Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, it is a privilege to take part in this debate on the future government of Wales. It is also a pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan. I wish that I could welcome him in Welsh; I am not sure whether the House’s procedure would permit that. I can say ““croeso””—welcome, and a warm welcome at that. Taking part in the debate means that we are continuing the evolution of devolution: going forward step by step to what I hope will eventually be an effective and democratic government in Wales. There are many concerns in the Bill on which we will be touching in depth and possibly at great length in Committee and on Report. Today I want to mention two subjects of concern. First, the number of Members in the Assembly itself, which has already been mentioned. At the moment there are 60 Members, two of whom are officers of the Assembly: the Presiding Officer and the Deputy Presiding Officer; so two are out of the count in ordinary discussion. Then we have as many as 12 or even 14 Ministers who now with the new arrangement are not taking part in ordinary discussion. So we are left with just 45 or 46 Members of the Assembly who are able to take part in the legislative process and in scrutiny. As the Assembly’s extended powers come into effect, I am sure that they will be far too few. Even on the Government side, if we take 12 people out of 28 or 29 one is left with very few to argue the Government’s case on the Assembly Floor. I have been looking at the statistics in Wales. Of the 22 local authorities, only six have fewer than 46 members. They feel that they need more for adequate representation, legislative discussion and scrutiny. So I urge the Government—and I hope it will not be a difficult task—to take on board that to have an effective Assembly we need a larger membership. My second concern, as has been mentioned many times this evening, is the prohibition of candidates from being nominated for both regionalist and constituency seats. As we know, we have 40 constituencies, each with its own Assembly Member, and 20 regional Members. This is the attempt to have a top-up list—an additional member list—so that we have some sort of proportionality; otherwise we would not have a Conservative member of the Assembly at all. In order to achieve representation across the board we have to have some measure of proportionality. As the Richard commission suggested, I suggest that a single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies is the way forward; perhaps eventually we will arrive there. Now we have the additional member system. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is not here. He said that in the ordinary Westminster parliamentary elections one could not stand for more than one constituency, but of course one can. There was one candidate who stood in Cardiff—she was the dream candidate. She stood in four constituencies—she received only one vote in Cardiff North, but she stood in more than one constituency. So on the parliamentary level there is nothing to restrict one from standing in more than one constituency. However, it is a new departure. As the Assembly itself is a new departure, so the method of election and the attempt at proportionality is also a new departure. There are 20 Assembly regional Members without direct ordinary constituency responsibilities. I would not say that they were footloose and fancy free, but at least they have a freedom to involve themselves in a different way. But the Bill does not tackle the role of the additional members in any way. It does not tell us whether that role is different from or similar to that of a constituency member. It is still ambiguous. They will not afford constituency campaigns, but they will represent a region. The Government’s Bill suggests that they should not be allowed to be nominated for an ordinary constituency and for a region. What does that change achieve? It achieves nothing. The Government’s argument is that the losers should not be elected. So the 40 victors in the constituency campaigns will not be faced in the Assembly by their unsuccessful opponents; but they will be faced in the Assembly by 20 people who did not risk a constituency campaign. Clwyd West is mentioned time and again, but it is the only example and we do not often legislate for only one example. They were on the regional list; that was the system; and that is what happened. Ivor Richard and his commission and the Arbuthnott commission in Scotland did not find any fault with these dual candidatures. On the Electoral Reform Society, the Electoral Commission and on party funding this week, I am told that the Government are listening very hard to what the Electoral Commission has to say. Surely, on this issue also they could listen to what the Electoral Commission has to say. The Government very often say ““but the Assembly says””. The noble Lord, Lord Evans, says ““The Assembly says””, and this is the Government’s justification. This afternoon, as my noble friend Lord Livsey said, there was a debate and 15 votes in the Assembly in Cardiff. When they voted on dual candidatures, they had a dead heat—28 for and 28 against. Usually, if you are chairing a committee and you have a dead heat you go for the status quo. I am sure I am right on that. So I would suggest that the Government now cannot refer to the Assembly vote; they have no mandate for this change. We do not need this ban, and we cannot or should not support it. I mention again that you need a two-thirds majority of the Assembly to go to a referendum. Yet the Government are ready to accept a dead heat in the Assembly itself. Surely, that is totally undemocratic and should be refused by this House. Those who say there should be a ban say that those who are defeated as constituency candidates and left on the regional list will open offices. You are elected to serve constituents, so why will you not be allowed to open offices? Where will you open the offices? Well, within the region in which you have been elected. You cannot open them on Mars or in the Outer Hebrides if you are elected for north Wales on a regional list. So you open your office in north Wales and then they say, ““Ah, but they might start campaigning””. Surely, the Government are not going to say that we will restrict the campaigning rights of any one party in Wales: I certainly hope not. I was listening to the Chancellor give his Budget earlier today. He said on education that ““What we want is the second opportunity””. I suggest that on every level, and particularly on the socialist level, you afford the second opportunity. You are always ready to give a chance. That is another reason why we should vote when the time comes against this particular recommendation. I look forward to further stages of the Bill, and trust that Her Majesty’s Government will listen and say, ““Look this tinkering on the matter of dual candidatures is not worth the aggro that it will cause””.