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Mr. Ron Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman accusing me of it?
Mr. Ancram: Yes, I do accuse him of it. It lies four square with his patronising approach to those in the Labour party who have genuine worries about the detail of the proposals, and it tallies with his dismissive refusal to have any truck with the genuine concerns of the people of Wales about the Bill. It is a dangerous undermining of our constitutional procedures, and it cannot be justified by protestations of administrative convenience or modernised procedures. It may well make the Secretary of State's job easier, but all the procedures of the House should be not for the convenience of Government but for the good of our country and our constitution.
The Bill requires the fullest and most careful scrutiny. It is not a measure for today, which can be changed tomorrow if it does not work. Constitutional reform is not like that, and nor should it be. It is for the long term, and there is an imperative for the House to try to get it right. That description is not applicable to the Bill.
The Bill is a dog's breakfast, and is the more dangerous for it. In many ways, it is almost schizophrenic. A Bill that is designed to pass the powers of secondary legislation to the assembly leaves a staggering 45 separate order-making powers in the hands of the Secretary of State and a further 20 determinations or directions to be made by Welsh or Treasury Ministers.
In five instances, the Secretary of State's staff may be required to consult before acting, but, given the current interpretation by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the word "consultation", that hardly gives any of us much comfort. The Bill as it stands is devolution subject to direction and veto: neither one thing nor the other. I shall discuss that in due course.
The Bill contains significant areas for potential conflict between Westminster and the assembly, and between the Assembly and the Secretary of State. We shall be told, and have been told again today, that those areas of conflict are more imagined than real, because there will be a new consensus style of politics, which will prevent them arising--just as, I suppose, there is in the Secretary of State's dealings with Cardiff county council about Cardiff city hall as the home for the assembly.
Long-term constitutional reform cannot be founded on wishful thinking or on best-case scenarios. Where new structures, new procedures and new relationships are being erected in a constitution, they must be tested against the hypothesis of the potential storm instead of the potential calm, against the times of disagreement instead of agreement, against, indeed, the worst-case scenario. Almost anything can be made to work in the best of all possible worlds, but that is not the world we live in or are likely to, as I suspect the Secretary of State is discovering daily the hard way.
We intend in both Houses to test the propositions in the Bill against reality, not aspiration. If devolution is to happen, it must be robust enough to withstand the economic and political storms that will inevitably occur. I believe that statement to be in line with the question that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) asked me earlier.
On reading the Bill, I was relieved to find that old habits of socialists are alive and kicking, at least in the Welsh Office. The assembly--shades of some of those wonderful old communist regimes--will have at its head a First Secretary. That is a phrase to be conjured with, and takes me back a bit. The First Secretary will preside over not a Cabinet, but an executive or praesidium. I suppose that we will be told next that the assembly, if it can be found a home, will be called the grand hall of the people--in which required reading for members will be a little book called "The Thoughts of Chairman Ron". I suspect that it will be a small book--
Mr. Dalyell:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give up these silly points, and bear in mind the fact that the first First Secretary was Rab Butler?
Mr. Ancram:
I am grateful for the history lesson--the hon. Gentleman's history predates mine. We could all poke a bit of fun if the matter were not so very serious. Indeed, the drafting of the Bill leaves little room for levity. It is one of the most confused pieces of legislation that I have had the misfortune to study--and there is some pretty stiff competition.
The Bill gives the impression that it does not know what it is trying to achieve. It remains unclear whether the Assembly will be just a talking shop or a body with real teeth. It remains unclear whether the Secretary of State will be reduced to a messenger or elevated to the role of Governor General. There is evidence for both propositions. It is also unclear how the government of Wales will continue in an efficient, decisive and accountable manner.
Just about the only really clear provision is that the members of the assembly will determine their own salaries and allowances. There is also a clear provision, as the Secretary of State has reminded us, to the effect that one third of the members will be elected by a closed list system--not even the open list system which the Home Secretary is studying in relation to the European elections. The system is designed to give maximum power and patronage to party leaders. We believe that both provisions are insidious and could be corrupting, and we shall oppose them.
