Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, I apologise for not being here when the debate started, but it started 25 minutes early, which is very good. At this moment, I should be a steward in the Royal Welsh Show, taking around overseas judges to judge educational stands—20 in all—but government business managers have decided that I must be here today. Of course, this is very important legislation for Wales, and I could not possibly be anywhere else on this occasion. Motion A, resisting Amendment No. 3, is one of the key issues that we have debated in the Bill. We find the system of election banning dual candidacies very unsatisfactory indeed. There are only three countries where this practice takes place: Ukraine, Palestine and Thailand. They are the only ones, and Britain, by selecting this particular method of banning dual candidacies, has by association put Britain into the same locker. Although the Government may argue the case for banning dual candidacies—and we all know about the Clwyd West situation, a one-off situation that is quoted ad nauseam—the perception is that it is a rather dodgy system that favours one party. That may not be the fact, but it is the perception, and that is particularly unfortunate. As the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, said, the Electoral Commission is among those who have criticised this most vociferously. In its submission to the Welsh Affairs Committee, which was looking at this system, it was not convinced at all of the need for a change. Also, the Electoral Reform Society has condemned it as not appropriate for the situation in Wales. None the less, the clock is ticking, and there are matters in the Bill, particularly the possibility of getting primary legislative powers in due course, that are too important to ignore. We have to look at this overall, but we can say that we are most unsatisfied with the electoral system. In the other place, our Members voted against it, and that is the elected House. Here, we must come to some kind of agreement. It is with a heavy heart that I look at this modification. The Minister will know that we proposed the single transferable vote as our preferred system, which was also the recommended, preferred system of the Richard commission. The Government will not accept that, one might suggest, because there are divisions of opinion in the Labour Party about one or two of the aspects. I do not want to go on for a long time about that; we have had that debate. We will look at this as a final act that may come back to haunt the Labour Party in due course.