‘I don’t see this settlement as being any more permanent than any of the others…. Until we reach the point of having some sort of jurisdiction for Wales, then I don’t think that the process of devolution will have been concluded. But, again, I do feel that the way in which these matters are to be reserved are dealt with in this particular Bill is something that can only be a temporary solution rather than a permanent one.’

Those are not my words, but the words of the pre-eminent constitutional lawyer in Wales. And how do I know that he is pre-eminent? Well, he is emeritus professor of law at Bangor and Cardiff universities, and you can get no higher than that.

Professor Thomas Glyn Watkin and others who provided evidence to the committee on this Bill have demonstrated clearly all the deficiencies that have been repeated in this Bill, because it was clear from the outset, when the original draft Bill was proposed, what path we were taking; namely, it was moving from a conferred-powers model to a reserved-powers model. But to me, that wasn’t the question. The question was always how many reservations and exceptions there will be. The crucial thing for me is to compare the reservations in Scotland’s devolution settlement and Northern Ireland’s settlement and to see the rationale, and to ask the question—and I still ask the question: what is the constitutional reason as to why Wales must be treated differently? Now, I asked that question of the previous Secretary of State and asked him whether he had read the appropriate clause in the Northern Ireland Act that includes exceptions and reservations, because, as the First Minister will know, there are but a handful of these. Those in Northern Ireland, in terms of the conferred powers, do provide additional powers to the Government and Assembly of Northern Ireland so that they can deal with the republic on the same terms. So, these aren’t barriers to prevent them doing things, but are enablers.

Therefore it is clear to me that the model that we have followed in developing devolution—. I congratulate the new Chair on his work, and fellow members of the committee, when I was a member, and I was pleased to hear him make this point, and this is a crucial point: we must reach a position where we can legislate jointly with Westminster. If I may say so, we did that the other week, when, under the leadership of our Chair, we met with colleagues who are members of the Constitution Committee in the second Chamber at Westminster. I’ve never felt prouder of being a Member of this Assembly—and I happen also, because of my past, to be a member of the upper House at Westminster—because our performance at that committee was as good a performance as any politician or legislator in the UK or anywhere else in Europe—anywhere I have been, anyway. But again, here we are being restricted from doing that legislative work ourselves.

I have taken advantage of the work of this committee and have tabled a number of draft amendments that will be discussed at the Committee Stage in the upper House the week after next. My colleague Baroness Morgan of Ely will be there with me. I don’t know what her feeling is, but I am not particularly hopeful that the Government will listen. I’m not particularly confident, in terms of the conversations that I’ve had with the Government, that they are truly interested in responding to what we have said, which raises a very grave question in terms of the prejudice against this house in the rest of the UK. We must seek a totally different way of dealing with constitutional issues, and that must mean that the National Assembly for Wales, in my view, must be able to legislate jointly on its own constitution with Westminster and anywhere else.