Wales Bill

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

Considered in Committee

[1st Allocated Day]

[Dawn Primarolo) in the Chair]

Clause 1

Frequency of Assembly ordinary general elections

15:28

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 9, page 1, line 5, leave out subsection (1) and insert—

‘(1) GOWA 2006 is amended as follows.

(2) Leave out subsection 3(1) and insert in substitution—

“( ) The poll at an election to the National Assembly for Wales is to be held on a Thursday on a date to be determined by a Resolution of the National Assembly for Wales.”.

( ) Subsection 3(2) is amended by—

(a) leaving out “If the poll is to be held on the first Thursday in May”; and

(b) in paragraph 2(a) by leaving out “that day” and inserting “polling day”.

( ) Leave out sections 4 and 5.

( ) Section 13 is amended by inserting after subsection (1)(c)—

“(1A) The order may not include provision about the date of an election to the Assembly.”.’.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 30, page 1, line 6, at end insert ‘and after the words “order under”, insert ‘section 1A or’.

Amendment 10, page 1, line 8, at end add—

‘(3) A Resolution of the National Assembly for Wales under subsection (1) may not determine a date for the poll at an election to the Assembly that is the same as the date known or reasonably expected for a parliamentary general election as derived from the provisions of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.’.

Amendment 31, page 1, line 8, at end add—

‘(3) After section 3(1) of the GOWA 2006 insert—

(1A) A poll for an ordinary general election to the National Assembly for Wales may not be held within six months of the date of a general election to the United Kingdom Parliament.”.’.

Clause stand part.

[Owen Smith]

It is a pleasure to serve under your Bristolian and neighbourly chairmanship, Ms Primarolo.

Clause 1 relates to the timing of elections to the National Assembly for Wales. It is a response to the five-year term that has now been established for elections to this House. Our amendments 9 and 10 are probing amendments that seek to explore the Government’s willingness to concede the principle that the Assembly needs to have greater control and command over elections to it. That is what we are testing with our amendments.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I am pleased the hon. Gentleman said that these were probing amendments, but I notice that he has not troubled the Committee with an explanatory note, which is disappointing. My reading of the amendment is that it removes any necessity for an election to be held to the National Assembly. It allows the National Assembly for Wales to have no more elections ever. It appears to be the “Labour doesn’t want to have an election ever again in Wales” amendment.

[Owen Smith]

I hoped that we would have a serious debate today and serious interventions from colleagues across the Chamber. Obviously it is not the intention or the effect of the amendment to get rid of elections to the National Assembly for Wales, not least because we want those elections not to coincide with the changes made in the House by the hon. Gentleman when he was pushing through the gerrymandering legislation relating to elections to the House and the five-year term that we now endure. “Endure” is the right word, given how little business is being brought forward by the Government and how little work we have to do in the House. Today we have an important and serious Bill before us and I hope the hon. Gentleman will engage with it in a serious manner.

[Mr Harper]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

No. We all want to get on with the serious business before the Committee, not nonsensical point-scoring.

These are probing amendments. They explore the extent to which the Government agree with us that, in principle, it should be with the consent of the National Assembly that changes are made to elections that affect it.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I, too, am glad that these are probing amendments. I very much agree with the principle that the hon. Gentleman is establishing that these responsibilities should be devolved to the National Assembly, but what safeguards does he envisage operating there to ensure that gerrymandering, of which he has, sadly, accused the Government, could not occur in the National Assembly?

[Owen Smith]

The clear principle to which we are responding with these amendments was outlined by the Welsh Government in their response to the Green Paper produced two years ago. For the information of the Committee, that stated that

“no change to the Assembly’s current electoral arrangements should be made without the Assembly’s consent. This is the fundamental constitutional principle in issue. It is a necessary consequence of a constitution based upon the principle of devolution.”

That is a clear expression from the Welsh Government on the centrality of their view in any changes to legislation which affect the elections to their Chamber—to the Assembly in Wales. That is something we wish to explore today with the Government.

Clearly, the Bill arises from the shift to a five-year fixed-term Parliament for this place. Three separate pieces of legislation needed to be amended as a consequence—the Scotland Act 1998, the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014, and now the Government of Wales Act 1998. Labour is not opposed to fixed-term Parliaments, as the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) will recall. In previous manifestos, including the last manifesto, Labour has consistently pledged to shift to fixed-term Parliaments, but we have consistently said that a five-year fixed term for any institution was too long.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the tone with which he started his speech. Will he explain the rationale for his sticking with a Thursday? Since he is aiming to give responsibility to the National Assembly and to let it decide the issue entirely, why does he say that the poll should be held on a Thursday? He will be aware of a growing body of opinion among those who undertake electoral research, who look to examples on the continent, where elections are held at weekends—traditionally on Sundays—or opportunities when people may be able to participate more in the electoral process. Perhaps he can help us to understand why, since he is putting the proposition that it is entirely a matter for the National Assembly, he has restricted polling day to a Thursday.

[Owen Smith]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I had not spotted that you had arrived, for which I apologise.

The simple answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that this is, of course, the custom, practice and protocol in British elections for all institutions. I hear what he says about the interesting debate about whether, in an era of great cynicism towards and disinterest in and disengagement from politics, we ought to expand people’s opportunities to vote. Labour Members are looking seriously at that and have already suggested that it ought to be looked at, but for the purposes of this Bill and the principle under discussion, as opposed to the issue raised by the hon. Gentleman, it seemed simpler to stick to the customary practice of a Thursday. That is why we did not suggest a change.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Perhaps the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) will have an opportunity to table a probing amendment on that issue. Why does the Bill refer to five years? I understand that that is how this Parliament currently operates, but is there now an accepted body of wisdom that says that five years should be the default position of any democratic Assembly or Parliament?

[Owen Smith]

The reality is that the accepted, orthodox wisdom of electoral experts around the world, certainly in Britain, is that five years is probably too long and that four years would be more appropriate. Certainly in the history of this place, four years has been not the norm, but the exception. Ordinarily, over the long term, elections to this place have taken place rather more frequently than that. Our primary concern—this reflects the view of all parties in the National Assembly for Wales, particularly the Welsh Labour Government—was to ensure that the elections for this House and those for the National Assembly did not coincide on the same day, which would have been the case without the changes introduced by this Bill. Nevertheless, it struck us as important to probe the Government’s view of the degree of consent they ought to seek from the National Assembly and the respect they ought to show to devolution when making changes to an election that is not ours. I think that the view of most people—it is certainly the view of most experts—is that five years is too long.

[Mr Harper]

On Second Reading, the hon. Gentleman responded to a question asked by, I think, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) by kind of giving the impression that Labour’s policy, if it were returned to power, would be to revert to a four-year term for this House and amend the Fixed-term Parliament Act 2011. Will the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), for the convenience of the Committee, confirm that?

[Owen Smith]

The hon. Gentleman claims that I implied that, but I do not think I have been explicit on the matter, either then or now. When we last debated the issue, we were clear that the majority opinion is that four years is better than five. Another orthodox opinion in Britain and elsewhere is that too many changes to constitutional matters are bad for the electorate and that constantly chopping and changing for partisan reasons—as the hon. Gentleman did when introducing the 2011 Act—is bad for democracy in Britain. In the light of that, and in a period in which people are disengaged from politics, we may choose not to be partisan and not to pursue that sort of strategy when we win the next election.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I want to refer to the point made by the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans). There is a great deal of virtue in considering holding elections on days other than a Thursday. That is the practice in other countries. Perhaps the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) can help the Committee with his historical knowledge: have elections in the UK always been held on Thursdays? I seem to remember that at some point in our history they were not.

[Owen Smith]

I believe that the hon. Gentleman is right. Elections have not always been held on a Thursday. However, in recent memory and certainly in the last century, elections have mainly been held on a Thursday, which is why we are sticking to it in amendment 9. That is not the substantive point that we are trying to make; it is an interesting debating point, but not one that we need to bother the Committee with any longer.

With that, I conclude my remarks on our amendments to clause 1. We do not intend to put them to the vote, but we want to hear the Government’s views on the need for them to engage properly with, seek proper consent from and pay proper respect to the devolved Administration in Cardiff.

[Mr Harper]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea.

I want to pick up the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) on his response to my intervention. I was deadly serious. If he wants to intervene, I will happily take his intervention, but I am afraid that his amendment would do exactly what I said it would do. It would amend section 3(1) of the Government of Wales Act 2006, which states that a poll

“at an ordinary general election is to be held on the first Thursday in May in the fourth calendar year following”

the previous one. In other words, the provision insists that there has to be an election every four years. His and his hon. Friends’ amendment would remove section 3(1) of Government of Wales Act and simply provide that the poll

“at an election to the National Assembly for Wales is to be held on a Thursday on a date to be determined by a Resolution of the National Assembly for Wales.”

That does not leave in the legislation any requirement for a periodic election. If the amendment were put into law and the National Assembly for Wales did not set a date for an election, there would never be such an election. An accurate characterisation of his amendment is that it is a “Labour party governs Wales for ever” amendment. Under his provision, if any party with a majority in the National Assembly for Wales simply does not set a date, there will be no election, and no back-stop in legislation would insist on an election. I absolutely accept that that may not have been the hon. Gentleman’s intention, but that is the effect of his amendment.

[Owen Smith]

As I have said, that effect was not our intention. I will not repeat myself, but I will say that were it our intention to stop more elections to the National Assembly for Wales, that would be a pretty peculiar thing for us to do because although we currently govern as a minority Government in Wales, we of course anticipate governing as a majority Government in Wales in the near future. I look forward to more elections in Wales, especially given the polls showing that both the hon. Gentleman’s party and the Liberal Democrats are failing badly.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirming that that effect was not the intention of his amendment. However, as I have said, that would be its effect, and the Committee obviously has to consider the amendment on the amendment paper—the one he drafted and tabled—not one that he probably now wishes he had drafted. As I have said, it is not sensible to give the National Assembly for Wales the power to do exactly what the amendment suggests, which is to have no back-stop at all.

I am now even more confused about the Labour party’s policy on term limits. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that, during the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, his party did not disagree with the concept of fixed terms. It was very clear that it did not support five-year terms, but preferred four-year terms. On Second Reading just a few weeks ago, he made it clear in response to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that he wanted to move to four-year terms. I suggested that the hon. Member for Pontypridd ought perhaps to have a word with his party leader, and it sounds from his slightly more nuanced response that he has had such a conversation and been told that under no circumstances is he to pledge moving back to four-year terms. That probably also provides an answer to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies).

I will not say any more about the amendments of the hon. Member for Pontypridd, which he has confirmed are probing amendments, but I want to comment on Plaid Cymru’s amendments 30 and 31, specifically amendment 31. They highlight an important issue, which is one for the Committee to debate, about the coincidence of elections. We discussed that when we debated the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, and it was one reason why I, as the then responsible Minister, decided to move the date of the National Assembly for Wales election.

15:45

There are two schools of thought on this matter. The first is that elections should be separated so that the debate on the issues that face the United Kingdom can take place and the British people can make a decision that is separate from the decisions that face the Welsh electorate. There is a perfectly sensible argument for that. The second view is that we should adopt the US model and have all the elections that we can possibly have on the same day. That means accepting that the public are perfectly able to distinguish between the elections.

Although I accept the latter point, we arrived at the conclusion that we did because of the point about media coverage and the ability for issues to be explored properly. I think that the public are perfectly capable of making decisions in different elections on the same day. The danger is that not all of the appropriate issues will be explored in the coverage, the debates in the media and the debates between party leaders.

[Hywel Williams]

This is a genuine inquiry. Does the hon. Gentleman recall the election day in Scotland when there were elections for various public offices using different electoral systems? I seem to remember that it was disastrous.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. If we have elections on the same day, we certainly need to ensure that there is clarity about the electoral systems and in the design and printing of the ballot papers, so that it is clear for people not just which parties they might want to vote for, which is a decision for them, but the mechanism by which they can do so. A lot of lessons were learned from that process. We had that in mind when we held the referendum on the parliamentary voting system and we tried to ensure that there was not the level of confusion that there had been in the past.

Amendments 30 and 31 are hopeful amendments. Having considered all the evidence, I think that it makes sense to separate the big elections. I am not sure whether six months is long enough. We decided to shift the elections by an entire year to separate the media coverage and the debates so that people could focus on the important issues. The amendments raise some sensible issues. It makes sense to keep the elections to the primary legislative assemblies in the UK—the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and this Parliament—apart. That was the provision that we made in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.

I am therefore pleased that the Bill presented by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State permanently makes the terms of the Assembly the same length as those of this House, but offset by a year to keep the elections separate. That will enable a proper debate to take place before elections to this place and will enable Welsh voters to have a proper debate about the issues that the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Assembly Government will focus on.

Finally, if people’s decisions in Welsh elections are indeed made on issues for which the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh Assembly Government are responsible, my reading of the situation, based on how the Welsh Assembly Government are handling the national health service in Wales, which I will not talk about today, but which we will return to on the second day of Committee, is that the Welsh public might reach a different conclusion from that put forward by the hon. Member for Pontypridd. I look forward to their having the opportunity to do so and to the result, because I think that it might shock the hon. Gentleman. He should not be so complacent.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea, and to speak to amendments 30 and 31, which appear in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd). They are both probing amendments and follow the spirit of the contributions by the hon. Members for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper).

We welcome the fact that we are discussing a piece of Wales-specific legislation. It is only three years since the remarkable referendum in 2011, when the people of Wales voted overwhelmingly in favour of full political sovereignty over the political fields that were devolved to the National Assembly. I have no hesitation in saying that that was one of the proudest days of my political career. The desktop on the computer in my Westminster office has a picture of the referendum count in Carmarthenshire, with the yes votes piled up proudly on the yes table, and a few bundles of no votes on the no table.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Get a life!

[Jonathan Edwards]

Well, apart from the Swans staying up this year—another great achievement, which I know the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) shares with me.

Most striking about the referendum result was that it was matched across every county in Wales—apart from Monmouthshire, which only just voted no. When the history of Wales is written, that result will be recorded very strongly when compared with the referendums of ’79 and ’97. It was an earthquake moment, and I remember the shell-shocked faces of many Unionists down in Westminster the week after that historic occasion.

The nature of the game has therefore changed, and subsequent opinion polling clearly indicates that the people of Wales want greater control over their lives. I think they are far ahead of the political class at the moment, and I even include Plaid Cymru in that context. Today we are discussing in historical terms a further milestone on the path towards Welsh self-government, with, for the first time, a national legislature being empowered to have an element of fiscal powers. Needless to say, the Bill does not go anywhere near as far as my party would want in terms of powers for Wales, but as an historian in a previous life I can safely say that when the history of Wales is written, this period will be seen as one of rapid political development for our nation.

As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the great indie band from Manchester, Oasis, and its first studio album in ’94, I am reminded of one of its best songs, “Little by Little”. I hope sincerely that when we conclude our Committee deliberations we will not be “looking back in anger”—a reference to another of its great songs. Today is therefore another landmark in the political development of our country.

The context of the Bill is interesting in itself, and I get the impression that the Secretary of State would rather walk through fire than deal with the Bill today. I am sure he sees it as a hospital pass from his predecessor. The Bill results, of course, from the UK Government-sponsored Silk commission, in particular part I, and I pay tribute to Sir Paul and his fellow commissioners for their work on both stages of the report. As I said, as a party our evidence to both parts of the commission called for far greater progress than was finally agreed, but we were prepared to compromise to seek agreement and make progress. It is therefore disappointing that we find ourselves presenting amendments in Committee, and endeavouring to preserve the integrity of the Silk commission.

Unfortunately, the Wales Bill has torpedoed the recommendations of the Silk commission, particularly in relation to the lockstep on the income tax powers, which we will discuss later. Even more regrettably, it seems that Labour’s amendments to the Bill, rather than strengthening it as we seek to do, aim to place further roadblocks and move us even further from what the Silk commission proposed.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is running through the parts of the Bill that he disagrees with, and it is entirely possible that people on both sides of the Committee may disagree because it is a wide-ranging Bill. Does he accept, however, that the Bill makes dramatic progress in that it provides the foundation stones for financial accountability to be vested in the National Assembly for Wales? That is a key step forward that makes the Bill hugely important for the interests of Wales.

[Jonathan Edwards]

As I said, I think the Bill will be viewed as an important milestone in the constitutional development of our country, but it will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to hear that my ambition for Wales is greater than what is set out in the Bill.

[Owen Smith]

A moment ago the hon. Gentleman said that Labour was in some way seeking to undermine the Bill, and I am aware from media reports that that is the line Plaid Cymru is taking in the media. I wish to place on record that that is the opposite of what we are seeking to do. We are probing the Bill today but we will support it. We are looking to strengthen the powers held by the Welsh Assembly in many regards, and we are seeking greater symmetry on tax powers with Scotland. Crucially, we will be tabling amendments to secure fair funding in advance of any of those changes, and looking to ensure that we move to a reserved powers model—all of which I am sure the hon. Gentleman would support.

[Jonathan Edwards]

If that is indeed the hon. Gentleman’s position, I am sure he will join us in the Lobby when we vote on the new clauses later.

The second major context in which this debate takes place is the seismic events happening in Scotland. As I said yesterday in the Welsh Affairs Committee, the second part of the Silk commission’s work will be superseded by the result of the independence referendum, one way or the other. Even the Bill could be superseded by events in Scotland, as its proceedings in the Lords are likely to happen after the people in Scotland have cast their vote in the independence referendum.

[Jonathan Evans]

Does that really hold good as an argument? The hon. Gentleman will have seen current opinion polls that show that support for independence—as opposed to support for devolution—in Wales is at an all-time low. He has rightly talked about the seminal change in Wales in which the Conservative party has joined other parties to support devolution, but the result of the Scottish debate so far is that support for Welsh independence is lower than ever before.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I do not want to get into a debate about independence, but the most detailed polling ever undertaken on devolutionary attitudes was by the Silk commission in the second part of its work. It suggested that 20% of people in Wales wanted devolved defence and foreign affairs, and those would be the two last powers that would ever be devolved.

Regardless of the result in Scotland, the constitutional landscape of the UK will change considerably. If Scotland votes yes, that will be the end of the British state as we know it. If it votes no, the likelihood is that it will get significantly more powers, with 90% approval ratings for a devolution-max settlement that would devolve everything apart from defence and foreign affairs. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously saying that the people of Wales would accept the settlement in the Bill if Scotland were to get significantly more powers, even in the event of a no vote?

[Chris Ruane]

If the vote in Scotland is close but ultimately a victory for no, does the hon. Gentleman anticipate that the SNP will come back for another vote, and another after that, and that it will not be so much a referendum as a neverendum?

[Jonathan Edwards]

As long the people of Scotland have those aspirations and vote for an SNP Government, I imagine that they would want to ask the question on subsequent occasions, but that is a debate for another time. Considering the way in which the opinion polls are moving, it seems that the question might be settled this time.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I remind the House that the Prime Minister said a few months ago to the people of Scotland that, whatever happens, devo-max is on offer to them. My hon. Friend is right to say that that means that the constitutional set-up of the UK will have to change, come what may.

[Jonathan Edwards]

As ever, I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his valid and expert intervention. Whatever happens in Scotland, it will completely change the political landscape and supersede Silk and even perhaps what we are discussing today.

With the Scottish question in mind, I believe that the UK Government have missed an opportunity to bring forward a settlement that would have helped them to develop a narrative in Scotland in which the Westminster elite recognised the national aspirations of the people of the nations of the state, and were happy to reform the relations between the nations of these isles to preserve the future of the state. One obvious measure would have been to devolve income tax powers to Wales in the Bill without the Scottish lockstep model. We will debate that issue in greater detail, but suffice it to say at this point that the unambitious nature of the Bill leaves the people of Scotland in little doubt that the referendum is a straight choice between more powers with yes and the status quo with no.

Amendments 30 and 31 would ensure that the poll for an ordinary general election to the National Assembly could not be held within six months of a general election for the UK Parliament. I am reassured by the discussion I had with the Minister before the debate. That, and the comments by the former constitutional Minister, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean, is why I am probing rather than pressing the amendments to a vote. When he took the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill through the House, he did a lot of work to ensure that there would be no coterminosity between the Assembly and the general election. That would have presented a great danger to our democracy in Wales.

16:00

This is important because we have to mitigate the damaging effect that media distortion can have on democratic debates in Wales. Plaid Cymru was excluded from the 2010 election TV debates, in which no mention was made of the fact that much of the discussion surrounding health, education and other devolved areas would not affect the people of Wales. Wales has a number of daily newspapers, notably the Western Mail and the Daily Post, but their readership is extremely small. Many fantastic local papers are under pressure, not least the Carmarthen Journal, South Wales Guardian, the Tivyside Advertiser and the South Wales Evening Post.

[Chris Ruane]

The Ryhl Journal.

[Jonathan Edwards]

And the Rhyl Journal, although I am not an avid reader, I must admit.

Most people get their political news from London papers. If we have a Westminster election and an Assembly election in close proximity, there is a great danger that the issues for which the national Assembly is responsible will be dropped completely. The Minister has indicated that there is no intention to bring the elections closer and that there are protections in the Bill to ensure that there will be a gap of at least a year between them, so I am happy not to press my two amendments.

On the Labour amendments, the Electoral Reform Society has lobbied extensively against amendment 9, arguing that

“good governance and greater stability is achieved through fixed terms and this should not be a power that is given to the Executive to decide.”

It points out that, as the electoral system for the Assembly makes coalitions more likely, fixed terms also provide stability and security for parties of government. Two of the four terms in the Assembly have seen coalition Governments, so I agree with that point.

Amendment 10 appears to have been drafted with the aim of ensuring that Assembly and Westminster elections are not held on the same day. I would have been happy to support that if it had been pressed to a vote.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

I, too, would like to start by welcoming you to the Chair, Dr McCrea. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank hon. Members on both sides of the Committee for their contributions to this early part of the first day of our deliberations.

Amendment 9 would give the Assembly the power to decide, by resolution, when Assembly elections are held, and would remove the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to varying the date of Assembly elections and proposing a date for extraordinary Assembly elections. Amendment 10 would prevent the Assembly from setting a date for an election on a day on which it knows, or reasonably expects, a parliamentary general election to be held. The amendments would permit the Assembly to determine the date of Assembly elections and consequently the length of its own terms. That reflects a recommendation made by the Welsh Affairs Committee arising from its pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Wales Bill.

