Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, it was almost as notable as the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, to this debate. We do not like the concept of the abolition of dual candidacy. When the Government of Wales Bill first came before this House—I was the main spokesman for my party on it—we of course proposed proportional representation by the single transferable vote method, which the Richard commission said was the way forward, but we accepted the regional list as a measure that was heading in the right direction. At that time—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, will recall this—we were all of the view that Members of the Welsh Assembly would be indistinguishable whether they were regional list members or constituency members: they would all be regarded as Members of the Welsh Assembly who were doing their best for Wales. It is unhappily the case that the electoral arithmetic has worked out so that Labour Members are constituency members and members of other parties—very many but by no means all of them—are regional members. They all started on a level playing field when the Assembly came into being and each of them had a reputation to make. One feels that behind the abolition of dual candidacy is the fear of Welsh Labour constituency members of the Assembly—certainly the weaker ones—that those regional list members who have made their reputation will oust them from their seats. As the noble Lords, Lord Roberts and Lord Crickhowell, and my noble friend Lord Livsey said, the Welsh Labour Party has played purely a political game with the electoral arrangements. It is not right that we should have this presented to us, as the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said a moment ago, as something that we must accept because it was tucked into the Welsh part of the Labour manifesto during the previous election. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has now been converted to speak against the Salisbury convention. He may recall, as other noble Lords will do, that the very first act of the leader of my party in this House in the Queen’s Speech debate following the election was to say that we did not regard ourselves as ever having been bound by the Salisbury convention. We were not party to it in 1946; the conditions had completely changed and we would not accept it for a moment as an argument. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, made the very important point that the danger lies in electoral politics. Although this deals with the Welsh Assembly, it is a very short step to interfering with how Westminster representatives are elected by tucking a similar proposal somewhere in the small print of a manifesto and relying on it at a later stage in relation to this House. This party will abstain on this Motion because we want the Bill to be enacted but that does not for a moment minimise our hostility to the concept of the amendment—that is, the concept that dual candidacy is to be abolished—and it does not mean that we accept for a moment the validity of the Salisbury convention.