech neither you, Sir Myer, nor I could be very much wiser about the questions that he was supposed to answer. This is one of our great failures. We have failed to winkle out of the Front Bench the most elementary facts about the Bill.
1324 I want to ask another question if I cannot get an answer on that last one. Are the Welsh Assemblymen to be paid as much as the Scots for the Standing Committees. What are the Government's ideas on this? If a Welshman comes from North Wales he will have to keep two homes going, as I do, or, he will have to make hotel arrangements. One cannot come from Dolgellau or Merioneth and commute to Cardiff without having such arrangements. A Member of the Welsh Assembly travelling such distances would have to have the same expenses as a Member of the House of Commons. This is a matter of public interest. People want to know whether a Welsh Assemblyman will be paid as much as a Member of the House of Commons.

§ The First Deputy Chairman
I have a high regard for the hon. Member for West Lothian, which extends over many years. I want him to accept the assurance that he will be given the answers at the proper stage.

§ Mr. Dalyell
You have an odd way of showing your affection, Sir Myer. I wish I had your confidence. On the Scotland Bill we asked some simple questions, but four years after the project had been launched we still did not know the answers. Is this to be a 37-weeks-a-year Assembly or not? Unless we know whether it will be part time, full time or half time, how can we discuss an amendment such as Amendment No. 220? This matter has the greatest relevance to the standing orders, committee work and all the rest of it.

§ Mr. Budgen
Has the hon. Gentleman written to Ministers and asked them whether they will answer these questions? Sometimes in the heat of debate it is said that answers will be given but in the end they are not given.

§ Mr. Dalyell
I write endless letters to the Privy Council. There is a whole series of them, which is worth reading.
I do not want to try the patience of my colleagues. I am not surprised that the whole scheme was never thought out. Again, we have come up against the sheer bare rock of incredulity. It is incredible that the Minister are not willing to shut me up straight away by telling me the nature of this animal. It is disgraceful that a scheme should be brought this far 1325 with no clear idea of what the Assemblymen are to do or the nature of their duties. If they are expected to work 37 or 38 weeks in a year, as we do here, without legislative powers and without the powers which the Scots will possess, what on earth are they to do other than meddle in local government?
We know that the Welsh are great orators, but can they keep talking that long? I know that the Welsh are much more eloquent than the Scots. The Welsh have beautiful voices and they have everything going for them. They are great orators and marvellous politicians, and I have the greatest respect for them. That is why they are such a power in the Labour Party. However, even the Welsh politicians will be hard put to it to keep the Assembly going five days a week, 37 weeks in the year.
I do not apologise for mentioning these matters, because they are the guts of the present argument. I hope that I have given the Minister ample time to provide some answers. I see on the Government Front Bench my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Coleman), who is a Government Whip. I wish that he were able to come to the Box to explain these matters. With that impossible thought, I give up. I do not think the Front Bench occupants know what they are talking about.

§ Mr. Temple-Morris
I hope that the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) will never give up but will continue to ornament our debates.

§ The First Deputy Chairman
I must inform the Committee that I am leaving the Chair. I know that my successor will have all the answers to give the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell).

§ Mr. Temple-Morris
Now that you have taken the Chair, Mr. Godman Irvine, may I repeat to you the hope that the hon. Member for West Lothian will not give up, anguished though he may be on the devolution question? I hope that he will continue to contribute to our proceedings.
The central point mentioned by the hon. Gentleman was very much akin to the point adumbrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan). We are dealing 1326 with the subject of power. Indeed, it was suggested when the amendment was moved that we were dealing with a Cabinet system, which appears to be completely new terrain.
I wish to reinforce the basis put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby. We all appreciate that any political body will clamour for more power. The amendment seeks a reasonable degree of supervisory power, because we do not know how this system will work. It may work out in a different way, but this could develop into an even greater power centre than the one we are used to in this country. It could have far greater power than the House of Commons has ever exercised.
We are dealing in this discussion with a Cabinet or Committee system, and we shall come later to the detail. We shall later be discussing words such as "leaders" and "chief executives". In terms of committees whose standing orders we are now discussing, we have a combination not only of executive-type power but of democratic power as expressed by the representation of the Assembly as a whole. Those committees will mirror the representation of the Assembly as a whole. There will be a concentration of executive and democratic power all within the same committee.
We all know that our committee system at Westminster is developing at present, but it is dissimilar from the combination of power that reposes in the committee system in the United States. That system is often vaunted and given as an example. In the United States the committee system is applied purely to the legislature and the separation of powers from the executive. Therefore, it is important to stress that potentially there is an immense amount of power that can be exercised in a way that we do not at present envisage.
We ask in our amendment, which is a constructive provision, for a reasonable degree of supervisory power. Indeed, I hope that everything we put forward in this debate is reasonably constructive. I hope that the Minister in his reply will deal seriously with our points. He was less than charitable to the hon. Member for West Lothian. We know that the House of Commons is a full-time body, 1327 but we also know that not all Members are full-time Members. No doubt in the Welsh Assembly there will be a balance.
Therefore, we should have a ministerial answer on that matter. We shall be dealing with standing orders that will govern a sector of power that may be far greater than anything we have seen in this country. If the amendment is to be resisted, we are surely entitled to a reasonable explanation from the Minister.

