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11.30 pm
Mr. Wigley: I hesitate to follow the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) who, as a Catholic Unionist--with a Welsh-speaking father, I believe--spoke about Northern Ireland. I am likely to be out of my depth. We also heard from the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who is a former Secretary of State for Wales, not to mention the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) who on a clear day could see Wales from his former Worcestershire constituency.
Important questions have been raised. We support freedom of information as a principle, but we want an Act that works effectively for the National Assembly for Wales--one that is understandable, operable and clear, not only to the Assembly and its Ministers but to the people of Wales.
Frankly, it is difficult to understand where we stand. On page 3, the Bill says:
- "government department" includes the National Assembly for Wales.
-
On page 19, it says the same again, but on page 41 it says:
"government department" . . . does not include . . . the National Assembly for Wales.
Mr. Wigley: The right hon. Gentleman goes to the heart of the question of who is to be consulted when one consults the National Assembly for Wales. The Government never consulted me, certainly. I do not know whether they consulted the Presiding Officer. I do not suppose that they consulted the First Minister--we are allowed to use that term, it seems, because on page 19 the Bill refers to "Ministerial communications" and Lords amendments Nos. 31 and 32 would extend that to include Wales. "Ministerial" will now include the Ministers of the National Assembly for Wales, so they are not Secretaries but Ministers.
I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that henceforward, when reference is made to "Ministers" in Wales, it will be in order to include all the Secretaries, by virtue of what we are now enacting. Mr. Speaker said last week that that was out of order, but we seem to be changing it now.
Mr. Richard Livsey (Brecon and Radnorshire): Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that one of the reasons why the First Minister has on occasions been excluded in the amendments is that he is a strong believer in freedom of information, and has said that he wants to publish the Cabinet minutes in the National Assembly?
Mr. Wigley: The Cabinet minutes--not "executive committee" minutes; I do not know where that legalese came from--are indeed being published. The hon. Gentleman may have mistaken the reason why we are being a little circumspect about what the First Minister is allowed to do. If the First Minister was ill, the Deputy First Minister, who is a Liberal Democrat, would take over. The Government are probably exercising a certain amount of care.
The points raised by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal and others underline the basic problem with the devolution model that has been enacted in these islands. We have four tiers of devolved government--one in Scotland, one in Northern Ireland, one in London and one in Wales--and they are all different. When one tries to reconcile these, one gets into all sorts of problems, as we are finding with the wording and the verbiage in the Bill.
The logic of the situation, if we are to have devolved government--as I passionately hope we will, otherwise I will be out of a job--is that it must be coherent. The challenge to the Government, after an election, if not before, or to an alternative Government, is to get some form of devolved government that has a coherence running through it. That does not exist at the moment, which means that when cases come before the courts, bearing in mind the fact that Wales has the same legal structure as England, there will be considerable difficulty in interpreting parts of the legislation.
The executive committee exists as far as legislation is concerned, but in Wales we deal with a Cabinet. The National Assembly is a body corporate. Therefore,
reference to the body as a whole does not spell out who is meant but implies that if communication or consultation is with the First Minister or the Presiding Officer it may be with the body as a whole.
Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion): Is my right hon. Friend aware of the fiasco of the census form in Wales for next year, and that in the consultation concerning that form, the National Assembly for Wales was listed as a Government Department? Does he believe that following that fiasco, the Government have had second thoughts as to whether the National Assembly for Wales could be described as a Government Department, and that that is the reason for these amendments?
Mr. Wigley: Patently, the National Assembly for Wales is not a Government Department. It is a body that includes a Government of Wales, with restricted powers, within the terms of the Government of Wales Act 1998. If some pieces of legislation refer to it as a Government Department and other pieces do not, we have nothing short of a pig's ear. The Government need to have a consistent approach to the National Assembly for Wales, not least with regard to the nomenclature used. I suggest that such consistency of treatment should also apply to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and any other devolved bodies.
Mr. Bercow: For the avoidance of doubt, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Government did not suddenly see the light and decide to stop describing the National Assembly for Wales as a Government Department? Rather, it is my understanding--which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will confirm is also his--that it was specifically at the request of the First Secretary that the Government conceded, and agreed that they would no longer subsume the National Assembly for Wales within the definition of a Government Department.
Mr. Wigley: The First Secretary would most certainly have reflected the feeling in the Assembly, and fair play to him. He would have spoken in a way that reflected the aspirations of all of us--to be a body in our own right. If we exist, we exist in our own right. If we are simply a Government Department, that hardly justifies our existence at all. If we exist, let us be able to do things--or let us not exist at all. The same is true about how the First Secretary, or the First Minister, is described. If we believe in devolution, we must allow people to do things for themselves.
The Minister has not tried to justify any of the amendments before us. When so many aspects of these issues have not been properly thought through--aspects that in the original Bill were contradictory at best, if not totally opaque and impossible to comprehend--the Minister owes the House, at the very least, a duty to explain what the Government are doing and why they got into such a tangle in the first place. Ultimately, I hope that there will be legislation to provide freedom of information and the maximum possible transparency for the National Assembly for Wales and for other bodies, whether they cover Wales, parts of Wales or Wales only by implication.
We want open government, and to that extent I support what the Government are doing with the legislation--but my goodness, let us do it in a better way than we have done in the Bill.
Mr. Hawkins: I want to reinforce several excellent points made in the debate, and to say that, as I suspected when I spoke for only one minute to set out the weaknesses in the amendments and express my regret that the Minister had not sought to put them forward other than in an almost formal way, we feel that they contain so many flaws that we propose to divide the House.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) has spoken twice in this debate, without the leave of the House. Several of my hon. Friends have waited some time to contribute to the debate.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is up to the Chair to decide who shall be called. I believe that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) sought to catch my eye.
Mr. Livsey: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall not take too much time.
The key to this debate is the definition of a public authority, as outlined in amendment No. 74. The debate has been revealing, particularly in the skilful near- filibuster of the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), whose Welsh ancestors should be proud of the non-conformist zeal with which he pursued his expose of the amendments. Amendment No. 74 reveals that the Secretary of State has too much power, in that he is able to exclude various public authorities in relation to Wales. If the First Minister is not to be consulted, there will be a major problem, and the drafting of the amendments has produced a mess.
Amendment No. 10 also raises problems over consultation with the National Assembly and with the Presiding Officer in Northern Ireland. Wales also has a Presiding Officer. I agree with the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) that the Bill is not right for the devolution settlement in Wales, which is less effective than those for Northern Ireland and, especially, for Scotland. The fact that the Government have treated the National Assembly as a Department tends to expose the way in which they treated Wales in the Government of Wales Act 1998. Many amendments were tabled when that Bill went through the House, but the National Assembly was refused the right to make primary legislation. If that had been allowed, we should have had far less trouble in tonight's debate.
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