Government of Wales Bill

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on her new appointment. As chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, I look forward to working with her. I pay tribute too to two great parliamentarians—Merlyn Rees, a true son of Cilfynydd, and Tony Banks. As chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, I wish to make a contribution to this important debate on the future government of Wales. On a personal note, I am encouraged by the constructive proposals in the Bill that have the capacity, I believe, to strengthen democracy, policy development and accountability within Wales. As someone who has actively supported democratic devolution for more than three decades in Wales, I am aware of the opportunities and also of some of the dangers swirling around the Bill. Most critically, I am aware of the need for a broad consensus within Wales to support the principles that underpin the proposals. The devolution campaign in 1978–79 paid little real attention to the need for such a consensus; least of all, sad to say, within our own governing party. Even in 1997, a much more propitious time, we must acknowledge, and with barely an organised opposition, the referendum result was perilously close. I am reminded of the prophetic words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), who has made an important contribution to tonight’s debate, when he was Secretary of State for Wales. He rightly characterised devolution as part of the long historic progress of Welsh and British democracy via the chartist and suffragette movements. Following the 1997 referendum vote, it was he who said, I believe borrowing from the late John Smith, that Welsh devolution was a ““settled question””. It was ““settled”” in the sense of no going back because the Welsh people had taken a vital democratic step forward through a referendum. He cautioned that further legitimate progress towards new powers could be made only with a further referendum sometime in the future. My Committee considered the proposals contained within the White Paper and made a series of helpful recommendations that I believe will improve the proposed legislation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said previously that he would be responding in detail to my Committee’s recommendations. I look forward to that response and I hope that he will be forthcoming in taking on board all of our recommendations. The Government produced a White Paper rather than a draft Bill. That meant that there was insufficient detail for my Committee to consider when it looked at the Government’s proposals, but it is an important piece of constitutional legislation for Wales and the Bill should have been submitted for proper pre-legislative scrutiny. We made that point in our report, because such scrutiny would have enabled us as parliamentarians and the wider public to assess properly the Government’s intentions. It is regrettable that we could not do so. I welcome the fact that the Government have introduced a free-standing Bill, rather than a Bill to amend the Government of Wales Act 1998. However, it represents only part of the solution. If there is to be absolute clarity about what powers rest with Parliament and what powers lie with the Welsh Assembly Government we need a Welsh statute book. Without one, an understanding of where the finer points of authority lie may remain beyond our grasp, so we made a recommendation that one should be established. Our report welcomes the separation of the legislature and the Executive. The existing arrangements have bred confusion about the roles of the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Assembly. A formal separation of the two will make it clear to the people of Wales that the Welsh Assembly Government are responsible for policy direction in Wales while the National Assembly is responsible for holding the Government to account. We also recommended that the Bill use the term ““Welsh Executive”” rather than ““Welsh Assembly Government””. The current terminology reflects the maximum separation possible under the 1998 Act. Now that we have a new Bill, we no longer need the connection that the word ““Assembly”” in ““Welsh Assembly Government”” implies. The term ““Welsh Executive”” removes any connection or confusion with the National Assembly, and reinforces the formal separation between the Executive and the legislature in Cardiff. For that reason, we recommended that ““Welsh Executive”” replace ““Welsh Assembly Government”” in the Bill. The meat of the Bill consists of the Government’s proposals to enhance the powers of the National Assembly through the use of Orders in Council. The Government propose that requests for powers in certain areas be approved by Parliament with secondary legislation rather than primary legislation. That would have the benefit of providing Wales with the tools that it needs to pursue its policy aspirations while at the same time preventing legislation from being caught up in the busy timetable of the Government’s legislative programme. I appreciate that not everyone is keen on using delegated legislation to confer powers on the National Assembly, as it is possible that draft orders will not receive adequate parliamentary scrutiny. For that reason, our report recommended that draft orders should be considered not in a Standing Committee but on the Floor of the House for one and a half hours. If there was cross-party consensus that a particular draft Order in Council needed a longer debate, we recommend that it should be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee. Furthermore, proposals for draft orders will be subject to detailed pre-legislative scrutiny. I am pleased that the Secretary of State has suggested that there is a role for the Welsh Affairs Committee in such scrutiny.