Government of Wales Bill

To my mind, properly conducted referendums are on issues on which Government ought to give people choices. They ought not, in fact, to labour to influence the result, but to set out the options and ask whether people want them. That is how referendums were always supposed to work. The trouble is that Napoleon III rapidly turned them into a form of executive and parliamentary dictatorship, using them for that purpose. This Government have been adept at picking up the tip. If there were a clearly manifested desire among the people of Wales for a referendum on whether to get rid of the Assembly, the House would have to listen very carefully. For present purposes, and for the purposes of the Bill, we are content to operate on the principle that, so far as we can see, the Assembly as set up, with its imperfections, appears to have a sufficient measure of support to justify its continued existence. What we will seek to do, therefore, is to see whether there are ways in which we can improve the working of the Assembly, either by granting the option, as the Secretary of State and the Minister want to do, of letting the Assembly have primary legislative powers, or by separating the executive from the legislature, which we entirely agree with.