Government of Wales Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has been fairly generous and general in his condemnation of the standpoints of various parties and individuals on Parts 3 and 4. It seems that the only person who is entitled to dress himself in a white sheet of purity in this matter is the noble Lord himself. I should like to look a little more closely at that idea for a moment or two. I accept that this is an honourable House and that one does not impugn the motives of people who take views opposed to one’s own. One should give the same credit to persons holding such views as if they were one’s own views. It is not really a question of whether the noble Lord accepts the fact of the Welsh Assembly; I am fully prepared to accept that that is the case. We are dealing with the translation of the Welsh Assembly into a parliament; a part-parliament under Part 3 and, under Part 4, a full parliament—in many respects one could describe it as a Gladstonian-type Home Rule parliament. I have never heard the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, whose career I have followed closely—at one time we had adjoining constituencies in the House of Commons—say one kind word about Home Rule. Whatever he may have said about devolution, I readily accept that as Secretary of State during a distinguished career he was responsible for many substantial items of devolution that proved to be of very considerable advantage to Wales. However, the issue is his genuineness about Home Rule. If his track record—he has referred to the Grand National in his most eloquent speech—is anything to be relied on, he has placed every conceivable impediment in the way of Home Rule. If I had been asked to anticipate what his amendments would say on this issue, I would have expected them to change ““two-thirds”” to ““97 per cent””. So why is he relying on a figure of 51 per cent and seeking to rush the Welsh people into a referendum? I have my fears of referendums; I have already explained in the House how I was unfortunate enough to be the leader of the ““yes”” campaign in 1979, when that ill-fated event turned out to be a very great disappointment for everybody who believed in devolution for Wales. I am not confident, nor would I ever be absolutely confident, that a referendum could be carried in any circumstances, whatever the polls said and whatever the Delphic oracles or the runes indicated. I would be extremely wary of feeling confident. However, I accept that it is right and proper that there should be a referendum. It is a very considerable leap forward in constitutional terms, and it is therefore entirely appropriate that the suggestion should be put to arbitrament of the Welsh people in that way. There can be only one of two reasons for the noble Lord’s standpoint—replacing ““two-thirds”” with ““51 per cent”” majority—in his amendments. One would be an incandescent commitment to Home Rule. If the noble Lord has suffered or enjoyed a Pauline conversion, it is for him to say so. If he says so, I will withdraw every suggestion that there might be any tactical motivation behind his amendments. If he says that he is not relying on the argument that it is for the Welsh people to decide, that he believes in Home Rule, will vote for it in the referendum, will campaign for it and will advise his party, as one who holds considerable influence in its ranks in Wales, to support it, I will withdraw everything. On the other hand, one must approach the situation with some suspicion. Either it is a case of total commitment to Home Rule and therefore wanting to ease the path of the Welsh nation towards a Home Rule parliament, or it is a desire to wreck the whole process. Nothing could be easier than to do that by a coalition cobbled together of malcontents about Home Rule, who forced that vote on the Welsh people at a time when it was unlikely to succeed, and where the whole motivation was to kill Home Rule. I might very well be accused of being less than generous towards the noble Lord on this issue, but I have looked carefully at his track record and noted his attitude to Home Rule at each stage. I have noted what the leaders of his party here at Westminster had to say about the very prospect of a Welsh Assembly. Mr Hague condemned it when he was Secretary of State for Wales and as Leader of the Opposition. Since the Assembly came into being, there have been other voices in Wales, Mr Bourne, the leader of the Conservatives in Wales, among them. How far he goes on the path towards Home Rule of course is another matter. Sweet words, and no doubt genuine words, have been spoken in favour of an Assembly, but that is a very far cry from what we are dealing with here in the context of Part 4. I therefore reserve very considerable doubts about the exact intentions. If there were no further evidence, one would be entitled to look to the past, but of course there is further evidence. One looks at Amendments Nos. 81 and 82, where the noble Lord proposes that if a referendum is lost, there is a moratorium of four years. Whether a referendum takes place or not, and assuming that it either does not take place or is not carried, at the end of 10 years under Amendment No. 81 the whole matter dies. There is certainly a considerable body of evidence that points to the intentions of certain people to have a referendum called at the most unpropitious stage as far as Home Rule is concerned, for that to be defeated, for the whole situation to be placed in porth for four years, and then—they hope—for it to die out after 10 years. If I am wrong, I will totally withdraw that, but I have my fears and would be foolish and naive not to express them in this way.