My Lords, I speak to Amendments 318B, 318C, 318D and 318E, which, it does not take a lot of working out, follow on from Amendment 318 and 318A. In fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said, it is interesting that what I suggest in three of those amendments in many ways corresponds exactly with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, suggested—as amended by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. Yet we came to the conclusion separately. We may have been inspired by the same people, the same thinking and the same ideas, but we came to draft them separately, which is interesting.
It is also really helpful that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, has said quite clearly that the Government are willing to look at these amendments and at some way of getting out of the impasse in which they find themselves. That is a really helpful way forward. However, the Government are the architects of their own misfortune. As my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port said, the Joint Ministerial Committee should have met more frequently and earlier. We were sent just the other day details of the fifth ministerial committee—on 16 October. It is extraordinary that we had only four ministerial committees dealing with this issue before then. It really is a dereliction of duty by the Government, which I think comes from the fact that, within Whitehall—as I found when I was a Minister—there is no understanding about devolution and what it involves. The Minister responsible was perhaps Oliver Letwin or Chris Grayling, so you can understand why they did not understand—but what worries me is that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, has been the Advocate-General for some time, and he should have alerted the people around Whitehall and others to this problem a lot earlier. Indeed, the Secretary of State, David Mundell, who I will concede is a very nice man—