Government of Wales Bill

It has been a pleasure to participate in the debate. I well remember the original Government of Wales Bill, and I spent many hours in the House considering it, as I did with the Scotland Bill, during my first year in Parliament. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David) is right to suggest that it was thought that such legislation would usher in a new, inclusive form of politics. Indeed, the word ““holistic”” was bandied about the Chamber so much that I began to think that it was almost a term of abuse. It is worth bearing that in mind, because now that we revisit the matter eight years later, we must be careful not to commit similar mistakes again. I agree with the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), who said that we should be careful about getting too bogged down in constitutional dogma and that what people want are better services and more accountability. I accept that argument, but equally, as I am sure he will have noted from the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), there are consequences of devolution, particularly in inequality of service provision, that cannot simply be lightly disregarded on cross-border issues. As was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), dislike of the Assembly’s failings and inefficiencies is a phenomenon in Wales, just as there are those who approve of the way that it has operated. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) pointed out that there appears to be no consensus on what further form legislative devolution should take—something that was ultimately acknowledged by many hon. Members on both sides of the House. I certainly suspect that my cousins in north Wales who have farmed in the Clwydian range for a very long time would heartily wish to see the Assembly disappear, but they are as Welsh as any of the Labour Members who have spoken. That happens to be their view. My hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) pointed out that only 25 per cent. of the electorate voted for the Assembly in the first place. With that in mind, we must approach the question of how the Assembly can be improved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) made clear at the outset, we want to try to make the Assembly work well. We accept that some provisions in the Bill are long overdue, particularly the separation of the Executive and the legislature, which perhaps reflects the end of inclusivity. Indeed, in so far as the Government wish to put a referendum to the Welsh people about whether they want primary legislative powers for their Assembly, one cannot possibly disagree with asking that question even if one has reservations about the proposals. The problem, however, is that that is not the main part of the Bill, and certainly not the main part of the Bill as it will ultimately affect the majority of people in Wales in the short-term future. What the Government plan to do is rather surprising. When we debated the first Government of Wales Bill, one of the arguments put forward was that the rise in the use of statutory instruments as a form of governance in this country meant that there was a growing disconnection between Parliament and those being governed, and that one of the ways of dealing with that problem in the Welsh context was to enable the Assembly to be the implementers of statutory instruments. Of course, it was to be denied primary legislation. However, the Government’s proposals in this Bill are a Minister’s dream. They will take the remaining areas of primary legislation and convert them into a form of statutory instrument over which the House effectively abdicates all responsibility. There is a purpose behind primary legislation, which we do not do very well in the House any more. That is one of the reasons why we have the debates about devolution. If we were not so absurdly guillotined when we are in Committee—the point applies not just to this Bill, but to all the legislation that we consider—the process of debate would enable proper scrutiny to take place. Over the past eight years, we have seen time and again the Government’s desire to cut that scrutiny, but now they suddenly come along and say that it does not matter because they are going to cut it down even further and hand it over by diktat of the Secretary of State, with massive reserve powers for the Executive, to the Welsh Assembly, which will be a substitute for the scrutiny that this House will not provide. I say to the Secretary of State that that is a serious constitutional innovation and change. If that is the way that the Government wish to proceed, and if they believe that it is the future—the approach could be applied not just to the Welsh Assembly, but to regional bodies, the London assembly or any other form of government—this must be an issue on which the public are consulted first. There are serious implications and the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) highlighted the problems that can flow from devolution, in terms both of the uncoupling of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom and in terms of the quality of government that people receive.