Government of Wales Bill

It is a pleasure for me to say that the observations of the Father of the House contain a very important truth—that the Bill, if it is not dishonest, is deeply flawed. The Bill pretends to have two parts. One part gives some additional powers to the Welsh Assembly, in accordance with the Labour party’s manifesto. The other part gives full devolution to Wales, after a referendum. Unlike many Conservative Members, I am not especially opposed to a devolved structure. However, I do oppose a devolved structure that disfranchises my constituents and renders English Members of Parliament second rate, at least in terms of the powers available to them. I am not opposed to the nature and principle of devolution. I do not stand on the same side as the Father of the House on that. I do think, however, that we ought to face all the issues at once instead of having the system we have, which is a dog’s breakfast that fails to recognise the problems of the West Lothian question. We are being asked to have a referendum on a new basis—that the referendum will be part of normal governmental activity until the Government have managed to achieve devolution. That is what the Bill means. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) made that very clear, and I believe her to be right. The parallel with Northern Ireland is manifest nonsense. In the north of Ireland, we have had a continuing situation of violence and disorder. The six counties are constantly upset by two powerful tribal issues: unity and independence from the south. Those battles are unique to that part of the United Kingdom, and, happily, pretty unusual in the world as a whole. The House has always accepted that dealing with the six counties is a matter of total difference from what we do elsewhere because its history is totally different. It would be ridiculous to say that because we have to do X, Y or Z in the north of Ireland, we have to do the same elsewhere, or, indeed, to say that because we want to do something different elsewhere we have for some reason or other to do it in Northern Ireland. If the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire does not remember what an 8th century pope said, it would be a good idea for him to do so now. In the 8th century, a pope very properly said that Ireland is different and has to be treated differently. It would have been wise of the House to have thought that in the 19th century and to have followed the views of Cardinal Manning instead of those of Lord Salisbury. The referendum is being presented as a continuous part of governmental life. We shall have it again and again until the people of Wales make the choice that the Secretary of State wants them to make. That seems to me to be the opposite of democracy. It is an example, again, from the Government of Louis Napoleon—Napoleon III. It is how he used referendums. Whenever he found the Government a little difficult or whenever the structure that he had invented produced a result that he did not like, he had a referendum. He even had a particularly nasty and unpleasant one that he called ““crowning the edifice””. It was held to make sure that what he wanted was voted for, because he arranged for it to work like that. That is one of the reasons why I so deeply object to referendums. All referendums actually do is ask people the question we want to ask them in the way most calculated to get the answer we want and which is an answer that happens to be true on the day the referendum is held. It is often an answer that has nothing to do with the question, being about what people feel about the Government or whoever asked it. It is a load of nonsense and we should never have joined up to it. I am sorry that my party has agreed to referendums on a whole range of situations in which they are wholly unsuitable. Having had a referendum in Wales, however, we cannot go for the Liberal concept of slipping a whole matter through because the electorate have made their bed and must lie in it. Nor can we go for the socialist concept of creating a part 3 of the Bill that makes sure that we deliver the whole thing by salami slicing it. Nor, if they do not get it that way, can we allow part 4 to let them have as many referendums as it takes for the Secretary of State for Wales to be able to say to his grandchildren that he was the one who forced devolution on the Welsh. Given the right hon. Gentleman’s background, I am not sure that I think he is suitable to do that. We ought to have a change to this part of the Bill for democratic reasons. We should change it because it makes referendums even more silly than they were in the first place. Above all, we should have a change to remind the people of Wales just how devious the Bill is and how much it is using time in the House of Commons to sew together the divisions in the Labour party.