I am extremely grateful to the Conservative party. Because of the social event that Conservative Members are attending tonight, it managed to engineer a little under two hours for me to make the important points that I wish to make, which is just about adequate time.
We have a Government who are Janus-faced on a vital issue. I had the pleasure last Thursday of listening to the new the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), talking about his view of the principle of devolution. He is the one that is facing forward, but I believe there is another face to this Janus. Lurking in the Attorney-General’s Office is a little nest of devolution deniers who are doing great damage.
The Minister of State said last week:
“This has been something that, as you know, I have always been passionate about. Way back in Opposition, I wrote books on the need to transfer power from the centre to the places in our country. As you probably know, I am Middlesbrough born and bred, and the founders of the infant Hercules did not need to ask permission from central government to grow and prosper. I think we need to get back to the spirit of people, the leaders of our cities, towns and counties across the country, feeling that they have the right to initiate policies, do things differently, and have greater control of financial resources.”
Hallelujah. Amen to that.
But what has happened in Wales has been extraordinary. We have seen the other face of Janus that is looking backwards. That is where the devolution denial is coming from. The Attorney-General’s Office is suffering from an acute case of CPR—it is chronically power retentive in an era of devolution. This is not something that has come about as party propaganda. We have had votes on this. We have been through the whole process. We had a referendum to get devolution in Wales and we had a referendum to get greater powers.
I speak with some pedigree on this because I can fondly recall the day in 1953 when I marched through Cardiff with people from several parties. I had a Labour party banner that said “Senedd i Gymru”, “a Parliament for Wales”. It did not say, “hanner Senedd i Gymru”. It did not say, “LCOs i’r bobl”. It did not say, “half-baked policies that can be shredded by a national Government.” It said, “a Parliament for Wales”. We still do not have one, sadly. We have a form of democracy, but it is not tax-raising and the limited powers that it has for passing laws have been frustrated at every turn.