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Mr. Davies: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will answer this question: what is to stop this Parliament repealing section 75 of that Act? The answer is, nothing at all, which is precisely my point. Given that we have an unwritten constitution and that everyone recognises the supremacy of Parliament, his proposition that there should be a statutory assurance in relation to the supremacy of Parliament is absolutely meaningless.
Thirdly, members of the Conservative party should not pretend to speak for the interests of those whom they do not represent. The Conservative party was kicked out of Wales on 1 May, and I should have thought that a little humility on its part would not go amiss. The people have shown that they want democratic reform, and the Conservative party should come to terms with that and not continue to live in the past. The Government will work with anybody of good will who is prepared to be constructive. Constitutional change must be based on the broadest consensus.
I hope that, even at this late stage, it is not too late and that Conservative Members can drag themselves back to reality and accept the will of the people. I invite them now to withdraw the amendment: it has no basis in politics or logic. They should give the people what they want and the Bill what it deserves--an unopposed Second Reading.
Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes):
I beg to move, To leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
The right hon. Gentleman told us that he would appoint a Conservative representative to the committee that he is setting up to advise on the Standing Orders. That is the most arrogant and patronising attitude ever heard in the House. It reminds me--I say this with measured intent--of the sort of commissars we used to see on the other side of the iron curtain, who chose not only their own ministers, but their tame opposition. He is not selecting a representative of the Conservative party; he is selecting someone who he believes will be more amenable to his way of thinking than someone proposed by the Conservative party would be.
Mr. Ron Davies:
As the right hon. Gentleman has obviously taken umbrage, may I invite him to cast back his mind to a telephone conversation that he and I had in October this year? I had similar conversations with the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey), as representatives of their parties.
I invited all three Members to come to the Welsh Office to discuss a range of matters relating to how we conducted Welsh business during this Session of Parliament. Will the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) confirm his response at that time: "Until there is a Bill before us, I have nothing to discuss"?
Mr. Ancram:
I confirm that I said that. I wanted an agenda of what was to be discussed, and the Secretary of State said that there was no agenda. That does not excuse his making nominations from other parties by his own hand. I find that an extraordinary way to proceed. I make it clear that whomever the right hon. Gentleman has chosen to represent the Conservative party on his committee represents only himself; he does not represent the Conservatives in Wales. He cannot represent the Conservatives in Wales because he has not been authorised by the Conservative party in Wales.
Given the right hon. Gentleman's views about hereditary peerages and their unrepresentative nature, I presume that he has not selected a member of the hereditary peerage to represent the Conservatives on the advisory committee. If he has, I suspect that he will have many words to eat. It is not the first time that this has happened, and I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman takes lessons in courtesy, statesmanship and how to be a Secretary of State from the Secretary of State for Scotland, with whom I may have political disagreements, but who, when he talks about consensus, has the courtesy and wit to try to achieve it rather than destroy it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Win Griffiths):
The right hon. Gentleman turned it down.
Mr. Ancram:
We have never been invited by the Secretary of State to nominate someone to the advisory committee. The Secretary of State tells us today that, despite the fact that no invitation has been extended, he has made a decision himself. The Secretary of State for Scotland issued such an invitation and I made a senior appointment; I was intending to make a senior and useful appointment to the same position in Wales, but the Secretary of State for Wales has ridden roughshod over the normal parliamentary procedures and courtesies. If he is looking for consensus, that is not the way to achieve it.
Mr. Dalyell:
Whom are we talking about? Some of us are in the dark.
Mr. Ancram:
The Secretary of State has announced what I can describe only as a shadowy figure to be his, not my, Conservative nomination for his advisory committee. If he wishes to have an authoritative representative of the Conservative party on the committee, he has not got one, because he has not gone through the appropriate channels.
Mr. Ron Davies:
In the spirit of inclusivity, let me ask the right hon. Gentleman another question. If I extend to him another invitation to discuss with me in the Welsh Office the way in which we should conduct Welsh Office business, will he accept the invitation this time, unlike last time?
Mr. Ancram:
The right hon. Gentleman gave my answer for me--he spoke of when there was a Bill before us. There is now a Bill before us and I said that, if he invited me when there was a Bill before us, I would come and talk to him. I have been waiting for that invitation; I have also been waiting for invitations to make nominations to the advisory committee. The right hon. Gentleman's behaviour is totally incompatible with the democratic nature of the House.
We are being asked to give a Second Reading to a Bill whose purpose is to set up a Welsh Assembly. We are being asked quite a lot; in effect, we are being asked to endorse proposals which, in their White Paper form, struck anything but a resounding chord of assent in the hearts and minds of the Welsh people at the referendum on 18 September. We are being asked to go where three of every four Welsh electors feared to tread.
For all the Secretary of State's well-known capacity for hyperbole, which has been on show again this afternoon, nobody can deny that the outcome of the referendum was uncertain and unsatisfactory. Some 25 per cent. voted yes; 25 per cent.--only 7,000 fewer out of 1 million--voted no; and just under 50 per cent. did not bother to vote. Geographically, Wales was split almost straight down the middle, and Cardiff voted no.
The Secretary of State, clearly not a man of vaunting expectations, described the tiny majority of 0.6 per cent. as a striking victory and a firm indication of support for the proposals. How he can possibly regard one in four as genuinely democratic evidence of support is hard to see, but the right hon. Gentleman has strangely eccentric views on voting percentages. He never tires of describing the 20 per cent. support for the Conservatives in Wales last May as the wiping out of the Welsh Tories; whereas he describes the 25 per cent. vote for his assembly as a triumph. There must be some extraordinary magical quotient in the 5 per cent. in between. Today, he tells us that, at 20 per cent., the Conservatives are a minority; whereas a 25 per cent. vote for the Assembly is a satisfactory majority. It is curiouser and curiouser.
Mr. David Hanson (Delyn):
Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that on 1 May this year he secured 25,710 votes out of an electorate of 80,383, which means that 69 per cent. of the people of Devizes did not vote for him? I do not deny him his right to sit in the House, but if he wishes to do so, he can take the Chiltern Hundreds today.
Mr. Ancram:
If the hon. Gentleman checks the figures I think that he will find that my percentage of the vote was about the same as that achieved by the Labour Government in securing their victory with a large majority, but he will not find me questioning the validity of that election result.
"this House, deploring the failure of Her Majesty's Government to respond to and allay the legitimate fears of the Welsh people expressed in the referendum vote of 18th September and in particular the omission from the Government of Wales Bill of any statutory assurances in relation to the supremacy of the Westminster Parliament, to the protection of geographic and cultural minorities, to the proper resourcing of Wales to reflect need, and to the safeguarding of the position of Wales within the United Kingdom and its voice within Europe, declines to give a Second Reading to the Government of Wales Bill."
The Secretary of State--I suppose with tongue in cheek--ended by talking about consensus being part of the proposals on devolution. Everything that we have heard today suggests that his interpretation of the word "consensus" is that everyone else agrees with him. If he believes that that is consensus, he will have to think again.
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