§ Mr. W. Benyon (Buckingham)
I am in some disagreement with my hon. Friends since I do not believe I can support this amendment. I regard standing orders as extremely important. We all know that the Standing Orders of the House of Commons are most important. I personally believe that one of the easiest ways to control the Executive at Westminster is by having entrenched Standing Orders.
In this discussion we are envisaging the setting up of an Assembly, and it is surely extraordinary to take that course and to insist that that Assembly should submit its standing orders to this House for scrutiny. This House cannot add to them but can only reject them.
We do not take a similar course in respect of local government. We say to local government "Your powers go so far, and if you exceed them you will be ultra vires. If that happens you will be surcharged." Then regulations are laid down to prevent corruption. However, we do not supervise the standing orders of local government, and we should not do so if the worst happens and the Assembly is set up.
As the Bill is drafted, the House of Commons retains the right of veto. If the Welsh Assembly were to take some terrible step and become so corrupt or heavy handed that we had to take action, it would be open to the House of Commons to respond to the feelings expressed by the Welsh people and to get rid of the Assembly. One cannot see that happening, but it is technically possible under the Bill.
There is so much more in the Bill that is objectionable in every way that to tinker with this aspect of it is to fail to see the wood for the trees.

§ Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Stockport, North)
I oppose the amendment, although I welcome the fact that some time has been given to probing what sort of standing orders might be forthcoming when the Assembly is established.
I oppose the amendment because it appears to be a hidden veto. We could have a situation in which the referendum is held, the Assembly is set up, elections are held, and the Assembly meets and draws up its standing orders, and because they do not meet with the approval of the House of Commons they can be vetoed. We might have an unfortunate situation in which the Assembly could not get on with any of its business. That might arise because of a change in the political party that controls the House of Commons, the incoming party exercising a veto. It seems that the proposal is unsatisfactory.
The problem is that we do not have spelt out in the Bill specific and clear standing orders. The Scotland and Wales Bill went much further than this measure in setting out proposals for standing orders. One suspects that because the Government did not want to have a long Bill, and wanted to try to reduce the opportunities for debate and argument on it, they cut out most of the standing orders. One suspects that they chose to cut them to the very minimum. Their excuse is that it is up to the Assembly to make its own standing orders. I suspect that convenience in getting the Bill through the House was a more important consideration.
We have the unfortunate situation that candidates will have to stand for election without knowing what sort of body they are to be members of if elected. They may assume that it will involve part-time work. They may assume that the remuneration will be for part-time work. They may feel that they want to have an open government system. They may want to have a clear definition of Members' interests. They will want to know the exact position of the Welsh language in the Assembly. If they are elected, they will begin to participate in the work of the Assembly. They may find that it draws up standing orders that are contrary to their beliefs. If they are in the minority, they will probably find it difficult to influence the drawing up of the standing orders. They may have a set of 1329 standing orders imposed on them that is contrary to their beliefs. What should they do? Should they resign and cause by-elections straight away?
It seems only logical that we should have clearly set out the standing orders of the Assembly before the referendum so that the people of Wales know the sort of Assembly that they are to have. There are the simple points of a declaration of interests, how far there will be open government and access by everyone in Wales to the documents that the Assembly will use. There should be clearly set out the position of the Welsh language and its use in the Assembly, including its proceedings. Unless these matters are set out before the referendum, the people of Wales will be asked to vote for a pig in a poke. They will not be clear how the Assembly will work.
When the elections take place, candidates will be asked to stand for an Assembly whose rules and regulations they do not know.

§ Mr. Geraint Howells
The hon. Gentleman, like myself, has been in the House of Commons for some time. Did he understand the rules and regulations of this place before he became a Member?

§ Mr. Bennett
I agree that I did not understand fully the rules and regulations. However, since I entered this place we have dealt with the whole issue of Members' declaration of interests. We have tried to impose on the House an alteration of its standing orders. The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that the House failed to carry that through because one Member vetoed the proposal on the register of Members' interests. As a consequence of political difficulties, the House refuses to resolve that difficulty. That clearly illustrates the difficulty of imposing standing orders after candidates have been elected.
I am sure that the problem that we have experienced would not have occurred if we had formally set out that those who stand for elections to this place will be expected to sign a declaration of interest when elected. If that were done, no one could complain that the rules had been changed. It seems fundamental that for the Welsh legislation we set out the rules before the people vote and 1330 before candidates put themselves forward for election.
I hope that we shall throw out the amendment. I hope that between now and the Bill's enactment, during which it will pass through another place and, if necessary, return here, the Government will further consider the standing orders of the Assembly and either have them clearly set out or, ideally, come forward with amendments to put standing orders into the Bill. That will enable a public debate to take place. By the time that the Bill is enacted there could, in that way, be some consensus.
The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) took up the criticism of the Labour Party in Scotland. At least it has begun to discuss these matters and to put forward suggestions for the standing orders of the Assembly. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman should be criticising it for taking that course. Indeed, he should be welcoming that approach and saying that we need a major debate on the standing orders that will be used in both Assemblies. In my view, they should be incorporated in the legislation and not imposed on the Assemblies by themselves afterwards.

