All 1 Debates between Lord Balfe and Lord Elis-Thomas

Tue 10th Jan 2017
Wales Bill
Lords Chamber

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords

Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Elis-Thomas
Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017

(7 years, 10 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Wales Act 2017 View all Wales Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 77-II Second marshalled list for Report (PDF, 176KB) - (6 Jan 2017)
Lord Balfe Portrait Lord Balfe
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Well, some see it as that. I see it as a clarification that was needed—something that became quite clear last year. I suggest that we resist this amendment. It will not take us anywhere further forward and I am not sure that it is useful. It will open up many further legal cases and I hope that the House will reject it.

Lord Elis-Thomas Portrait Lord Elis-Thomas (Non-Afl)
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My Lords, I will make clear my strong support for Amendment 90, for the reasons that have been made clear on both sides of this debate, and from my own experience as a trade union member and a manager in the public sector in Wales at different periods of my life. I will confine myself, as I have during the course of the Bill, to the constitutional principles—if I may use the term again—rather than discussing specific subjects.

This is where I have to disappoint three of my noble friends. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, is a very old friend—I mean old in terms of our association, since I believe I first met him in a Crown Court in Ruthin in the very early 1960s. I hasten to add that I was not the defendant; my father was a witness there. With the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, I had the pleasure of discussing issues as soon as I arrived in the other place as a very young Member of Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, of course came in with me at that time. I shall disappoint all three by expressing my considered view that we no longer need working groups chaired by Secretaries of State—although I recognise that a Secretary of State is present at the Bar of the House today, along with one of his ministerial colleagues.