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Mr. Davies: There will be no statement on reserved powers, because the scheme that we envisage works on a transfer of powers. Before the Committee stage begins,
a draft order will be prepared so that anyone who wants to see the detail can do so. It will be a hefty document, I can assure my hon. Friend, and it will describe the powers that are being transferred to the assembly.
As for my hon. Friend's example, if my recollection is correct these are powers that the Secretary of State exercises jointly. That being so, it will be a matter of judgment as to whether the powers can be transferred. In the case of national health service charges, we would want conformity between England and Wales, so it is most unlikely that such powers will appear in the transfer order.
Mr. Rowlands:
We clearly need the list as quickly as possible. It is important to define the various roles of the Secretary of State, central Government and the assembly.
Mr. Morgan:
The administrative devolution that we have had in Wales for 33 years has permitted Secretaries of State for Wales to deviate substantially from UK policy, even in international treaty obligations. There was, for instance, the well known example of "Redwooditis", as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), called it. During his period of office, the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) declared a free-for-all on out-of-town shopping stores in Wales, even though the Secretary of State for the Environment, whose policy had tremendous commercial importance for all planning inspectors and inquiries, believed, following the previous Prime Minister's signing of the Rio treaty on biodiversity and global warming, that we should be against out-of-town shopping centres on principle. I would not like my hon. Friend to give the impression that none of these fudged areas are to be found under administrative devolution--things can only improve under democratic devolution.
Mr. Rowlands:
My hon. Friend prompts me to move on to a fundamental point. Nonconformity is generally to be encouraged. When I had the privilege of serving in the Welsh Office, my Secretary of State told me never to conform and always to force Whitehall to make the case for conformity. That was a wonderful remit for a junior Welsh Office Minister. Subsequently, we handled the Community Land Act 1975 completely differently and created a land authority for Wales which has survived the test of time and is now to be incorporated in the new economic powerhouse--so I have always been a great supporter of the idea of nonconformity.
A rewritten constitution has to be defined much more closely than is normal in a cohesive political administrative structure. It is much easier for Welsh civil servants to attend meetings in Whitehall because they derive their authority from the same source--they are civil servants of a set of home Government Departments and they are answerable to Ministers, at the apex of whom is a Cabinet. That will be transformed. We have to redefine the relationship that is to exist between an assembly and central Government.
I think that that is what the discussion about concordats is all about. These are not marginal issues; these are points made by the Institute of Welsh Affairs. I hope that we can be told in the winding-up speech whether the concordats envisage enmeshing assembly civil servants, who are answerable and accountable to a completely different political institution, into the policy-making processes of Whitehall Departments. If that is to be the case, I have a
feeling that it will be a horrible recipe for confusion and difficulty over who will owe allegiance to what, in all respects. That is a fundamental point in the working of a constitution. It has worked well up to now because it has been part of a single whole. The Welsh Office and the Secretary of State are part of the collective of Government.
Mr. Morgan:
What about the former Secretary of State and international law?
Mr. Rowlands:
I assume that the former Secretary of State did not breach international treaty law. I do not know whether anybody sued him, but he must have managed either to persuade his colleagues or to operate the policy off his own bat without anybody complaining.
Mr. Rowlands:
I shall give way in a moment.
We are saying that a constitution has to be clarified in a way that was not necessary hitherto. The issues raised by the document from the Institute of Welsh Affairs--I have been thinking about them myself--are very serious. Are we saying that civil servants from the assembly will be embedded in the policy-making process of Whitehall? That is the demand, and I assume that that is what the concordats will be about.
I will not weary the House now, but the Institute of Welsh Affairs makes a number of recommendations about a series of rights for the assembly and says that the civil servants of the assembly should have rights in the policy-making process of Whitehall. There is the potential for confusion of responsibility and accountability.
Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry):
Surely the hon. Gentleman's perusal of what has been proposed for Wales drives him to the same inescapable conclusion as the Northern Ireland Government in Stormont was driven to many years ago. If a devolved system is to work in a unitary state, it must be run by Unionists. In that context, will the Labour party in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament be a Unionist party?
Mr. Rowlands:
I believe that in a devolved system, which I support, Wales will be run by Welsh men and women who have been elected by the Welsh electorate. That is the simple and basic criterion.
Mr. Dalyell:
From his experience of ministerial office over a period of years, can my hon. Friend tell me to whom civil servants owe their career under these proposals? Is it to the Welsh Office or to Whitehall? Every civil servant is human and must have in their mind where their career is coming from.
Mr. Rowlands:
It is to the home civil service, and that is a collective. One cannot say that Welsh Office civil servants do not admirably fulfil their functions in Wales, and many might see most of their career structure to be within Welsh administration, but some people come and go. Some of the most distinguished permanent secretaries that we have had and still have come from other Departments. That will change fundamentally. The new civil service of the assembly will be accountable and
Mr. Jenkin:
May I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that schedule 2 is even more misleading than he suggests? Schedule 2 refers to clause 22 only in respect of the initial powers of the assembly. Clauses 105 to 107 can be used to grab back some or all of those powers as they are deemed to be international obligations as interpreted by the Secretary of State. Clause 22(1)(a) provides
Mr. Rowlands:
I would not interpret it in that way. There are other clauses in the Bill which make it quite clear that the Secretary of State or Ministers will reserve all their rights over international relations and external relations. We can check that out in Committee, but I would not reach the same conclusion as the hon. Gentleman.
I shall move on, because I know that many of my colleagues want to speak. I touched on this issue because it fundamentally affects the role of a future Secretary of State. There is one area about which I feel passionately and in respect of which I believe total devolution would be wrong. One of the great success stories of the past 20 years and more has been inward investment. The powerful combination of the Secretary of State with a budget, power and the full authority of a Minister in a British Cabinet alongside the Welsh Development Agency has achieved much in inward investment.
I agree with the critique of a number of my hon. Friends and Ministers that perhaps more should have been done to generate indigenous economic development of the character often mentioned by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, the Member for Neath. It would be extremely damaging if we gave a future Secretary of State for Wales no money and no power in relation to inward investment. I do not believe that the transfer of all his functions--and the budget that goes with them--to an assembly is a good idea. I believe that it would damage the powerful mixture of the WDA and the Secretary of State. I am thinking of the problems we have now with some aspects of our inward investment.
"for the transfer to the Assembly of any function so far as exercisable by a Minister of the Crown in relation to Wales".
Does not that mean that some external policy that relates to Wales or tax-raising policy could be transferred to Wales? Does not that accord with what the Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning was saying in an interview last week in The Scotsman? If the regions in England can become tax-raising authorities, is not that the route for Wales?
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