My Lords, I am grateful for the response and for the support for these amendments. Similar to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government can now determine how they want to take forward arrangements in relation to devolved bodies and workforces. The devolved Administrations will be responsible for putting forward their own regulations and listing relevant bodies in scope. As I made clear in introducing the amendments, they will enable Welsh Ministers to make regulations in respect of exit payments where they have devolved legislative competence for exit payments under the Government of Wales Act 2006. Therefore, the situation is different from those issues, which we will no doubt come on to debate later this afternoon.
The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, asked about the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority—a point that we have touched on before. Interestingly, as we discussed in relation to the previous amendment, the ONS is
involved. It determines whether a body falls within the public sector by reference to objective criteria, based on whether the governance, funding, ownership and function of these bodies demonstrate that they are controlled by government. Organisations within the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority carry out important public work, acting as agents of and under the direction of the NDA and operating only through a licence issued by the Office for Nuclear Regulation.
The majority of funding provided to the NDA comes from the Exchequer and amounts to about £2 billion a year. Regulations, not the Bill itself, will set out who is within the scope of the cap, and I can reassure the noble Lord that the Treasury will release both the guidance and regulations in the summer in order to consult with stakeholders. We expect the regulations to come before this House later this year and to be in force from October 2016 at the earliest. NDA employees due to exit before this date will not be affected. From the point when the regulations have been made, Ministers will be able to relax the cap and may wish to consider whether exceptionally it should be relaxed for certain individuals or even organisations.
To conclude, as I said earlier, the Bill supports the UK’s position as the best place in Europe to start and grow a business. The amendments made in the other place make a series of changes to further support our aim, adding measures on apprenticeships, Sunday working, Wales, tidying up the pubs and on the Green Investment Bank, and making a number of technical changes. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debates in this House and of course in the other place.