Clause 34 - Wales
Local Government Bill
9:15 am
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Wales to the Committee. If he has come to deal with the two lines of clause 34, he has had an interrupted morning. Perhaps we shall hear more from him later. I could not let this little clause, two lines long as it is, go without comment. It states:
''In the application of this Chapter to local authorities in Wales, references to a Minister of the Crown include the National Assembly for Wales.''
I did not say what I said just now to the Minister for Local Government and the Regions without purpose. I led him into a trap, into which he fell beautifully. That has now put his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary into the position of needing to do some explaining. Whereas the Government are keeping control of devolution to London and the regions—the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill is hedged with huge controls over the regions—in Wales, by contrast, the Government are prepared to devolve everything, including financial powers.
I am sure that the Under-Secretary will confirm that exactly what the clause means is that the money will be given to the Welsh Assembly. Under clause 31(1), which I have already read out, it may disburse the money to any of its local authorities. It is entirely up to the Welsh Assembly how that money is disbursed. If my interpretation is correct that we have a fully devolved power for financial purposes, my next question for the Under-Secretary is: how does the Westminster Parliament, which gives the block grant
to Wales, retain control over that money? How does Parliament track that best value is being achieved from the spending of that money? How does it track that the money is not being defrauded or misappropriated?
We must ask those serious questions of those devolved functions, because while Westminster looks after the taxpayers' money that is raised throughout the United Kingdom, we have a responsibility to ensure that it is spent and disbursed properly. I look forward with interest, as always, to a courteous explanation from the Under-Secretary.