Wales: Governance

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. 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 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.