Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, it is not for me, from this Dispatch Box, to intrude on private grief. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has accurately identified some clear elements of contradiction in the Liberal Democrat position on the referendum. I am in a more congenial mood and shall therefore not spend a great deal of time on that point, but I shall deal with the main issue about which the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, spoke. I accept that the Liberal Democrats’ position on devolution is a principled one. They want to see primary powers for the Assembly, and as soon as possible. I respect that position but it is not what the Welsh people voted for in 1997; they voted for the Government's view that primary powers for the Assembly represent a fundamental change to the devolution settlement. A further referendum is required, but it must, and can, take place only when there is a broad cross-party consensus in Wales in favour of such a move. It is an easy populist line for the Liberal Democrats to set a date and to say that it should be taken out of the hands of politicians, and I have no doubt that that will win a few cheers in certain quarters. However, the political responsibility is straightforward. The referendum would be on whether the National Assembly should have increased powers, and if it were lost it would severely damage the Assembly and present considerable difficulties for its subsequent work. It must be a political judgment and it must be right that politicians take responsibility. The Liberal Democrats are at one with the Government in seeing the Welsh Assembly’s powers increased under the Bill over the next few years—earlier than the Richard commission recommended. It will be a gradual enhancement of, and increase in, powers, subject, of course, to the Orders in Council and to the authority of this Parliament. It is then suggested that there should be an arbitrary date on which that is put before the Welsh people. Everyone knows that referendums can be conditioned by a range of issues in addition to the matter in hand. It seems to me a denial of devolution to suggest that politicians should abrogate any responsibility for deciding the date, to say to the National Assembly that it should have no say on the date, and that the date should be imposed on it and the Welsh people by the very Parliament from which the Assembly is seeking enhanced powers.