Government of Wales Bill

During the period before the 1997 general election I campaigned, within my party and outside it, for the creation of a powerful, accountable, democratic body to take over all the policy areas for which the then Welsh Office was responsible. I was secretary of the West Glamorgan campaign for a Welsh Assembly. I submitted a policy paper for the Welsh Labour party commission when it was gathering evidence to inform the devolution policy that we were to put to the people in the election. I called for the creation of an 80-Member Assembly with legislative powers over all devolved matters and limited tax-varying powers—what we now call the Scottish model. I still believe that there is a practical and logical coherence in such a policy, but I am also convinced that had we put it to the country in the referendum of September 1997—especially with the prospect of independent tax-raising powers for the Assembly—we would have lost the vote, and would probably have lost the chance of democratic devolution for another generation. It is with that dubious track record of judgment in this sphere, and with due humility, that I venture to comment on the next stage of what is clearly turning out to be a process rather than an event. Of course, we now have the advantage of six years of the Assembly’s doing its job on the basis of the Bill that we debated in 1997 and 1998. We also have the benefit of academic studies and reviews, and of inquiries by the Assembly itself and the Welsh Affairs Committee. Most significantly, I believe, we have the report of the Richard commission, which worked for a year assessing the adequacy of the current settlement and developing proposals for the future. As we all know now, Richard identified a fundamental weakness in the corporate structure of the Assembly—what we called the local government model during our debate on the original Bill. On the basis of the evidence that it gathered, the commission also argued that the Assembly would not fulfil its full potential with the current limitations on its powers, and suggested that if those powers were extended, membership of the Assembly would have to be increased. At the same time, it identified problems with the additional-Member electoral system, which was created to deliver a degree of proportionality in the results of election to the Assembly. The commission’s proposed solutions were legislation to create a separation between executive and legislative functions, a timetable for the transfer of primary legislative powers to the Assembly by 2011, and enlargement of the Assembly to 80 Members, all elected by means of the single transferable vote. I think I am alone on the Labour Benches, certainly today, in being able to say that I would have been happy if my party, in the Government and the Assembly, had welcomed those proposals and set about turning them into practice as quickly as possible. I know that I am in the minority among Welsh Labour Members, and perhaps even more so among rank-and-file Labour party members throughout Wales. I freely acknowledge that the Bill is a compromise. However, I do not agree with the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who described it as such but also described it as very weak. I believe that it is a robust and workable compromise. When the Government produced the White Paper last June, I studied it and asked myself three basic questions. First, would it give the people of Wales more control over policy decisions that affect their daily lives? I believe that the answer is yes. Secondly, was it likely to improve the effectiveness of the National Assembly in delivering for the people of Wales? I believe that the answer is yes. Thirdly, would it put the brakes on any further progress towards democratic devolution? My answer to that is ““Definitely not: quite the opposite””. Although the White Paper, and hence the Bill, did not propose the same solutions as the Richard commission in every instance, to a large extent they identified the same problems with the status quo: the corporate structure, the need for separation between legislative and scrutiny roles and executive roles, and the problems with the additional-Member system. Clearly, there are different solutions, but I do not have the time to discuss my concerns about the electoral proposals in the Bill. I think it would have been better to go for a single transferable vote system, but it is not true to say that democracy in Wales will end suddenly if these provisions are carried. We will still have a vibrant democracy and a proportional element. The Bill is worth supporting and I ask hon. Members to do so.