| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, we are grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement made in another place by the Secretary of State for Wales. It is a significant Statement in that it points us towards the Government's way ahead for devolution in Wales. But I do not believe that it will please either ardent devolutionists or sceptical critics of the process. It extends devolution with one hand and reasserts central government control with the other.
The Statement and the White Paper begin with the story of the success of devolution in Wales—high employment, free bus passes for the elderly and so on—and conveniently ignores the failures, such as the cock-ups over student fees, the still spluttering bonfire of the quangos and the interminable hospital waiting lists. It would take all the magical powers of Merlin to spin those outcomes into a success story.
But let me begin with the first of the three prongs of the White Paper: the proposal to abandon the corporate structure of the National Assembly and split the executive, the Assembly Government, from the Assembly as legislature. That is a very welcome reform for which some of us have been calling for some time. The current structure has resulted in confusion in the public mind, where the Assembly has wrongly become synonymous with the Assembly Government. When the Government's actions are statutorily attributable to the corporate Assembly, real accountability flies out of the window. It is high time that they were separated.
15 Jun 2005 : Column 1210
But the proposal will mean a major, radical change in the character of the Assembly. Its main function in future will be to hold its government to account, and that means scrutinising their activities with a vengeance. The cosiness of the current committee system, whereby Ministers sit alongside Assembly Members, which attracted the critical eye of the Richard commission, will disappear, and the relationship between Ministers and Members will be more akin to what we are familiar with at Westminster. Can the Assembly cope with the total change of attitude required? I hope so.
The second prong of the White Paper is concerned with the transfer of primary legislative powers. Yes, the Assembly can have them in certain devolved areas if the Assembly Government ask the Secretary of State to obtain an Order in Council granting such powers in a specific area and both Houses of Parliament approve the order by affirmative resolution. The Bill establishing a Commissioner for Older People, to which your Lordships gave a Second Reading yesterday, is an example of the sort of thing that the Government have in mind. Will that be a tolerable procedure for a self-respecting, democratically elected body? The question will be asked, we may be sure. But it is that or nothing, or the present system, which I am glad the Government intend to improve as regards the style and framework of legislation presented and to streamline in so far as pre-legislative scrutiny is concerned. I hope that your Lordships' House will be involved in such joint scrutiny too.
In the longer term—six years hence and possibly more—further primary legislative powers may be granted subject to an affirmative referendum. That will be triggered by a two-thirds majority in favour at the Assembly, endorsed by the approval of this Parliament. This is a two-pressure trigger, obviously devised by someone familiar with a .303 rifle. But it is not so much a trigger as a blunderbuss to stop a referendum in its tracks. Those proposals will go down like a lead balloon and prompt endless recriminations about Wales being treated differently from Scotland. It will be damned as discrimination on a national scale. The Government's answer is that there is no consensus currently in Wales in favour of an outright transfer of primary legislative powers—and they are probably right on that score. But there is no reason why we should not have a "preferendum", in which various proposals could be put to the electorate.
The most immediate outcry will be against the third prong of the White Paper—the proposal to change the electoral system so that first-past-the-post constituency candidates cannot appear as list candidates anywhere in Wales, even outside the area covering their constituency. How can this be wrong in Wales and right in Scotland? While we are aware that the Richard commission was critical of the current arrangements, we do not believe they should be changed piecemeal. The White Paper proposal will mean each party finding many more candidates—and I do not believe that any party in Wales has an abundance of candidates of high quality. We want only the very best to become Assembly Members under either scheme of election. It
15 Jun 2005 : Column 1211
is not only the minority parties who will suffer under the new proposals; the Labour Party too may lose some of its leading lights in the Assembly who are elected by the list system.
Will these proposals, if implemented, result in better governance for Wales, as the White Paper's title proclaims? The Government believe they will, but that may be because the proposals mean the greater involvement of central government in the Assembly's affairs. I see that the Secretary of State proposes to draw up new Standing Orders for the Assembly himself. That will occasion a rumpus. We have already noted his controlling role in securing Orders in Council, allowing the Assembly primary legislative powers.