Let us look at the contradictions. Some parts of the Bill provide for an assembly that is able only to advise, discuss and consult--that wonderful word again--yet other parts confer on it seemingly sweeping powers without the need for further legislation. For instance, clause 32 is meant to give the assembly a real role in drawing up relevant primary legislation for Westminster, and requires the Secretary of State to undertake consultation with the assembly on the Government's legislative programme. But then come the words:
We do not even know for certain yet what functions will be transferred to the assembly from the Secretary of State or any other Minister of the Crown. We hear speeches from the Secretary of State and his Ministers about what is to be transferred, but there is nothing in the Bill about it except for a schedule of areas within which transfers of functions may be made by Order in Council, as the Secretary of State considers appropriate--those words again. A draft of the order is not even required until just before the elections to the assembly take place--another blank cheque.
The Secretary of State told us that he will provide us with a working draft in January. At last, we thought, he is beginning to see that there is some purpose in giving the House information during the passage of the legislation, but he went on to say blandly that it will not be the final draft--many other things could appear in later drafts, he said. Once again, we are being asked to sign a blank cheque. This is hardly a sensible way in which to make fundamental constitutional reforms.
Mr. Gareth Thomas (Clwyd, West):
The right hon. Gentleman is in danger of missing the point. Making the Bill too prescriptive in terms of the powers to be accorded to the assembly runs counter to the very principle behind it, which is to provide democratic accountability to match the administrative devolution that has gone on apace in Wales for the past 18 years.
Mr. Ancram:
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has read the Bill. I am not complaining about the democratic institution of a Welsh Assembly deciding these matters; I am complaining about the Secretary of State deciding them under the 45 order-making powers that he retains under the Bill. He will not tell us what those orders will contain.
The contrast between these approaches is quite breathtaking. I had hoped that it was the result of sloppy drafting which can yet be put right--we shall see. If the assembly's role is ambiguous, the Secretary of State's is much more so. If his current functions and budget are transferred, as he said today they would be, he will have little that is positive left to do, and even less authority to do it with. It is hard to see how his position could for long continue to command a place in the Cabinet. However, other clauses giving a very different impression soon appear.
Under clauses 45, 49 and 50, far from decentralising decision making over its own affairs to the assembly, the Secretary of State reserves to himself the right to decide
its original Standing Orders. He then requires an awesome two-thirds majority in the assembly to change them thereafter. That is a draconian threshold, which puts the 25 per cent. yes vote in the referendum in perspective.
There is more. Nothing in the Bill dispels the fear aroused by the White Paper that the concerns of Wales will hereafter be voiced less in the European Council of Ministers, and only at the whim and invitation of the Secretary of State. That would certainly fail the worst scenario test, and the people of Wales should know about it before it is too late.
The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) asked a significant question earlier, and got no response to it--not because the Secretary of State did not know the answer, although he gave a fair impression of being badly briefed, but because he knew that the answer was no. He knew, too, that if he gave that answer it would not please the hon. Gentleman or the House.
What is more, the Secretary of State will have powers under clause 107 to overrule the assembly
What is certain is that these ambiguities and confusions will result in less clarity and accountability, and more bureaucracy and delay--the latter being feared by the chairman and director of the Welsh CBI, Elizabeth Haywood, who informed the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs last week:
It is from what is not in the Bill that the greatest fears arise; and it is in its failures that we find the greatest cause for concern and opposition. For a start, it fails to offer any statutory protection for minorities. The referendum showed that the Government had succeeded in splitting Wales down the middle: the north fears permanent domination by the south; the east fears bias towards the west; English and Welsh speakers fear losing out to each other. There is nothing in the Bill to safeguard the interests of minorities; without such a safeguard, the seeds of dangerous tensions could be sown.
Setting up a series of regional committees is meant as a sop to north Wales--on examination, it turns out to be a meaningless gesture. The assembly will decide how many regions there will be and will then draw up their
boundaries. The regions will be only advisory in any case, and the assembly could cheerfully ignore them. They offer no statutory protection whatever.
