Government of Wales Bill

: I shall be brief, as I know that time is short. The Bill is a huge missed opportunity. The Secretary of State said that it is intended to settle the devolution issue for a generation, but it will do nothing of the sort. What it has done is to sow seeds of constitutional strife that it will take the next Conservative Government to resolve. Some elements of the Bill are laudable: I support them, and should have liked to do so wholeheartedly. First, the separation of the legislature from the Executive is manifestly desirable. The arrangement established by the original devolution settlement was wrong, and should have been rectified long ago. That is a laudable provision and I support it. Similarly, if the Secretary of State had had sufficient courage to go to the people of Wales at this stage and ask them if they wanted more devolution and more primary powers, I would have had much more respect for his position. However, he did not do that; instead, he has resorted to an opaque and byzantine device that effectively gives primary powers to the people of Wales without prior consultation in a referendum. The Secretary of State will find that in years to come the people of Wales will grow to resent that. They will demand the right to state their position in a referendum, and I hope that they do it sooner rather than later. I also hope that at that stage the Secretary of State will listen to what they have to say and abide by their decision. The Bill is flawed. As a matter of principle, I cannot possibly support it. Frankly, I find the position of Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats accommodating in the extreme. They have compromised their principles, but the occupants of the Conservative Benches will not. For that reason, I shall vote against the Bill.