My overall impression is that the Government's enthusiasm for devolution as a cure-all is flagging. Perhaps their experience in the north-east of England accounts for it. They certainly appear to be turning the tables on the National Assembly for Wales. Whether they will be allowed to do so with impunity remains to be seen, but I should not be surprised if their plans were rejected. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us when the Government expect to introduce legislation to implement the White Paper.
3.36 pm
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for reading out the Statement, and for giving us the opportunity to look at the Statement before reading it out. We welcome a model for further devolution of powers from Westminster to Wales. Certainly we welcome the splitting of the corporate body of the Welsh Assembly into an executive on the one hand and the legislature on the other. That is logical and, indeed, overdue. I for one was not happy with the situation when the Bill went through Parliament in 1998.
I believe that the Assembly will function better and that there will be better scrutiny. But why are there no proposals for an increase in the number of Assembly Members, as proposed by the Richard commission, which focused on the importance of ensuring that all legislation was properly scrutinised? For those like myself who have been striving for a Welsh parliament for some considerable time, it is very disappointing that full primary legislative powers are not ceded to the Assembly. The Government's proposals for legislation are really a half-way house. There is a bit of a get-out clause in adopting parts of the Richard commission report, particularly paragraph 13.2, as a final solution. We have no real hard promises about what the long-term situation will be.
Will the Minister confirm that the Government in Westminster can block Welsh legislation through Orders in Council, which may not go through and could possibly be made into barriers for procedures in promoting lost legislation? Maybe some of these proposals are a device for avoiding a referendum, perhaps to save some of Labour's own MPs in Wales who do not agree with full legislative powers and see this as a way out—perhaps to avoid a reduction in the number of MPs in Wales, with their full legislative
15 Jun 2005 : Column 1212
powers. We believe that the Government have lost a huge opportunity to give Wales full legislative powers, as proposed by the Richard commission, which was an all-party commission chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Richard.
The commission was extremely thorough and took a lot of evidence. I understand that the process and the report cost more than £1 million. Indeed, one of the proposals that the Liberal Democrats made when going into coalition with Labour in the Assembly was that a review of the legislature and the powers of the Assembly should be undertaken. It is an excellent report with a target date for implementation after 2011. Perhaps the Minister agrees that the Government have salami-sliced parts of the Richard report as regards a possible final answer for legislative procedures for Wales.
Obviously, we welcome the possibility—as outlined on page 6 of the Statement—of further legislative powers for Wales. However, that is left as an open question. The middle paragraph on page 6 states:
that is, those in the White Paper—
"and streamlined procedures are still insufficient to address the Assembly's needs. The Government has therefore agreed to provide the option of further enhanced law-making powers".
The Statement does not say when that might occur, or even whether it will occur. It is as if it is not finally attainable—we have supported devolution for a very long time—because the apple is slightly out of reach on the tree. I hope that the Minister will disabuse me of that view.
The proposed voting system quite correctly takes on board the Richard commission critique. There is no question that it is a "duff" system as regards first-pass-the-post and regional members. But why, oh why, do the Government not adopt the commission's proposal of election by single transferable vote? That is a better and far more proportional system which would operate to the advantage of all the people of Wales and all the parties in Wales.
The White Paper leaves open the possibility of a government of a different complexion from that in Wales at present making mincemeat of the Welsh Assembly. The Minister will have heard the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, mention the word "preferendum". We know that the Conservatives' "preferendum" includes a question which would see the abolition of the Assembly at some future unknown time. If there had been progress on the Richard commission proposals, there would have been an ordered process to give full legislative powers to the Assembly after 2011. I and my party believe that this will be seen in Wales as dropping the ball just short of the try line.
3.43 pm
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |