House of Commons Hansard Debates for 8 Dec 1997 (pt 17)

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley): On what the Secretary of State said earlier, does the right hon. Gentleman accept the supremacy and sovereignty of this Westminster Parliament, even with the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament?

Mr. Wigley: I accept what the leadership of the Conservative party said before the general election and what the leadership of the Labour party has said: that, if the peoples of Wales and Scotland determined through referendums that they wanted assemblies, Parliament would deliver them and that the Conservative party would not scrap an elected Welsh national assembly or Scottish Parliament without a subsequent referendum. That is a de facto recognition of the right of the people of Scotland--of the claim of right, as it is defined in Scotland--and of the people of Wales to take those decisions.

I am not a great devotee of 19th-century sovereignty. I believe that sovereignty does not exist only in one place. It comes from the people upwards, and should be aggregated at different levels for different functions. That is why I have no difficulty in recognising that some decisions must be taken at European level and that some sovereignty should be transferred for that purpose, as was done by the Thatcher Government. However, where sovereignty can be exercised at an all-Wales level, it should be.

Technically, it is a tradition here at Westminster that sovereignty comes from the institution, but as a democrat I believe that sovereignty--or any rights or legitimacy

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that we have--comes from the people. My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Mon (Mr. Jones) hopes to speak tomorrow on developing proposals for a fast track to present our legislation to Westminster.

Another dimension of the Bill relates to links between Wales and the European Union. The Secretary of State gave a commitment when the White Paper was published--I was glad to hear him repeat it this afternoon--that our national assembly in Wales will have as full and equal a right as the Scottish Parliament in getting a voice in the European Union. Paragraph 3.46 of the White Paper states:

"Wales needs a strong voice in Europe."

The Bill does not appear to achieve that, but perhaps it will be achieved outside the framework of legislation. If so, we welcome it.

The White Paper also states:

"The Assembly will take over the Welsh Office's responsibilities for administering the European Strategic Funds".

The Bill does not appear to provide that. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that in his reply.

We want the Ministers, or Secretaries as they will be known, of our national assembly included as of right in the UK delegation to the Council of Ministers when issues within the assembly's competence--such as agriculture, which is in our minds because of the current crisis--appear on the agenda.

Mr. Denzil Davies: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that a member of the assembly should sit in the Council of Agriculture Ministers?

Mr. Wigley: Yes. From the assurances given in a Scottish context, I believe that the Scottish Agriculture Minister would be entitled to sit side by side with the UK Agriculture Minister in the Council of Ministers. Given the assurance that Wales will be treated equally with Scotland in that matter, I expect the Secretary of the Welsh Assembly with responsibility for agriculture to be part of the delegation when agricultural matters that have an impact on Wales arise in the Council of Ministers in Brussels. That is the spirit in which I took the statements made in the House today and on previous occasions. That is important for Welsh farmers.

Mr. Dalyell: The right hon. Gentleman's statement is news to us. As far as I know, there has been no assurance that Ministers responsible to an assembly in Edinburgh could speak in the Council of Ministers for the whole of the UK. Is he sure that such assurances have been given?

Mr. Wigley: I did not use that term. I did not say that the representative of the Welsh Assembly or Scottish Parliament could speak on the behalf of the whole UK, but that he could be part of the UK delegation, side by side with the UK Minister. There is a difference between what the hon. Gentleman said and what I said. I am sure that he recognises that. It is an important right that there should be a direct link from the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly to the team in Brussels when vital matters that are their responsibility are discussed.

Mr. Jenkin: We all understand the right hon. Gentleman's aspiration that Wales should one day have

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an independent voice in the Council of Ministers. Realistically, with the UK being the signatory to the treaty and being entitled only to one representative at the Council of Ministers to exercise 10 votes--or no votes--Welsh or Scottish representatives would attend as flunkeys with the permission, or at the invitation, of the UK Minister, or not at all. The idea that the Welsh or Scottish representative could attend as a peer or equal of the UK Minister leads the Welsh people up the garden path.

