Government of Wales Bill

I was one of the people who was involved in that last referendum, very much on the ““anti”” side. It is my experience that a significant number of people in Wales then and now want primary legislative powers. It is also fair to say, and I hope that everyone recognises, that a large number of people in Wales preferred the status quo and believed that Wales best played out its destiny as an integral part of the United Kingdom. I was one of those people; I was proud to be Welsh and proud to be British; proud to be a Welsh Unionist, if you like. Many people in my situation are disappointed that the door effectively has been slammed shut on any change in the constitutional direction. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire seems to think that we should never change direction constitutionally; that we can never make mistakes. Perhaps I may remind my two Liberal Democrat colleagues that one of the biggest constitutional changes this country has ever made was to get rid of the monarchy. The experiment lasted only 11 years. We recognised that we had made a mistake and we went back in the other direction. It is a shame that we slammed the door on doing that in Wales.