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Peter Hain: I shall give way in a moment, especially to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). I am always keen to give way to him—he is not a bad performer.
Consultation will follow, in great detail, with everybody concerned.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): I am grateful to the part-time Leader of the House for giving way. His is truly a chronic speech from a discredited Minister in a devalued Labour Government. Given that Opposition Members at least recognise that the constitution of this country is not a piece of putty to be moulded according to the passing whim of a Government but something that has evolved over generations and should be treated with respect, why does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that the Government's fatal conceit is to imagine that their own internal and short-term machinations are either the same as, or more important than, the long-term interests of the people of the United Kingdom?
Peter Hain: The long-term interests of the people of the United Kingdom lie in having a reformed, modernised, efficient structure, widely supported across all shades of opinion.
Peter Hain: I will give way in a moment, but I want to make some progress before I take any more interventions—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. We must have more order in the House. Hon. Members are being unfair to the Leader of the House.
Peter Hain: I shall be happy to take interventions if I can make a bit of progress first.
Whatever the reform, the Tories are against it. They wanted to keep hereditary peers. They were against the Human Rights Act 1998, and against a London Mayor and Assembly. Yesterday, they were against regional government for English regions that vote for it. They were against devolution for Scotland and Wales—"It would mean the break-up of Britain", they screamed.
It was the Tories who nearly broke up Britain, with their arrogant centralism and their disastrous policies. Labour, through devolution, has saved the United Kingdom and neutered the separatists. Who would now want to abolish the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales and go back to Tory direct rule? I challenge the Conservatives to campaign for a referendum on ditching devolution.
Mr. Allen: My right hon. Friend is being excessively generous in saying that there should be 18 months or so before the post of Lord Chancellor is abolished. Is the explanation for the delay in enacting that policy that my right hon. Friend discovered from the remarks of the shadow Leader of the House that the Conservative party does not have a policy on the supreme court, the lord chancellorship or the judicial appointments commission? In fact, is my right hon. Friend giving the Conservatives long enough to devise a policy?
Peter Hain: That is a good question.
On the time period, legislation is needed and consultation has to take place beforehand, and that will occur.
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton): I am grateful to the part-time Leader of the House for giving way. Why was it announced, last Thursday evening, that the Scotland Office and the Wales Office were to be abolished, yet on Friday morning it was announced that they would be retained? Did some key consultation take place between Thursday night and Friday morning? Will he answer those simple questions?
Peter Hain: I have before me the press statement issued by No. 10 on Thursday and I should be happy to read it all to the hon. Lady. It makes it clear that the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales would remain and that the Scotland and Wales Offices would remain.
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green): I am grateful to the part-time Leader of the House for giving way. He has just said that there will be a Lord Chancellor for an 18-month transition period, yet on Thursday the Prime Minister's official spokesman said that Lord Falconer would not fulfil the role or function of Lord Chancellor. Who exactly did he intend should fulfil that function?
Peter Hain: I am honoured that the Leader of the Opposition chose to intervene on a Minister who is well down the food chain and I welcome him to the debate. I shall quote from the statement issued by No. 10 on Thursday:
- "For the period of transition, Lord Falconer will exercise all the functions of Lord Chancellor as necessary."
Mr. Kevin Hughes (Doncaster, North): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree that although the speech of the shadow Leader of the House was vacuous nonsense, it was very witty? At least it has united the Tories on one issue: they have realised their true potential as clowns. Of course, we already knew that.
Peter Hain: I could not agree more.
Peter Hain: I want to make some more progress and then I shall happily take other interventions.
The truth is that devolution has been a success. One of its successes is that decisions in Scotland and Wales are being made closer to the people of Scotland and Wales, through the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales. As a result, there are fewer decisions and fewer duties for the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Scotland. That is self-evident. It is thus a perfectly reasonable step to combine their duties with other Cabinet posts, as we have done.
The position is clear, as it has been since the reshuffle—as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and others would know if they had bothered to find out the facts. As the Secretary of State for Wales, I am accountable to the House, as before, for Welsh business, and I represent Wales in Cabinet. My duties remain the same. My oversight of all primary legislation affecting Wales remains the same. The Wales Office remains open for business as usual and its staff serve me and my deputy, the hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), as before.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is accountable to the House for Scottish business, as before, and conducts it in Cabinet. As before, we each have an Under-Secretary in respect of Welsh and Scottish business, also accountable to the House. The only difference is that we combine those duties with our other Cabinet posts and the Scotland Office and Wales Office staff will come under the umbrella of the new Department for Constitutional Affairs, giving them better career certainty and opportunity.
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Over the past couple of years, he has said many times that the success of the devolution settlement will rely entirely on the partnership of him and his Under-Secretary in introducing legislation from the Welsh Assembly. That will now be extremely difficult. At what point did the Prime Minister or his office realise that to abolish the functions of the Secretary of State for Wales would be breaking the law, according to the provisions of the Government of Wales Act 1998?
Peter Hain: Obviously, the hon. Gentleman is completely confused about the situation. I have just carefully and patiently explained that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I continue to discharge our functions in exactly the same way as we did before Thursday. Furthermore, I remind the House that the hon. Gentleman and his party want to abolish both the post of Secretary of State for Wales and the Wales Office because they believe in independence for Wales, and that that would mean that a Secretary of State no longer had a function.
Mr. Tom Harris: My right hon. Friend will be aware that, if the Conservatives ever form a Government, they intend to introduce a rule that would prevent any Member representing a Scottish constituency from voting in this place on matters that apply specifically to England and Wales. That is a massive constitutional change on which they held no consultation, yet for 50 years the Conservatives not only tolerated but welcomed a situation whereby Northern Ireland had its own Parliament while continuing to send MPs to this place. Was not the reason for their pragmatism then the fact that Ulster Unionists accepted the Conservative Whip?
Peter Hain: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley): If what the part-time Leader of the House says about the positions of the Welsh Secretary and the Scottish Secretary is true and
we should all have known that their roles would be merged, why did the Government say, in March 2003—just three months ago—in their response to the second report of the Select Committee on the Constitution, which suggested such a merger, that the Prime Minister
- "has no plans to merge either the roles of the territorial Secretaries of State or their departments. Each territorial department is a discrete centre of excellence in the relevant settlement"?
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