§ Mr. Charles Morrison (Devizes)
I shall be brief. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon) has spoken on the lines that I wish to pursue.
I am not arguing for or against the principle of devolution in considering the amendment. Given that we have a Bill that purports to entrust the Welsh people with a greater and more direct portion of their own government, it seems that we have to entrust the Welsh people, first, to elect whomsoever they wish to their Assembly and, secondly, that having happened to entrust the members of the Assembly with the power to decide how they should organise their affairs, in particular we should entrust the Welsh people with the responsibility of deter mining what standing orders the Assembly should have.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan), with his usual ability, dexterity and charm, has moved that the Assembly should not be allowed in the ultimate total power to decide what standing orders it should have. I ask myself why.
1331 I believe that there are two reasons. First, my hon. Friend has drawn attention to the somewhat extraordinary new system of government—namely, the blend of Cabinet government and local government—that is proposed within the Bill. My hon. Friend is right to criticise that system. We shall be criticising it later, if time allows, when we reach other amendments. It may be a reason for the system proposed in the Bill for the establishment of standing orders to be unsatisfactory and for the amendment—at least in the judgment of my hon. Friend—to be required.
There is another matter to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby did not draw attention. Last week we debated briefly a proposal that election to the Welsh Assembly should be on the basis of proportional representation. It was argued—unfortunately only too briefly—that the first-past-the-post system would not produce a representative Assembly. Worse, that it would produce an Assembly which almost certainly would produce one-party government for as long as any of us cared to look ahead, unless the Welsh people either changed their political allegiance or decided to vote against their political judgment and principles. I do not agree with their political judgment and principles in the main, but I believe that they should be enabled to vote in such a way if that is what they wish.
8.30 p.m.
The trouble about a system which produces one-party government endlessly is that, if the voters stick to their political principles, it will be utterly impossible for them to get rid of a Government of the ruling party in the Assembly which may, in the drawing up of standing orders, do things which are contrary to what the Welsh people want and, indeed, approve of.
A system of proportional representation would reflect more accurately the different balances of political opinion within the Principality and would be likely to shift power, if not totally, certainly adequately, to ensure that one party did not have monopoly control. That might have been at the back of the mind of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby when he suggested that Parliament should have overriding control of the design of standing orders for the 1332 Assembly. My hon. Friend did not say that, because I know full well that he has doubts about proportional representation, but perhaps this debate is not unimportant in that it may be the first time that my hon. Friend has begun to see the light and to realise that there are many reasons why a system of proportional representation would be best for Wales—indeed, for the whole of Great Britain. I think that we may be setting out in a new direction and that we may look forward to better and greater things from my hon. Friend in future.
In the meantime, despite these reasons, one of which has been put forward by my hon. Friend and the other by myself, why the amendment should be supported, the Committee cannot have it all ways. Either we give the Welsh people the power to make decisions about their Assembly—that means giving them considerable power—or we do not give them an Assembly at all. That may well be what the Welsh people will ultimately decide in the referendum, but it is up to them, not us.

Mr. Tom Ellis
I have found this little debate curiously heartening in some respects. Some hon. Members are not so passionately committed to or against this measure as not to be able to apply a critical and objective intelligence to the issues. One or two hon. Members appear to apply this objectivity which has not been prevalent so far in Committee. That is why I say that this debate has been somewhat heartening for me.
I thought that the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) was a little unsure of himself when he introduced the amendment, knowing that he was proposing something that might not be entirely right. Indeed, he seemed to go out of his way to say that this was not a case of the House of Commons taking over the functions of the Welsh Assembly. He said that there was no intention of keeping the Welsh Assembly on the apron-strings of this place; it was a matter of a reasonable degree of supervisory power. Those were the kind of remarks that he made and they seemed to imply that he felt that there was something about the proposal that might not be 100 per cent. sense. Indeed, I thought that his hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon) and Devizes (Mr. Morrison) and my hon. Friend the 1333 Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) made the point fairly and objectively.

§ Mr. Brittan
I said that not because I had any doubts about the amendment, but because it was an accurate description of what the amendment seeks to do.

Mr. Ellis
If that is so, the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby and my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) do not seem to have grasped the issue in the way in which the hon. Member for Devizes has grasped it. The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby said in effect that we were creating a constitution for Wales. That is strange because, when compared with the provisions of the Scotland Bill, these provisions are well within the unitary State of the United Kingdom. Therefore, the ultimate decision and veto is in the hands of the House of Commons. To that extent, the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby is making a profound mistake.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Can my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham answer a question that the Front Bench cannot answer? Are we to have part-time or full-time Assemblymen?

Mr. Ellis
I shall come to that. That is a misconceived question.

§ Mr. Dalyell
It is a simple question.

Mr. Ellis
It is perhaps simplistic but far from simple. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian has missed the point. Reference has been made to the to the possibility of the Welsh Assembly abolishing direct-grant schools. Hon. Members have said that it would be a terrible thing if the House of Commons were not able to supervise the standing orders to prevent that abolition from coming into effect.

