My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I will briefly respond to his points at the end of my remarks.
When I moved this rather innocent, inconspicuous amendment, I had no idea that it would provoke such a rich debate about political principles, political theory and the nature of democracy; it has been very instructive and valuable indeed. My noble friend Lord Murphy really came to the nub of the matter when he said that this was about a country’s parliamentary legislature. This is something very precious to Wales and which needs to be given proper respect. That, in a way, links to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, which she expressed very eloquently indeed. She said that Assembly Members should—by living in Wales, in this case—be subject themselves to the laws that they are passing and subject themselves to the policies that they are instrumental in enacting.
The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, made a number of interesting points, but at one point he was almost saying that there should be no restrictions at all on candidature, or at least on Assembly Members. The main gist of his argument was about candidates, and I anticipated that with my noble friend Lord Murphy with our Amendment 21, as did the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, with his amendment. I do not think that this is the same issue as that about Members of Parliament, because the constituency boundaries are not being changed by the change in the parliamentary constituencies at all. Of course, the parliamentary constituencies do not cross the border of Wales. The new legislation, if eventually enacted, does not do that either.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about his amendment. Frankly, I could not have done as effective a job as MP for Neath as I hope that I did without living in the constituency. That means living and breathing the life of the local rugby clubs, the local businesses and the local schools and hospitals, as I did for nearly a quarter of a century. He made a series of fair points in relation to pressing his amendment, by which I am rather persuaded. We can happily concede that. He asked about the Neath by-election. I had actually bought a house in the constituency five months before that by-election, although I must admit that I had a crazy mortgage, in retrospect. That was an important principle that I, like the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, felt was right.
The noble Lord, Lord Norton, raised some very interesting points, but he seemed to offer no restrictions on where one must live in order to stand for, or be a Member of, the Assembly. You could be living anywhere—hundreds of miles away from Wales. I simply do not think that that is acceptable. My noble friend Lord Murphy made the point that, in practice, Welsh voters do not have a real choice about the particular Assembly Members they get through the regional lists, and I do not think that he addressed that point. It is, as my noble friend Lord Murphy said, a question of voting for the party.