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8.35 pm
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset): I wish mainly to address the implications of clause 80, but before the hon. Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) leaves his place, I would like to discuss a point that he made of which I have yet to be persuaded.
The Bill provides for a sum of money to be paid from central Government to the assembly. If the total sum remains invariant, and it is decided to allocate an increased proportion of that money to the trunk road programme--a point made by the hon. Gentleman and, I think, by the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson)--I assume that it will have to come out of the current total. It must therefore come out of the health programme--is that what the hon. Member for Clwyd, South had in mind?--or the education programme, which seems unlikely. If it does not come out of those programmes, it must, as I suggested, come from top-slicing revenue support grant. That is by far the most likely outcome. I would be most interested in the hon. Gentleman's reply.
Mr. Martyn Jones:
The hon. Gentleman's original question was not clear but he has clarified it, perhaps with some education from his Front-Bench colleagues. I was trying to point out that road programme spending priorities will be in the hands of the assembly, which might decide to take money from other sectors of the Welsh Office budget. My point was that it might want to improve one part of the A470 rather than another. The hon. Gentleman's point is separate from that.
Mr. Letwin:
I am grateful for that clarification. I remain wholly unpersuaded. The Secretary of State already has such discretion in respect of the trunk road programme. The assembly will either be able to reprioritise, compared with the present, or it will not. As far as I can see, it will be able to reprioritise only if it deprives another element of the same total budget.
Mr. Jones:
I now know exactly where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. The Secretary of State currently has the power to prioritise road programmes in Wales. My point is that the assembly will have that power,
Mr. Letwin:
Now I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, which brings me directly to the effects of clause 80.
Clause 80 will no doubt be extensively debated, if it is one of those that we will be vouchsafed the ability to debate on the Floor of the House. If not, it will no doubt be debated upstairs in Committee. It is the most remarkable piece of drafting it has been the privilege of the House to consider, even under this Government. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) said in his opening remarks, it states:
It is a most interesting piece of drafting. The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) said that he did not want the private finance initiative origins of the headquarters of this great assembly to suggest in any way the ability to pull levers that would affect its decisions. Clause 80 allows the Secretary of State unrestricted powers to pull levers of any sort.
Let us take the interesting case that I have just been discussing in my exchange with the hon. Member for Clwyd, South. Let us suppose that the Secretary of State for Wales determined that a decision on priorities set by the assembly in respect of transport or any other matter was slightly mistaken. If the Secretary of State did so decide, he would have available to him the immediate power to make the assembly listen to his view rather than to its view. He would be able to threaten--as, from time to time, is within his discretion--immediately to vary downwards the amount of grant given to the Welsh assembly.
It is, of course, possible to generalise, and to apply that small example to a wide range of issues. What we have here, however, is an interesting picture not of an assembly, but of an animated poodle that is to be led by the Secretary of State around whatever courses he may choose, by means of the strong chain that the Secretary of State holds--the fact that he is its paymaster.
That prompts an interesting question. What have the Government in mind to establish? Let me return to my earlier debate with the hon. Member for Clwyd, South. Do the Government intend to provide for the ability to reprioritise? If so, why, in drafting the legislation, did the Secretary of State not specifically bind his own hand to prevent himself from varying the amount downwards, merely because of the reprioritisation? Or does the Secretary of State intend never to exercise the power to vary the amount downwards as a use of prerogative power--or quasi-prerogative power--to force the assembly into a certain plan of action? Why does he not provide for that in the Bill?
The Secretary of State has repeatedly described this as a process rather than an end point. Perhaps he intends the assembly, over time, to be given tax-raising powers, and
therefore feels that it will become less important and less of a lever. If that is his intention, surely it behoves him to tell the House now.
One way or another, we are bound to conclude that the Bill bears a striking similarity to the Bank of England Bill, in that it appears to give another body a basis for independence--but, having given that appearance, it takes it back in clause 80. It creates a poodle, and, moreover, a poodle that can be kicked. It gives the Secretary of State the ability in practice to determine almost every aspect of the assembly's action by means of a constant subtle threat to use the financial lever, and then to complain, when the assembly takes steps that it is virtually bound to take because of the financial stringency imposed by the Secretary of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that it is the fault of the assembly rather than that of the Secretary of State. Similarly, under the Bank of England Bill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer can de facto control the Bank of England's activities by setting certain targets, and can then complain that it is the Bank of England's fault if the wrong interest rates have been set.
That is a point of the utmost constitutional importance, and it brings us to a line of thought that has been brilliantly exposed in a series of speeches by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies). Speaking on the entirely different topic of the European Union, the right hon. Gentleman has often reminded us that the biggest question that we face when considering constitutional issues is what we are trying to aim for. The problem that is revealed in clause 80 does not concern the mere mechanics; it concerns the objective.
It must become clear to anyone who reads and understands clause 80 that the Bill and the assembly are founded on a certain political necessity, rather than on any clear concept of what the Government are trying to do in creating the assembly. That attack could, perhaps, be levelled with less justice against the proposals relating to Scotland: at least the intention is clearer in that regard. In this case, the lack of objective is likely, over time, to create the problems that my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) exposed so clearly.
Where there is no objective at the time when the legislation is passed, there must be a great danger that, eventually, the assembly will itself assert objectives to which the House has never subscribed--that it will assert that the aim was somehow to create a genuinely independent state of Wales. We can be in no doubt that Welsh nationalist Members--none of whom are present now--will use that argument.
Mr. Dalyell:
Will the hon. Gentleman clarify his reference to Scotland?
Mr. Letwin:
Yes. I do not wish to suggest that I believe that the objective is entirely clear in the case of Scottish devolution--which I oppose--but I think that it is at least clear that, in the case of Scotland, there is an intention to give a Scottish Parliament something approaching a national status. Those of us who violently object to that proposal object to it on those grounds.
In this instance, I think that it is genuinely unclear what the Government have in mind. As I have said, I believe that in the long run that will be more likely to generate constitutional tension. Where there is a vacuum of ideas, the vacuum will be filled, and filled above all by those in the assembly who have a particular doctrine.
Whatever we may think of the Welsh national position--and Conservative Members wholly disagree with it--it is at least coherent: it has a clear objective.
It seems altogether likely that, when a Government enact legislation that betrays the fact that it has no objective and creates an assembly that is a poodle, the poodle will react by becoming very vicious. It will try to obtain the maximum mileage by running up and down and yapping, and by trying to bite the heels of those who attempt to control it.
I fear that we are creating the basis for continuing constitutional tension. The assembly will seek to assert itself, and to establish for itself an aim that the Bill--both mechanically and by intention--fails to give it. That strikes me as a remarkable example of lack of constitutional understanding and constitutional foresight. The most important task for a United Kingdom Government considering the constitution of the United Kingdom is not to reach a particular answer, but always to think about the long-term effect on our constitution--not just in Wales, but in the United Kingdom as a whole--of a particular set of objectives, or lack of objectives.
"The Secretary of State shall from time to time make payments to the Assembly out of money provided by Parliament of such amounts as he may determine."
That is unrestricted.
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