§ Mr. Brittan
I am sure that the hon. Member for Wrexham, whose care in these matters I respect, would not wish to mislead. The reference to direct-grant schools was not made because hon. Members argued that they should not be abolished by the Assembly. The reference was made to illustrate the serious things that the Assembly could do even without primary legislative power. It was made 1334 to ensure that the standards which prescribe whether the Assembly, or even a Committee of the Assembly, could do this are examined carefully, We were not seeking to prevent them from doing it but saying that great care should be taken over the manner in which they could.

Mr. Ellis
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby. He has put the matter more precisely, but that does not alter my argument. If the Welsh Assembly were to abolish direct-grant schools, it would do so as a fully elected, democratic constitutional body and it would be within its wisdom to do so. It would receive either the retribution or the cheering of the people at the next election as a result.
The great disadvantage is that which the hon. Member for Devizes mentioned. For a long time Wales has been a one-party country. The Labour Party has been dominant for many years. I believe that one-party government is bad, however good the party. That is why I should have liked to see some form of proportional representation. That would mean that decisions would be taken on an elected democratic basis and with the backing of a larger proportion of the people of Wales. The opposition would be proportional. At present the opposition in the form of various parties commands between 30 per cent. and 40 per cent. of the vote. That would be the proportion of opposition within the Assembly. Public debate would be sufficient to ensure a wise decision on that or any other issue.
We are dealing with the setting up of a political structure—a political institution. There are a number of ways of looking at political institutions. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian seems to take a static and very formal view. He seems to believe that one can write down precisely what the constitution will be. In the past we have prided ourselves on the fact that we have not had a written constitution and that that gives us a flexibility that other poor misbegotten and misguided countries do not possess. My hon. Friend wants to know whether the Assembly will meet on Tuesday or Thursday afternoons, and whether the Assemblymen will be paid £10 a week or £100 a week—

§ Mr. Dalyell
No.

Mr. Ellis
There are scores and scores of such questions that one can ask about an institution that is being created. But that approach misses the point. The point is not how the Assembly will do its work and the work that it will do. We need to spell out the overall functions and powers of the Assembly, and they are spelled out in the Bill. It is only necessary for the Assembly to be charged with the responsibility to control every detailed function. It is the Assembly's function to determine such minor details as how much the Members are to be paid and how long they are to sit.

§ The Second Deputy Chairman (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)
Order. As I understand it, we are discussing the way in which the standing orders are to be set up, and whether they are approved by Parliament. We are not discussing the question of powers.

Mr. Ellis
I am making the point, Mr. Godman Irvine, that the standing orders must surely be determined within the body that they are supposed to control. For someone outside the Assembly to attempt to exercise a supervisory role seems to be completely misguided. If we were to supervise what the Assembly did, that would be a different matter. But the running of the Assembly itself and what the standing orders will provide is fundamentally a matter for the Assembly.
When the Assembly is created, it will be crucially important that relations between it and this Parliament and local government institutions in Wales should be happy. The same applies to the Scottish Assembly. That is vital for the well-being of the people of Wales. The relationship should be a free, easy and happy one. The Assembly must be able to devise its own standing orders, and it can do that only when it is established. No one else can perform that task in any meaningful sense. It would be disastrous for this House to reject a particular feature of the Assembly's standing orders. Imagine the political uproar in Wales if that were to happen. The whole arrangements would have got off to a disastrous start.

§ Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
I accept that it would be unfortunate for this House to impose a veto after the Assembly had 1336 met and drawn up its standing orders. However, does my hon. Friend feel that it would be reasonable for people voting in the referendum to know, for example, whether the Assembly was to meet and conduct its proceedings in public, or whether it was going to hold some of them in private, excluding the Press and the public? Surely these are things that people should know when voting in the referendum.

Mr. Ellis
Certainly anyone voting in the referendum should have as much knowledge about the future as possible, but no one can say with certainty that the Assembly will do its work in a particular way. That would be aspiring to the perfect. We are in danger of rejecting the good on the ground that it is not perfect. It seems impossible that anyone could begin to say what the standing orders should provide and how the Assembly should work before the Assembly is created.
Certainly, it is not for this place to lay down standing orders for a political institution, for a structure, politics being a dynamic, growing, lively thing—certainly not the kind of static thing my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian seems to think it is, so that we can ask questions such as what salary is to be paid and whether Members are to meet on Tuesday morning or Thursday afternoon. That is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of political business.

§ Mr. Dalyell
My hon. Friend must not misrepresent questions that I have asked. It is really very simple. It is not about such questions as whether Members are to meet on Tuesdays afternoons or Thurs day mornings. The question is simply in relation to this clause, to which it is highly pertinent and relevant. Do we have in mind a group of full-time politicians serving in the Assembly or is it to be a part-time body? I feel I am entitled, the Bill having reached the stage, to ask the Front Bench whether this is to be a part-time or whole-time set-up? I see the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary has just joined us. If he thinks he has come in at the moment when I am—

§ The Second Deputy Chairman
Order. I heard enough of what was going on 1337 before I took the Chair to appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is returning to ground that has already been dealt with.