It is worth pointing out that the Silk commission considered the matter of legislative competence for Assembly elections to be outside its terms of reference and made no recommendations in this regard in its second report. Nevertheless, the Government believe that the devolution of further powers to the Assembly should not be undertaken in a piecemeal fashion, and that the issue would best be considered in the wider context of possible changes to the Welsh devolution settlement arising from the recommendations made by the commission in its second report. The Government made clear, on publication of the report, that recommendations requiring primary legislative change should be a matter for the next Parliament and the next Government, and consequently that they should be for political parties to consider in preparing their election manifestos. We believe the same principle should apply when considering whether legislative competence for Assembly elections should be devolved to the Assembly. It is important that electors are clear on how long they are electing Assembly Members for when they vote in the 2016 Assembly election, and that five-year Assembly terms are in place by then to ensure that Westminster and Assembly elections do not coincide in 2020.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 moved this House to a fixed five-year cycle and consequentially provided that the next ordinary general election to the National Assembly for Wales would be moved on a one-off basis by one year from 7 May 2015 to 5 May 2016. This responded to concerns raised by the Assembly that holding general elections to this House and to the Assembly on the same day could lead to the Assembly elections being overshadowed. I am encouraged that Members of all parties seem to be in agreement on the position that we do not want the two elections coinciding. I particularly welcome the Labour party’s support in seeking to minimise the risk of that, which is evident in amendment 10.

Similarly, amendments 30 and 31, tabled by right hon. and hon. Members from Plaid Cymru, are intended to ensure that an ordinary Assembly general election does not take place within six months of a UK general election. I am encouraged that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) has been reassured by the debate so far and by our previous discussions, and that he is not going to press his amendments on that basis.

There is cross-party support for the principle that, as far as possible, we should seek to ensure that ordinary general elections to the Assembly and to this House should not coincide. With the next Assembly election scheduled for 2016, if the Assembly remains on a four-year cycle, the two sets of elections would coincide every 20 years, starting in 2020—something that all parties are clearly keen to avoid. Clause 1 makes it far less likely that Assembly elections and parliamentary elections will coincide in future. I therefore ask Opposition Members to support the clause, to consider the further devolution of powers to the Assembly in the context of preparing their own parties’ manifestos and consequently to withdraw or not press the amendments.

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging that our amendments reflect the views of the Welsh Affairs Committee and, indeed, as I said earlier, those of the Welsh Government, and that they were tabled in good faith. I am equally pleased to hear that when it comes to looking at the Silk commission part I report or any legislation that might arise from it or be reflected in the manifestos before the next election, the Government will be open to considering whether the Assembly should be responsible for—or at least have the ability to consent to—when the elections should take place. In the light of the Minister’s remarks, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Removal of restriction on standing for election for both constituency and electoral region

[Mr Harper]

I beg to move amendment 15, page 2, line 33, at end add—

‘(5) The Secretary of State shall make arrangements for an independent review of the—

(a) likely and possible impacts on the effectiveness of the Assembly of the removal of the restriction on standing for both constituency and electoral region. In particular, the review shall examine the implications for the desirable total number of Assembly members and the proportions elected by each route; and

(b) advantages and disadvantages of amalgamating the five Assembly electoral regions into one for the whole of Wales.

The Secretary of State shall lay a copy of the report of the review before each House of Parliament within nine months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.’.

The Temporary Chair (Dr McCrea): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause stand part.

New clause 4—National Assembly to set number of AMs—

‘Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for the transfer of responsibility for setting the number of Assembly Members to the National Assembly for Wales.’.

New clause 6—Transfer of responsibility for determining electoral system—

‘Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for the transfer of responsibility for determining the system of election of members of the National Assembly for Wales to the Welsh Government.’.

[Mr Harper]

The Committee will be pleased to know, I hope, that I view this as a probing amendment—unless I am provoked. I thought it would be helpful to draw out some of the implications resulting from taking a wider look at the issues about clause 2 that were raised on Second Reading. I shall say a few words of support for clause 2 and its principles and also speak about new clauses 4 and 6.

Amendment 15 is designed to achieve a number of things. Members will remember that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 effectively decoupled the linkage between the geographic constituencies of the Welsh Assembly and the Westminster ones. Although, after the amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, this has not yet taken effect for the 2015 general election—sadly, in my view—it will of course kick in for the 2020 election unless the primary legislation is changed. It thus seems sensible to look separately at the number of geographic constituencies that we need for electing Members to the Welsh Assembly, to look at the number of regions to determine whether we should have a number of regions or a single region, and to look at the relative balance between constituency seats in the Welsh Assembly and those elected on a list system which obviously affect the proportional nature of the system.

The system that we have now is the one that was set up at the beginning of the process. I think that, following the experience of a number of sets of elections and a number of different Administrations, as well as a change in the powers and responsibilities of the National Assembly, it would be sensible for the total number of Assembly Members and the relative balance between the different election routes to be considered. The setting up of an independent review by the Secretary of State is one possible way of going about that, although obviously there are other possibilities.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman wants a review because of the additional powers given to the Assembly, and because elections have produced either minority or coalition Governments in Cardiff Bay. Is it his personal opinion that there should be more Members of the National Assembly because of those additional powers? I fear that, rather than ending up with regional Members on the list system, we shall end up with parties choosing from the party list, and that, as a result, Members will come disproportionately from one area of Wales, and will not be representative. The additional Members have constituency work to do, and if the hon. Gentleman’s amendment were passed, that would be diminished.

[Mr Harper]

If the hon. Gentleman reads my amendment, he will see that it is very balanced. It simply calls for an independent review, the report of which would go to the Secretary of State, who would lay it before each House of Parliament so that it could be considered. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says that I have an opinion, and I do, but let me explain what the amendment will do—because Members will want to think about what is on the amendment paper—before explaining my view and what I consider to be the appropriate direction of travel.

The amendment simply suggests that the review should

“examine the implications for the desirable total number of Assembly members”

of the changes that we are making in clause 2—and I think it very sensible to revert to the original position, which the Labour party altered—and also examine the

“advantages and disadvantages of amalgamating the five Assembly…regions into one for the whole of Wales.”

That is because if the number of constituency seats is changed, depending on the number of those seats, it can be difficult to come up with equally sized regions. Alternatively, the regions have to be changed every time the number of constituencies changes.

[Jonathan Evans]

I am seeking to reflect the tone of my hon. Friend’s remarks. I accept that he is only asking for a review. However, before he gives his own view to the Committee, perhaps I can ask him to comment on his experience of the change that took place when the European Parliament moved from a system of individual constituencies to a system of vast regions. I myself have experience of representing the whole of Wales under that system. It has been pretty universally regarded as very difficult for any Member to represent an area of that size, and my hon. Friend must have had the same experience in his own part of the world. Do we really need to review this matter? Perhaps, when he outlines his own view, he will reflect on what I have said.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend has made a very sensible point. The south-west of England is certainly a large region. I think I am right in saying that my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) has put it on record that the distance between one end of the south-west region and the other is greater than the distance between his constituency and the Scottish border. Moreover, the south-west region now includes Gibraltar. It is a very significant region, and a difficult region to represent. I suspect that very few electors in that region could, hand on heart, name any of their MEPs, let alone all of them.

If we are to consider changing the number of Members of the Assembly in the geographic constituencies, we must then ask how the regions are to be grouped, and whether they should end up being equal in size. At present, there are five regions with four seats in each region. That works very well mathematically if there are 20 Assembly Members and half the Members are constituency Members, but if the number of constituencies is changed—and I shall explain in a moment why I think that that should happen—some choices will have to be made about regions.

We may end up with regions that are different in size. If the regions then become too small, with too few seats, the problem is that we do not get the proportionality in those regions that the list system is designed for. We may not want to consider using the whole of Wales and instead consider having just fewer, larger regions, but I accept that pushing against that is exactly the point my hon. Friend makes about the remoteness of elected Members from voters. Two things are pushing in different directions and we have to keep them in balance, which is why we need a review to examine both aspects so that a future Parliament can make a decision.

16:15

[Jonathan Evans]

My hon. Friend refers to people having difficulty knowing who their representative is, and I would not claim that everybody in Wales knew I was their MEP. A survey indicated that only two people could be identified as Wales MEPs. One was Glenys Kinnock and the other was Neil Kinnock—mistakenly, most people in Wales thought he was an MEP, too.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a sensible point. My reading of it, as an Englishman, is that there seems to be a surfeit of Kinnocks in Wales at the moment. Labour does not seem to like the hereditary principle at the other end of this building but is keen on importing it into this House and having hereditary MPs—not a practice that I suspect is welcome.

My amendment helpfully proposes an independent review, but there are other ways of examining these issues, and the Minister may have a better and more sensible one. I listened to his response to the debate on clause 1, and it may well be that waiting for part II of the Silk commission and the Government’s response to it is a way of addressing the issues I raise in amendment 15, in which case I will not need to trouble the House by testing its opinion.

[Chris Ruane]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that many list Members in Wales will be licking their lips at his proposals? A list Member who wants to climb the greasy political pole in Wales and wants a constituency Assembly seat or a constituency parliamentary seat currently sets up their office in that constituency, works just that tiny patch and tries to get their own way. A list Member in north Wales now has a choice of 10 seats, but if the hon. Gentleman has his way they will have a choice of 40 seats. It might work for the individual list Member, but it does not work for democracy in Wales.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is putting words into my mouth, because I made it clear, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans), that my amendment’s position on the regions is balanced. It asks us to look at the “advantages and disadvantages”. I will set out my view on the number of constituency Members and the direction of travel. I was saying that if there are a different number, that presents issues as to how we divide up the regions. It raises questions about whether all the regions can remain equal in size and whether, if we try to continue with the current number, some regions may end up being too small to deliver a proportional result. That is why the issue should be looked at. However, I also acknowledged in my response to him that there is an opposite pressure in respect of making sure that elected Members and their constituents feel close enough to each other. That pushes in the opposite direction and we need to look at all the issues so we can properly weigh them up.

[Hywel Williams]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman would also concede that we must consider the geographical problem of representing Wales from Llanfairynghornwy down to Llanelli or to Caldicot. Unfortunately, I have to do that journey fairly frequently and it is a nightmare just for the ordinary traveller, so trying to represent that entire geographical area is not something to be taken lightly.

[Mr Harper]

That is a good point. As I said, I am very familiar with it, because colleagues in the European Parliament tell me—this relates to a point my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North made—that it can take an extremely long time for someone to get from one end of the south-west of England to the other by road, or even by rail. That is why my amendment suggests that we need to look at the advantages and the disadvantages, so that a proper decision can be taken. We need to think about the regions. As Members will recall—I know this was not popular among those on the Labour Benches—I think we have too many elected Members at the moment. The provisions that I have suggested were to reduce the size of this place, and to ensure that electors in all parts of the United Kingdom were equally represented rather than over-represented as they are at the moment, with the average size of a seat in Wales—in terms of the number of electors—being smaller than the rest of the country.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I appreciate the way in which the hon. Gentleman is using his amendment to test and explore the efficacy of a review of the different scenarios that could arise. I am interested to hear his thoughts on another scenario, a wholly different trajectory towards, for example, increasing to 80 the number of Assembly Members who are bound to a constituency. We could have dual Member constituencies so that there was a direct link, but that is not in the review. I put it to him that better than the amendment would be to wait for part II of Silk and for the wider issues around that and to explore all the different options relating to both numbers and structures rather than accepting a slightly partial amendment looking at only a couple of scenarios.

[Mr Harper]

I think I indicated at the beginning of my remarks that this was a probing amendment. I said that I had listened to the Minister’s response to the debate on clause 1, and that that may well be an acceptable solution. The independent review looks at the impact of the removal of the restriction on standing for both constituency and electoral region, which is obviously the specific purpose of clause 2. In particular, it says that we should examine the implications for the desirable total number of Assembly Members and proportions elected by each route. I guess it implies that we will have at least some Members elected by region. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that we could move to a wholly constituency-based system. I shall listen to the Minister’s response first, but I am prepared to accept that waiting for part II of Silk and the response to that may well be a perfectly sensible way in which to proceed. I thought that we should have some discussion today rather than focusing narrowly on whether a person can stand for both constituency and electoral region. We discussed that at some length on Second Reading, but I felt that a slightly wider debate would be more helpful.

[Mr Llwyd]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the attempt by the Government to—as he put it—equalise the workload of Members of Parliament. I represent a constituency that runs 100 miles north to south and about the same across, with a population of only 55,000. Other Members may have a constituency of five miles across and a population of 75,000. I argue that that is already an equal situation. It takes me an hour and a half to two hours to get to surgeries, whereas other Members may have to travel only two minutes on the bus, so we are already equal. It is extremely difficult to make judgments without taking a ruler and making the mistakes of previous Governments in terms of dividing up Africa. I strongly believe that we are already equal. I am not being self-serving, because I am not standing again anyway.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. There is a clear principle in our system. Of course we represent localities in one sense, but we represent electors and not big empty spaces and fields full of sheep and other animals—[Interruption.] I ask Members to let me finish my point. I say that because I have a relatively large constituency. It is a pleasant environment with a number of farms. I live next to a farm that has cows and sheep, but the point is that I do not represent them in Parliament; I represent my electors. Even if a Member has a geographically small constituency with 100,000 electors, it is the 100,000 electors they are representing and not the space. Equally, I accept that if a Member has a significantly sized rural constituency, as I and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) do, but they have only 50,000 electors and a distance to travel between them, it is the 50,000 electors whom they are representing. In the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, we made specific provision for two seats, Orkney and Shetland, but that was based on the fact that they were already recognised in statute as significantly different.

In general, it was accepted that a Member represents the people in a constituency and not the surrounding environment, but I accept the point. There are challenges for Members about how they look after their constituents and there are the burdens of travelling, which I know all too well. I think that I might have provoked the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), so I shall give way to him.

[Chris Ruane]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. He says that he thinks there are too many elected Members, and he proposes to cut the number by 50. How does that square with the fact that since the coalition has been in power an extra 150 Lords have been appointed?

[Mr Harper]

I can square that fact very well, as I was also the Minister who introduced proposals in this House, which I supported then and support now, to reform the other place, dramatically reduce the number of Members and make it democratic. I am only sorry that the Opposition would not support the programme motion that would have enabled us to make such a provision and I am afraid that, as I said at the time, if we have a system of having peers who serve for life, as we do, the only way to bring the party balance more into line with the results of the previous election is to keep appointing more peers, which means that the other place continues to get bigger. If, God forbid, the Labour party—

[Chris Ruane]

One hundred and fifty.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman says that there are 150, and I do not think that that is actually the number, but the point is that even with the number of appointments we have made, four years into this Parliament the number of Conservative peers has only just equalled the number of peers representing the Labour party, despite the fact that our commitment was to make the other place more accurately reflect the result of the general election. That reflects the enormous number of appointments made by his party when it was led by Tony Blair and the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). That does not detract from my point, however. I wanted to reform the other place and to reduce the number of Members in both this place and the other place. I wanted to reduce the cost of politics and I am sorry that we were not able to do so, but I will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman, because he and his party did not support our legislation and they made sure that that reform could not happen—more’s the pity.

[Mr Mark Williams]

I want to return to the issue of the amount of space between electors that was mentioned earlier, not just in relation to our capacity—I have 600 family farms in Ceredigion, which covers a big rural area—but, critically, in relation to our constituents’ capacity to access us. That takes us back to the point about the hon. Gentleman’s amendment. Going down the route of having a list system with a list made up of anonymous people would, I think, be a retrograde step, as evidenced by what the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) said about anonymity, distance and how that will ultimately mean that we will fail our constituents.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes some very good points, and I acknowledged them in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North. I said that that was why I wanted the review to consider both the advantages and disadvantages. We need to consider them because the proposals I brought before the House to reduce and equalise the number of Members in this place clearly had an impact on the number of parliamentary Westminster seats in Wales, reducing the number from 40 to 30. We decided to decouple the number of constituency seats for this place from the number in the Welsh Assembly, but it seems to me that if we are going to consider the number of Members and if the trajectory of the number of Westminster Members is going down, we should at least consider how many constituency Members there should be in the Welsh Assembly. If that number moves downwards, as I think it probably ought to, consequences will clearly flow from that for the size of the regions and how we group them. We must also build in a process whereby we can change the number of seats as the population increases, decreases or moves to ensure that that equal representation continues.

Setting up the independent review enables all those issues to be considered properly. A report to the Secretary of State can then be produced and laid before both Houses of Parliament so that a proper decision can be taken. The Silk commission might well be able to consider all these issues in the further work it will undertake, and when I listen to the Minister’s response I might find that the amendment is effectively redundant. However, the issues are worthy of consideration.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am absolutely certain that the hon. Gentleman did not intend to raise any North Walean hackles, but he has. Regional representation is hugely important in Wales, because those of us who have always been pro-devolution have always argued that it is fundamental that the different parts of Wales are represented at a regional as well as at a constituency level. I would not want any possible scenario that would see those lists increasingly South Walean-dominated. That would not be right for the future of the devolution settlement.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I do not want to trespass into North Walean and South Walean rivalries, but I am well aware that, if for no other reason than the geography of Wales, the communication links between north Wales and south Wales are quite difficult, and journey times can be lengthy—as Members have pointed out to me. It is relevant to the health debate next week that there is a lot of east-west cross-border travel between England and Wales to access essential public services, partly for the reason that travelling north-south is not very easy. The hon. Lady makes some good points. My amendment was very balanced, looking at both the advantages and disadvantages of a larger list, so that a properly informed decision can be taken.

16:30

I have taken several interventions, so I intend to make progress. I want to say a word or two on clause 2, but I shall not dwell on it because we debated it fairly fully on Second Reading. It ought not to be very controversial. It simply returns the one—and indeed improves it slightly—to the one that the Labour party introduced when it set up the devolution arrangements, allowing candidates to stand both for a constituency and on the list. It seems to me that the subsequent change was a retrograde one, because effectively it reflected an attempt to disadvantage minority parties. It seemed to me, listening to the Second Reading debate, that the Labour party’s view is that minority parties in Wales means all other parties than itself; and there is some very good evidence from the Electoral Commission and others that that restriction—preventing candidates from standing in a constituency and on a list—particularly disadvantages smaller parties and disadvantages the Labour party less. It seemed to me, therefore, a particularly partisan change. Clause 2 simply restores the position to where it was, but with some sensible amendments to ensure that people cannot stand on a list that relates to the other end of Wales from the constituency that they are standing in.

[Owen Smith]

May I just check? The hon. Gentleman referred to the minority parties a moment ago. Is he referring to his own party, the Conservative party in Wales, as a minority party?

[Mr Harper]

No. I was referring to the Labour party’s view, which, when I listened carefully to the debate, seemed to be its definition—not mine; its definition—that a minority party was any party other than Labour. It seemed to me that the effect, and I think the intention, of the change that it made, which this Bill seeks largely to reverse, was a partisan one that was designed to favour Labour and disadvantage all others.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

But does not the hon. Gentleman think it is a strange system where someone could lose their seat, only to get back in by being No. 1 on the list?

[Mr Harper]

Well, it might be a strange system, in the sense that I am not the greatest fan in the world of proportional representation. The hon. Gentleman knows that, because when I brought in the changes to allow the voters of Britain to choose between the status quo electoral system for this House and the alternative vote system, I made it very clear that although I was facilitating the referendum, I was a strong supporter of first past the post.

However, the decision was taken by the Labour party to have a mixed system in the Welsh Assembly, and we have supported that system. It is perhaps not where I would have started if I had been inventing the system from scratch, but it is what we have. It does have a range of consequences. It has the range of consequences that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North alluded to. Some of the regions are quite large. It is therefore possible to have disconnect between voters and the elected. By the nature of list systems, people are elected because of the party that they represent, not based on any of their individual qualities. So, to take the specific point raised by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), I am not sure I buy the concept that when people are elected on a list system, if someone loses it has necessarily been a vote against them rather than a positive vote for one of their opponents. [Interruption.] Well, it is a positive vote for their opponent.

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Harper]

I will in a minute, but I will answer the point made by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside first.

When one votes in an election—I had an exchange on this with the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain)—one puts a cross in a box on the ballot for a candidate. Now, I accept that part of one’s motivation may be that one thinks that the candidate is a wonderful person, but it might be dislike for the incumbent, or that one is making a range of judgments on whom one wants to govern the United Kingdom or, in the case of the Welsh Assembly election, Wales. I accept there is a mix of motivations, but even if one accepts the hon. Gentleman’s contention that if an incumbent constituency Member loses their seat—assuming that people’s motivation was wholly negative; that is, they voted for the incumbent’s primary opponent because they did not like the incumbent—and that Member subsequently gets elected on the list, the list simply reflects the party choice that voters made. It is the nature of the list that the person is elected not based on any of their individual qualities—the voter is not able to do that—but based on the party they represent. The fact that they may or may not have won a constituency seat is not relevant to the debate.

I think the hon. Gentleman is just throwing up chaff to obscure the fact that the previous change was a partisan change made by the Labour party, and the clause simply restores the position not to one that we created, but one that Labour made when it invented devolution.

[Mark Tami]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, in most cases, the odds are that the person who is No. 1 on that list, even if they lose their seat, will hold a seat in the Assembly? Why is that a particularly democratic system? How does it tell people out there that it is worth voting if, whether or not they like that person, he or she will almost certainly get back in?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is not making a case about clause 2. He is making a case about whether it is sensible to have proportional representation on list systems. In such a system, someone who is No. 1 on the list is very likely, regardless of what electors think about that person—their particular characteristics—but based on their party, to get elected. We face the same problem in the European elections. I have heard the qualities of individual candidates being debated, but of course voters are not able to pass judgment on a candidate. If I like the Conservative party—I do, of course—and I vote that way in south-west England, I have no ability to make any judgments about the candidates. I will vote for the Conservatives and they will win.

[Mark Tami]

That is a pure list system.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman says that, but I do not see that having a mixed system in which someone may be elected on a list and not be elected for a constituency raises any more issues than having a list at all does. It may be that he does not like having a list system and he wishes we did not have one, but we do, so we should try to make it work as well as possible. I think that the changes in the Bill are sensible and I wholly support them. I promised to give way to the hon. Lady.

[Mrs James]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees that the public are very confused by the system. Comments in my constituency range from, “It’s not fair,” through, “Well, it’s getting elected through the back door,” to “They shouldn’t be able to get in in this way.” What does he suggest that the clause is saying to the democratic voting public of Wales, if a person can have two bites of the cherry if they like?