Mr. Wigley: At the Council of Ministers, a policy advocated at European level may be equally acceptable and relevant to England, Scotland and Wales or be acceptable to one part and not the others. If an agricultural policy is acceptable, say, in East Anglia but not in Wales, it is right and proper that we should have someone there to articulate that, even within the UK team. I would much rather we had a full seat in the Council of Ministers, but it is better for us to have someone there who can at least prod the United Kingdom Minister and say, "Hey, we have these requirements," than for us to have no one at all. To that extent at least, I see this as a step forward.

Mr. Rowlands: Clauses 105 and 106 explicitly state that all Community obligations are binding on the assembly, although the assembly may disagree with those obligations profoundly. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept clauses 105 and 106?

Mr. Wigley: Of course I do--and, as the hon. Gentleman no doubt accepts, the Community obligations are equally binding on the House.

We believe that the assembly should have the right to an appointee in the new United Kingdom permanent representation office in Brussels--UKREP, as it is called--and the right to determine priorities for European funding allocated to Wales. The White Paper said that that needed to be spelt out more clearly during the Bill's passage and I hope that assurances will be given in the winding-up speech. The White Paper also said, in paragraph 3.53, that the Bill would

"provide for members of the assembly to represent Wales on the Committee of the Regions."

I do not see exactly where the Bill deals with that but, if I have missed the reference, it will doubtless be pointed out to me.

Time is passing, so I shall deal only briefly with a number of other issues. One relates to the statutory committees proposed in part III. We do not consider a local government-type committee system appropriate or adequate for our national assembly: it would be too slow and too cumbersome, it would avoid ministerial responsibility and it would be open to abuse. The assembly's Secretaries must be given the power of ministerial responsibility. It is fine for them to be accountable to a subject committee, but we believe that the so-called executive committee must operate as a Cabinet and take responsibility along those lines. If that does not happen, there is a real danger that the assembly will degenerate into a talking shop. We shall return to the issue in Committee, and I welcome what the Secretary of State said about the facility offered in the Bill for progress in that direction.

May we have confirmation that clause 73 gives powers for the establishment of committees fully analogous to our Select Committees, and that the authority of those

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committees to call people to appear before them will be equal to that of Select Committees so that they can do a similar job? As for clause 75, might it be possible for Welsh MEPs, when appropriate, to attend assembly committees--although, obviously, not to vote? At the very least, could they be part of the partnership council that is proposed in clause 110?

How will quangos such as the revamped Welsh Development Agency be answerable, and will the same pattern apply to all quangos? May we also have clarification of the intention of clause 22, relating to exactly what powers can be transferred from London Ministers to the assembly? I listened carefully to what the Secretary of State said earlier, but I have some difficulty in regard to schedule 2. It maps out the areas that are open to transfer, but it does not deal with matters such as disability policy and the police. Unless there is a facility for amending the schedule by order, I do not think that it will be possible for it to be applied to matters that are not currently covered by it.

Schedule 2 contains interesting anomalies. It includes culture, but does not include heritage; it includes industry, but does not include trade; it includes training, but does not include employment; it includes water, but does not include natural resources. I hope that, either tonight or tomorrow, we can hear some explanation of how the mechanism will work.

I am sorry that the assembly will be entirely dependent on the Secretary of State for both grants and loans. The denial of any tax-varying or independent borrowing power takes a fundamental responsibility from the assembly, which will have less financial autonomy than a parish council.

We in Plaid Cymru believe that all the taxes raised in Wales or on behalf of Wales should be channelled through a Welsh treasury department, but that clearly goes beyond what the Government have in mind. We need some assurance, in the Bill or outside it, about the Government's intentions in regard to the Barnett formula. We need to know that in future Wales will have a more generous deal than that formula has provided in recent years. [Laughter.] Conservative Members laugh. It may well be that they do not want Wales to have a better deal, but they will know that independent studies undertaken in Cardiff university have shown that Wales is missing out under the Barnett formula. Other areas may not be missing out, but Wales is.