§ Mr. Dalyell
The question was asked but not answered.

§ The Second Deputy Chairman
It appears not to have been in order.

Mr. Ellis
I shall give my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian a fairly precise and explicit answer. This has nothing to do with standing orders as such. The answer is that Members will be as full-time or as part-time Members of the Assembly as hon. Members are of this House of Commons.

§ Sir A. Meyer
This has been a very interesting debate on whether this House should have power to oversee the standing orders of the Assembly. I confess to being in something of a quandary how to react to the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) but there is a deep question which bothers me. I cannot see in this Bill that the Assembly has been given power to draw up its own standing orders. That is very clear from the Explanatory Memorandum, on page ii of which we read: The Assembly is to make standing orders which must include provision for the disclosure of pecuniary interests. That is fine but the Explanatory Memorandum is no part of the Bill. When we come to the Bill, Clause 16 says: (1) The procedure of the Assembly shall be regulated by standing orders of the Assembly; Nothing is said so far about who is to draw up the standing orders. Subsection (1) continues: but the Secretary of State may give directions for regulating its procedure pending the making of standing orders. Making by whom? As far as this Bill is concerned that could be by the Secretary of State. The clause goes on to say, rather amusingly: The standing orders may include provision for preserving order in the proceedings of the Assembly … which is a very fair comment on the kind of Assembly we may perhaps expect; but it seems to me that the Government have not made provision for the Assembly to draw up its own standing orders.

§ Sir Raymond Gower
I should like to dissent from my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) in that respect. It seems quite clear to me from Clause 16(1) that the procedure shall be regulated by the standing orders of the Assembly, but then there is something quite contrary to the usual procedure in that … the Secretary of State may give directions for regulating its procedure … It seems to me that there is a very strong implication that the procedure will be drawn up by the Assembly. That, I would think, is implicit in the wording, but I may be wrong. Perhaps the Minister can give us some official guidance on this. Like my hon. Friend, I am not very keen on this amendment. I feel that if an Assembly is set up along these lines it should have the power to regulate its own procedure. I do not think that that is going very far. It seems unreasonable to lay down a detailed kind of straitjacket. I have not heard enough from those who are putting forward the amendment to persuade me to support it. If I do not hear more reasons in favour of the amendment, I shall not vote for it.

§ Mr. Budgen
I am delighted to give my wholehearted and loyal support to the amendment moved so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Britain). He was right to say that it is an important amendment. It goes to the heart of our consideration of the Bill.
The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), in asking his highly pertinent and detailed questions, points again to the basic defect of the concept of devolution—the inherent instability that arises in any such proposition. The hon. Gentleman faced squarely the points approached with total inconsistency by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis), who put forward two opposing propositions. The hon. Member said that he wanted the relationship between the Assembly and this House to be free and happy. He went on to say that the politics of the relationship would be dynamic, organic and lively.
The second proposition is correct because the Assembly will be for ever trying to grab powers. Sometimes it will 1339 be grabbing them from its weaker brethren among the county and district councils in Wales and sometimes, puffed up with pride, it will be trying to take on the Westminster Parliament. Certainly there will be a dynamic, organic and lively relationship and that is inconsistent with a relationship that is free and happy.
If we are to have a satisfactory relationship between this House and the Assembly, it is vital to establish who is boss. The important points about the amendment is that it establishes from the start that this House has a vital supervisory role over the subordinate Assembly and makes clear that it is no more than a puffed up county council.

§ Mr. Charles Morrison
If my hon. Friend thinks it is right that we should have control over a subordinate Assembly, why, to use his own analogy, do we not have control over the standing orders of county councils?

§ Mr. Budgen
When county councils were set up, there was no dishonest subterfuge by which it was pretended that they were equal to the Westminster Parliament. They were subordinate and they knew themselves to be subordinate. The basic dishonesty in relation to the Assembly is that some people in Wales are being conned by the suggestion that they are getting something equivalent to a Welsh Parliament. We should tell them that they have been conned and that we want them to understand that the Westminster Parliament remains sovereign and supreme. We can demonstrate that sovereignty and supremacy by providing that, in the last resort, we can supervise the Assembly's standing orders.
Standing orders are the very meat of power and concern the practicalities of where the Assembly can extend its powers in what the hon. Member for Wrexham calls a dynamic, organic and lively way. Of course, it will be attacking the powers of local government as hard as it can.
But we must also remember—this is important to hon. Members who represent other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly parts not so far distant from the Principality—that the whole basis of the Assembly's powers is somewhat uncertain. However, Clauses 38 and 39 1340 make it quite plain that there will be industrial and economic powers. There can be no doubt that the Assembly will be trying to distort the economy of the United Kingdom so as to attract to Wales industry and commercial activity that might otherwise go to other parts of the United Kingdom.
That is an area where this dynamic, organic and lively body will be trying to get more power to itself, an area where the House would do well to give itself the power to supervise the standing orders, to make sure that power-grabbing can be contained at the very beginning.

