Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Debate between Guto Bebb and Harriett Baldwin

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly valid point, but I will speak about some of the other recommendations of the Justice Committee, which are relevant to some of the other clauses in my Bill:

“Even if legislation could be more clearly distinguished, the current system of territorial financing in the UK post-devolution means that the levels of public finance decided for England determine levels of resource allocation to Scotland and Wales. While we agree that the system could be changed in order to remove this effect, such a change would be a necessary prerequisite”.

I have taken a slightly different approach in this piece of legislation, which is to spell out on the face of the draft legislation what impact the Government think it might have on the Barnett formula and any successor formula. That would allow hon. Members who represent the Scottish National party to look at the legislation and reassure themselves, for example if there were no financial consequences, that they could have their hand strengthened in some way in their practice—which was mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—of not voting on legislation that does not affect their constituents.

[Guto Bebb]

On that important point, High Speed 2 has been mentioned. Obviously that issue affects England, but the financial consequentials might be to the tune of £2 billion, which would make me very keen to be involved. It would be of great help to a Welsh Conservative MP, therefore, to have that information on the face of the draft legislation.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank my hon. Friend for that Welsh perspective and that support for the principles of the Bill.