Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, I shall make a few brief points; if it is of any comfort to the Minister, I do not intend to say anything on the later Motions. In another place, the Government provided two reasons for us giving way on this issue, and the Minister repeated them this afternoon. His first reason was that the timetable made it essential that the measure go forward this afternoon, so that Royal Assent could be obtained before we rose. Ministers should never advance that argument, because they establish the timetable by which Bills are brought before Parliament; if it were so vital that the legislation should receive Royal Assent, they should have arranged for the Bill to come before both Houses in enough time for the debate to be carried through to its proper conclusion. There seem to be only two possible alternative reasons for their having got us into this situation: that it was intentional, so that they could blackmail the House and say, ““You simply have to agree or we won’t get Royal Assent””; or that it was the result of incompetence. I will leave it to noble Lords to decide which, but I do not think it worthy of Ministers to treat Parliament in this way. The second main argument advanced in another place, and again by the Minister this afternoon, was about the manifesto commitment and the Salisbury convention. I have spoken on the future of the Salisbury convention not just in debates on the Bill, but when we considered procedural matters and in a separate debate. The whole issue has been well set out in a major paper, which is in the Library. It is clear that we will have to give further consideration to the Salisbury convention, which, after all, had its origins in a wholly different situation. I am particularly concerned about its application when we are dealing with manifesto commitments on electoral matters. Manifestos are usually lengthy documents not read by the electorate, except sixth formers under instruction on how the constitution works, and it seems a dangerous principle to advance that we are bound in Parliament to observe the will of the elected Government because they mentioned a matter in a manifesto. That would enable a political party to change the electoral system to its advantage and prevent Parliament blocking the proposal. The change proposed on this occasion may not be felt to be of such significance that Parliament and this House should stand and fight, but one can imagine circumstances in which a proposal to change the electoral system should be resisted by this House. I want to record that I do not think that this occasion establishes a precedent. We should not accept that the Salisbury convention and manifesto commitments always bind this House to accept any proposal by Government to change electoral arrangements. That would be wholly improper. As my noble friend said, it was also argued that all the political parties in the Assembly had already acted on the basis that the Bill would pass therefore there was no point in going back on it at present, or at least that it would cause a good deal of inconvenience to do so. But the political parties have noted that the Government were determined to get their way on this matter—as the Minister said, there was no question of the Government giving way. Again, that is not a powerful argument. The political parties were merely facing the reality of the situation in the House. I was fascinated to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, because, having read the debates in another place, my understanding was that the Liberal Democrats and the Government had reached a deal on the Bill: because of the need to get it through without further delay, and the concessions mentioned by the Minister, the Liberal Democrats would not stand and fight on this issue. However, the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, said that the Bill was very unsatisfactory and repeated many of the arguments advanced by his party in earlier debates. After all, his party, along with all the opposition parties, voted against the measure in the Welsh Assembly—as they did earlier in our proceedings. I find it bizarre that the Liberal Democrats decided not to stand and fight on this issue. It makes it impossible for the rest of us to do so, because we all know that, without their support, there would be no chance of winning the vote and sending the amended legislation back to another place. The Liberal Democrats have sold a pass on it; that is a great pity. Having made those points, I accept that we must now agree to this highly unsatisfactory measure. I do not withdraw a single word of the criticisms that I uttered against it on previous occasions; they have been well summed up by my noble friend on the Front Bench. I shall make only two further comments. First, as I do not intend to speak again this afternoon, I take this opportunity to thank both noble Lords who have spoken for the Government on this matter for the patience and courtesy with which they have responded to our thorough examination of this Bill. I do not apologise for that thorough examination; that is the job of this House, and we have obtained some notable improvements. I wish the Assembly every good fortune in the period ahead and hope that it serves the people of Wales well. I hope that we do not come to regret any part of this Bill, and that we can feel that at least we have taken a step forward for the benefit of the Welsh people.