[Mr Harper]

Those are all perfectly valid criticisms of list systems where voters are presented with a party choice, rather than list systems where votes have the ability to order the candidates. The hon. Lady’s point on whether people have proper choices is a valid criticism of every list system in which the voter can vote only for the party and has no ability to rank candidates, because in such systems whoever is at the top of the list will almost certainly get elected regardless of whether voters think highly of their personal qualities, but I do not think it is a valid criticism of the changes in the Bill we are considering today.

Finally—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Opposition Members groan, but I have been generous in taking interventions. Had I simply spoken and taken no interventions, I would have been finished some time ago, but that would not have been the right nature of a debate in Committee on an important Bill, so perhaps we could have a little less chuntering from the Opposition parties.

I want to ask a question about new clauses 4 and 6, which were tabled by Plaid Cymru. I was a little confused, because new clause 4 states:

“Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for the transfer of responsibility for setting the number of Assembly Members to the”

Assembly, which is consistent with the points made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) in his earlier remarks on clause 1 about giving the Assembly more control, but new clause 6 would give

“responsibility for determining the system of election of members”

not to the National Assembly but to the Welsh Government. It is almost certainly the case that that is not what was intended and that it was intended to give responsibility to the Welsh Assembly.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for giving me the opportunity to respond. We understood from the Clerks that, for drafting reasons, they would prefer to use “Welsh Government” in the Bill, but he is right that the intention is to devolve responsibility to the National Assembly.

[Mr Harper]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman said that, because although it may be the case that a party with a majority is in effect the Government and can get the Assembly to do what it wants, there is a difference in giving Ministers executive powers to make changes to electoral systems. Systems of election should at least be determined by the Assembly. I have not made a decision on whether responsibility should lie with the Assembly or remain with Parliament, but it certainly should not become an executive decision of the Welsh Government. It was not the intention, but a combination of new clauses 4 and 6 and amendment 9, which was not moved, would have given the First Minister the power not to have any elections at all. If there were elections, he could have decided the system of election and put himself into a powerful position. I am glad that we have discovered that that is the intention neither of the Labour party nor of the hon. Gentleman.

In conclusion, I shall listen carefully to the Minister, but amendment 15 is probing. I strongly support clause 2 and will vote for it to remain part of the Bill. I am grateful for the clarification that the hon. Gentleman has provided on new clauses 4 and 6.

[Jonathan Edwards]

It is a pleasure to speak to new clauses 4 and 6, which are in my name and those of my hon. and right hon. Friends. We intend to press new clause 4 to a vote, but new clause 6 is probing.

If passed, new clause 4 would transfer responsibility for deciding the number of Assembly Members to the National Assembly, as explained by the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) on my behalf. At present, the National Assembly has 60 Assembly Members, which is same as when it was established in 1999. The Scottish Parliament has well over 100 Members, and I am sure, Dr McCrea, that you could inform me that the number in that fine building in Stormont, which I have visited many times, in Northern Ireland is also above 100. Since 1999, the institution’s legislative competence has grown considerably, particularly after the 2011 referendum, which I referred to in my earlier contribution, resulting in full law-making powers in devolved areas being given to the National Assembly. Common sense would dictate that the Assembly, working with the Boundary Commission for Wales, should now determine the number of Members necessary to ensure its smooth running. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) in his intervention on the hon. Member for Forest of Dean, but new clause 4’s intention is that, should the discussions be concluded, it would be a matter for the Assembly to determine rather than this House of Commons.

Increasing the number of Assembly Members has been endorsed by the Electoral Reform Society Cymru, as well as the 2004 Richard commission, which was commissioned by the Welsh Government of the time. The present Presiding Officer of the Assembly, Rosemary Butler AM, has also argued that the institution should have 80 members. The second report of the Silk commission, published in March, argued for the same and stated:

“The size of the National Assembly should be increased, and…most analysis suggests that it should comprise at least eighty Members.”

In October 2013, the Electoral Reform Society Cymru and the UK’s Changing Union project published a report, “Size Matters”, that went further by arguing for an increase in the number of AMs to 100. It based its findings on an evidence-based examination of legislatures across Europe and further afield. It concluded that, as the Assembly now controls a budget of nearly £15 billion and can pass laws on education, health and transport, a larger legislative body is needed to ensure that the law-making is done thoroughly and is not rushed.

16:45

The Assembly at present is arguably buckling under the weight of the new powers it has been granted. It would be in the best interests of full and open democracy to ensure that there is an adequate number of AMs to keep the Executive in check. After all, aside from the Welsh Government Members, there are only 42 Back Benchers in the Assembly, which by any standard is not enough. I read with interest the comments of Julie Morgan, the AM for Cardiff North—she served with distinction as a Member of this House for many years—in yesterday’s Senedd debate on the Silk commission. She made the case that the Assembly should immediately set up a Committee to determine how many Members it needs to perform its functions.

[Mr Harper]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. One of his arguments for having a larger number of Assembly Members is that the Assembly will need more of them as its responsibilities grow and cover more areas. Given that those powers and responsibilities have effectively been transferred from the UK Government and therefore relate to policy areas that no longer need to be scrutinised in this House, does he think that it follows that increasing the size of the Assembly because of its increasing powers and work load means that there should be fewer Members in this House representing Wales to reflect the smaller work load and lower level of responsibility here?

[Jonathan Edwards]

That relates to some of the points the hon. Member for Ogmore made earlier. My position has always been that any reduction in the number of Members of Parliament must be complemented with the transfer of significant further fields of power to the National Assembly, as happened in Scotland. Perhaps a more interesting context is the Williams commission, which has been set up by the Welsh Government to consider public service governance and delivery across Wales and, in particular, the number of local authorities. There seems to be a move towards reducing the number of councils and, therefore, councillors. Perhaps that might provide a better context for the debate on the number of AMs in Wales, rather than the number of MPs.

[Mr Mark Williams]

Given the timing of the Williams commission’s discussions on local government reform, does the hon. Gentleman not think that the amendment would be better placed in our manifestos—my party has already signed up to the reforms recommended in part II of the Silk commission—and debated at that time, rather than now?

[Jonathan Edwards]

The Minister made that point to me before the debate, but this legislation provides an opportunity now. Rather than making the case either for more Assembly Members or for fewer, the new clause essentially states that when the time comes to make that decision, it should be made by the National Assembly, not the House of Commons. It is a point of principle about where power lies in these matters. Given the shadow Secretary of State’s comments when he intervened on me earlier, I look forward to the Labour party’s support when we vote later—[Interruption.] Well, that is exactly the point.

[Hywel Williams]

I am disappointed by that sedentary intervention from the Opposition Front Bench. In our view it is the Assembly that should decide, because we see the people of Wales as sovereign, not this place.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which highlights the key political difference between Plaid Cymru and our Unionist opponents.

Assembly Members are expected to be members of more than one Select Committee. Indeed, the Committees have a dual role, as they perform scrutiny and legislative functions. That means Members are under tremendous pressure, especially if they serve on more than one Committee, as many do. If more AMs were elected, some would be able to specialise in certain areas, and the burgeoning expertise would ensure that democracy in Wales is better informed. In any case, surely it should be for the National Assembly to determine its membership, not the House of Commons. We will therefore be pushing new clause 4 to a vote. We look forward to the support of like-minded individuals, even those on the Government Benches.

The motivation behind new clause 6 is straightforward. As we have been instructed to draft it by the Clerks, it proposes that the Welsh Government, rather than the UK Government, should have responsibility for determining the system used for elections to the National Assembly. Transferring this responsibility would streamline the election process and bring decisions relating to the democratic make-up of the National Assembly closer to the people it serves. It could also, I hope, lead to a more proportional system being used by that institution. Plaid Cymru’s preference would be for a move towards a more proportional system that reflected the wishes of voters more fairly.

Even with the top-up, the current system is extremely biased towards the Labour party. In the last election, Labour polled 40% yet got 50% of the seats. In elections before then, it has had 50% of the seats, and more, on 30% of the vote. We therefore argue that proportional representation would provide a better reflection of how people vote in National Assembly elections.

[Jonathan Evans]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that his new clause could produce the opposite outcome? He may wish for a proportional system, but his proposal might take us back to first past the post, under which, at the last election, the Labour party got 36% of the vote and 65% of the seats.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful for that intervention. I had been minded to include provisions whereby the Assembly would be allowed to determine its own system but not to move to a less proportional system such as that advocated by the Labour party with its double constituency system. That would be completely non-proportional, with Labour perhaps receiving 70% of the seats on 30% of the vote, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. However, as a democrat, I believe that these matters should be devolved to the National Assembly. Parties would then fight the Assembly elections on manifesto commitments, and if people decided to vote for a party that wanted an undemocratic political system and one-party rule, that would be a matter for them.

[Jonathan Evans]

Since the hon. Gentleman is a democrat, he will know that there was a democratic referendum. In that referendum, where I argued for a no vote, we lost the vote, but only by a tiny margin. The electoral system was part of what was voted on when the Assembly was set up. Therefore, surely, if we become less proportional, that should not be in circumstances where there is not at least referendum approval for the electoral system.

[Jonathan Edwards]

That is an interesting intervention. Clearly, it would be a matter for parties standing for the Assembly on manifesto commitments whether they determined to put their preference to a referendum. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid suggestion, and it could well be the case. However, the basic point of what we are trying to achieve is that that power should reside at National Assembly level rather than with this Parliament here in London.

The purpose of the new clause is not to change the electoral system in and of itself, but merely to transfer responsibility to the National Assembly so that it can change the system should it so wish. Who can forget—this goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans)—the manner in which the Labour party used the Government of Wales Act 2006 to gerrymander the electoral system by banning dual candidacy and imposing on Wales an electoral system that is used only in Ukraine? I am glad that through this Bill, the UK Government will rectify that disgraceful decision made through the 2006 Act.

Any decision by this Parliament on the electoral system of the sovereign Welsh national legislature will always be met with concerns that the UK Government of the day are seeking political advantage. The simplest way to address those concerns would be to devolve responsibility to the National Assembly so that it is responsible for determining its own electoral system. The current situation is tantamount to the European Parliament legislating on the electoral system used to elect Members of this House. Surely, after a decade and a half, it should be a matter for the National Assembly to determine its own preferred electoral system. It does not need Big Brother Westminster determining these matters. London needs to let go and treat the National Assembly with some respect.

[Jonathan Evans]

I am grateful, Dr McCrea, for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I know that a number of colleagues want to speak, so I will endeavour to limit my remarks to the matter that causes me most concern—new clause 6 and its proposition that the voting system for the Assembly might be changed by the Assembly itself.

Let me set out my rather unusual position as a Conservative speaking from the Government Benches. Many of my colleagues will know that for more than 30 years I have been a supporter of proportional representation, and that at almost every Conservative party conference that has been held, I have hosted the Electoral Reform Society discussion. Having been elected to the European Parliament on a proportional system, I have no compunction or concerns about such a system. During the passage of the legislation through the House, I was one of only 17 Members to go through the Lobby in support of the amendment to introduce proportional representation.

I remind the Opposition of the debate that took place at the time of the referendum that was held to create the Assembly. That referendum was held after a general election which left my party with no parliamentary representation at all in Wales. I had served as a Welsh Office Minister until 1997. As my election result was declared in the middle of the afternoon on the Friday, I probably had the distinction at that time of being the last Conservative MP to have lost his seat, but my party had 20% of the vote. We have heard a lot about minority parties, Dr McCrea. Between 1992 and 1997 we served together in this House. I suppose it might have been said that your party was a minority party. It would not be said in Northern Ireland nowadays that your party is a minority party, so a little caution on the part of the Opposition might be in order.

When the debate took place on whether the Assembly should be created, the complex system of individual constituencies, then regions in which people are elected on the proportional system, was designed to reassure the people of Wales that we were not going to end up with one-party government—that we would not have a situation whereby a fifth of the people in Wales could vote for a political party and end up with no representation at all. There should be no doubt about that.

I was appointed by my then party leader, the present Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), to speak for the Conservative party at the time those debates took place. I remember the debates I had at that time with the Labour Secretary of State for Wales. We discussed the voting system, and he said that proportional representation was an integral part of the settlement to be put before the people of Wales. Bearing in mind the outcome of the referendum at that stage, the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) made it clear that in the more recent referendum there was significant support—transformed support—but also, I would argue, support from across the political spectrum.

My party was identified in the past as arguing against devolution. From the time that the vote took place, my party accepted the outcome of that vote. I remember, as the chief Conservative spokesman for Wales, speaking at that time to the shadow Cabinet and making the point that it did not matter whether the votes were in the hundreds or the low thousands: we as democrats had to accept the outcome of the vote.

I also put that argument to those who now say they want to change the voting system. We know already that those propositions have been put forward. New clause 6 would permit that change to take place. I agree with the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. I am a democrat. I might be against his clause, but the aspect of it to which I have the strongest objection is that there is no fail-safe to make it possible to go back to the voters of Wales and ask, “Do you want to have a less proportionate system?” Whether by accident or not, to say within the terms of the clause, “Let the Welsh Assembly Government propose something”, is an open invitation for an outcome that I believe is fundamentally anti-democratic. It is no less anti-democratic because it is a decision made in Cardiff, rather than here in Westminster.

I accept the outcome of the devolution vote. Throughout my political life since that vote, I have supported the National Assembly for Wales, but I remember as well what the basis of the settlement is. I am concerned that the terms of the clause present an opportunity to undermine that settlement. That, in my judgment, would let down the people of Wales.

16:59

[Owen Smith]

I intend to speak principally to clause 2 and not to amendment 2 or the new clauses. We tabled an amendment to delete the clause, but it has not been selected, so we will push the clause to a vote.

I fear that gerrymandering has been a hallmark of this Government’s legislation on the constitution. We saw it in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 and the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, and the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) has today sought, in effect, to reintroduce, through the back door, his gerrymandering proposals to reduce the number of Members representing Wales, which would have a consequent effect on the number of Assembly Members. I fear that clause 2 in particular continues in that vein.

[Mr Harper]

I will resist, I hope, being provoked any further, but how can the principle of ensuring that Members of this House represent a broadly equal number of electors be called gerrymandering? Most people would think that it is a matter of basic fairness. We debated this issue at length when the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act was making its way through Parliament. I understand why Labour Members did not like it, because it had an effect on them, but it is about delivering equality of representation, which I would have thought they were in favour of.

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I think it was made in the same spirit as that with which he has repeatedly made other arguments, which is to cloak his party’s partisan intent in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and, indeed, clause 2 of this Bill with the veneer of a principled objective. That is not true: the rationale for all of those measures was to benefit his party, which is a smaller party—a minority party—in Wales. I intend to demonstrate why that is the case.

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Gentleman has used the magic word, “minority”. In what way is a party with 30 out of 60 seats and that does not command the support of more than 50% of the Welsh electorate who actually vote a majority?

[Owen Smith]

The point I was making is very simple and I do not need to embellish it, because I can rely on the evidence provided by the Government’s own impact assessment, which states extremely clearly that the proposal’s objective is to benefit the

“smaller parties in Wales who may have a smaller pool of high quality candidates to represent them in elections.”

Labour Members certainly would not for one moment contest the argument that the smaller parties in Wales—among which I would, unfortunately, count the Conservative party—may have a smaller pool of high-quality candidates to represent them in elections, but I do not believe that that is an adequate reason for seeking to amend legislation with regard to this country’s constitution and elections.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

The shadow Secretary of State will know that under the original Government of Wales Act 1998, there was no ban on dual candidacy. At what point did the damascene conversion of the Labour party against the concept of dual candidacy take place?

[Owen Smith]

I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for asking that question, because I think the date was 2 or 3 May 2003. The precise geographical location of that conversion was on a road not to Damascus, but to Ruthin. It was of course during the Clwyd West election—the election to the Assembly in his constituency in north Wales—when we witnessed the extraordinary state of affairs in which Labour quite clearly won the election and the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru lost it, but the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Plaid Cymru representatives were all returned to the National Assembly for Wales in what any right-thinking individual would think was a complete denial of democracy and natural justice.

[Mr Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I give way to the Secretary of State to put me right.

[Mr Jones]

I anticipated that the hon. Gentleman might mention the so-called Clwyd West question. Was it not always entirely foreseeable from the moment that devolution was instituted under this system that in some seats a number of representatives would be elected by first past the post, on the list, or both? It was always foreseeable and, frankly, the fact that it was not foreseen seems a large oversight by the Labour party.

[Owen Smith]

That may well have been foreseeable. Labour has acknowledged that it was a mistake to draft the legislation in such a fashion that it became possible for would-be Members of the Assembly to nest like cuckoos in individual constituencies for a period, anticipating their entry to the Assembly via the back door. However, we did not imagine that the measure would be used so shamelessly as it was by parties in the Secretary of State’s Clwyd West constituency.

[Mr Mark Williams]

Has there been the same acknowledgement that such a measure was a mistake for elections to the Scottish Parliament or the Greater London authority, in which dual candidacy is still permitted?

[Owen Smith]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and we should consider this matter right across the piece. The evidence of elections in Wales that is before our eyes, particularly in Clwyd West, but in other seats as well—Llanelli springs to mind, where wannabe Assembly Members perched for a significant period, only to contest the seats under first past the post—suggests that the measure will be abused. It has not of course been abused elsewhere, but it has been abused in Wales. That is why we as representatives of Wales, who were then in government but are now in opposition, are seeking to prevent this Government from amending the law for Wales so that we guarantee that such sorts of abuses do not take place in future.

[Mr Williams]

If the principle runs so deep and the risk of abuse is so great, surely the hon. Gentleman should talk to his colleagues in Scotland and London about reforming the systems there, rather than picking—quite frankly—on the National Assembly for Wales and the people of Wales.

[Owen Smith]

As all hon. Members do, I talk regularly to colleagues in other parts of Britain, but we are now addressing legislation that relates to Wales. The evidence relating to Wales that is before our eyes—from recent history in the Secretary of State’s own seat—suggests that there is a problem there and that the measure has been abused. As best we understand it, public opinion also supports my contention that the system should be retained and that the proposed ban should not be lifted.

[Mr David Jones]

The hon. Gentleman has twice used the word “abused” in the context of Clwyd West. Will he please explain what he means by abuse in that context?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

It is fairly straightforward.

[Owen Smith]

It is pretty straightforward. As I have said, there was an instance in Clwyd West of the abuse of natural justice and of what most people understand as democracy by a system that allowed people to enter the Assembly via the back door. That is supported by the evidence, and I want to enumerate some of the pieces of evidence, because they are extremely important.

[Mr Llwyd]

The hon. Gentleman has used the word “abused”, which is objectionable, and has referred to the back door. Why in 2003 did Rhodri Morgan, Lorraine Barrett, Sue Essex, Jane Davidson, Jane Hutt and Leighton Andrews all stand for a constituency and on a list if that was so obviously attempting an abuse?

[Owen Smith]

Because that was quite clearly the system in place at the time. However, as I have acknowledged—my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) of course acknowledged it when he amended the law in 2006—we admitted that it was a mistake to allow people to abuse the system in such a fashion.

I hesitate to steal the thunder of my right hon. Friend, who referred to this matter so eloquently on Second Reading, but if we want evidence of the potential abuse of the system whereby an Assembly Member nests in a constituency that they subsequently want to seek election to through first past the post, we need look no further than the leader of Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood. She published a memo to her members in an e-mail which provided what can only be described as a route map for such abuse. I did not intend to quote extensively from it, but as I have been provoked, perhaps I ought to remind the Committee of the details. She instructed her party:

“We need to be thinking much more creatively as to how we better use staff budgets for furthering the aims of the party.”

She went on:

“Regional AMs are in a unique position. They are paid to work full-time in politics and have considerable budgets at their disposal.”

She said:

“Consideration should be given to the location of their office—where would it be best for the region? Are there any target seats…within the region?”

She went on:

“They need not be constrained by constituency casework and events, and can be more choosy about their engagements, only attending events which further the party’s cause. This can be achieved by following one simple golden rule: On receipt of every invitation, ask ‘How can my attendance at this event further the aims of Plaid Cymru?’ If the answer is ‘very little’ or ‘not at all’, then a pro forma letter of decline should be in order.”

I do not think that we need any further evidence of the potential abuse to which I am referring.

[Mr David Jones]

Is the hon. Gentleman’s criticism not of Leanne Wood, who I agree behaved wholly disgracefully? Is he not overlooking the many regional Members who were elected and behaved entirely properly? His criticism is not of the system, but of an individual who behaved reprehensibly.

[Owen Smith]

The Secretary of State might be right that some regional Members behaved perfectly appropriately. I agree with him that Leanne Wood did not behave appropriately in instructing her colleagues to respond in that way. The point that I am making is that the system as it was constituted, and as he proposes to reconstitute it, was open to such abuses. That is why we suggest that the current system, which we put in place when in office, should be retained.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is being extremely generous in giving way again. Surely these issues could be resolved by a change in the standing orders of the Assembly, rather than by changing the legislation. Does not the Assembly have the power to regulate itself? The hon. Gentleman looks puzzled. I would have thought that he would recognise that the Assembly is in a position to regulate the conduct of its Members through its standing orders.

[Owen Smith]

The Assembly can do that, but that issue strikes me as rather tangential to the one that we are debating, which is the nature of the electoral arrangements that this House lays down for the Assembly, which the Secretary of State is seeking to change.

I will return to the guts of the matter, which is the evidence of the need for the change. I think that the evidence supports our view that no such change is required. I return to the evidence provided in the impact assessment by the Government. Although they concede that a majority of respondents to the consultation—a “small majority”, admittedly—were

“in favour of retaining the ban”,

they state that

“the Government does not think that a strong enough case for this was made in the consultation responses.”

[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Wales suggests that those were Labour responses. He really ought to take his consultation seriously. If the Government want their policy to be supported by the public, they ought to reflect the evidence, rather than dismiss it out of hand when it happens to be counter to their narrow, partisan interests.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am intrigued and surprised that none of the three Plaid Cymru Members have stood up to defend their leader. In the interest of their silence, may I suggest a possible tweet for at least one of them: “We cannot answer what the shadow Secretary of State is saying, so we are silent and looking sheepish #nationalistsconfused”?

[Owen Smith]

I look forward to reading it on Twitter later this afternoon. To return to the evidence, the Government concede that this measure is solely designed to benefit the smaller parties in Wales—the Conservatives, the Liberals and Plaid Cymru—and that a majority of people responding to their consultation did not agree with their proposals to change it.