§ Mr. Nicholas Edwards
My hon. Friend should not be quite as anxious as he makes out. There is nothing fixed and final in the scope of the legislative powers that are being given to the Assembly. Under the Bill, certain existing statutes and certain parts of them are being transferred, but every time we pass an Act in future the House of Commons will then have to decide how far that measure applies to the Assembly. That will make for the kind of lively relationship that my hon. Friends describes, but that is not to suggest that the Bill completely takes away from the House the authority in relation to the Assembly.

§ Mr. Budgen
It is true that as each power is passed over there will have to be particular legislative powers passed through the House of Commons. I accept my right hon. Friend's point—

§ The Second Deputy Chairman
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will also accept the point that has been made repeatedly by successive occupants of the Chair that we are dealing with standing orders, not powers.

§ Mr. Budgen
I want to put into the Bill a second line of defence, because if it be that the Welsh Assembly by its persistent blaming of the United Kingdom Parliament for all the ills of Wales, because no doubt all those ills will be in no way attributable to the Assembly but will all be considered to be the fault of the domination of the United Kingdom Parliament—

§ Mr. Wigley
Quite probably.

§ Mr. Budgen
The hon. Gentleman is no doubt preparing the great orations that 1341 he will make a bout all the ills being everybody else's fault.
At least if there has to be another change in standing orders, that is another safeguard. I hope that the loyal members of the Tory Party will be voting in favour of the amendment in the belief that it preserves the sovereignty of the House of Commons, and that it most of all prevents the power of the Assembly extending itself so as to distort economic advantage towards Wales. In doing that, we shall certainly be defending the interests of the West Midlands.

§ Mr. Ioan Evans
I, too, have misgivings about the amendment, adding a fourth subsection to the clause, although one can understand the desire to know the standing orders determined by the Assembly.
There is a vagueness about the clause. Subsection 1 reads: The procedure of the Assembly shall be regulated by standing orders of the Assembly". We shall presumably give the Assembly powers to determine its standing orders, but the subsection continues to say but the Secretary of State may give directions for regulating its procedure pending the making of standing orders. That is a vague concept in the clause. Will the Secretary of State give directions? I think that the Committee is entitled at this stage to know what is in mind.
9.0 p.m.
Why should there be vagueness at this stage of the Bill? We are now debating in Committee the clause that relates to the forming of standing orders. The Committee is told that the Secretary of State may give directions for regulating its procedure pending the making of standing orders. I presume that something will have to be done about the ordering of proceedings until the Assembly sets up a standing orders committee or a working party to create a model for standing orders.
Clause 16 goes on to say: The standing orders shall include provision for the election of a presiding officer from among the members of the Assembly and for his tenure of office. It would appear that the only direction that we are giving to the Assembly, the only definite standing order that we are 1342 saying that the Assembly must apply, is that the presiding officer must be from among the Members of the Assembly, and for his tenure of office. My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) mentioned the point about why the matter could not be left to the Assembly. I do not know why the House of Commons should tell the Assembly that it must do it in that way. Before the subsection that the Conservative Party wants to put forward there is subsection (3), which states: The standing orders may include provision for preserving order in the proceedings of the Assembly, including provision for excluding a member from such proceedings. I should have thought that there should be no "may" about that. There must be something in standing orders that says that there should be some provision for preserving order in the proceedings. Why should we put in a Bill of this nature the word "may"? Many of us are asking, even if it should or should not be in the Bill, why put it in at all? The clause has been put together in a strange manner.
The Opposition amendment says: The standing orders shall not have effect until they have been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament. Let us presume that the Assembly has a form of standing orders with which the House of Commons finds itself completely in disagreement. My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham has said that the matter should be left entirely to the Assembly and that it is not for us to get involved. But there could be a form of standing orders which Members of the House of Commons might find objectionable.
I realise that we are in a unique situation. We have not done anything like this in Wales before. It has been a long time since Simon de Montfort summoned the first Parliament. It has taken a long time to get round to doing this sort of thing. It is not strange that we should not think of telling the Assembly what it standing orders should be, but at least of having a model form of standing orders which the Secretary of State could say somebody had looked at and would suggest to the Assembly to give it some guidance as to what should happen.
Although it has been stated in Committee that the matter will be left entirely 1343 to the Assembly, if the Bill is implemented there are already some clauses that we have considered that will affect the standing orders. The House of Commons has reached its decision about the time of election, about elections, by-elections, disqualification from membership, expenses and powers. All those matters will affect standing orders. Those are issues which we have already determined. Matters such as the conduct of business, the first meeting, standing orders, pecuniary interest and the Executive Committee will affect standing orders.

§ Mr. Cledwyn Hughes
The majority of the points made by my hon. Friend would be applicable in the case of the Greater London Council—an authority with considerable powers, as my hon. Friend well knows, and with extensive, carefully worked out standing orders. Such standing orders never come before the House of Commons for approval. Can my hon. Friend give one reason or more why the standing orders of the Welsh Assembly should have to come here for approval, and presumably debate, when the standing orders of the GLC do not?

