Wales Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Mark Williams

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Williams]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. Paul Silk has done the politics of consensus a great service. The commissioners, from all four parties, sometimes had to make compromises but arrived at an agreed report on two occasions. That is a mark of Paul Silk’s chairmanship and the quality of those commissioners.

Of course, my right hon. Friend is a Conservative Secretary of State—

[Bob Stewart]

A very good one.

[Mr Mark Williams]

Indeed—he is a very good Secretary of State on many issues.

I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) that this is a coalition Government and it is a Liberal Democrat achievement that we have got this far with this Bill. Last week I was at a book launch, as was the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), to celebrate the life of the late Emlyn Hooson—one of my hon. Friend’s illustrious predecessors—who on St David’s day in 1968 put forward a Parliament for Wales Bill that did not get very far. It is a mark of his work and that of many others from other political parties that we have reached this point today, albeit crystallised by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.