17:15

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman just said that this change would benefit the smaller parties. Does he therefore think that not changing it would be beneficial to the largest party, and is he not also conflicted by an interest in this issue?

[Owen Smith]

I am merely quoting from the Government’s own impact assessment, which clearly states that this is for the benefit of the smaller parties in Wales, among which we count the Conservative party.

Public attitudes to this issue are relatively clear and there have been several reports. Most importantly, the Bevan Foundation—which is non-aligned although splendidly named after my great hero—conducted an analysis and a large survey to consider all these issues. It found that

“dual candidacy was unfair compared with those who felt candidates should be free to stand in both.”

As a reference to the detail included in that survey, I quote a respondent from Llanelli who asked:

“How can it be right that you vote one way and then the person who loses can still find a way to get elected?”

Someone from Swansea East said:

“I think it is unfair … It’s like people can sneak in the back door.”

and another said:

“It does seem unfair in a way, surely if they weren’t popular enough they shouldn’t be able to get in.”

Another respondent said:

“I don’t think some should have the added advantage of standing in both—it seems unfair really.”

and someone else from Llanelli said:

“You don’t have two bites of the cherry.”

[Mr David Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether the survey he refers to is the one that was commissioned by his hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), and although he refers to a large number of respondents, is it the case that there were precisely 47?

[Owen Smith]

It was indeed commissioned by my dear and hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), but the Bevan Foundation, as the Secretary of State will know, is a non-aligned charitable foundation. It would surely contest quite vigorously the implication—which I am sure he does not mean to make—that it is in any way aligned to the Labour party.

Of course, it is not just evidence from the Bevan Foundation that is important. International evidence suggests that this form of gerrymandering is not supported by the public. In New Zealand, for example, public opinion research conducted by the independent review committee, which is part of its Parliament and appointed to examine the electoral system, found that one key criticism was that it was possible for MPs to be defeated in an electoral contest but returned to the House through their position on the list—clear evidence that it is not just in Wales that people are concerned about that.

In fact, it is not just in New Zealand that there are concerns. In New Brunswick in Canada, an independent commission endorsed the ban on dual candidacy stating:

“The Commission heard that in some jurisdictions where candidates are able to run simultaneously on both ballots, voters are displeased with the case where a candidate is not successful in a single member constituency, but is elected anyway by virtue of being placed on the top of a party’s list.”

Evidence from two notable democracies—Canada and New Zealand—shows that it is not just those in the Labour party and in Wales who are worried about that process.

Of course, it is not just Labour Members who have been concerned about this issue: it used to be a concern of Members on both sides of the House. For example, Lord Crickhowell, a former Conservative Secretary of State for Wales, has said that the arrangements were “really pretty indefensible”. I would have thought that was a clear statement, but the current Secretary of State clearly does not agree.

Perhaps Liberal Democrat Members agree with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who said when we last debated this in 2006:

“I should also point out that the Secretary of State for Wales has said that if the Commission had considered what he called the systematic abuses carried out by list members in Wales”—

which I have described here today—

“he would have reached the same conclusion that we have”—

“we” in that case being of course the Liberal Democrats—

“namely that a ban on dual candidacy is the only effective solution.”

We therefore have many examples from across the world, from Wales and from across the House of people’s concerns about the way in which the system has been abused.

[Mr Mark Williams]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned New Zealand and the international precedents that he asserts back his case. Is he aware that the final report of the commission that looked into the system in New Zealand concluded:

“It is proper and desirable…that political parties can protect good candidates contesting marginable or unwinnable electorates by positioning themselves high enough on their list to be elected”?

The New Zealand experience resulted in the ban being thrown out.

[Owen Smith]

I am aware of that: the point that I was making is that concern is felt about this issue across the world. It is not a narrow, partisan point: it has been widely discussed in other jurisdictions where this or similar systems have been applied. It has been suggested that this only applies in Wales, but that is not true. There are similar election arrangements in several Asian countries, including South Korea and Taiwan, where they have a similar ban on such behaviour.

[Mr Williams]

The key point is that the New Zealand experience validated the approach that the Government are taking in clause 2.

[Owen Smith]

I understood the point that the hon. Gentleman was making: I was merely pointing out the significant concerns in New Zealand that remain.

[Jonathan Evans]

The hon. Gentleman has shared with us the research that he has done on the position in New Brunswick. In neighbouring Quebec they had the same debate and came to the same conclusion as the Secretary of State.

[Owen Smith]

That is as may be. I merely say once more that this is not a straightforward, open-and-shut case, as it has been presented by the Government. We know otherwise—from the evidence of Clwyd West and other seats in Wales, from public opinion and, frankly, from what our constituents tell us about their dissatisfaction, which extends to the broader issue of the list and first-past-the-post system. We know that the public do not understand candidates being rejected under first past the post and then sneaking into the Assembly by the back door.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Gentleman says that he has been inundated by representations from constituents on this matter. I have to be honest and say that I have never had any discussion with a constituent on this issue. How many of the good people of Pontypridd have been on the phone to him?

[Owen Smith]

I am tempted to say that very few of my constituents—or, I suspect, those from any constituency in Wales—ever want to talk to me about the constitution, which seems to exercise Plaid Cymru all the time. Most people in Wales do not want to talk about the constitution: they want to talk about the cost of living crisis and the other problems that we have in Britain.

In conclusion, the evidence of the recent past in Wales suggests that the previous system was being abused. We have made a clear, principled non-partisan argument that the current system should be retained as it is. In so doing, we are striking a chord with the views of the Welsh Affairs Committee, which did not come to a final conclusion but did say, as a point of principle:

“we consider it unadvisable for electoral systems to be changed frequently. Successive changes to electoral systems risk being perceived as partisan by the public.”

This is clearly a partisan change. The public will see it for what it is and I am sure they would support us when, later this evening, we vote against clause 2 standing part of the Bill.

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

I welcome your Celtic insight into this debate affecting a Celtic neighbour, Dr McCrea. I apologise to you, and to those on both Front Benches, if I have to be out of the Chamber for the winding-up speeches.

I wish to speak on clause 2 stand part, a clause that reverses the ban on dual candidature, which this House legislated for in 2006. On Second Reading I provided detailed evidence about the widespread abuses of the dual candidacy system in Wales that led to it being banned under the Government of Wales Act 2006, which I introduced. None of that evidence was disputed or rebutted by the Government or any of the parties. I readily confess to being one of the Wales Ministers who, prior to devolution, took the original 1998 Government of Wales Bill through Parliament that permitted dual candidature, but I never for one moment imagined the abuses that it would produce and the antipathy it would create. Voters never understood that it was widespread practice, from when the Assembly was established in 1999 up until 2007 when it was banned, for candidates rejected by a particular constituency to secure back-door election as Assembly Members through the regional list. They were then even able to claim to represent the very constituency that had rejected them.

After reading the Government’s proposals for repealing the ban on dual candidacy, I have searched in vain for substantial arguments beyond cries of political partisanship. The truth is that the ban has affected all candidates of all parties by preventing each one from having a two-way bet with voters. The ban simply puts the voters in charge by ensuring that, if a candidate is defeated in the constituency vote, that candidate does not get elected in defiance of the popular will. At a time when the political class—all of us—are held in lower repute than at any time in the history of British democracy, the very idea that the Government are proceeding to ensure election losers become winners is absolutely extraordinary. It holds the electorate in utter contempt.

Let us examine the case advanced by Ministers. First, the Government have used evidence borrowed heavily from the Scottish elections, which are similar to ours in Wales, and manipulated evidence from the Arbuthnott report to support their case. Ministers claimed in the Green Paper that the Arbuthnott report on the situation in Scotland found no justification for the argument that public dissatisfaction with dual candidacy had a negative impact on voter turnout. They also used evidence from the Electoral Commission’s 2006 “Poll Position” report, which focused on voting in the National Assembly elections. Clearly, however, the Government chose only to reflect the contents of those reports selectively.

In fact, the Arbuthnott report quoted the Scottish social attitudes survey 2003, which found a high degree of opposition to party control of candidates on their regional election lists. Moreover, opposition to party control of the lists was particularly acute—this is the important point—because of public confusion with the system, exacerbated when regional Members of the Scottish Parliament appeared to get in through the back door having been defeated as constituency candidates. In the 2003 Scottish election Arbuthnott report, the public was indeed concerned that 88% of regional MSPs elected had fought and lost in constituencies. The closed list system was seen to have undermined the election result in these scenarios, as it raised questions of legitimacy for regional MSPs in voters’ minds. The Electoral Commission’s 2006 “Poll Position” report on voting in Wales clearly demonstrated that more than half the Welsh population—56.7%, to be exact—opposed the closed list system, which is still in place, and that more than 60% of the electorate preferred to be represented by just one Assembly Member.

17:30

The Arbuthnott report confronted exactly the same problems that I faced as Secretary of State: the questions “How do we limit the tension between AMs and MSPs that is created by constituency and regional lists where losers become winners?” and “How do we reduce abuses of dual candidacy?” The report suggested two measures to remedy those problems in Scotland, the more significant being clear identification of the differences between regional and constituency Members in legislation, with a clear code of conduct for Members of the Scottish Parliament. That is not proposed in the Bill.

The report argued that regional MSPs should not make misrepresentations to specific constituencies, and there should be a tacit understanding between constituency and regional MSPs that a constituency matter was for the constituency MSP alone. That effectively created a quasi-second tier for regional MSPs, because they had no remit to meddle with constituency matters. We do not have that system in Wales, and the Bill does not propose such a system. The report’s recommendation was then reinforced throughout Scotland by means of an educational campaign to highlight the subtle and important differences between regional and constituency representatives.

The Government may refer to clause 36 of the Government of Wales Act 2006, which is designed to prevent the public from confusing constituency and regional Assembly Members. It states:

“The standing orders must include provision about (or for the making of a code or protocol about) the different roles and responsibilities of Assembly constituency members and Assembly regional members; and…Assembly constituency members must not describe themselves in a manner which suggests that they are Assembly regional members, and…Assembly regional members must not describe themselves in a manner which suggests that they are Assembly constituency members.”

I legislated for the introduction of those standing orders in 2006, but there is still an endemic problem. Time and again, the result has been cherry-picking by regional members with clearly partisan motives of the matters in which they wish to become involved, while constituency members must deal with either the leftovers or the vital but burdensome daily process of casework and individual representation which is their proper responsibility. There was a clear example of that recently in the South Wales West region. A regional Assembly Member tried to claim leadership of the campaign for the Visteon pensioners, although it was not a devolved issue, and was being addressed—and, indeed, was finally resolved—by a cross-party group of Members of the House of Commons.

In practice, the system means that a regional AM or MSP who has lost a constituency vote can work within a constituency, and can effectively run a four or five-year election campaign focusing on high-profile public campaigning and generating publicity, while never having to confront the tough issues of daily representation and passing the buck to the constituency Member.

In 2003, former Liberal party leader and Scottish Parliament Presiding Officer Baron Steel of Aikwood said:

“My second reason for having second thoughts about the list system is that it led to unnecessary tension between some list Members and constituency Members and others. Quite the most distasteful and irritating part of my job as Presiding Officer was dealing with complaints against list Members’ behaviour from constituency MSPs, Westminster MPs and local authorities. Most did their best to obey the code of conduct, but there were a few serial offenders whose behaviour was referred to the Standards Committee. I could not understand at first why we had such problems, until it dawned on me that what some were determined to do was misuse their position to run a permanent four-year campaign as candidate for a particular constituency. In most Parliaments you do not have Members sitting in the same chamber or in committees who are going to be election opponents, and it does not make for a good working atmosphere.

My third objection to the system as operated is that it has led to a confusing and expensive proliferation of ‘parliamentary’ offices throughout the country. In at least one town there are four. This arose because of an agreement between the parties that regional list Members as well as constituency ones should have publicly funded offices.”

Of course, that operates in Wales as well. Lord Steel continued:

“I registered my objection at the time because they have become a thinly disguised subsidy from the taxpayer for the local party machines and added to the tendency I have just described. In my view they are a serious waste of public money, and I do not exclude my own former regional office from that stricture.”

That is an independent observation by a former Speaker of the Scottish Parliament.

[Mr Harper]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hain]

I would like to make a bit more progress, because although the hon. Gentleman was generous in taking interventions, his contribution lasted 40 minutes. I would prefer to be a bit briefer, and I normally am very generous.

The fact that, nevertheless, Scotland has retained dual candidature, in defiance of Lord Steel’s advice, is no reason for Wales to do the same. The Government simply will not acknowledge the fundamental democratic abuse of dual candidacy, which is that losers become winners, and that voters are second-guessed and contradicted by the system, their choices denied. The second significant measure the Scottish Parliament adopted after Arbuthnott tried to increase the accountability of regional MSPs to the electorate by changing the voting system and introducing an open list for regional candidates—not something this Bill provides—to give some measure of control for Scottish voters. That was done because the Scottish social attitudes survey 2003 found a high degree of opposition to the party control inherent in the list system. Voters in Wales enjoy no such privilege and the Government are not proposing to give it to us.

On the issue of dual candidacy, two different paths were followed: in Scotland it was through greater clarification of the roles of Members and by turning to open lists; and in Wales we felt that the ban was the right solution to dual candidacy abuse. Nearly a decade on from the Government of Wales Act 2006 I feel that we made the right choice, but much more must be done to give regional Assembly Members more accountability to the electorate. On candidacy, this Bill does nothing to further the evolution of Welsh democracy—indeed it puts it into reverse.

Over the past 15 years, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have both evolved in different ways to better suit the needs of their individual electorates. As the Government’s proposal stands, we will return to some of the absurd anomalies we saw in 1999 and 2003. As has been mentioned, in Clwyd West in 2003 every one of the three losing party candidates nevertheless won. Let us also consider the following cases from the 1999 elections, when 17 out of the 20 regional Assembly Members elected lost constituency elections. Thus, more than three quarters of the regional AMs did not have a democratic mandate to represent people—voters had not voted for them—and 15 of these 20 had offices in the constituencies they failed to be elected in.

In the Conwy constituency the Lib Dem AM Christine Humphreys came fourth in the popular vote—she had less than 10% of the vote in Conwy—yet still became an AM for the North Wales region. In Wrexham the Plaid Cymru AM Janet Ryder came last in the constituency, with 2,659 votes—the constituency AM had 9,239 votes—and yet still became an AM through the back door. In Ynys Môn the Tory AM Peter Rogers won 6,031 votes, which put him third on the constituency list—the Plaid Cymru AM who won a majority had more than 16,000 votes—yet he still became an AM for the North Wales region. It is not a partisan argument but simply a truth to state that those results are fundamentally undemocratic.

In the 1999 election more than 215,000 Welsh men and women voted in the North Wales region. Were we to look at every individual who ran as a constituency candidate in that election and collate their votes, we would find that Christine Humphreys, Janet Ryder and Peter Rogers polled less than 6% of the total regional vote and yet still became AMs for that very same region. After two Assembly elections where this was a regular occurrence, and with almost half the population saying in 2006 that they did not understand how their electoral system worked, we sought to remedy confusion over how AMs could still get in through the back door. The ban on dual candidature was the right choice then and remains so now. We introduced the ban in 2006 to stop these anomalies and the confusion they produced in voters’ minds, but now the Government are proposing to start this all over again.

In 2006, Victoria Winckler, director of the Bevan Foundation, conducted a survey, which found broad support for the ban on dual candidacy. Her report also highlighted the need for greater education and understanding among the general public. This report qualified the findings of previous research into dual candidacy. It said that none of it had been sufficient to make a substantial case on whether or not the public were for or against it in elections, but that it did discover considerable public disquiet on the issue with broad support in favour of the ban.

[Jonathan Edwards]

If dual candidacy is so objectionable to the right hon. Gentleman’s party, will he explain why, when it was in power in Westminster in 2010, it did not ban it in Scotland or for the Assembly in London?

[Mr Hain]

I have already dealt with that matter, but I will, if I may, correct the hon. Gentleman. It is not objectionable to my party; it is objectionable to voters. That is the point about this, and we are representing the voters’ will.

Perhaps the great irony of the Government’s proposals is that when they released their Green Paper in 2011, they found what was described as a

“small majority of people opposed to the Government’s proposal to lift the ban”,

and yet they still carried on. The Government, who themselves have a small majority, now seek to overturn a small majority. A former Liberal Democrat leader and a Conservative Secretary of State backed my 2006 ban, as did the chairman of the Richard commission. The commission reported in 2004, recommending extra powers for the Assembly, which my 2006 Act delivered. Lord Richard told the Welsh Affairs Committee:

“There is something wrong in a situation in which five people can stand in Clwyd, none of them can be elected, and then they all get into the Assembly. On the face of it that does not make sense. I think a lot of people in Wales find that it does not.”

The eminent Welsh academic, Dr Denis Balsom, said in his evidence to the Richard commission:

“Candidates use the list as an insurance against failing to win a constituency contest. This dual candidacy can also confuse the electorate, who may wish to consciously reject a particular candidate only to find them elected via the list. It should remain a basic democratic right not to elect a particular candidate or to be able to vote a Member out.”

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the real objection to dual candidacy is that those individuals who are rejected are then let in by the parties through the back door, and not by the electorate?

[Mr Hain]

My hon. Friend expresses my argument well—indeed better in some respects. One motivation for reversing the 2006 ban expressed by Plaid Cymru was the loss of its unquestionably talented Assembly Member, Helen Mary Jones. On 9 January 2006, when I was Secretary of State for Wales and dual candidature was still permitted, Helen Mary Jones put out a press release in which she described herself as the “Llanelli-based Assembly Member”. In it, she complained about money spent on a hospital in Carmarthen instead of one in Llanelli. However, she should really have been supporting both hospitals. As a list Assembly Member for Mid and West Wales, she represented both towns. If she had really been discharging her list Member duties properly, she would not have discriminated between those two towns or their hospitals. Yet of all the parts of the list area which she represented, she targeted the one place where she had been narrowly defeated in 2003, invariably describing herself as the “Llanelli-based Assembly Member”. The 2006 Act stopped her describing herself as that, although in the meantime she had campaigned hard as the list Member and had won the seat back in 2007, only to lose it again in 2011. As the ban had kicked in by then, she no longer remained the list Member. That has made it much harder for her to win the seat back for the next elections in 2016.

Now I come to the pièce de résistance. If this Bill gets enacted unamended, the Plaid Cymru party leader, Leanne Wood, will be able to implement—indeed quite possibly is already implementing—the comprehensive strategy she laid out in a remarkably candid memorandum in August 2003 when she was a list Assembly Member. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) has quoted from that document, so I will not do so—[Interruption.] I can if Members are disappointed.

17:45

The memorandum was issued privately to key party colleagues but, even before the era of WikiLeaks, it was happily revealed to the rest of the nation in a generous act of democratic service. If the Bill becomes law, Leanne Wood can put into practice her own painstakingly frank advice to her colleagues. She is, and has been since 2003, one of the four list members for the South Wales Central National Assembly for Wales electoral region, but on 15 March 2013 she announced plans to stand for the Rhondda constituency in the Assembly elections in May 2016. In her press releases—I have one with me dated 13 November 2013—she modestly describes herself as the “Rhondda-based Assembly Member Leanne Wood”. To be fair, she does live in the Rhondda but her office is in the town of Pontypridd, which is located in the Pontypridd rather than the Rhondda constituency. So she is not actually the “Rhondda-based Assembly Member Leanne Wood” but the “Pontypridd-based Assembly Member Leanne Wood.” Never mind, however; we will move on fast from that trifling matter of accuracy.

Leanne Wood could also have chosen to describe herself as Aberdare-based, Cardiff-based or Cowbridge-based, as those are all places in her South Wales Central regional constituency, but no, she is apparently uninterested in the concerns of the other parts of her regional constituency. By some amazing coincidence, she is interested only in the Rhondda, because she always and only describes herself as Rhondda-based.

When the leader of Plaid Cymru said that she would stand for the Rhondda, it sounded like a brave—some might say foolhardy—move, but then, of course, the Conservatives proposed to bring back dual candidacy and she said that it was likely that she would also stand to retain her regional Assembly Member position on the list. Not so brave after all. When she loses in the Rhondda constituency in 2016—I am afraid that I have to break the news to her that she will lose heavily to the sitting Labour Member, the admirable Leighton Andrews—Leanne Wood will have the lifeline of dual candidacy to fall back on.

[Mr Harper]

On the subject of bravery, will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hain]

No wonder Plaid Cymru is such an enthusiastic little helper to the Government on this clause. We should rename the Bill “Leanne’s lifeline”. I will give way.

[Mr Harper]

I have been listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s argument and I do not understand this concept of the “back door”. I might be wrong— I am sure that Opposition Members will tell me if I am—but surely if party candidates are listed on the ballot paper and electors cast a vote in a regional ballot, which is a separate vote, they know the consequences of that vote. If someone on that list is elected based on the second vote that somebody casts, the voter will have known that that could happen. I do not know how the right hon. Gentleman can describe that as someone being elected by the back door.

[Mr Hain]

I realise that the hon. Gentleman is not a member for a Welsh seat, but the truth is that people in Wales feel that people are being elected by the back door when they turn down a particular individual as their constituency Member only to find that they are elected anyway. This description of such an election as “by the back door” seems to me to be valid.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hain]

I want to make a little progress, if my right hon. Friend does not mind. I have a series of points to make in conclusion.

A Mrs Jones or Mr Davies living in Porth or Treherbert in the Rhondda constituency should be forewarned by Leanne Wood’s memorandum, which amounted to a charter for abusing their money as taxpayers. I would advise them not to bother to approach for help and to check first whether they fit into her game plan. That plan is not about helping either of them, but about helping her and her political party. She is extremely—some might say recklessly—honest about her real intentions.

In the memorandum, Leanne Wood urged Plaid Cymru Assembly list Members such as herself only to do casework not where it is needed—not where it might help Mrs Jones or Mr Davies—but where it might benefit Plaid Cymru in its target seats, now including the Rhondda. She advised her colleagues to attend civic and other events in the constituency only if they thought there were votes in it. I would say, “Those are your votes, Mrs Jones and Mr Davies. I would check it out first if I were you.” She urged Plaid Cymru Assembly list Members to concentrate tens of thousands of pounds on their local Assembly office budgets in their party’s target seats, such as Rhondda. Leanne Wood’s memorandum of August 2003 was entitled, “What should be the role of a Regional AM?” It made a perfect case for the ban on dual candidature in Wales, as my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd made clear by quoting in detail from it.

