Government of Wales Bill

My hon. Friend may wish to know that, yet again, a member of Plaid Cymru has been caught red-handed, and advocates the targeting of Assembly office budgets in target seats. She says that her party’s list Members will only do case work where it will benefit Plaid Cymru in those seats and will only attend civic and other events in the constituency if they think that there are votes in it. What a terrible advertisement for a Plaid Cymru Assembly Member. The comments and evidence that I have cited demonstrate that the claim that the measure is partisan is entirely without foundation. I shall explain why. I remind the House that there are six Labour Assembly Members, including three Ministers, who would be defeated by a swing of 3 per cent. against them—a very small swing. They will no longer have the safety net of the regional list. This reform will affect Labour candidates, just as it applies to candidates of other parties. Candidates must make their choice, then the voters will make theirs. The Bill marks an important step forward for the Assembly and an important step forward for Wales. I therefore hope that it will command broad cross-party support as it goes through both Houses. We all have our different views on which party should be in power in Cardiff bay, but we should all be able to unite to ensure that the Assembly works effectively as a democratically elected body for the good of Wales. There should be a cross-party consensus on putting Wales first. I was encouraged when the new Leader of the Opposition said that he wanted to make a break from past Tory opposition to devolution and instead make it work for the people of Wales. He told The Western Mail that the Tories would no longer pursue the option of a referendum to abolish the Assembly. I had hoped, therefore, that the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham would adopt a similarly constructive approach to devolution and abandon the anti-Welsh and anti-Assembly stance of her predecessor as shadow Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin). However, it is hard to see how the new consensus approach to Wales signalled by the Leader of the Opposition fits with the reasoned amendment tabled in his name and that of the hon. Lady, which seeks to block even a modest extension of powers to the Assembly by a ridiculous and ritualistic demand for a referendum. The idea that the people of Wales would be galvanised by a referendum on the Assembly being authorised to legislate via parliamentary Orders in Council in future, rather than by parliamentary Bills as now, is absurd. What on earth would the question be? Even more to the point, what would the turnout be? The amendment calls for a referendum on enhanced legislative powers for the Assembly. Perhaps she could tell the House how she would campaign in such a referendum—for or against? Does she agree with Nick Bourne, her party’s leader in the Assembly, who said that"““all parties agree the present situation is not sustainable in the long term””?" If the hon. Lady continues to pursue her opposition to even these modest additional powers for Wales, she will have squandered an historic opportunity to redefine the position of the Conservative party in Wales. Instead of consigning to the past the Tories’ reputation as an anti-devolution party, she will have cemented it. A referendum is called for when the 1997 settlement is fundamentally changed, as the Bill proposes with regard to primary powers. There is no case at all for a referendum that merely adapts the current settlement, with Parliament remaining in charge, as has been the case so far. What she is recommending is a recipe for obstruction and paralysis. It is nothing more than another Tory attempt to thwart the development of the Assembly. The Bill represents a crucial test for the Welsh Conservatives and they have already failed it. It is in the national interest of Wales for all parties to bury the arguments of the past and accept that the Assembly is here to stay, and to concentrate instead on making devolution work better. Instead, the Tories have stuck by their rejectionist policies of the past. So much for the Leader of the Opposition’s new consensus approach to policy-making. It clearly excludes Wales. Wales will have to move on without the Tories, and today we begin to do that, in a new dawn for devolution like that famous one in September 1997. Wales has made great progress over the past eight years. We now have the opportunity to settle for a long time the constitutional status of Wales, first by devolving further powers to the Assembly, and secondly the prospect of primary powers at some time in the future, if the people of Wales vote for that option in a referendum. By equipping the Assembly to face the challenges of the 21st century, we will help to achieve our objective of a Wales that is world-class, both economically competitive and with high quality public services. For the good of the people of Wales, I call on all parties in the House to support the Bill.