My Lords, I thank noble Lords who participated in the debate on this amendment. I turn first to the comments of the
noble Lord, Lord Wigley. Clause 2 places the existing convention on legislative consent on a statutory footing. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, just indicated, this is not something that the Government have suddenly dreamed up. It is an existing convention and something we committed to do in the St David’s Day agreement. As has been noted by various noble Lords, it is also in line with Section 2 of the Scotland Act 2016. The convention states that Parliament will not normally legislate on matters devolved to the National Assembly for Wales without the consent of the Assembly, or in the case of Scotland the Scottish Parliament. These amendments seek to broaden the convention in two ways. They seek to remove the “not normally” requirement and also seek to expand the circumstances in which Parliament would not legislate without the consent of the National Assembly for Wales.
That said—the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, is right that I am going to refer to the doctrine of the sovereignty of Parliament—I can, nevertheless, understand the points that have been made. I am grateful for comments about this from other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, and earlier from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who is not in his place at the moment. I will go back and have a look to see whether we are able to do something by guidance, but the whole nature of the “not normally” is that that there will be circumstances that are difficult to foresee.
The nature of this signals that they are not justiciable, because it is left to Parliament. However, in line with comments from noble Lords and in the interests of ensuring that we look at this from all angles, I will go back and see whether there is something that we can do in relation to guidance on the two issues in relation to devolved matters as raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, and the noble Lords, Lord Elis-Thomas and Lord Wigley. I urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.