Wales: Governance

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Roberts and Lord   Livsey, for their comments on the Statement. I begin by drawing attention to the fact that if noble Lords, or, indeed, anyone, wishes to comment on the White Paper, they have the opportunity to do so. That should be done by Friday 16 September. Sensible proposals for the White Paper will be considered during the consultative period. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, welcomes the separation of the Assembly into a legislature and an executive. All parties in the Assembly are keen on that. I see absolutely no reason why the Assembly should find it intolerable to enact measures under the terms of an Order in Council approved by Parliament. There is no question of Parliament approving the detail of the measures; that would, of course, be for the Assembly. For example, yesterday we discussed the Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill. An Order in Council will probably have been phrased to,"““Establish and make provision about the office of Commissioner for Older People in Wales; to make provision about the functions of the Commissioner for Older People in Wales; and for connected purposes””." That is the Long Title of the Bill. As for treating Wales differently from Scotland, in 1997 the people of Wales voted for the current settlement. Her Majesty’s Government judge that there is no consensus in Wales for equivalent powers to those of Scotland. The Government’s proposals to improve the current settlement but to make no radical change are in line with the wishes of the people of Wales. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, should take that point on board as regards his comment that we should cede primary legislative powers to the Assembly now. There is not the will for that. If there were a referendum, we would probably lose it. In our view that would be a disaster. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, mentioned the proposed change to the electoral arrangements. I draw his attention to the Electoral Reform Society’s submission to the Richard commission, in which it was quite damning about the measure. It states:"““A system in which candidates can lose elections but nevertheless win seats undermines respect for the electoral process . . .  if defeated candidates are perceived to enter the Assembly through a back door, it can damage public confidence in the system””." In the previous election some Assembly Members were elected having obtained 5, 6 or 7 per cent of the vote. Such a system is indefensible. That is why we decided to take action against that. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, asked about timing. We consider that it would be inappropriate to make any changes during the course of an Assembly. I am sure that he would agree with that. We plan to introduce a Bill before Christmas. All the changes can   be made at the time of the Assembly elections in May 2007. I should point out that the changes we propose to the corporate structure are uncontroversial and have been welcomed by both noble Lords. However, they are extremely complex and will take some time to work through. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Livsey. We have discussed why we are not devolving all power at the moment. We would be very happy to consider any representations on more Assembly Members that the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, wishes to make; it is an interesting issue. The noble Lord asked whether Parliament could block a measure if a Secretary of State were to refuse permission for it. Obviously, he or she would be obliged to publish their reasons. We believe that that is sufficient to prevent a Secretary of State refusing a measure simply because he wished to. However, that is not the intention of the measure and we do not anticipate that that would happen. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, asked why we did not simply accept the recommendations of the Richard report. The Richard report is an extremely valuable contribution to the debate on the development of the   Welsh devolution settlement. It was delivered to the Assembly and was read with very considerable interest. It has informed the thinking on the White Paper. Some of the commission’s recommendations are contained in the White Paper. For example, the separation between the legislature and the executive in the first stage of the development of the Assembly’s legislative power is exactly what the commission recommended. What we are looking at in Wales is an evolutionary process. We started well, and we have had six years. It is necessary to confer more powers on the Assembly, and the next stage, as the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, says, will be the devolution of primary legislative powers. That can only be done when there is consensus in Wales that the people wish it to happen.