Government of Wales Bill

I am making the point that at the time of the 1997 referendum, a significant majority of the Welsh electorate was not in favour of the Assembly, or was insufficiently persuaded of its merits to vote for it. The Assembly is a fact of life, but one must also acknowledge that as far as many electors in Wales are concerned, the jury is still out on whether it has been beneficial to the people of Wales overall. Many people in Wales—and, perhaps, on both sides of the House—are extremely disappointed by the Assembly’s performance to date. On health, especially, it has been a less-than-conspicuous success. Waiting lists and times in Wales are significantly longer than those in England. In my constituency, to cite just one, it is virtually impossible to find an NHS dentist. There is not a huge amount to crow about regarding the Assembly’s success. The Secretary of State has acknowledged that there is no consensus in Wales on full primary legislative powers for the Assembly. On 15 June, he said:"““we will call a referendum only if there is a consensus for one. There is no consensus for one now, and it would be lost.””—[Official Report, 15 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 267.]" More recently, he said that neither he nor the First Minister were"““in the business of calling referendums we are going to lose””." I agree entirely with the Secretary of State that there is no consensus in Wales for further devolution. Clearly, there is no such consensus. It might therefore be expected that the Government would wait to allow the current devolution settlement to bed in and to start proving its worth before granting further legislative competence to the Assembly. The Secretary of State contends that what is proposed in the Bill under stage 2—the Order in Council measures—does not amount to such a significant extension of the Assembly’s powers to merit a referendum. He said today that a modest transfer of powers was involved. The validity of that view depends to a great extent on the way that the Order in Council procedure would be operated. We await much more detail in that respect. The more widely drafted the Orders in Council, the less modest the transfer. It is abundantly clear that Assembly measures made as a result of powers granted via Orders in Council might be used to amend, extend or even repeal Acts of Parliament. The power is significant and goes a considerable distance beyond what was initially envisaged at the time of the referendum in 1997. The White Paper, ““A Voice for Wales””, made it clear that the Assembly’s role would be to take over the administrative functions of the Secretary of State for Wales, its legislative functions being confined to the passing of secondary legislation. The Bill makes it clear that an Assembly measure may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament. We therefore have what the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) described as a kind of salami slicing. There is an extension of primary legislative competence to the Welsh Assembly. Furthermore, once an Order in Council has conferred enhanced legislative powers in relation to a matter, the competence conferred will be of a continuing nature. The Assembly will be able to revisit those powers conferred by the original Orders in Council. That will amount essentially to a permanent transfer of legislative competence in a large number of areas. As the years pass, so that competence will grow.