Government of Wales Bill

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment. This amendment removes the Secretary of State’s discretion over how and when to lay a draft referendum Order in Council before Parliament if the Assembly passed such a request on a two-thirds vote. The purpose of clause 103 is to ensure that the Secretary of State responds to a request from the Assembly within a proper timescale. It is right that such a request cannot be simply sat upon. The effect of this amendment, however, would be to compel the Secretary of State to lay a draft order before Parliament within 120 days. I recognise the concern that the Secretary of State—perhaps one less charitable towards devolution than I—should not be able to obstruct the will of the democratically elected Assembly and that for the Liberal Democrats, that is a particular point of principle. I understand that fully. The commitment of the Liberal Democrats to devolution and to primary powers for Wales is long established, and I fully understand the concern that a move to primary powers should not be frustrated by a hostile Secretary of State. I would not support that myself, but of course I am sympathetic to primary powers and always have been. However, if any Government were bent on frustrating the will of the Assembly, this amendment would not be enough to stop them. A hostile UK Government could always resort to primary legislation. After all, Parliament is sovereign. The real safeguard—I know that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) has real concerns about this point—is political. Any governing party in London that sought, arbitrarily or on some point of dogma, to block a decision by two thirds of Assembly Members in Cardiff would pay a heavy political penalty. They would be run out of town, just as the Conservatives were in 1997 for similar behaviour. I respect the intentions of the Liberal Democrats and others who proposed the change, but I do not believe that this amendment will achieve the desired outcome as effectively as the Bill as it currently stands does. If a Secretary of State were wilfully to attempt to thwart the clear will of the elected representatives of the people of Wales, after a referendum request had been given full and detailed consideration by the Assembly, and approved by at least two thirds of Assembly Members, the consequences would be grave, both politically and constitutionally. There would be a real crisis and the Secretary of State would clearly be in the wrong. The Government’s objection to this amendment is not because we wish to aggrandise the role of the Secretary of State. Nor do we wish to put in place some kind of mechanism for thwarting a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly. Indeed, I do not see a real difference of principle between the concerns expressed in the House of Lords and by the hon. Gentleman and other Liberal Democrats, and the Government’s position. It is a question of how to achieve the same end, and we do not think that the amendment is constitutionally appropriate. I shall explain why. If an order is to be laid before Parliament, that is properly a matter for a Minister of the Crown. It would not be constitutionally appropriate for the Assembly to be able to force the Secretary of State to lay a draft order before Parliament, regardless of whether the Secretary of State was even ready to do so. The Secretary of State, as a member of Her Majesty’s Government, cannot be accountable both to Parliament and to the Assembly. The Secretary of State—for that matter, any Minister of the Crown—is accountable to this House and to Parliament. He cannot at the same time be accountable to an Assembly. That is the clear issue at stake. However, the intention of this provision is not to create a new roadblock. As I have said, the Secretary of State would be likely to face irresistible pressure to lay the Order in Council. Nonetheless, the Government believe that it is important to maintain proper lines of constitutional accountability. There are also genuine practical reasons why the Secretary of State should not be constrained to lay a draft order within 120 days. He or she would still have to comply with the requirements of clause 102 before doing so, including the preparation of the draft order itself and a statutory consultation—a point made very persuasively by my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy). The draft order would have to be laid before the Assembly before it was laid before Parliament. The amendment would leave no scope whatsoever to alter that timescale, should it not prove possible to complete all those steps within 120 days. The amendment does not take account of those practical considerations, of the requirements of clause 102 or of the obvious point about parliamentary sovereignty and accountability. I repeat that the Secretary of State is accountable to Parliament, not to the Assembly, although I would certainly want to act in keeping with the wishes of a two-thirds majority of the Assembly.