The Bourne Ultimatum: minister's warning on Wales Bill

The Wales Bill, currently being debated at an upper House near you.

Is the Wales Bill approaching what Sir Alex Ferguson would describe as squeaky bum time?

Peers completed the Bill's committee stage on Tuesday night and will resume their consideration at report stage on December 14.

Another day of report stage is scheduled for early January and then it really will be make-your-mind-up time in both Westminster and Cardiff Bay.

Wales Office Minister Lord Bourne was blunt (in his own polite way) in warning on Monday that unless AMs in Cardiff Bay approve it, via what's called a legislative consent motion, the Bill will effectively fall.

'Timetable'

He told peers: "We will not move to third reading—as I said at second reading—until there is a legislative consent motion. So, if there is no legislative consent motion—and there may not be; that is an issue for the National Assembly for Wales and the ministers of the Welsh Government—we will have no third reading."

Once the report stage, when promised government amendments will be introduced, is over the focus will switch to Cardiff Bay. So what's the timetable?

Lord Bourne: "As I understand it—the noble Baroness [Eluned Morgan] pressed me on this issue—we are hoping for a legislative consent motion in the middle of January before moving to third reading shortly after that.

"That is the suggested choreography, but of course we are in the hands of the Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales in relation to the legislative consent motion. I cannot be definitive about that but I can be definitive, as I think I have been in the past, that we will not move to third reading until we have the legislative consent motion."

He added: "I should also say that there is pressure elsewhere in the legislative programme, as I am sure noble lords will accept."

'Impatience'

And that "pressure elsewhere in the legislative programme" could intensify if the UK government loses its appeal to the Supreme Court and finds itself having to introduce Brexit legislation.

Within the UK government there is impatience about the progress of the Bill and a reluctance to make further concessions to the Welsh Government.

But many AMs still harbour doubts about legislation that they think rolls back the Assembly's powers despite the warmly-received concessions offered during its parliamentary passage by Lord Bourne.

Of course it's just possible there that there may be some 'hardball tactics' as talks continue between the two governments, but there will have to be a compromise if the Bill is to become law. Who will blink first?