Government of Wales Bill

It would be foolish to ignore the background to this part of the Bill. Clearly, some Government Members want no further devolution. For them, even the description of continuing devolution given by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) would be anathema. It is pleasing that the Father of the House is not in the Chamber, for he would have been very unhappy had he heard that. Other Labour Members want more devolution. Both views are perfectly reasonable. Indeed, one might find a range of views about devolution among Opposition Members—whether there is enough or whether it should go further. What is unacceptable is to try to paper over those cracks in a way that strikes at the very heart of the activity of Parliament. That brings me to a direct argument with the hon. Member for Wrexham, but I hope that he will acquit me of anything other than real concern for parliamentary democracy. I admit that I would have liked a different way of sharing power in the United Kingdom from that decided on in 1997 and thereafter. However, having undertaken it as we have, it is unacceptable that the people of Wales should have a form of devolution significantly different from that provided for the people of Scotland. Were there an opportunity for a referendum, I hope that the people of Wales would vote for greater devolution, much along the lines of that accorded to people in Scotland. What seems unacceptable is to say that, because the majority party does not believe that it could achieve a common view, it will offer the people of Wales what is in part 3 instead of what is essentially in part 4, but that, of course, they must not have a vote on it, because if they did, they might recognise just how silly it is—silly in the sense that this is a means whereby the future of the people of Wales is removed from the parliamentary hands in which it is now and from any referendum and placed in the hands of bureaucrats and Ministers. The problem for the Government is that all the parallels to this are unflattering; they happen in circumstances where dictatorial Governments, very often monarchical in kind, wanted to have a parliamentary structure that discussed things, argued things, scrutinised things, but did not actually decide things. The trouble for any of us who take an interest in 19th century history is that the Minister’s explanation sounds closer to those of Louis Napoleon—[Interruption.] It is all right for the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), but I hoped that he would have read up about Louis Napoleon, because he would have found out just how parallel the proposal is. As my Welsh nationalist friends know, I am in no way unsupportive of many of the positions that they take, but I am disappointed that both they and the Liberals have fallen for the significantly dangerous sleight of hand that the Conservative party is trying to remove under the amendment. I am not trying to remove it to reduce the Welsh Assembly’s powers. I want to remove it so that we can move on to offer to the Welsh Assembly greater powers through the referendum, which would do so publicly and clearly, and I would be happy to debate with the Father of the House the advantages of going further, while he would no doubt explain the advantage of going backwards, which is, of course, the usual direction of his party.