The Government are shamelessly proceeding to enshrine again in statute, in clause 2, the very practice that this Parliament banned eight years ago to prevent such abuses, of which there had been very many over the years.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a brilliant and convincing argument against dual candidacy, as always, but does he agree that, as the Electoral Reform Society has said, at the very least changing the system back and forth risks undermining the stability of the electoral system? Should we not just stick with the system that we have?

[Mr Hain]

I completely agree. The change was made after evidence had been assembled for Parliament, and Parliament was convinced by that evidence.

There is a simple question that both supporters of the Bill and critics of this Parliament’s 2006 ban cannot answer. It is this: if candidates cannot persuade voters to vote for them, why should they nevertheless be forced on voters through the back door? The people of Wales are entitled to an answer, even if this Government cannot give it to them by ramming through this highly contentious, undemocratic and thoroughly objectionable clause in a Bill that otherwise, in its broad features, enjoys a fair degree of cross-party consensus.

The fundamental point is that the Government of Wales Act 2006, by introducing the ban, put the voters back in charge. If voters did not want to elect somebody, they did not have to do so. If they reject a candidate, that candidate should not end up representing them. We should keep the voters in charge by rejecting clause 2.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I will not go over many of the issues that my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) raised, but he is absolutely right and I shall vote against clause 2 stand part because I believe that the restriction is right. The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) has been trying to intervene repeatedly to say that people have a choice—they could vote for an individual on the constituency basis but then have some other choice on the list. That is not quite the case. The names are listed in order and the voter might like candidate No. 3 on the list, but they do not have the choice to vote for that person—they vote for a political party, and it is the political party that selects the people at the top of the list. Usually that is either to boost its vote in an area or to get a person in by the back door who has already failed. That is the simple fact of the process before the current restriction came in; it is a back-door one.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I suggest to my hon. Friend that it is not so much a back door as a cat flap? You can not only go in through the cat flap but you can withdraw without the need for a by-election if you are on the list rather than being a constituency MP.

[Jonathan Evans]

It is your system.

[Albert Owen]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for his intervention. The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) is shouting across the Floor that that is our system. We have changed the system. He was not here in that Parliament, but we changed it, and we changed it on the basis—this is important and has not been mentioned thus far—that in our 2005 manifesto we said we would bring in the restriction. We won the most seats in that election in Wales, and we had the biggest share of the vote in that election in Wales. I do not see many people knocking on the doors of constituency Members of Parliament saying they want to reverse that ban.

[David T. C. Davies]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if his amendment stands tonight, his party will benefit electorally from it? How does he ensure that that is not the reason that he is making these points today?

[Albert Owen]

I do not believe there is an amendment, but we shall oppose clause stand part. The hon. Gentleman made the same point in an earlier intervention. As things stand, there will be no electoral benefit for the Labour party. The results and the evidence, and the psephology that comes with them, show that there has been no benefit to Labour since we introduced the restriction.

The question that the hon. Gentleman should be asking is why are we having this debate now? The Silk commission itself—we are having government by commissions—did not make this proposal. I am ready to be corrected by Ministers, but I do not think it was in their manifesto to reverse the ban. If I am wrong, I will take an intervention, but I do not think I am. [Interruption.] Someone says it was, but I do not know. Does the Secretary of State want to intervene to clarify the position? Was it in his party manifesto in 2010 to reverse the ban: yes or no?

[David T. C. Davies]

I will intervene. First, I apologise: obviously it is not an amendment, but the hon. Gentleman will take the point.

Secondly, no, it probably was not in our manifesto, but the point is that no one would have noticed whether it was or was not. The hon. Gentleman’s party has won a few elections and lost a few over the past 15 years, but nobody voted for or against the Labour party or any other on the basis of what they were going to do about the voting system for the Welsh Assembly.

[Albert Owen]

There is a serious point to make about manifestos. In 1999, we introduced a scheme that has seen some abuse by candidates who, when they faced the electorate, were rejected—comprehensively in many cases, coming third or fourth for the seat—but got in on the list. That is why we put the measure in our 2005 manifesto and implemented it. It was this Parliament—the hon. Gentleman might mock manifestos, but I am sure he does he does not mock the will of this Parliament—that said we should bring in the restriction, and there is no mandate to reverse that. That is my point: none of the parties put it in its manifesto, and when the Government went out to consultation on the question, the majority of those who bothered to respond wanted the ban to remain. There is absolutely no mandate for the clause at this time. The Committee should consider that point.

[Hywel Williams]

I think we were talking about evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee. Professor Roger Scully told the Committee:

“It is impossible to take seriously the idea, suggested…by some…that dual candidacy in Wales is in any sense”

unusual. He is one of the pre-eminent political analysts in Wales.

[Albert Owen]

I know the hon. Gentleman had to leave the Chamber and was not here when my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath listed a number of people who hold the opposing view. My point is that the only time that this proposal has been put to the electorate in Wales, the people in Wales, whom we are here to represent, voted in support of the ban; and in the consultation, they supported that measure as well. That is why we should be voting against the clause.

There is no mandate for the clause, other than to support the smaller parties. If those who will vote for the clause tonight were really serious about helping smaller parties, why not change the system altogether to help independents, who do not have the party machinery?

[Mr Llwyd]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Albert Owen]

That would be a serious clause to have in the Bill—one designed to help the independents—but no: because the Government feel that they have somehow been done a disservice, they are helping themselves by creating the opportunity to put people in the lifeboat that is the list system.

I will give way one final time to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd).

[Mr Llwyd]

No, it is okay. Carry on.

[Albert Owen]

I thought the right hon. Gentleman wanted to defend the leader of Plaid Cymru, so I would have been happy to let him intervene. The Plaid Cymru leader sent the letter we have heard about and also made a very bold statement that she intended to stand for a constituency seat. Now, however, she is changing her mind—she thinks she may lose. She provides great evidence that what the Government want to introduce is a lifeboat system.

[Mr Hanson]

Can my hon. Friend confirm that, if my constituents chose not to elect somebody for the constituency seat who happened to be No. 1 on the list and was therefore elected, the only way they could remove that person from the No. 1 position on the list would be by electing that person for the constituency in the first place, because of the way the electoral system works? Is not that the craziness of the situation?

[Albert Owen]

It is absolutely crazy.

I shall not detain the Committee on these arguments, which have already been set out extensively, but I have not heard one argument from the Government that there is a mandate for the clause and that the people of Wales think the ban, the restriction, is unfair. It is not. It is fair. It is fair that people should stand for a constituency seat and put their position before the electorate; if they are rejected, they should accept that they have been rejected by those people and not seek to represent them through some higher list system in the future.

I shall vote against clause stand part. I hope that hon. Members will realise that the people of Wales do not want the ban to be reversed and that they will vote in accordance with what the people of Wales want us to do, which is maintain the ban so that we have constituency Members people recognise and a more open system. I regret not tabling an amendment to create a more open list system, so that the people could choose whom they want to represent them, not just the political classes of the four—perhaps five—main parties in Wales.

18:00

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) not least because he put his finger on the point about the only recent mandate being the change that my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), who made an outstanding speech, made when he was Secretary of State in 2006, which was to do away with dual candidacy. I do not know whether the people of Wales looked in detail at the manifesto, but it was in front of them. There was no other way apart from a referendum to discover whether the people of Wales wanted it. Following their voting, in the majority, for the Labour Members of the Welsh Assembly, the mandate was put into operation by the Labour Government here some time later.

One of my biggest regrets from my time as a junior Minister in the early days of the previous Labour Government when I served on the Committee chaired by my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Irvine of Lairg to look at the devolution proposals for Scotland and Wales is that I did not object either to this particular part of the legislation or to the daft system of top-ups. We were persuaded—we were duped—by the then Secretary of State for Wales into believing that anybody wanted it. The argument put forward by the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) was that the system would prevent any one particular party from having an overall majority all the time. That was also the view put forward by Donald Dewar, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, but events have now overtaken that view. Scotland ended up with a Government with a substantial majority, based on the first-past-the-post seats, so the argument no longer stands.

I am not saying that there should not be some form of proportionality, but I do not like it myself and I do not think that the people of Britain like it either. The proposal was resolutely defeated in the recent referendum on the alternative vote. My view is that the system is bad because people do not understand it. First, people do not understand why their Assembly Member, who is elected by first past the post, is supposed to be the same as their regional Assembly Member, who is elected by a top-up system. Secondly, and more appropriately, they do not understand the bizarre results that occurred in regions such as mine in south-east Wales where there were overwhelming votes in favour of the Labour party, but people were elected to the Assembly on tiny votes. Thirdly, as described with great eloquence by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath, people neither understand nor like how top-up AMs pretend to be constituency Assembly Members and use their base to try to get the constituency seat.

[Jonathan Evans]

The right hon. Gentleman knows the high regard that I have for him, but he seems to be presenting an argument that is against proportionality in this electoral system. Does he recognise that, irrespective of whether the same candidate is on both lists, the public do understand the system of top-up seats that comes through proportionality? Opinion polls in Wales regularly reveal that people intend to vote differently in relation to constituencies than in relation to regional Members, which indicates that they understand that their choices are different.

[Paul Murphy]

It can be argued that people vote differentially, as they do for the Assembly, and indeed for the House of Commons, but I see no evidence in my constituency that they vote differentially for the top-up Members and the constituency Members of the Assembly; they vote Labour—end of story. The same is true in seats that are not held by Labour, for example next door in Monmouthshire. I think that people do not understand the system. I am not arguing against the notion of proportionality, although I do not like it; I am arguing against this particular system.

Equally, with regard to clause stand part, people neither like nor understand the idea that candidates can stand and be defeated but then get in. It is a simple system that they just do not like. We used it when we were in power, of course, but that does not make it right. Ultimately, that is why people understand that the system is flawed and needs to be put right. I think that candidates should have to make up their minds and decide either to stand for the constituency and work hard at it, as everybody in the House of Commons does, or to stand for some other type of proportional system.

In my view there is a case for increasing the number of Assembly Members. The fact that there are new legislative powers in Cardiff means that the Assembly cannot go on with just 60 Members. It simply is not big enough. It is not a popular argument, but the place needs more Members if it is to work. However, I do not think that they should be elected using this system. My view, inevitably, as someone who believes in the first-past-the-post system, is that there should be two Assembly Members for each of the 40 constituencies in Wales. That could be modified with some sort of proportionality, of course, whether the alternative vote or some other system.

Ultimately, what matters is that people relate to their elected representatives, whether Members of Parliament, councillors or Members of the European Parliament. The hon. Member for Cardiff North is right about the daft system for electing MEPs—we brought it in, by the way, and ought to be ashamed of it—which means that no one knows who their local MEP is, but that is another issue. I am trying to emphasise the link between an elected Member and his or her constituency, whether two Members for the constituency or one, because people understand that. As soon as people fail to understand how their representatives are elected, the system is most certainly flawed.

[Susan Elan Jones]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope, and to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and other Members in this important debate. My mind is going back to the early hours of 2 May 1997, when a new day had dawned. There were not too many of us who had noticed that new day, because I am not talking about Labour gaining Monmouth, or Enfield, Southgate or Hove; I am talking about Surrey Heath, where the local party wanted a keen and—as was then the case—relatively young Labour candidate to fly the flag. It found one—me.

A new day really had dawned, because we had gained 11,511 votes, which was 21% of the vote. Never had that been achieved before, I thought. I felt an immense sense of victory. The campaign had had a few strange moments. There was the time I told people how important it was to have a new and reforming Labour Government who would bring in devolution. People looked at me and said, “Your campaign doesn’t belong in Surrey.” There was the time I told people that a new Labour Government would ban handguns, and they showed me their membership cards for Bisley gun club. Then there was the time I said that the Labour Government would introduce a national minimum wage. They used a few expletives and explained that they certainly did not intend to pay it to their employees.

It was not the greatest of campaigns. More to the point, after I had realised that I had won 21% of the vote, I realised that I had lost 79%. Let us, though, imagine the scenario if things had been different. Let us imagine that there had been a regional list on which I could have stood, and lo and behold, on that great heyday of the Labour party, much to the annoyance of the 79% of people who had not voted for me, suddenly, miraculously, I reappeared as No. 1 on the list in Surrey. I could have been the Member for Bisley or the Member for Chobham. The right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) would no doubt have been quaking in his boots at the concept of this Welsh misfit down in the suburbs. That shows how ridiculous dual candidacy is.

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Lady is making a good point, which is basically that PR is not a good electoral system, and I agree. However, it was her and her colleagues who agreed to a PR system for the Welsh Assembly so that they could get the thing through with the support of the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru, who would not have supported it if it was first past the post. They created this system and they are going to have to live with it. They cannot start wanting changes just because it does not suit them 10 or 15 years later.

[Susan Elan Jones]

If the hon. Gentleman looked back at the history, he would find that many people in the Labour party, including me, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and many others, supported that pluralistic system, and I still do. People talk about this in terms of partisan analysis, but we have to remember that we too, as a party, have list Members in Mid Wales and West Wales.

I am pleased that people in constituencies who feel that every time they go out to vote in a Westminster election or a constituency election for the Assembly, their candidate is not going to get in, can now feel that, yes, their vote is going to matter. I appreciate that there has to be a balance in terms of constituency representation in a region, but this remains important. We could have put, say, the candidates who stood and lost in the Pembrokeshire seats on a list. There is no partisan advantage for us, but there is a basic issue of fairness. This cannot be a two-way bet.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend may recall that the decision that many agreed to was taken on the grounds not of getting wider support but of its being good democracy. We have a system, as we still do, that cheats all but the two main parties. That is extraordinary. We had two elections where the Conservative party in Wales received 20% of the vote but had not a single MP in this House—a democratic outrage. The idea was that the Assembly was going to be set up not to have permanent one-party rule but to give all the other parties a fair chance of being represented.

[Susan Elan Jones]

That is right. It is important that on such constitutional issues we have this sort of open debate and are open to ideas, as my party certainly has been. It is possible to be progressive and pluralistic but to recognise that it would be nonsense to go back to the whole issue of dual candidacy in the Assembly. I am firmly of the view that someone should either stand for a constituency seat or be on the Assembly list. There is a very strong case—my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) made it—for open lists. These are the sorts of things we should be looking at.

Yesterday evening, I came across a leaflet. It was nothing to do with politics; it was to do with recycling. I spotted on it a comment that I thought was so good that I wrote it down. It is not exactly clause 2 of this Bill, but it could be. It said:

“Within as little as 6 weeks, the empty can you put into your recycling bin could be back on the shelf as a new can of cola or a new tin of beans.”

That is why we think that the Government have got it wrong on this one.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

It is very good to serve under your stewardship, Mr Chope.

This has been an interesting debate. After listening intently to lots of good argument by Members on both sides of the Committee, I have still failed to hear a convincing argument for once again reversing a fundamental part of the current devolution settlement, but there have been many convincing and compelling arguments for why we should stay exactly as we are. That is why, having heard the debate, I intend to support my Front-Bench colleagues.

There has not been a convincing argument to reverse the ban. As has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and others, there was only one manifesto commitment in the last set of manifestos, and that was the Labour party’s. It was based on the experience we had of the first outcomes of Assembly elections, where 17 out of those 20 candidates were defeated and then popped up again. Lord Richards, the Richards commission and others reported that among the electorate, not among politicians, there was a gut feeling that that was not right.

18:15

I agree with the points just made. I support an element of proportionality. I apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy). Although there is no ideal version, I like the idea of an element of proportionality because it gives something of a fair crack of the whip to those who otherwise would not be represented. But the public are wise to that, and they feel it is unfair that people who have been openly defeated in a straight contest to be elected on their name as well as on their party then reappear—17 out of 20 in that first election. We have heard about the Clwyd West situation. It does not matter which party the candidates came from. It would not matter if all three of them were Labour. The three candidates who were defeated re-emerged.

We can have the arguments, although it is not in any of the amendments today, about open and closed lists. We could have the argument about a different system. There may in future be an increase in the numbers and a return to two candidates for each seat, but that is not what is in front of us. What is before us is a proposal that was not in the Silk commission proposals to revert to the situation where this anomaly, as we see it, which was flagged up in the first set of Assembly elections and was the reason we changed the procedure, is put back again, against the advice of the Electoral Commission, which says, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) pointed out earlier, that we should not go chopping and changing as that adds to confusion and a feeling among the electorate that gamesmanship is involved.

[Jonathan Edwards]

As one of the more reasonable Members on the Labour Benches—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Stop!

[Jonathan Edwards]

—is it the hon. Gentleman’s view that if there were a decision in future to change the electoral system in its entirety rather than the minor change proposed in the Bill, it should be for the Assembly to make that decision, rather than the House of Commons?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

That is a good discussion to have and it will flow from part II of the Silk commission, which we will debate in the Chamber. It is a worthwhile debate to have in the present situation, where Parliament still has sovereign powers and still in essence passes to the Assembly the ability to do certain things, bearing in mind the commitment from our Front Bench in principle that we look favourably upon the idea of reversing the current position, where it is only the delegated powers that the Assembly can legislate on. That debate is not for today, but the time will come.

The explanatory notes, which Ministers seek to use to justify the reversal, say in paragraph 12 that the concern expressed by many people

“has been refuted in studies by the Electoral Commission and others which have demonstrated that the prohibition”

that is currently in place—the ban—

“has a disproportionate impact on smaller parties who have a smaller pool of potential candidates to draw upon.”

I am genuinely bemused by that. In my own constituency, which is a strong Labour constituency, not only are there Tory voters, but there are Tory elected representatives, a Plaid Cymru representative, and others. I cannot believe that they do not have a sufficient number of alternative candidates to put on a regional list.

All we are talking about is a handful—four candidates—appearing on a regional rather than first-past-the-post list. If they do not have the numbers, that is a real signal of a lack of confidence in the capacity of what have today been termed “minority parties” in the regions. I simply do not believe it—there are people who will and should come forward. Equally, we would have to do the same in the regions. There is an onus on the party to bring people forward in the valleys, the vale, west Wales and elsewhere. The argument that each region would not have four candidates who can be put on the list just does not hold water.

[Chris Bryant]

Does not this give the lie to the accusation that the Labour party gains a partisan advantage from the present law? Given that everybody else has mentioned the Rhondda, I will too. Leanne Wood originally said that she would stand for the constituency seat, but if the law is changed she will probably stand on both lists, and I think that undermines Plaid Cymru. If the law is changed, it will hurt Plaid Cymru in the end. It will mean that she will get fewer votes in the Rhondda than she would have got in the first place. More importantly, it undermines, and makes people more cynical about, the whole concept of the Assembly itself.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I entirely agree. We all make personal calculations in our political lives: we decide where we should stand, where we have connections and where we should cast our lot and go for it. However, the proposed system—this is the exact situation in the Rhondda—amounts to, “Well, I’m really going to go for this, but if all else fails there’s something I can fall back on.” My gut instinct is that that is not right and it does not feel right to many voters either.

The Bevan Foundation has been criticised, but it is a left-of-centre think tank—that is what it does. It is scandalous to say that it is simply an arm of the Labour party. If Members look at the work it has done on welfare issues, unemployment and economic incapacity in the valleys, they will see that some of it has been critical of the Labour party as well. When my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) was looking for someone to do a report, my guess is that the Institute of Economic Affairs and others were not available or did not have the knowledge of Wales to do it.

The majority of people canvassed were very concerned. I will not repeat the quotes, but people from across all parts of south and west Wales said that they could not understand how people who had clearly been defeated could then pop up. Of course, that was reiterated by the Government’s own impact assessment, to which I am sure the Secretary of Sate will refer when he explains why he is jettisoning its findings.

After the first set of Assembly elections, it is not just the Labour party that underwent a damascene conversion, as it has been called, but the Tories and Lib Dems. Lord Crickhowell, who has already been mentioned, is categorically opposed to dual candidacy and said back in 2005:

“The present arrangements are really pretty indefensible”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 June 2005; Vol. 672, c. 1216.]

The current Chief Secretary to the Treasury made exactly the same point. It was not just us or members of the public who were saying it at the time; other politicians also said, “We made a genuine mistake.”

As I said at the beginning, we can have discussions about closed and open lists in terms of proportionality and whether there is a different way of doing it, but I say adamantly to the Secretary of State that to reverse the system again, for whatever reason, is not the way to go. It does not work and it has been proven that it does not hold the confidence of people on the ground in Wales. Let us have the wider debate on the way forward, but simply to chop and change, particularly against the recommendations of the Electoral Commission, is no way to make Acts of Parliament.

[Mr David Jones]

I, of course, share the general delight at serving under your chairmanship, Mr Chope.

This has been an interesting and very forthright debate. Clause 2—it seems unnecessary to say—will overturn the ban on dual candidacy introduced by the Government of Wales Act 2006. Under its provisions, candidates at an Assembly election cannot stand both in a constituency and on a regional list. Before 2006, candidates could of course stand in both.

Amendment 15, which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), would require the Secretary of State to commission an independent review of the possible effects of dual candidacy on the effectiveness of the National Assembly for Wales and to lay the findings before both Houses within nine months of Royal Assent. I fully understand his intention in tabling the amendment and to a certain extent I empathise with him. I welcome the opportunity to debate further the merits of removing the current unfair ban. My hon. Friend has highlighted the need for independent evidence on the effects of dual candidacy, which is of course important, but the fact is that ample evidence from independent bodies shows that dual candidacy is part and parcel of similar systems across the world.

The previous Labour Government justified imposing the ban on dual candidacy on the grounds that they said there was “considerable dissatisfaction” with the system, although they provided little evidence to support that position. Frankly, having listened to the debate, I have to say that I have heard little more evidence this afternoon. We have of course had the Bevan Foundation—

[Owen Smith]

Will the Secretary of State not confirm to the House that his own consultation for the Bill showed that the majority of respondents were in favour of retaining the current system?

[Mr Jones]

It is fair to say that there was a majority of one, but frankly most of the respondents were Labour Assembly Members. As I will mention later, the letters written by those Assembly Members bore a suspicious similarity to one another. It might almost have been that a template was provided for them.

