Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, I believe that contained in Motion F is the recipe for some conflict in the future. Those of us who soldiered on, for example in the 1979 referendum on whether there should be a Welsh Assembly, can conceive of any kind of outcome that could occur. Although the Minister pleads sweet reason to us—and I accept what he said, because he said it in good faith—there is no doubt that a whole series of circumstances could come along to dog Wales yet again on getting the kind of powers that it needs to rule the country with resolution and intelligence and to release the energies of the Welsh people. Even though the Assembly has voted by two-thirds in favour of an Order in Council to hold a referendum, the Secretary of State can intervene. As the Minister said, there may be a hostile Secretary of State who might be inclined to deny the opportunity in spite of a two-thirds vote. We must ask, certainly in constitutional affairs and constitutional reform: which Secretary of State? Who is to say that the shelf life of a Secretary of State for Wales will be a very long time? Given that more powers are being transferred to Wales—I hope not until there are full primary legislative powers for Wales—there could be a situation where ““the Secretary of State”” would not be the Secretary of State for Wales but would be the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. The Bill is so phrased that a Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs might have a radically different view of whether the referendum should go through an Order in Council and be accepted. The Bill says that he or she has the right to refuse it; you only have to look at Clause 104(3)(b) to see that staring you in the face. We have made quite a lot of progress with the Bill in the way that Wales is eventually creeping to democracy. We have a long way to go, but this is undoubtedly some progress. There are a lot of convoluted problems with the Bill, which is why, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said, it is only worthy of a B-plus. I sincerely hope that we will end up with a proper constitutional settlement for the whole of the United Kingdom; a federal constitution where the powers lie where they should do. The Richard Commission report had a good go at that by saying where the powers should lie in what would be a Welsh Parliament or Welsh Assembly with primary legislative powers. The issue about where the appropriate powers should lie has to be sorted out one day. We should not really have this long march around all these bends, corners and obstacles to get there. There is no doubt that there has been good will on all sides. I thank the Conservative Front Bench, whom we worked with closely on many of the amendments. Some of the things that we wanted have been achieved. I thank the Minister for that, and the Bill team who have worked extremely hard. I also thank the Presiding Officer of the National Assembly—the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas—who put his case today far more eloquently than I did, although I attempted to do it despite what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said earlier. There has been lot of co-operation. The Bill will do as a constructive stop-gap to give more power to Wales. Let us hope that Wales will get the proper legislation that it deserves not too long in the future.