§ Mr. Evans
I did not say that the standing orders would necessarily have to come here. We in the House of Commons have Standing Orders amounting to about 118 pages with the index.
My right hon. Friend is quite correct. The GLC, district councils, community councils and county councils all have standing orders. All local authorities and most other bodies have them. I cannot understand why there is not some indication at this stage as to the type of standing orders on which the Assembly is to model itself. If my right hon. Friend says that the Assembly should look at the GLC's standing orders and that that should be the model, I take the point.

§ Mr. Cledwyn Hughes
With all respect, that is not the point. The point I was making is that the GLC has the power to draft and approve its own standing orders without going to the Secretary of State for the Environment for approval. Why is my hon. Friend now trying to argue that the Welsh Assembly in similar circumstances would have to take its standing orders all over the place, from Alaska to the Secretary of State for Wales, for approval?

§ Mr. Evans
I do not think that anyone has mentioned Alaska.

§ Mr. Hughes
If my hon. Friend thought that there was a point against Wales he would mention it.

§ Mr. Evans
That is an offensive remark. I know that it is getting late, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend does not want to be as offensive as that. It should be the people of Wales who decide this issue, as he knows, and he does not know whether the people of Wales want the Bill. Let us allow them to decide. We are in Committee. I have not supported the amendment. If my right hon. Friend had been listening to my speech, he would have realised that I did not accept the amendment, so he should withdraw that part of his remarks.

§ Mr. Hughes
I did not make that point.

§ Mr. Evans
We are now discussing the question of standing orders. I should like an interpretation of the clause when the Minister replies to the debate, and I hope that he will outline how the Government think the Welsh Assembly will go about setting up its standing orders and on what it will try to model them.

§ Mr. Evans
My right hon. Friend was not in the Chamber earlier. Other questions have been raised, such as whether the Assembly Members are to be full-time or part-time Members. We should like an indication of what guidance the Assembly will get from the Secretary of State in framing its standing orders.

§ The Second Deputy Chairman
Order. The point with which the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) was dealing will arise in the clause stand part debate. At present we are dealing with the amendment.

§ Mr. Evans
I should like to reply to my right hon. Friend.

§ Mr. Hughes
The point was not clear to me. It was entirely my fault, and for that I apologise to my hon. Friend.

§ Mr. Evans
I accept my right hon. Friend's apology. I know that he is 1345 usually courteous in these matters and that he, like most of us on the Government side of the Committee, does not want to personalise the issue. There are differences between us, but what is needed is that through our discussion of the Bill the matter should be put clearly before the people of Wales without us getting involved in scoring personal points.
That is all that I wanted to say on this issue. I hope that this matter will be dealt with in the reply to the debate on the amendment and, presumably, in the clause stand part debate.

§ Mr. Geraint Morgan
In view of the lateness of the hour, my intervention will be very brief indeed. I intervene only in order to show that there is at least one Welsh Member on the Opposition side of the Committee who firmly agrees with the contributions made by my hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon) and Devizes (Mr. Morrison).
As I understood it, the argument put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) presupposes all sorts of possible abuses of standing orders, but, frankly, I think that he was raising bogies. If he had his way, it would really be a case of keeping the Assembly on the apron strings of the House of Commons.
I agree entirely with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes. If the Welsh people decide ultimately that they want an Assembly, the making of standing orders must be left to the good sense and fairness of the Members of the Assembly.

§ Mr. Charles Morrison
I must defend my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan), because I believe that he is very well intentioned in his amendment, but the amendment would not be necessary if there were a sensible electoral system other than the first-past-the-post system.

§ Mr. Morgan
I promised to be brief and will not be distracted into dealing with other forms of election.
I think that the point was very properly put in a nutshell by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis), when he said that standing orders must of necessity be a matter for the body concerned, 1346 in this case the Welsh Assembly. The right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) drew a very apt comparison between the lack of control by the House of Commons over the standing orders of the Greater London Council and what is now proposed by way of control over the standing orders of the Welsh Assembly. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham again put it very well when he said that this was an extraordinary way of setting about things.
If standing orders were referred back here and rejected, there would be a grave ground of conflict between the Assembly and the Westminster Government, and serious friction could develop. That is one of the things which those of us who are unenthusiastic about the creation of the Assembly have always feared. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham summed it up very well when he said that there is so much that can properly be criticised in the Bill that it is a pity we should be wasting time on this sort of amendment, which I regard as totally unnecessary and which many in Wales will find most objectionable.

§ Mr. Alec Jones
We have certainly had, in those immortal words, a very wide-ranging debate. We have ranged over salaries, Members' interests, the Welsh language, proportional representation, the powers of the Assembly and the relationship between it and this House.
I say to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen), before he leaves the Chamber, that I do not believe that the sort of words he used are conducive to establishing a good and proper relationship between the House of Commons and the Assembly. "Who is boss?" is never, in my view, the best sort of expression to use between two bodies which have separate but important functions to carry out.
I certainly do not object to the fact that we had this wide-ranging debate, but it will ill become hon. Members if they later complain that they have had less time to discuss other major and important issues.

§ Mr. Benyon
That is unfair.