The ban was introduced despite opposition from other parties in the House, academics and even the Electoral Commission. I know that several Labour Members served on the Welsh Affairs Committee before the passage of the 2006 Act, and I am sure that they recall the evidence of Dr Richard Wyn Jones, Dr Roger Scully and Glyn Mathias, the Electoral Commissioner for Wales, who all highlighted the potentially partisan nature of the changes. Professor Alan Trench of the constitution unit at University college London, who is currently a special adviser to the Select Committee, said in November 2011 that it was

“a pretty blatantly partisan manipulation of the electoral system”.

[Mr Hanson]

In 2005, 29 Labour MPs out of the 40 MPs in Wales were elected on a manifesto commitment to discard dual candidacy. In 2010, eight Conservative MPs out of the 40 MPs were elected with no mandate to introduce dual candidacy, but the Secretary of State is now introducing it. Will he help me with that contradiction?

[Mr Jones]

It is perfectly clear that the Conservative party’s position was amply stated in the debate in 2006. That position was supported by parties other than the Labour party. It is absolutely clear that we have justice on our side in overturning a fairly straightforward partisan measure introduced by the Labour party.

[Ian Lucas]

The Secretary of State is being generous in giving way. He keeps saying that it is a partisan measure, but will he explain how it applies to the Labour party differently from how it applies to any other party in Wales?

[Mr Jones]

The position is absolutely clear: smaller parties in Wales, as we have said, have a smaller pool of first-class candidates.

[Ian Lucas]

That is nonsense.

[Mr Jones]

It is not nonsense—absolutely not. The measure was put in place to favour the Labour party.

[Owen Smith]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Jones]

No, I will make some progress. [Interruption.] I will give way in a moment.

In its evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee in 2005—I do not think the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) was a member of that Committee—the Electoral Commission stated that it did not believe that the case had been made and that it would

“caution against any change that is perceived to be partisan and could add to a prevailing distrust of politicians”.

The Electoral Commission saw no evidence in favour of the ban during the passage of the Government of Wales Act 2006. During the pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill, it reaffirmed that position. Even the Arbuthnott commission, which the last Labour Government set up to consider the electoral arrangements in Scotland, made it clear that

“dual candidacy is a common feature of mixed member proportional systems across the world”.

18:30

In ignoring those concerns and introducing the ban, the last Labour Government made the electoral system in Wales anomalous. Nowhere else in the world is dual candidacy banned under this type of electoral system. As we have heard, the last Labour Government chose not to impose a similar ban for elections to the Scottish Parliament or the London assembly, both of which use the same system. Dual candidacy is not banned in countries with similar electoral systems, such as New Zealand. This was touched on by the shadow Secretary of State, but the 2012 review by the Electoral Commission of New Zealand came to the conclusion that dual candidacy should continue to be a feature of its electoral system.

[Owen Smith]

I will take the Secretary of State back to the remarks that he made a few moments ago. Will he confirm that when he referred to the smaller parties that would benefit from the change, he was talking about the Conservative party in Wales?

[Mr Jones]

It is quite clear that the Conservative party is smaller electorally than the Labour party. That is fairly straightforward. However, I was referring not just to the Conservative party, but to the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru.

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful for that clarification. Is he therefore saying that the Conservative party in Wales struggles to field high quality candidates?

[Mr Jones]

I do not think that we have had that difficulty in the past.

The Opposition have pointed to the fact that a majority of respondents to the Government’s Green Paper consultation were in favour of retaining the ban as further evidence in support of it. However, if one takes away the many Labour Assembly Members, who responded in a strikingly similar way, that would no longer be the case. The simple fact is that the ban was introduced to benefit one party, the Labour party, in one part of the United Kingdom, Wales, and in not Scotland or London.

In his evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee during its pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill, Professor Scully said that the claims that are made about dual candidacy, which have been repeated again and again by Labour Members,

“remain wholly unsupported by solid evidence”.

I repeat that the simple fact is that the ban was introduced as a partisan act that affects smaller parties disproportionately and ensures that good quality candidates are lost to the Assembly.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Lord Bourne, who was my friend and fellow academic at Swansea Institute of Higher Education—that great factory of political candidates—is often cited as someone who lost out, did not have the list to fall back on and hence went into other occupations. However, does the Secretary of State accept that if a candidate who, for very good reasons, was wholly objectionable to the electorate—not a Lord Bourne, but somebody wholly objectionable—was No. 1 on a closed list because of the party selection, Conservative, Liberal or Plaid Cymru voters would have no choice but to vote for them? That is one of the big problems with the reversal that he is proposing.

[Mr Jones]

Absolutely not. Electors may cast their votes in any way they wish for whichever candidates they wish. That argument is wholly facile.

The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) seemed to criticise the whole concept of a top-up list. As somebody who is far more supportive of the first-past-the-post system, I have considerable sympathy for that point of view on the basis that one lives by the sword or dies by the sword. However, every party in this House supports some form of proportional election to the Assembly, as he accepted. It seemed to me that his criticisms, and those of the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), were aimed more at the consequences of the proportional representation system than at dual candidacy. Therefore, we are now legislating to remove that unfair prohibition and to reintroduce the system that was in place and worked well between 1998 and 2006.

The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean also proposes that his review would consider the implications of removing the prohibition on dual candidacy for the desirable total number of Assembly Members; the ratio of Assembly Members elected by constituency and from the regional list; and the merits of an all-Wales list, rather than lists in five separate regions.

On the implications for the desirable number of Assembly Members, we set out in the Green Paper on future electoral arrangements that we believe 60 Assembly Members is the right number, and we continue to hold that view. I note that the First Minister said in his oral evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee during pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill that the Assembly could “undoubtedly” cope with its new powers without changing the number of Assembly Members.

The Government also believe that under existing arrangements, the current ratio of constituency and regional Assembly Members is right. The Green Paper set out our belief that an all-Wales national list was not desirable as it would place more distance between regional Members and their constituents than the existing five regions—a view that I think is shared across the Committee —and again, our view has not changed.

New clause 4, tabled by right hon. and hon. Members from Plaid Cymru, seeks to establish a mechanism through an Order in Council by which competence could be devolved to the Assembly to determine its size. In a similar vein, new clause 6 would enable devolution to the Welsh Government—I think it actually means the Welsh Assembly—of the power to determine the system by which Members are elected.

Although the Silk commission made no recommendations about the electoral system, it did recommend that the size of the Assembly should be increased so that it might better fulfil its scrutiny role, and new clause 4 would pre-empt that. The commission also acknowledged the practical implications of its recommendation on the electoral system and the need for further consideration. The Government have made it clear in responding to publication of the commission’s report that any recommendation such as that requiring primary legislation should be for the next Parliament, and therefore for political parties to consider when preparing their manifestos for the 2015 general election. Of course, the commission also recommended that consideration be given to increasing capacity in the Assembly in the short term.

Earlier this year an Electoral Reform Society report found that 79% of Assembly Members surveyed believed that plenary time could be used more efficiently and effectively, and in the same survey, 90% of Assembly Members supported a comprehensive review of Assembly procedures. The Assembly and the Welsh Government have the power to change those things through Standing Orders, and I call on them to consider carefully how the Assembly could make better use of its time and the resources already available to it.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean for his amendment, which has enabled a full and extensive debate this afternoon on the merits of removing the ban on dual candidacy. I hope I have been able to reassure him, at least, and I ask him to withdraw his amendment accordingly. I also urge right hon. and hon. Members from Plaid Cymru not to press new clauses 4 and 6 to a vote.

[Mr Harper]

I am always glad to have facilitated a wide-ranging debate in Committee, as is proper, and to fully air these issues. My right hon. Friend’s explanation has been sufficient, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

18:39

Division 258

Ayes: 265

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Conservative: 227
Liberal Democrat: 34
Plaid Cymru: 3

Noes: 191

---

Labour: 190
Green Party: 1

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

The Welsh Government

[Stephen Crabb]

I beg to move, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Temporary Chairman (Mr Christopher Chope)]

With this we may take new clause 5—The National Assembly for Wales—

‘The Government of Wales Act 2006 is amended by adding at the end of section 1 (The Assembly)—

(a) The Assembly may change its name by means of a resolution agreed to by a simple majority;

(b) on the first occasion a resolution under subsection (6)(a) is passed, the expression “National Assembly for Wales” shall be replaced wherever it occurs in the GOWA 2006 by the name contained in that resolution;

(c) on any subsequent occasion, the name contained in a resolution under the terms of subsection (6)(a) shall replace the previous name in the same manner;

(d) unless the context requires otherwise, in any enactment, instrument of other document passed or made before this subsection comes into force any reference to the National Assembly for Wales is to be read as, or as including, a reference to the Assembly as renamed.”.’.

[Stephen Crabb]

Let me begin, Mr Chope, by welcoming you to the Chair. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

Following the 2011 Assembly election, the First Minister of Wales announced that the Welsh Assembly Government wished to be known instead as the Welsh Government. That change was made in order to make clearer the respective roles of the Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales following the devolution of full law-making powers. Since then, the term “Welsh Government” has increasingly been used by people throughout Wales, and it is now the commonly used term for the Executive. However, “Welsh Government” remains an informal moniker, and “Welsh Assembly Government” is still the formal legal name in statute.

In recognition of the widespread use of “Welsh Government” as the generally accepted term, and following the request from the First Minister, clause 4 provides for the name of the Executive to be changed formally. That will mean that, for the first time, the new title can be used in formal legal documents, in keeping with common parlance. The clause provides that any reference to “Welsh Assembly Government” in existing legislation should be read as a reference to the “Welsh Government”, unless the specific context requires the former name to be used.

As usual, Plaid Cymru Members wish to go even further and have tabled new clause 5, which seeks to devolve to the National Assembly for Wales the power to change its name through a resolution passed by a simple majority. In renaming the Welsh Assembly Government we are simply reflecting what the Executive are now commonly known as. The same is not the case in respect of the National Assembly; people within and outside Wales know the legislature as the “National Assembly” or the “Welsh Assembly”, and I detect no popular clamour in my constituency or any other part of Wales I visit for a change in the name of Wales’s legislature.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Is the Minister aware that the leader of the Conservative party in the National Assembly has made a manifesto pledge to change the name of the Assembly and make it a Parliament?

[Stephen Crabb]

I am aware of all kinds of views from individuals across Wales on what the name of the legislature should or could be. I also recognise that the Silk commission recommended that if the Assembly wishes to change its name to the Welsh Parliament, that should be respected. However in tabling new clause 5 and other amendments Plaid Cymru seems to be doing exactly what it has wrongly accused this Government of doing: cherry-picking the Silk recommendations for implementation through this Bill.

The Secretary of State’s written statement on 3 March made the Government’s view clear: we do not regard this Bill as an appropriate vehicle for implementing Silk II recommendations, that those recommendations requiring primary legislation should be matters for the “next Government and Parliament” and, as such, they are for political parties to consider in preparing their election manifestos. That remains this Government’s approach, so I urge Plaid Cymru Members not to press their new clause to a vote.

[Jonathan Edwards]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope.

I rise to speak in favour of new clause 5, which stands in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. We will not be pushing it to a vote, because we want to save time and to have a discussion on income tax powers, which is what we really want to discuss in detail. However, I say to the Minister that, regardless of his opening remarks, our new clause is in the spirit of clause 4, which he has just presented. I hope the Government will see sense in due course, either in the later stages of the Bill’s progress in this House or in the other place.

New clause 5 would give powers to the National Assembly to change its name to the “National Parliament” or to any other name should it so decide. I stress that the new clause does not call for the institution’s name to be changed in this Bill, but rather that the power to take this decision should be granted to the National Assembly, as proposed in the Silk II recommendations. The Minister was being somewhat mischievous in saying that we were cherry-picking from the Silk recommendations, because our new clause is in line with the Silk II recommendations, in that it is a matter for the National Assembly if it wishes to change the name of the legislature. The new clause would empower it to make that decision rather than having to make a request to the UK Government of the day, as it has done for the name of the Executive.

The new clause would mean that the National Assembly would be able to change its name by means of a resolution agreed by a simple majority. It is gratifying that clause 4 officially changes the name of the Executive to the “Welsh Government”, a title that has been used widely for practical purposes since the 2011 election. There was a Scottish precedent for this change of title in 2007, when the “Scottish Executive” were renamed the “Scottish Government”. There has been broad agreement that the term “Welsh Assembly Government”, which had been in use since 2002, had been confusing and anachronistic after the separation of the Executive and legislative functions of the Assembly in 2007. It also gave rise to the unfortunate acronym WAG—being given the same label as a premiership footballer’s better half has done little for the democracy of our country. I have never used the term since I was elected, instead always using “Welsh Government”, so I was delighted that following the 2011 election the First Minister made the case that the Executive would be known as the “Welsh Government” thereafter. So I fully support clause 4, which makes that name official in legislation.

Now that the National Assembly is able to pass its own laws, it should be called a Parliament. However, I appreciate that others hold a different view, and that in the European tradition, the meeting place of a legislature is generally termed an Assembly. In France, for instance, the national legislature is called the Assemblée Nationale—if my memory of international rugby trips to Paris serves me correctly. Surely it should be a matter for the democratically elected Members of the national legislature of Wales to determine the name of the legislature in which they serve. That is what we are trying to achieve in new clause 5, but I will not press the matter to a vote. I expect there to be greater deliberations on this topic when the Bill reaches the other place.

19:00

[Mr Harper]

I fully support clause 4, but I want to touch briefly on new clause 5, about which the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) has just been talking. I do not support new clause 5, and I am glad that he is not going to press it to a vote. Although he makes the point that the text of the new clause does not pick a particular name, there is a bit of a hint in the title about where he is going. It is, I think, a qualitative difference. The Minister, in setting out the Government’s position, made it clear that the renaming of the Welsh Assembly Government to the Welsh Government is following public opinion and public usage, and simply therefore reflecting the reality of the situation. What the hon. Gentleman and his party are trying to do is the opposite. They are trying to push for changing the name of the Assembly in order to change the nature of the Assembly. Calling it the National Parliament for Wales, which implies a single institution, is clearly part of their campaign to move to a position where Wales ceases to be part of the United Kingdom and becomes an independent country. That is not something I support, which is why I do not support the new clause and why I think it is qualitatively different from clause 4.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I was anxious not to get involved in a debate about the actual name, but the hon. Gentleman will be aware that, in the UK’s tradition, Scotland became a law-making Parliament and was named as such. That is why I make the case for using the term “Parliament”. However, there are individuals, including those in my own party, who would prefer to keep the term the National Assembly. We want to empower the National Assembly to make that decision rather than the House of Commons.

[Mr Harper]

I see that point, but the danger is that the name change becomes part of the campaign to change the nature not just of the institution but of the relationship between Wales and the United Kingdom. That is why I think that the approach the Government are taking in clause 4, which is effectively to reflect popular usage of the term Welsh Government for the Welsh Assembly Government, is perfectly straightforward and sensible. Moreover, that is done through primary legislation and therefore keeps that decision for this House. I do not support new clause 5, which would give that power to the National Assembly.

[Jonathan Edwards]

It would be wrong to describe this as some sort of partisan nationalist plot to change the name of the National Assembly. As I have already said to the Under-Secretary of State, the position of the Tory leader in the Assembly group is to change the name to a National Parliament. Indeed it is even the position of the Presiding Officer of the National Assembly who is, of course, a Labour party Member.

[Mr Harper]

I take that point. I would oppose new clause 5 whoever drafted it, because the whole concept of changing the name to achieve a political outcome is not something that I support. We can have a debate about independence and whether the Welsh Assembly should turn into a Parliament of an independent Wales, but we should have it openly. We should not use changing the name as a surreptitious way of moving along the debate and hope that nobody notices. The hon. Gentleman has cunningly designed the new clause so that it does not say anywhere what the National Assembly should be called, but, as I have said, it is given away in the title as a little hint about where he wants to go. It is whatever the parliamentary equivalent of a Freudian slip is, which gives it away.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think there may be some confusion here, because of course this Parliament enabled the Scottish Parliament to be so called, and there is no appetite for us to say to the Scottish Parliament that it can call itself what it likes—even the Scottish kingdom. Plaid Cymru is saying that the Welsh Assembly should be able to call itself what it likes, and there is, I understand, a strong case to call the National Assembly the National Parliament of Wales, but there is confusion here about what we are talking about. Scotland has no power to decide the name for itself.

[Mr Harper]

That is a good point. There are two separate arguments, one about what we should call the different institutions and another about which body is the right body to pass the legislation to enact those changes. I think that the Government’s approach in clause 4, which recognises the reality of what we call the Welsh Government and reflects that in primary legislation passed by this Parliament, is the right one, rather than the approach followed by those who have signed up to new clause 5. That is why I will oppose the new clause, but I am glad that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr is not going to press it to a vote. I hope that the Committee will support clause 4.

[Owen Smith]

I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr Chope. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

We support clause 4, which renames the Welsh Assembly Government. That is what the Welsh Assembly has long said that it would like to happen and it reflects normal custom and practice across Wales, so we are pleased that the Government have decided to change things and use the term Welsh Government in future.

On new clause 5, we accept that there is a debate to be had about the name. Silk part II refers to the prospect of a Welsh Parliament and it is ironic that the leader of the Conservative party in Wales holds that view. I admire the chutzpah with which the Under-Secretary glossed over that, as it is an irony that the Opposition see clearly. However, this is an area of debate that ought properly to be dealt with in any legislation that reflects Silk part II rather than under this Bill, which properly reflects the preponderance of Silk part I. For that reason, even if the new clause were pressed to a vote, we probably would not support it.

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree very much with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). There are two elements to the debate. The first is about what we call the legislature and the second is about where the decision is taken. As for the first, there is an emerging debate in Wales about what we should call the National Assembly and whether it should have its name changed. The leader of my party’s group in the Assembly has a view that I fully respect. He is an excellent colleague and I am sorry if I gave the impression that I was glossing over his views, but I still maintain the position that the debate is emerging and has not yet engaged with the public consciousness. Until we get to that point, it is probably a debate that will not be resolved.

As for the second part of the debate, the Silk commission referred to the decision on where the decision should be made in part II of its recommendations. We have been clear and consistent all along that decisions about the Silk part II recommendations are not for this Bill but for a future Parliament and a future Government and for the parties to consider in their manifestos. I stand by my earlier remarks and ask the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) not to press his new clause to a vote.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 4

National Assembly to set number of AMs

‘Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for the transfer of responsibility for setting the number of Assembly Members to the National Assembly for Wales.’.—(Jonathan Edwards.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

19:08

Division 259

Ayes: 4

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Plaid Cymru: 3
Green Party: 1

Noes: 254

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Conservative: 219
Liberal Democrat: 34

Clause 8

Welsh rate of income tax

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

I beg to move amendment 21, page 8, leave out line 23 and insert—

‘(1) Part 4A of GOWA 2006 (as inserted by section 6) is amended as follows.

(2) In section 116A(1) (overview), after “Part” insert “—

(a) Chapter 2 confers on the Assembly power to set a rate of income tax to be paid by Welsh taxpayers, and

(b) ”.

(3) After Chapter 1 insert—’.

This amendment and amendment 19 ensure that the overview provision in new section 116A(1) of GOWA 2006 relating to the Assembly power to set a rate of income tax can only come into force, like the other provisions relating to that power, following a yes vote in a referendum.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Christopher Chope)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 2, page 8, line 36, leave out ‘only’ and insert ‘more than’.

Amendment 3, page 8, line 36, leave out ‘only one rate’ and insert ‘up to three rates’.

This amendment is proposed to implement the recommendations of the Silk Commission that the Welsh Government have the power to set different rates of tax for different income bands.

Government amendments 22 to 28.

Amendment 16, page 12, line 34, after ‘Assembly’, insert

‘and each House of Parliament’.

Amendment 6, page 12, line 37, at end add—

‘(2) The Secretary of State shall review the impact on the Exchequer effects of the provisions in this section on residents who live within 50 miles of the Wales/England border and the impact on the prospects for tax competition within the UK, and place a copy of the review in the Library of the House of Commons.’.

Clause stand part.

Amendment 41, in clause 9, page 13, line 8, leave out ‘10’ and insert ‘15’.

Clause 9 stand part.

Amendment 1, in clause 11, page 16, line 20, leave out from ‘Wales’ to end and add

‘where a Welsh rate resolution specifies more than one rate of income tax.’.

Government amendment 19.

Amendment 38, in clause 28, page 29, line 34, after ‘except’, insert

‘sections 8 and 9 and’.

Amendment 39, page 29, line 36, at end insert—

‘(2A) Sections 8 and 9 shall not come into force until a Welsh Government Minister has laid a report before the National Assembly for Wales containing a statement to the effect that the Welsh Government, with regard to the Statement of Funding Policy, is content with the fairness of the arrangements for allocating funding from the UK Government to Wales.

(2B) Sections 8 and 9 shall be suspended following any substantive reform, amendment or other alteration of the arrangements mentioned in subsection (2A), until the process under subsection (2A) has been repeated.’.

Amendment 4, in title, line 3, leave out ‘a rate’ and insert ‘rates’.

[Mr Gauke]

rose—

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Chope. If the four people who voted in favour of new clause 4 want to express an opinion on one side of the argument or the other later this evening, is there not a case that you should weigh the voices?

[The Temporary Chair]

That could be considered. I have always been keen that we should allow the minority to express their opinion in the Chamber without having it suppressed.

[Mr Gauke]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this evening, Mr Chope, and to set out the Government’s position on clauses 8 and 9 and the Government amendments. I will also take the opportunity to comment on the amendments tabled by others and will have the chance to debate taxation powers with the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, which I am sure will bring back many happy memories for him of serving on Finance Bills.

Subject to the outcome of a referendum, clause 8 amends the Government of Wales Act 2006 to introduce a Welsh rate of income tax to be paid by those defined as Welsh taxpayers. Clause 9 amends the Income Tax Act 2007 to set out how the Welsh rate of income tax determines the Welsh basic, higher and additional rates of income tax. It also defines the income that will be taxed at those rates.

I shall start with Government amendments 19 and 21. The income tax provisions in clause 8 form part of a new part 4A of the 2006 Act, which is introduced by clause 6. Part 4A’s introductory section includes a reference to the income tax provisions in chapter 2. The provisions in clause 6 will come into force two months after this Bill receives Royal Assent. However, the income tax provisions in clause 8 and 9 can of course be brought into force only following a yes vote in a referendum. Amendment 19 therefore removes the reference to chapter 2 from clause 6, and amendment 21 reinserts the reference into clause 8, bringing the commencement of the reference into line with the rest of the income tax provisions. That will ensure that the amended Act accurately reflects the legislative competence of the Assembly at a given point.

