Government of Wales Bill

I cannot begin to tell the hon. Lady how grateful we were to the Labour party for creating a system that it now wishes to alter. However, as I said, I am not a Lib Dem. If I were, I would have argued for PR, perhaps for Wales and Scotland, but not for England. We could gerrymander to see what system would benefit us, but I shall leave that to the Lib Dems. If, as has been said, the Labour party wishes to review arrangements and introduce a first-past-the-post system, we should at least consider such a proposal, because by meddling with the electoral system it will not resolve the problems which, it says, are the result of the list system. Those problems include list Members or regional Members setting up offices in other people’s patches where they think they may do better in a future first-past-the-post election. That problem, however, will continue to exist unless the Welsh Assembly do something about it. The solution needs more thought, because the system is being changed for the wrong reasons. Let us be honest—the Government think that they have made a mistake, but their proposal fails to correct it. We should therefore take a little more time to look at the problem again. I commend the powerful speech of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). There will be problems—there are no two ways about it. The last referendum on regional government was in the north-east of England, and it could not have gone down the pan in a bigger way. Even I was surprised at the size of the majority against the Government proposal but, having tried to give England a voice, they did not walk away from such a proposal. The fact is, the systems that they have introduced in Scotland and Wales, together with the changes that they propose to introduce in Wales, will make the situation worse. Far more legislation will affect England alone, but Members from Scotland and Wales will hold sway. The West Lothian question is not dead, and it will not go away. It must be addressed, but the problem has been made worse by the Bill.