More astonishingly, the Bill gives no assurances on finance for a Welsh Assembly, or any sign that resources will be provided to meet need. Clause 80 states only that the Secretary of State
It is no good the Secretary of State protesting that the much-vaunted Barnett formula is in the financial memorandum. He knows as well as I do that such a memorandum has no force in statute. It protects precisely nothing. What are the Government's longer-term intentions? What effect will the current fundamental spending review have on the formula? What bankable assurances can the right hon. Gentleman give the people of Wales that, financially, they are not being sold a pig in a very expensive poke? In short, can he offer anything more than the fragile and potentially transient good will of Secretaries of State in the future?
I turn finally to the failure of the Bill to reassure on the vital question of the United Kingdom and Wales's place within it. None of us can know the outcome of the legislation in this regard, but we are entitled to fear it. I fear a Bill which, in clause 22, proposes that further powers be transferred from Whitehall to an assembly simply by Order in Council. I fear even more a provision that establishes that this is a one-way street and a ratchet that cannot be reversed, and which can only further distance Wales from the United Kingdom and further loosen the bonds of the Union.
I must tell the Secretary of State that even in the negotiations on the framework document on Northern Ireland, the dangers of the one-way ratchet were recognised. Paragraph 44 of the White Paper on Scotland--we have not yet seen the Bill--suggests that there will be provision for transferring further matters to and from a reserved list. Here we have a one-way ratchet, and that is something at which the House should look carefully.
To add to the confusion, clauses 43 and 44 propose that the House will no longer receive statements about secondary legislation from the assembly, although it will still be required to pass--at least for the moment--the primary legislation under which the assembly will operate. I say in all seriousness that that creates an open door for nationalist ambitions, and raises doubts about the ultimate sovereignty of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Significantly, that is not mentioned in the Bill, although it was the focus of loud reassurance during the referendum campaign. It is not surprising that the absence from the Bill of such a measure creates suspicion, uncertainty and fear.
"as appears to him to be appropriate".
It goes on, amazingly, to remove the requirement to consult the assembly if the Secretary of State
"considers there are considerations relating to the Bill which make it inappropriate for him to do so".
8 Dec 1997 : Column 694
The whole thing is left to the subjective or political judgment of the Secretary of State: so much for the assembly.
In almost the same breath, we are told that, under clauses 28 and 29, the assembly can centralise power by assuming to itself the powers of, say, health authorities. For example, it could abolish the North Wales health authority and run it from Cardiff or Swansea: so much for devolution. Without reference to anyone or anything, the assembly could disband the Welsh tourist board, the Welsh Language Board or even the Welsh Development Agency and assume their roles itself. If the House is sceptical about that, hon. Members have only to look at clause 39, under which the assembly may do anything that is "calculated"--another weasel word--to facilitate the exercise of any of its functions. How is that for a blank cheque?
"in any way he thinks necessary"
to fulfil commitments to the European Union. If ever there was a recipe for conflict and resentment, this is it. Add to that the 17 orders subject to affirmative procedure, the 25 orders subject to negative procedure and a few other powers thrown in, and the picture of a Secretary of State with a whip but without a role becomes clearer. His potential as a pivot for conflict, resentment and the encouragement of nationalism is self-evident, and it makes a mockery of the claimed stability of the proposals. Then there is the right hon. Gentleman's control over money--I shall return to it in a moment.
"there is no economic imperative for establishing a Welsh Assembly."
I welcomed the right hon. Gentleman's recognition of that fear when he launched his Bill. He must know that uncertainty is the greatest enemy of business confidence, and that the Bill is riddled with it. Entrepreneurs and investors need a system of government that they know and trust. The Bill, in all its bureaucratic muddled glory, can hardly claim to provide it.
"shall from time to time make payments to the Assembly out of money provided by Parliament of such amounts as he may determine".
In other words, it is at his whim and discretion. If ever there was an area where it is in Wales's interests to see legislative assurance, it is here. If ever there was a candidate for the worst-case scenario test, it must be this. That is all that is said--beyond what is in clause 80, the Bill is silent. The financial future of Wales will be subject only to the discretion of the Secretary of State, who will, at the same time, have lost his clout with the Treasury. If ever there was an area of uncertainty, this must be it.
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