The provisions in clause 9 concerning the Welsh rate have been revised since the draft Bill. That necessitated changes to the power to allow for further consequential changes to be made under secondary legislation introduced by clause 8 in new section 116I of the 2006 Act to ensure that it continued to work as intended. Government amendments 22, 27 and 28 make further technical changes to that power in order to clarify that proposed new section 11B does not impose a charge to income tax. Rather, the effect of the new section 11B is to apply the Welsh rates of income tax to a Welsh taxpayer’s non-savings income.

On Government amendments 23 to 26, the power in new section 116I also allows an order to be made to ensure that HMRC can continue to operate the PAYE system effectively in the event that the Assembly passes a Welsh rate resolution at a late stage in the preceding tax year. Such an order would require employers to continue to operate PAYE on the basis of the information issued by HMRC, rather than the correct tax position for a specified period. The tax position of employees would ultimately be correct over the course of the tax year.

The scenario I have set out would also apply if, for whatever reason, the Assembly did not pass a rate-setting resolution at all, assuming that that had not previously been announced by the Welsh Government. Although I accept that that is unlikely to arise in practice, it is important to recognise that the Assembly has the option not to pass a rate if it so chooses. Amendments 23 to 26 therefore extend the order-making power to cover that scenario. I hope that hon. Members will support those amendments and Government amendments 19, 21, 27 and 28.

In amendment 41, I was pleased to see an amendment from the hon. Members for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) that supports the principle of income tax devolution, although I note that their latest approach would not provide Wales with quite the same outcome that they have now proposed for Scotland. None the less, it is progress. Although I confess to not having previously studied the issue very closely, I was not sure whether the Labour party opposed income tax devolution or thought that there was not enough of it. No doubt we will receive an explanation later.

[Owen Smith]

rose—

[Mr Gauke]

Perhaps we will receive an explanation immediately. I will happily give the hon. Gentleman that opportunity.

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the Exchequer Secretary, and this of course brings back warm memories of time spent debating Finance Bills. He failed to mention our amendments 38 and 39—I presume he will do so in due course—which seek to give symmetry between Scotland and Wales in relation to tax powers. While I am on my feet, may I ask him to return to what he said earlier about Welsh taxpayers under this legislation? Will he confirm for the House that that would designate all MEPs in Wales as Welsh taxpayers, including Kay Swinburne, a Conservative, who does not live in Wales?

[Mr Gauke]

All Welsh MEPs will be Welsh taxpayers. I will deal with the amendments the hon. Gentleman mentions, although I do not think that they would achieve symmetry. I note that he was not very clear in responding to my point that only a little while ago he said that devolution of income tax to Wales was a Tory trap, or something of the sort. Now he proposes that devolving 10p is insufficient and that it should be 15p. I do not know whether he holds both views at the moment, or just one. I will certainly give way if he can provide some clarity on that point.

[Owen Smith]

Of course, they are entirely reconcilable, as I shall explain later. However, I did not hear an answer from the Exchequer Secretary on whether Kay Swinburne, the Conservative MEP for Wales, who still lives in Ledbury in England, would be designated as a Welsh taxpayer under the terms of the Bill. That strikes me as an extraordinary oversight by a Conservative Minister.

[Mr Gauke]

I will repeat what I said: Welsh MEPs will be Welsh taxpayers. I am not sure that I can be any clearer.

On the extent of income tax devolution, there is a careful judgment to be made. Devolving an element of income tax increases the financial accountability of the Assembly and the Welsh Government in three important ways. First, it will enable the Assembly to fund more of the spending for which it is responsible. Secondly, the Welsh Government will be able to vary the levels of tax and spending in Wales. Thirdly, while the Welsh Government currently control many key levers to generate economic growth in Wales such as education, skills, housing and planning, the resulting economic performance currently has no impact on their budget. Devolving an element of income tax will directly link the Welsh Government’s budget to their economic decisions.

19:30

[Mr Hanson]

What will happen to the people residing in England who, as the Minister’s hon. Friends have said, already use services in Wales such as the health service? Many people on the border who live in England use health and education services in Wales. Is it equitable that they do not pay the level of tax that might be levied by the Welsh Assembly in future?

[Mr Gauke]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the question of who is a Welsh taxpayer is dependent on who resides in Wales. I take it from what he says that he is opposed in principle to the devolution of income tax. He is nodding his head as if to say yes. He will be aware that his party has tabled an amendment suggesting that 15p, not 10p, should be devolved to the Welsh Government. I do not know how he reconciles his view with that of his Front Benchers.

[Mr Hanson]

I support my hon. Friends’ amendment to look at how this impacts across the board. The Exchequer Secretary must accept that there are people in Shrewsbury, Herefordshire and Worcestershire who use services in Wales. Would he support—I am not saying that I support this—a Welsh Assembly Government charging for services used in Wales and paid for by Welsh taxpayers but also used by English people who do not contribute to the Welsh tax burden for those services?

[Mr Gauke]

This is not about charging for public services. We have devolution of income tax in Scotland, where the issues that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned may arise. I am surprised that, as a distinguished shadow Minister, he appears to be taking a position at odds with his own Front Benchers.

[Owen Smith]

rose—

[Mr Gauke]

Perhaps if I give way to the hon. Gentleman he will explain the apparent contradiction between his amendments and a statement that seems to involve opposition to the devolution of income tax altogether.

[Owen Smith]

There is absolutely no contradiction on our part. The Minister has come very late to the debate; I do not know why the Secretary of State does not feel able to answer these questions, but that is for him to respond to. We have said throughout that we have never thought that income tax devolution to Wales was a priority. We do not think there is a significant appetite for it in Wales, and we consider that it creates a Tory trap in two respects. The Conservative party is committed, in Wales and across the rest of the UK, to cutting taxes further for the wealthiest people. The Secretary of State has said that he wants to do that. He has further said that he favours tax competition, with Wales able to undercut England. We are not in favour of that. However, given that in the Bill the Secretary of State has drawn a clear line between the quantum of income tax that is nominally to be devolved to Wales and the amount of borrowing that will be afforded to the Welsh Government, and given that £1.7 billion has been cut out of the Welsh budget, particularly in capital, we are in favour of increasing the amount of money that they might borrow. Our 10p to 15p change would achieve that, if the Welsh people agreed to it in a referendum.

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful for that lengthy speech. I may have come late to the debate, but it is perfectly clear that Labour has been all over the place on this matter. I come back to what I said about the advantages of devolving income tax. One of those, very significantly, is that there is much greater accountability for the Welsh Government, because if they are able effectively to use the powers that they currently have to get the Welsh economy to grow, they will benefit from that as a consequence of increased revenues.

[Mr Harper]

Perhaps I can help to answer the question asked by the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). First, my constituents who have to use the NHS in Wales do not want to, would love not to and would like to use the NHS in England. Working with the Secretary of State for Health, I hope we will be able to put that in place by the end of this year, as he has pledged in the House.

Secondly, all UK taxpayers make a contribution to the Exchequer, which supplies the block grant to Wales that, of course, part-funds public services. Given that we are talking about a partial devolution, there is still quite a lot of money coming from the block grant and any of my constituents who are using public services will, of course, have paid their fair share.

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend makes two valuable points. I presume that his very good argument about the block grant would be weakened if the devolved amount was 15p rather than 10p.

[Geraint Davies]

The Minister has made the case that, if the Welsh economy expands relative to the English economy, the new regime—the Welsh Exchequer, as it were—would gain. However, the corollary of that, of course, is that if the English economy grows faster than the Welsh economy as a result of the current Government generating growth through a London housing bubble, Wales will lose out. Why is the Minister putting only one half of the argument when this could in fact be a hidden trap?

[Mr Gauke]

One of the attributes of devolving an element of income tax is that it will ensure that the Welsh Government have the incentives to grow the economy as strongly as possible. I am rather surprised that the hon. Gentleman has so little faith in the Welsh Government that he does not want to encourage this opportunity and that he does not have the confidence that, by pursuing the right policies, the Welsh economy can grow significantly. I would have thought that that is what he wanted.

[Geraint Davies]

The Minister knows that investment and economic development in Wales would deliver jobs and that that would reduce social security costs and increase income tax. There is no proposition for social security to be devolved, so a lot of the benefits will be in England. What is more, with this new manifestation of the policy—this half-cocked version—there is a real danger that, if a London-centric recovery occurs, Wales will lose out.

[Mr Gauke]

Again, I am not sure that a contribution from the Labour Back Benches is entirely aligned with the views of those on the Labour Front Bench.

[Geraint Davies]

We’ve got a democracy here!

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Christopher Chope)]

Order. Only one person can speak at a time.

[Mr Gauke]

I am sorry that I have clearly touched a nerve with the hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.]

[The Temporary Chair]

Order.

[Mr Gauke]

I continue to touch a nerve with the hon. Gentleman. If tax receipts grow in Wales as a consequence of greater economic growth—after all, the Welsh Government have powers over education, skills, housing and planning—it will be to the advantage of Wales and the Welsh Government. I have no doubt that it is the desire of the Welsh Government to do the best for the Welsh economy. This is an opportunity to benefit from growth and increased tax receipts.

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. This is like all our yesterdays, in that we are debating, by implication at least, the Laffer curve. He said a moment ago that if Wales were to pursue the right policies, it would see economic growth by deploying these new powers. Does he mean by that that taxes in Wales should be cut, as the Secretary of State has said he would do? If so, which taxes does the Exchequer Secretary propose to cut and by how much?

[Mr Gauke]

That is a matter for the Welsh Government. They might want to pursue tax policies, but I repeat that policies on education, skills, housing and planning all contribute towards economic growth. The situation at the moment is that the Welsh Government control many of the key levers to generate economic growth, but do not currently benefit from any resulting economic performance through the impact on its budget. This devolution of tax will address that situation. Equally, to go back to the point made by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), it means that if bad policies are pursued and they damage growth, that will have a consequence for the Welsh economy. I am sure that he is not suggesting that the Welsh Government will pursue growth-damaging policies.

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Owen Smith]

rose—

[Mr Gauke]

I will give way one last time to each hon. Gentleman.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the Minister accept that although some powers to effect economic performance are in Wales, the mass of powers are in this place in terms of the Exchequer, our relationship with the Bank of England and macro-economic policies across the United Kingdom? With the budget that it has, Wales alone cannot determine its economic future. To say so is simply misleading, and he should withdraw it. It is a disgrace.

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman may say that the mass of powers are here, but we are talking about a relative test involving Wales versus the rest of the United Kingdom. United Kingdom policies apply across the United Kingdom; the specific policy of the Welsh Government may result in changes in growth in the economy and the impact of that on the budget.

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Mr Gauke]

I will now give way to the hon. Member for Pontypridd. I think that I have—[Interruption.]

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Christopher Chope)]

Order. The Minister is not giving way to the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). We must have some order. There are not many Members in the Chamber, but they seem to be making a mockery of the rules of order. I think that the Minister is giving way to the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith).

[Owen Smith]

I merely wanted to ask whether, while talking about good and bad policies, the Minister would care to congratulate the Welsh Government on the good policy of Jobs Growth Wales. The policy has been seven times more effective than the Work programme in Wales, and has resulted in Wales having higher growth and, indeed, better unemployment figures than anywhere else in the UK.

[Mr Gauke]

It is worth pointing out that 12,000 new jobs, as I understand it, have been created under the Work programme in Wales, but I think that I should make a little progress, Mr Chope.

The change involves creating incentives for the Welsh Government, which of course means transferring some risks to them. Specifically, the Welsh Government’s budget will benefit if the income tax base grows faster in Wales than the UK average, but it will be adversely affected if growth in Wales is slower. Crucially, the larger the proportion of income tax that we devolve, the greater the potential impact on the Welsh Government’s budget. Devolving 15p of income tax would increase the size of the impacts by 50% compared with devolving 10p. There is a balance to be found between risks and rewards, and at this stage we see no evidence to suggest that we should move away from the Silk commission’s assessment, which resulted in the recommendation to devolve 10p of income tax. That recommendation is now reflected in the Bill.

[Owen Smith]

Will the Minister give way a final time?

[Mr Gauke]

I remember debates on Finance Bills in which it was very difficult to speak for long without a contribution from the hon. Gentleman, and nothing has changed. I will give way again.

[Owen Smith]

I aim to entertain and to scrutinise legislation properly. Simply on the question of risk, will the Exchequer Secretary tell us what risk the Welsh Government will bear in relation to the potential costs of the change? We know that it will cost between £40 million and £42 million to do it in Scotland. Will it be more or less for Wales? How much will it be?

[Mr Gauke]

At this point, it is not possible to say what the cost will be. I must say that, with the gain in greater accountability and the greater devolution of powers, hon. Members should welcome the change. The hon. Gentleman is aware that the issue is one for a future referendum. Whether the Welsh people want to go down such a route is a question for them, and such matters will clearly be relevant to that debate. However, on having a 10p rate rather than a 15p rate, I hear the arguments in favour of essentially no devolution whatsoever and those for having a larger sum, but we believe that we have got the balance right. I hope that hon. Members will accept the balance achieved by the Silk commission recommendation, and that the hon. Gentleman will not persist with amendment 41.

19:45

[Mr Mark Williams]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and the Wales Office on their work on this matter. I endorse the principles behind the Silk commission and the legislation. Although my hon. Friend alluded to Silk, he has not yet mentioned the principles behind the lockstep and not giving the Welsh Government the capacity to vary rates between the bands. Some of us still have concerns about that.

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend because he takes me neatly on to the next line of my speech.

Amendments 1 to 4, which were tabled by Plaid Cymru, relate to the single Welsh rate of income tax—the so-called lockstep system. Fundamentally, income tax devolution must work within the integrated UK-wide income tax system. It must work for Wales by increasing the accountability of the Assembly and the Welsh Government, and it must work for the UK by maintaining the stability of the tax system.

Following a thorough and robust assessment of the Silk commission recommendations, we have determined that that would be most effectively achieved through a single Welsh rate of income tax that applied to all bands. There are two main reasons for that. First, the pooling and redistribution of tax revenues is a key feature of our fiscal model and ensures that wealth is shared among the regions and countries of the UK. The income tax structure is a key mechanism for achieving wealth redistribution. It is surely right, therefore, that UK-wide redistribution is decided at the UK level. The lockstep ensures that that will continue to be the case.

Secondly, although there are many benefits of tax devolution, it is not without risk. Specifically, we need to minimise the potential for harmful tax competition, increased opportunities for tax avoidance and evasion, and higher administrative burdens. It is therefore crucial that when we devolve taxes, we do so in a way that minimises those risks. In particular, the Government have consistently been clear that tax devolution should not benefit one part of the UK to the detriment of another. Tax devolution is not about moving economic activity from one area to another, but about empowering the devolved Administrations to generate additional growth and increasing their accountability by linking their budgets to their decisions. That incentivises the devolved Administrations and increases their accountability to the people, in this case in Wales.

Without the lockstep, the Welsh Government could substantially lower the rates of tax for the upper bands in Wales without making any change to the basic rate. That would be a considerable incentive for high earners to move across the border, which would benefit Wales, but would be to the detriment of the UK as a whole. Instead, the lockstep system will enable the Welsh Government to vary the levels of tax and spending in Wales, but the size of any differences will be unlikely to lead to tax competition. For example, they would be similar to the existing differences between the levels of council tax in neighbouring local authorities in Wales.

Devolving an element of income tax is therefore best achieved using the lockstep system. That will enable us to deliver substantial benefits to Wales, while continuing to redistribute wealth throughout the income tax system and minimise the risk of tax competition. I hope that I have helped hon. Members to understand our rationale for the lockstep system. I therefore ask them not to press amendments 1 to 4.

[Jonathan Edwards]

rose—

[Mr Gauke]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will take this opportunity to say that he will not press those amendments.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that he has contradicted himself? Indeed, the whole Wales Bill is contradictory. He is arguing that the powers are needed to incentivise the Welsh Government to develop economic growth, but he is placing a lockstep on those powers, making it impossible to use them. It is essentially a handcuff on those powers. There is a huge contradiction in what he is saying.

[Mr Gauke]

I do not accept that the powers are impossible to use. One can debate whether the rates should be varied, but the fact that there will be greater accountability will benefit Wales as a whole. We must balance the improvement in accountability in Wales with the difficulties that might arise with tax competition in the higher rates, which would be likely to damage the tax base in the UK as a whole. That is why we proceeded with a lockstep.

On amendment 6, tabled by the hon. Member for Pontypridd, I assure the Committee that the Government always consider the impacts of potential policy options and keep policies under review. An assessment of the potential impacts of devolving elements of income tax to the Welsh Assembly is summarised in the documents accompanying the introduction of the Wales Bill, in particular the Command Paper and the impact assessment. That assessment explains how the proposed system of income tax devolution achieves the key benefits identified by the Silk commission, increasing the accountability of the Assembly and Welsh Government and providing flexibility over the levels of tax and spending in Wales, while also minimising the risks of tax competition in the UK whereby significantly different tax rates could affect the behaviour of people living close to the border.

The Government’s assessment of the Silk commission’s proposals look closely at the potential for harmful tax competition in the UK, particularly given the populous border between England and Wales. As a result of that work, the Government rejected a system of three independent Welsh rates of income tax, instead proposing the lockstep system. As I have previously explained, that system specifically helps to minimise the risk of harmful tax competition in the UK. I hope hon. Members agree that the assessment we have undertaken is suitably robust, and that they are reassured by our commitment to keep the policy under review. Clause 22 requires the Government to report annually on the implementation and operation of the finance provisions of the Bill, so we will keep Parliament informed in that regard. On that basis I hope that hon. Members will not press amendment 6.

Amendment 16 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) as recommended in the Silk commission’s report of November 2012, and clause 8 provides for the Comptroller and Auditor General to report directly to the National Assembly for Wales on HMRC’s administration of the Welsh rate of income tax. That will provide independent assurance to the Assembly on HMRC’s performance in administering this tax. The Comptroller and Auditor General currently reports to Parliament on HMRC’s administration of its business, including the operation of the UK’s income tax system. Should the Welsh rate of income tax be introduced, it will be operated as part of the UK income tax system. The NAO would therefore be able to report to Parliament in relation to the Welsh rate as part of its existing remit, and clause 8 ensures that reporting to the Welsh Assembly on the Welsh rate will additionally fall within the NAO’s remit.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend will know from Second Reading that my concern is about companies based in my constituency that employ people, some of whom are resident in England and some in Wales, because there would be an administrative burden on those companies should there be a Welsh rate of income tax. I think the Minister has addressed this point, but will he confirm whether that burden—to the extent that it exists—will effectively be reported not just to the Welsh Assembly but also to this House? Members who represent English residents have a legitimate interest in how that complexity will hit local firms. If the Minister could be absolutely clear on that, there will be no need to press the amendment to a vote.

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point and I hope I can reassure him. There already exist mechanisms for scrutiny in relation to the Welsh rate by Parliament through existing vires. HMRC’s accounts would contain specific information on the Welsh rate, and they will continue to be laid before Parliament. Hon. Members will be presented with the levels of spending incurred by HMRC in administering the Welsh rate and the amounts of revenue collected. I believe that those existing channels provide an appropriate level of scrutiny for hon. Members in relation to the Welsh rate, and I hope that addresses my hon. Friend’s point.

I also think it right for additional insurance to be provided to the Assembly via the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report, and we anticipate that that report would be produced to a timetable similar to that of the wider report to Parliament on HMRC’s accounts. No doubt my hon. Friend will shortly contribute to the debate, but I have set out the existing mechanisms for scrutiny that will be available to Members of this Parliament, and I hope he is reassured.

On amendments 38 and 39, we have been working closely with the Welsh Government on Welsh funding. In particular, the Government recognise there has been convergence between the levels of funding in Wales and England since devolution, and that this is a significant concern in Wales. As a result, in October 2012 we agreed to implement a joint process to review the levels of funding in Wales and England in advance of the spending review. If convergence is forecast to occur over the course of the spending review period, options will be discussed to address the issue in a fair and affordable manner, based on a shared understanding of all the available evidence.

In advance of the 2013 spending round, a joint review was therefore undertaken by the two Governments and the outcome set out in a written ministerial statement. The review determined that funding levels are not expected to converge during the period to 2015-16, and in fact an element of divergence is forecast to occur. The review also determined that relative funding levels in Wales are within the range recommended by the Holtham commission.

These arrangements assure that we have a shared understanding of funding levels in Wales and a process is in place to consider options should convergence be forecast to resume. In no way would the devolution of income tax have any impact on these arrangements, and it is certainly not the case that income tax devolution would lock in the current level of funding. These arrangements therefore provide a firm basis for proceeding with the new financial powers in the Bill, and I hope that hon. Members will therefore not press amendments 38 and 39. I hope that my comments have been of assistance to the Committee, and that clauses 8 and 9 and the Government amendments will be added to the Bill this evening.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I wish to speak to amendments 1, 2, 3 and 4, in my name and the names of my colleagues in Plaid Cymru. We intend to press amendment 1 to a Division at the appropriate time.

The lockstep income tax power that is on offer in this Bill is not the one recommended by the Silk commission. We see two ways forward to preserve the integrity of the original Silk proposals. Either the lockstep income tax power should proceed without a referendum, which amendment 1 would achieve, or the Bill should be amended as per the Silk commission recommendation on income tax, which amendments 2, 3 and 4 seek to do, thereby restoring the need for a referendum, as Silk envisaged, on an income tax sharing arrangement without a lockstep.

I remind hon. Members that their parties, through their representatives on the commission, agreed to the Silk recommendations. Indeed, the Labour party’s representative on the commission was the esteemed former Assembly Member, Sue Essex, who is of course a former Finance Minister in the Welsh Government. The purpose of amendment 1 is to ensure that the referendum is on the ability of Wales to vary each income tax band individually, rather than the lockstep that is proposed in the Bill.

I believe that we should not have a referendum on these powers. The borrowing powers that will accompany the income tax powers would be essential to move the economy forward. Capacity will increase with the income tax powers. However, I accept the position of my party that a referendum should be held on the original Silk recommendations. In my view, the principle of fiscal devolution has already been conceded in this Bill—we will discuss the minor taxes next week—so the case for a referendum is not very strong.

