Government of Wales Bill

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point to which the Under-Secretary of State for Wales will respond in due course. I am not the Secretary of State. The Bill allows for a final stage of devolution for Wales whereby the Assembly would become a fully functioning Parliament with primary legislative powers. I agree with the Government that a referendum of the people of Wales is necessary to determine that point, and I am pleased that many organisations and people across Wales concur. Recently, I was pleased to receive a resolution from the Presbyterian Church in Wales that supported such a referendum. My Committee believes that the Bill would benefit from certain enhancements. We need a strict limitation on the calling of a second referendum—a point that has been well made by other contributors to our debate. Referendums cannot be called persistently until they return the desired result, and that should be reflected in the Bill. The Committee came to the conclusion that two National Assembly terms are an appropriate period between a first and a subsequent referendum. The Committee recommended, too, that the wording of the referendum should be included in the Bill. The question should be clear and straightforward—in essence, it simply has to ask the people of Wales whether or not they wish to have a Welsh Parliament. The wording is not dependent upon the time or year that the question is asked, so it can be set out now. A key theme of our report is the roles of the Secretary of State, as set out in the Bill. Our report, like some participants in our debate, questioned the desirability of some of those roles. If we are serious about democratic devolution we need to move, or at least ease, the Secretary of State from a pre-devolutionary world to a modern democratic and decentralised one. I am sure that he would be happy to move with these new times. In relation to draft Orders in Council, the Secretary of State would have the power to refuse to lay a draft order before Parliament. That power would be appropriate if the draft order did not comply with the Bill or did not conform to parliamentary rules. It would not, however, be appropriate for the Secretary of State to refuse an order on political or policy grounds. For that reason, the Committee believes that the rejection of a draft order is the preserve of Parliament, not the Government of the day. It would be more appropriate for the Secretary of State to be limited to assessing the validity of a draft order. He should not make decisions to lay such an order based on policy and political judgment or advantage. Similarly, the Secretary of State could refuse to lay the draft order for the referendum, despite the National Assembly voting by a two thirds majority in favour of holding that referendum. Again, we believe that Parliament, not the Government of the day, holds the authority to accept or reject a call for a referendum. For that reason, we recommend that the Secretary of State should not have the power to refuse a call for a referendum. As readers of our report will see, there was no consensus on the Government’s proposals for electoral reform. The majority support, as I do, the Government’s proposals, and it should be noted that there was no minority report. My personal view is that, whatever the merits of the arguments on each side of the debate, the Government and all parties need to proceed on a cross-party basis. Electoral reform should not get caught up in internecine party politics. The Secretary of State may well wish to consider whether, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen said in his contribution, the present system is an unloved and confusing creature that causes more grief than it is worth. I believe that, as he suggested, a national list may be a better option. It is incumbent upon all Members to take the heat out of the debate on electoral reform and to find a way forward that gains cross-party consensus. Without that, the many welcome proposals in the Bill could be drowned out by the argument on what is for many of us a very minor part of a welcome improvement to the devolution settlement for Wales. The Secretary of State has it in his gift as the sponsor of the Bill to give serious consideration to other proposals. Finally, as Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, I have been at pains to recognise that all parties have made a contribution to the journey of the people of Wales towards democratic devolution. Unless we recognise this, particularly in the absence of an historic Welsh convention, we are in danger of failing to learn the lessons of history, although I should add, as an objective historian, that my party, the Labour party, had the decisive role in achieving victory in 1997 and, I have to acknowledge, a defeat in 1979. Today there should be consensus around the belief that the Government of Wales Bill is about delivering better public services for the people of Wales and greater democratic accountability to the people of Wales. The Welsh Affairs Committee has a vital role to play in ensuring that the diverse views of the people of Wales are clearly heard in Westminster. We aim to champion the people of Wales here and certainly not to challenge or undermine our National Assembly. Together, as Welsh Members in Parliament and in the Assembly, we can work in harmony to strengthen our public services, and together we can strengthen our democracy in Wales. The Bill has the potential to do that, if the Secretary of State listens, as I am sure he will, to the constructive proposals being made tonight in the House and outside the House in Wales.