Wales: Governance

My Lords, I apologise to the Minister for interrupting his response to the noble Lord, Lord Richard. There was a curious phrase in the Statement—I think I heard it right—that these proposals would help to make a ““world-class Wales””. The status of Wales in the world does not depend on the proposals of the part-time Secretary of State or anyone else. I am glad to say that Wales can stand by itself on its own status and reputation. I welcome some of the proposals in the Statement. I certainly welcome the separation of the Assembly and the Assembly Government. That must be one way of dealing with the shortcomings that my noble friend Lord   Roberts correctly identified and that the Statement carefully avoided; the things that have gone wrong, the weaknesses in the management of the health service, the whole affair of student fees, and the quangos. Of course, we must have an Assembly that can examine and criticise the Government rather than being arm in arm with the Government. I am rather more welcoming to the proposed change in the electoral arrangements than was my noble friend Lord Roberts. The present arrangements are really pretty indefensible, but we need to debate the alternatives carefully to make sure that we get the right solution. I was pleased to read that we will have a referendum before we go on to have a major change in the legislative status of the Assembly. When I heard the detail of what is proposed, it took my memory back to the original debates before the first referendum, when Members of the House who wished to defeat the whole concept wrote in a series of barriers that had to be overcome. Here we have the Government writing in right at the start an enormous barrier of a two-thirds majority and the consent of this House combined with   that. That seems to me an extraordinary proposal. If the Welsh people want to go forward, they should be allowed to go forward on the basis of a straightforward referendum vote, and it must not be fiddled by the Government in advance. I opposed and won that original debate, but when the Welsh people voted for an Assembly, I said, ““Well, let us make it a success””. I have confidence in the views of the Welsh people. If we are going to talk about having more Assembly Members, I hope that we will remember that there may be consequences for the number of Welsh Members of Parliament. Those two issues cannot be separated.