Clause 15 - Money
Transport (Wales) Bill
12:00 pm
Nick Ainger (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Secretary of State for Wales; Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is an experienced parliamentarian and he will know that there is always a money clause in Bills, not just those that relate to Wales. I shall try to help him further: the Bill carries the potential for increased expenditure by the Assembly and local authorities; that needs to be authorised, regardless of anything that the Government might have to say.
I am trying to reassure the hon. Gentleman, first, that there is no intention to increase the block grant because of anything in the Bill. I cannot make predictions, but I cannot think of an example in which the Assembly would require the block grant to be increased rather than deciding to fund a particular function in the Bill from its own block grant and expenditure. However, it would be ludicrous not to provide for such an eventuality in the future and rather than going through the process of primary legislation, the clause has been included to cover the possibility of Parliament having to vote more money to the Assembly for the functions in the Bill. That is why the clause is there.