Amendments 2, 3 and 4 would alter the Bill so that the lockstep is removed from the income tax power, giving Wales the ability to vary income tax band rates independently of each other, subject to a referendum, as per the original recommendation of the Silk commission. As the Bill stands, the lockstep on the ability to vary income tax in Wales means that all three bands can be moved up or down only in tandem, as is the case in Scotland. I hesitate to point out that those powers have never been used in Scotland, even though they have been available since devolution in 1999. Of course, the Silk recommendation was for the power to vary income tax band rates independently of each other. In reality the lockstep kills the ability to vary income tax at all, which strengthens the argument that I put to the Minister in an intervention—the lockstep hinders what the Government claim to be trying to achieve in the Bill, which is to incentivise the Welsh Government to develop their economy. Without the ability to introduce innovative income tax policy, how are they meant to achieve that?

19:59

The Tory and Liberal Democrat UK coalition Government put narrow party interests before the Welsh national interest and added the lockstep to the income tax powers, riding roughshod over not only the people of Wales but the supposedly autonomous parties and colleagues in Wales. They ignored the fact that they had signed up to the Silk proposals via their own commissioner. Meanwhile, the Labour party, at its recent spring conference in Llandudno, said that it wanted for Wales what its devolution commission has settled on in Scotland. That goes beyond the Tory lockstep, with the added handicap that the band can be moved only one way—upwards. That is why I have labelled it “lockstep-plus”. This goes against everything that First Minister Carwyn Jones and Finance Minister Jane Hutt were saying for months prior to the Bill being introduced by the UK Government. They argued that the lockstep must be removed and Wales be given the ability to vary the bands individually, as recommended by the Silk commission. Having said that, we support amendment 41 from the Labour party, which would increase the fiscal responsibility of the Welsh Government up from 10p to 15p.

[Hywel Williams]

Does my hon. Friend find it peculiar that Labour’s position is to allow an increase in taxes in Wales, thereby handing a tax advantage to England? Its only policy on tax competition is to move it in favour of our friends in England.

[Jonathan Edwards]

That is an important intervention. The Labour party’s position is that it is worried about tax competition, yet, based on its tax policy, the only tax competition that could happen would favour England and other parts of the British state.

[Owen Smith]

Let us be absolutely clear: Labour has not argued, and is not arguing, for a tax increase in Wales. We know that the Conservative party is saying that it wants to cut taxes for the wealthiest in Wales. We are seeking to future-proof the legislation so that a Labour Government in Wales would be able to mitigate against further Tory tax cuts for the wealthiest, and introduce tax justice in Wales.

[Jonathan Edwards]

That is the crux of the argument, and the division between the Labour party and my party. My view is that we should empower the National Assembly and have a mature debate in Wales about what the level of taxation should be. I think the hon. Gentleman is aware of where my political conscience lies—I tabled an amendment to the Finance Bill to reinstate the top rate to 50p. Let us have the debate. Let us trust our Assembly Members to have the debate and let us see the National Assembly mature. The one thing that devolving responsibility for these powers will do is lead to the maturing of the Assembly. Hopefully, we will see the growth and development of our democracy in Wales.

When the Welsh Affairs Committee carried out the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, we had independent witness after witness—I hasten to add that my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) had taken over my role in the Committee for that period, as I was enjoying my paternity leave with my son Llywelyn—giving evidence, except of course the Secretary of State and Treasury Ministers, arguing that the lockstep should be removed. Those giving evidence included the leaders of all the parties in the Assembly, not least the leader of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives in Wales. Several distinguished economists, academics and experts, as well as the Chair of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, also gave evidence. When the Welsh Affairs Committee visited Scotland following the initial Silk report, there was much excitement about its proposals. Academics, economists, civil servants, Ministers and Back Benchers in the Scottish Parliament were all in favour of Silk’s proposals for Wales, as opposed to what they have in the Scotland Act 2012.

I need not remind Labour Members present that the Labour First Minister, Carwyn Jones, said that the lockstep is a “Tory trap” and that it should be removed. He said the lockstep was “a long way short” of what was considered to be good for Wales, adding that

“binding the rates together is not right for Wales”.

That is a clear indication of the need to remove the lockstep on income tax varying powers.

We in Plaid Cymru are seeking, through amendment 21 and several other amendments, to maintain the integrity of the original cross-party Silk commission recommendations. We believe that the Welsh economy needs that sensible package of reforms in order to increase its ability to bring about economic growth and create jobs. We believe that it is a necessary tool, which will help us to begin to rebalance the economy of the British state by giving greater power to the nations and regions, and will help Wales to begin to lift itself from the bottom of the UK economic league table.

In its present form, the Bill requires Wales to hold a referendum on the lockstep model of income tax and win it in order to gain access to the higher limit applying to borrowing to fund investment. We believe that Wales needs access to that money in order to invest sensibly in infrastructure, secure a good return on its investment, and provide jobs that will have a beneficial effect on the state of the Welsh economy. We are all mindful of the huge cuts in its capital budget that the National Assembly has suffered under the coalition Government.

Given that the lockstep was not the compromise agreed by the parties during the Silk commission’s deliberations, it would surely make more sense to devolve the model without the need for a costly referendum. It is simply an income tax sharing model, with a 90-10 split between the United Kingdom and Welsh Governments. Giving the Welsh Government the ability to vary tax is a theoretical exercise that, as the Treasury well knows, cannot become reality with a lockstep—hence the strings that are attached in the Bill. The big prize of what we propose would be the increased borrowing capacity that I believe is required to help the Welsh economy to regenerate and renew itself.

It is clear that all the other parties are now putting narrow self-interest ahead of the Welsh economy by attaching conditions and caveats to Wales’s gaining of greater fiscal and financial powers. The Tories and Liberal Democrats have their condition of the lockstep, while Labour has its caveat in regard to reform of the Barnett formula, on which its members continue to contort and refuse to commit themselves despite citing it as a precondition for greater financial powers for Wales.

As for the debate in Wales, Andrew R. T. Davies and Kirsty Williams have announced some exciting tax policies that they wish to pursue in relation to the ability to vary taxes. Unfortunately, their colleagues down here in London are completely undermining what they have pledged to the people of Wales in various policy announcements. That is a big hit to their credibility, which may be why the Secretary of State introduced the lockstep: perhaps he wanted to undermine Andrew R. T. Davies.

There has already been much public debate in Welsh civil society about the issue of the lockstep and the power to vary income tax bands individually in Wales. There has been controversy as the lockstep row has engulfed the Conservatives. The Welsh Secretary has claimed that the mechanism would not prevent Welsh Ministers from using the powers—although they have not been used in Scotland since 1999—and has suggested that a 1p cut across all three bands would increase Wales’s competitiveness, a claim which, according to the Welsh Government, would cost £200 million a year. Meanwhile, the leader of the Conservatives in the Assembly rejected the lockstep in his submission to the Welsh Affairs Committee hearing on the powers, prompting a damaging fall-out with the Secretary of State. All the Tory Assembly Members were seconded down here to No. 10 Downing street to try to repair some of the damage.

We are often given the impression that it is the Treasury that does the overruling in all these matters. If Scotland does not have it, Wales surely cannot have it. However, the ability to vary income tax bands individually, as per Silk, would truly allow for the ability actually to vary income tax in Wales, and would be a significant step in the maturing of our democracy. As I said in our first debate this afternoon, it would provide a very positive narrative for the Westminster parties in relation to Scotland, demonstrating that they were serious about reforming the settlement of the UK and going beyond what Scotland has at present.

[Mr Mark Williams]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have a great deal of sympathy with him in regard to the lockstep, and, indeed, with one of his Select Committee colleagues who voted to remove it from the Bill. However, he is ending his speech—I think it is coming to an end: I think he has reached the last sheet—on an incredibly negative note. Does he accept that, in ensuring that our National Assembly has fiscal accountability, the Bill still represents a huge advance on the status quo? I sincerely hope that he will support it on Third Reading for that reason, whatever happens to his amendment this evening.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Of course the hon. Gentleman is right. We do support the Bill, but we want to use the opportunities provided by the Committee stage to strengthen and improve it. In my view, the lockstep is one provision that needs urgently to be removed. If the United Kingdom Government are determined to introduce it, let us devolve it in the Bill and then have a referendum on its removal. Why have a referendum on the lockstep mechanism?

The Secretary of State has spoken before of his belief that Wales needs the ability to vary income tax in order to be competitive—spoken as a true Conservative—but then does not offer a power that actually allows for any variation in income tax. That is the huge contradiction in the Bill as it stands. It is time for him and his Government to put their money where their mouth is and support our amendments—I am not holding out much hope—and for the Labour Members present to support what their party in Wales is saying by supporting us in the Lobby later.

[Glyn Davies]

This is a very important debate. The Bill is incredibly wide ranging and has lots of aspects to it, but the one issue that dominates it, as much the most important aspect, is the devolution of meaningful tax-raising powers to the National Assembly for Wales, and that involves a significant part of income tax. In doing that, the Bill will deliver financial accountability to the Welsh Government, which has been lacking since the National Assembly for Wales was established.

Let me give some context by saying something about my own background. In 1997, I was opposed to the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales, because I thought we were considering setting up a body that was not meaningful. I recall being at the count in Llandrindod Wells when the result for Carmarthenshire came through, and there were great celebrations because a yes vote had been snatched from defeat at the last minute. I recall driving home and thinking to myself that that was a key moment, and from then on I have taken the view that the National Assembly for Wales should have law-making powers and meaningful tax-raising powers. If we did not have those two powers, we were creating something that was simply not worth while. That is why this Bill is particularly important and we are dealing here with the key part.

It does not make any sense to have a Welsh Government who claim credit and say how good they are whenever they do something the people of Wales approve of but whenever something is done that the people of Wales do not approve of say, “We cannot do that because we do not have enough money from Westminster.” They transfer the blame, and they do not become a meaningful body until they are responsible for raising their own taxation. All of us know that from other things we might have done in our lives. When I was chair of Berriew community council, a very small village council, the biggest debate we had in the year was about whether we should levy 1p on the rates, just as a precept. It was much the biggest debate because it involved balancing what we wanted to spend with the demands on the ratepayers and it made us think clearly about the decisions we were taking. The same thing applied when I was the finance chairman of Montgomeryshire district council. We had an all-day debate every year about 1p on the rates, because again it was about balancing what the council wanted to spend against what we wanted to raise. That is what has always been lacking in the National Assembly.

I was a Member of the Assembly for eight years, at one stage being the finance spokesman, and I would never use the term “budget” as to my mind it was always an annual spending plan. It was not a genuine budget because it was not informing the people that it wanted money from them and that a balance was being struck between spending and demanding money from the ratepayers. So I am strongly in favour of the income tax proposal, because it is hugely important and it is why I really welcome the Bill. There are other parts of the Bill where my support is at varying levels, but the income tax proposal will be crucial.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will know that I have always had some doubts about the need for a referendum. If we believe passionately that a body must have tax-raising powers to be a viable parliamentary body, we should commit ourselves in our manifestos to going forward with this proposal and then delivering it afterwards. I have come to accept that for two reasons, one of which is that there is a general expectation because of the referendum in Scotland that there will be a referendum on income tax-raising powers in Wales.

The second reason is that I want to stay as true as I can to the Silk commission report, which recommended a referendum, and all parties signed up to that. In pursuing this issue, I think I have to accept that there will be a referendum.

There has been a lot of discussion about the lockstep and the lack of freedom for the Welsh Government to vary individual rates. There will be different views on that, but I perfectly accept the rationale of the argument of the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). I must say though that it diverts us from the huge step forward that the Bill represents.

20:15

The Bill gives the National Assembly for Wales—the Welsh Government—financial accountability for what they do. We have two days of debate in Committee. By giving income tax powers to the National Assembly, we are trying to create the foundation stone on which we can build a proper body in Cardiff Bay, serving, and answerable to, the people of Wales with true financial accountability. For that reason this proposal and the Wales Bill itself deserve our full support.

[Owen Smith]

It is a pleasure, Mr Hoyle, to serve under your chairmanship, and to call you by your true name. This clause is one of the most important in the Bill, so it is a shame that we do not have a huge amount of time to discuss it. There are many important questions about how it will work in practice in Wales. The Exchequer Secretary attempted to answer some, but not all, of those questions, and there remains significant uncertainty as to how income tax varying powers would work in Wales and what the real risks would be to the Welsh Government’s budget and to the services on which the Welsh people rely through that budget.

I take some comfort from the Minister’s observation that there is probably a long time between today and these measures being deployed in anger in Wales. Crucially, from our perspective, we have been clear about the triple lock—about knowing that this would be good for Wales and for the Welsh budget, that fair funding was secured for Wales and that the Welsh people had assented at a referendum to these measures being employed in Wales. All of those three tests would have to be passed.

However, there remains on our part significant concerns about the motivation behind these proposals from the Conservative Government. We are suspicious that the true motivation is to cut taxes in Wales for the wealthiest, as the current Government have done across the rest of the UK. That suspicion is based on a very clear reading of the statement made by the leader of the Conservative party in the National Assembly, who, in a wide-ranging speech last year, explicitly called for cuts solely to the top rate of tax in Wales. This is not a fantasy on our part. The leader of the Tories says that he wants to cut just the top rate, and the Secretary of State wants tax competition through cutting across the board.

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, under the provisions in this Bill, a tax cut for one rate of income tax will apply to every rate of income tax. Does he understand that point, because that is what a lockstep means?

[Owen Smith]

I entirely understand that point, absolutely, completely and utterly. I also understand that the leader of the Conservative party in Wales has placed on the record his desire to cut solely the top rate of tax—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State is muttering from a sedentary position. I presume that he is referring to his colleague, the leader of the Tory party in Wales, because it was he who called for a cut to the top rate of tax. We understand perfectly well how this legislation will work in Wales, but we are not in favour of any one part of Britain undercutting another through tax competition, which is unfortunately the position of the Secretary of State for Wales—[Interruption.] He keeps chuntering from a sedentary position that I do not understand it, but, dare I say, if he had greater faith in his own understanding of his own Bill, introduced in this House with amendments tabled in his name, he would stand at the Dispatch Box to explain the Treasury position and the tax amendments. Unfortunately, he clearly does not understand it sufficiently not to have to rely on his colleague the Exchequer Secretary. We are extremely grateful to the Exchequer Secretary for turning up to act as a human shield for the Secretary of State for Wales, but it is a crying shame that the Secretary of State and the Minister require his support.

[Mr Gauke]

There is no doubt that the Secretary of State understands the measure but, given what we have heard so far from the shadow Secretary of State, perhaps it would have been better if one of the shadow Treasury team had been making the speech instead. They might have understood it.

[Owen Smith]

The Exchequer Secretary can continue to attempt to suggest that I do not understand the Bill, but I understand it perfectly. I understand perfectly how lockstep works, but equally understand that this Government have cut taxes for the wealthiest in Britain. They have exclusively cut the additional 50p rate to 45p. I also know that his party in Wales has proposed that it would like to go further with Wales, so he will forgive us if we are suspicious of the “tax cuts for the wealthy” motives of the Conservative party. I think we will continue to be suspicious. Unless he would like to get to his feet and tell us that he does not intend that his colleagues in Wales should cut taxes for the wealthiest, I suspect that he will not wish to intervene further.

On the subject of the complexity and cost of the Bill, the Exchequer Secretary left us entirely without answers about how it will work. In order to illustrate its complexity, I highlighted that he has today moved a poorly drafted clause that will see a Welsh Tory Member of the European Parliament who does not live in Wales and who does not have a residence of any description in Wales, but who lives in England, designated as a Welsh taxpayer. The logic of that is entirely lost on me, but I should have thought that he would want to check who his European Members are in Wales and where they lived before he determined that they would get a tax break—in her case, a £700 tax break—were his Government to do what the Secretary of State for Wales has suggested and cut all the tax bands in lockstep by 1%. That is the tax cut that she would get in Wales, despite the fact that she does not actually live in Wales.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Gentleman’s point about Kay Swinburne is an interesting one. Based on that, where does he expect that Stephen Kinnock will pay taxes should he be successful in winning Aberavon? Would it be in Aberavon, in Copenhagen or where he pays tax at the moment, in a tax haven in Switzerland?

[Owen Smith]

rose—

[Hon. Members]

Just answer.

[Owen Smith]

I intend to answer. I fully anticipate that my friend, Mr Kinnock, were he to be so lucky as to win the forthcoming general election and be returned as the hon. Member for Aberavon, a great and noble seat in the Welsh Labour tradition, intends, as he has stated on the record, to live in Aberavon. The irony of this poorly drafted legislation that has been brought before us by those on the Treasury Bench today is that it would not matter where he lived. He could live in Copenhagen or in England and he would still, for the purposes of this half-cocked Bill, be considered a Welsh taxpayer. I do not think that the people of Aberavon would understand that and I suspect that the people of Wales will not understand why an English Tory MEP living in Ledbury will be deemed a Welsh taxpayer.

Let me return to the point about the complexity, if I may, and read a small section of the Bill to the Minister for the delectation of the House. It is entitled “Close connection with Wales or another part of the UK” and can be found in proposed new section 116G in clause 8. It says in subsections (3) and (4):

“T”—

the Welsh taxpayer—

“has a close connection with a part of the UK if in that year—

(a) T has 2 or more places of residence in the UK,

(b) for at least part of the year, T’s main place of residence in the UK is in that part of the UK,

(c) the times in the year when T’s main place of residence is in that part of the UK comprise (in aggregate) more of the year than the times when T’s main place of residence is in each other part of the UK (considered separately), and

(d) for at least part of the year, T lives at a place of residence in that part of the UK.

(4) In this section ‘place’ includes a place on board a vessel or other means of transport.”

I read those subsections for the enjoyment of the Leader of the House, who I am delighted to say has joined us, to point out what a ludicrously complex piece of drafting that is, and what a ludicrously complex Bill it is. We point that out because attending that complexity is cost—enormous cost.

The Secretary of State, or rather the Exchequer Secretary—the Secretary of State did not answer because he was not at the Dispatch Box—could not tell us how much it would cost to implement these measures in Wales. That is a surprise. He also talked about accountability. He might have been a little more accountable for his own Department, because it is today that the Government and his Department should have published the second annual report on the implementation of part 3 of the Scotland Act, inwhich we were anticipating, as outlined in the Secretary of State’s impact assessment to this Bill, a renewedand updated view on the costs associated with the implementation of these measures in Scotland. That has not been published today. It was not published in April as Ministers promised.

That is a dereliction of duty, not least because it leaves us in Wales with no idea as to how much these measures will cost. But we have reason to believe and to fear that it will be a significant amount of money, because we know from the first report on the implementation of the Scotland Act that it will cost more than £40 million to implement such measures in Scotland, and we know from the Government’s own impact assessment that it is likely to cost more in Wales. The reason is the porosity and populous nature of the border between England and Wales: 48% of the Welsh population and 10% of the English population live within 25 miles of that border, which means that fully 6.3 million people live along that border. In contrast, just 4% of the Scottish population and just 0.5% of the English population live within 25 miles of the border between England and Scotland, which means that just 450,000 people live along that border.

If it has taken so far, as the Government have conceded, £1.7 million to start the analysis of how these measures will work in Scotland, how Scottish taxpayers will be identified, how a pay-as-you-earn system will work, how employers will deal with it, and what the nature of the information to be provided to newly designated Scottish taxpayers will be—it is already £2 million-ish and counting, and soon to be £40 million for Scotland—do we not need to have some idea in Wales, as a part of prudent management of Treasury finances, and eventually Welsh Government—finances, of how much money it will cost the Welsh? If the Minister wants to offer us some indication, I should be grateful, but at the moment we are in the dark, and in the dark we remain concerned that the costs will be greater for Wales, and the disbenefits for Wales, therefore, potentially also greater.

In the light of the fact that there is such a long period before the measure comes into force, we will not press the amendments that we have tabled to the clause, but we will maintain our concerns about the motivations that lie behind it. We will continue to push for fair funding for Wales, not to the detriment of Scotland but in the interests of the people of Wales, and we will continue to ask the Minister to clarify what exactly this measure will mean for the Welsh people, and whether they will be better or worse off if the Bill were ever to be enacted.

[Mr Gauke]

After what is a relatively short speech from the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), I am still not entirely sure whether he is for or against it, but we are certainly for the devolution of income tax in the way set out in the clauses. I hope that the clauses and the Government amendments will have the support of the whole House, and that all other amendments will not be pressed.

Amendment 21 agreed to.

20:32

Proceedings interrupted (Programme Order, 31 March and this day).

The Chair put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83D).

Amendments made: 22, page 11, line 5, at end insert

‘at the rates provided for’.

This amendment, and amendments 27 and 28, make changes to reflect the fact that section 11B of the Income Tax Act 2007 (as inserted by clause 9) and section 13 of that Act provide for the rates at which income tax is charged rather than imposing the charge to income tax.

Amendment 23, page 11, line 14, at end insert—

‘(2A) If the Treasury consider it necessary or expedient to do so, they may by order provide that—

(a) the Welsh rate set by the Assembly for a tax year, or

(b) the fact that the Welsh rate has not been so set for a tax year,

does not require any change in the amounts repayable or deductible under PAYE regulations between the beginning of that year and such later date as may be specified in the order.’.

This amendment, and amendments 24 to 26, clarify and extend the power of the Treasury, previously in section 116I(4) of GOWA 2006 (as inserted by clause 8), by order to deal with the consequences for PAYE of a Welsh rate having been, or not been, set for a tax year.

Amendment 24, page 11, line 17, leave out ‘or (2)’ and insert ‘, (2) or (2A)’.

Amendment 25, page 11, leave out lines 18 to 26.

Amendment 26, page 11, line 33, leave out ‘(4)’ and insert ‘(2A)’.

Amendment 27, page 11, line 40, after ‘tax’, insert

‘at a rate provided for’.

Amendment 28, page 11, line 41, leave out ‘charged to income tax’ and insert

‘income which is charged to income tax at a rate provided for’.—(Mr Gauke.)

Clause 8, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 9 and 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

Referendum about commencement of income tax provisions

Amendment proposed: 1, page 16, line 20, leave out from ‘Wales’ to end and add

‘where a Welsh rate resolution specifies more than one rate of income tax.’.—(Jonathan Edwards.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

20:30

Division 260

Ayes: 5

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Plaid Cymru: 3
Green Party: 1
Liberal Democrat: 1

Noes: 243

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Conservative: 207
Liberal Democrat: 30
Democratic Unionist Party: 5

Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 12 and 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

The occupant of the Chair left the Chair (Programme Order, this day).

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again tomorrow.