§ Mr. Jones
Of course it is, but it is equally unfair to complain when time has been used discussing various extraneous matters, and when the amendment 1347 is specifically concerned not even with the content of the standing orders but basically with whether those standing orders need the approval of both Houses of Parliament. That is what the amendment is about, and I suggest that we have moved away from that somewhat in our discussions. Far from the guillotine having been our enemy this evening, we shall have been our own executioners in regard to many of the later debates which some hon. Members have wanted.
The hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) began quite reasonably, saying that all he wanted was a reasonable degree of supervisory power. But then it appeared that what he really wanted was a veto of what was in the standing orders. Although I am a Welshman, my knowledge of English would not suggest that a veto can be described as "a reasonable degree of supervisory power." I felt that the hon. Gentleman was really asking for a complete and final say as to what should be in the standing orders. That may be what some Conservative Members want but it was not what I understood him to mean when he initially asked for a reasonable degree of supervisory power. Therefore, I was glad to hear that we had support from the hon. Members for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon), Devizes (Mr. Morrison), Denbigh (Mr. Morgan) and Barry (Sir R. Gower), who indicated that in their view this matter should be left to the Assembly.
9.15 p.m.
It is the Government's view that to give Parliament control over the Assembly's standing orders is neither practicable nor desirable. Our own Standing Orders are contained in a booklet of some 118 pages, and in my view it is nonsense to believe that the House of Commons could find adequate time to discuss its own Standing Orders and those of the Assembly. We change our Standing Orders frequently. It is nonsense to suggest that we could find time to deal with those changes and supervise all the changes in the Assembly's standing orders which obviously will be necessary as time goes on and the Assembly develops experience of running its own affairs.
We are talking of a responsible elected Assembly. If the House of Commons can give that Assembly all the functions 1348 that we have just finished discussing and some others, and that Assembly receives the approval of the people of Wales in a referendum, it is the height of nonsense to suggest that the standing orders of such an Assembly should be subject to a veto of both Houses of Parliament. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee would resent it greatly if anyone suggested that any body outside this Chamber should have a say in the Standing Orders under which we operate.
Clause 16 provides that there are to be standing orders, and subsection (1) provides that they shall be made by the Assembly, and I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) that certain of those standing orders have to be mandatory.

§ Sir A. Meyer
But it does not say anywhere in the text of the clause that they are to be made by the Assembly. That is the point that I was making.

§ Mr. Jones
I am advised that subsection (1) provides for that. However, I shall discuss the matter further and, if there is some fault in the wording, the Government naturally will seek to correct it.
But because we understand that certain functions will need standing orders, we have included a provision in subsection (2) dealing specifically with the election of the presiding officer and his tenure of office. In Clause 17, we have dealt with the declaration of pecuniary interests. In Clause 20, we provide for a mandatory standing order dealing with the authorisation of payments out of the Welsh Loans Fund. In Clause 22, we provide for the scrutiny of subordinate legislation. So in certain key areas we have ensured that the standing orders shall be mandatory and, until the Assembly is set up and draws up its own standing orders, there will be standing orders provided by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State which will continue until the Assembly makes its own. Those interim standing orders will surely provide the sort of guidance for which hon. Members have asked.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Does not my hon. Friend agree that, whatever view one takes, it is relevant to ask in relation to pecuniary interests whether the Members are to be 1349 full-time or part-time? One cannot sensibly discuss pecuniary interests without having a clear idea—

§ The Second Deputy Chairman
Order. The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has returned to this matter on a number of occasions. However, it is not part of the amendment under discussion.

§ Mr. Dalyell
On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. That is a judgment from the Chair. However, I think that it is reasonable and sensible to argue that one cannot make up one's mind about pecuniary interest—[HON. MEMBERS: "Standing orders."] Pecuniary interest is one of the matters that we are discussing, and a part-time Member of the Assembly whose bread and butter the Assembly is not should be subject to very different standards of declaration of pecuniary interest than a whole-time Assemblyman. So I return to my question—

§ The Second Deputy Chairman
On at least four occasions the Chair has explained to the hon. Gentleman that this is not what we are discussing.

§ Mr. Jones
I understand that that is not the point that we are discussing, but since my hon. Friend has specifically asked questions about salary he must be aware that four amendments are down to Clause 33. We shall then discuss this matter provided that we get there. At the rate at which we have made progress since 7 o'clock, we are not likely to get any further than the issue that we are now discussing because of the long meanderings that have taken place since then.
However, in reply to my hon. Friend I would say that whether Assembly Members are full time or part time will depend on the Members themselves. Just as the hours, days of the week and period of time which this Assembly sits is decided by this Assembly, so will that decision be made by the Welsh Assembly. Whether a Member is full time or part time will largely depend on that Member's own conscience. But I have sufficient faith that Assemblymen who are elected will work as long as necessary in order to ensure that Wales is adequately governed.

§ Mr. Dalyell
If my hon. Friend is right in what he says—I have no reason to suspect that he is not—then I for one hope that those Assemblymen will be 1350 paid no less than Members of the House of Commons, because some of them will have to keep two homes going and will have the same kind of expenses as we have.

§ The Second Deputy Chairman
That may well be so, but it has nothing to do with Amendment No. 220.