Oral Answers to Questions
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Guto Bebb
The south Wales metro links will clearly be important to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but it should be borne in mind that the amount invested in the Cardiff capital region city deal is £1.2 billion, of which less than 8% is currently earmarked as EU funding, and that the Government have already committed £500 million to that development. I think the hon. Gentleman should be talking up the prospects for the economy of south Wales, rather than highlighting the deficiencies that he sees in the current funding arrangements.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
2. What assessment he has made of the potential consequences for Wales of the outcome of the EU referendum.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)
4. What assessment he has made of the economic effect on Wales of UK membership of the EU.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Alun Cairns)
The British people have voted to leave the European Union, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that their will must be respected and delivered. We are now preparing for a negotiated exit from the EU, which will involve close engagement with all the devolved Administrations to ensure that the interests of all parts of the United Kingdom are protected and advanced.
Mr Jones
Structural funding for Wales is guaranteed until 2020. Given the substantial budgetary savings that will be made after British withdrawal from the EU, can my right hon. Friend confirm that his office will make every effort to ensure that the current level of funding will continue until at least that date?
Alun Cairns
The Government have a strong record in guaranteeing funds for Wales, most notably the Barnett floor, which was ignored for 13 years by Labour. That demonstrates that we will work hard in prioritising the areas of the UK that rightly need and deserve support.
Wales Bill
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
I will speak briefly to amendment 161 in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies) and for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies). It would amend schedule 1 to the Bill by reserving the setting of speed limits in Wales and the design of road and traffic signs. The whole purpose of devolution should be to make life not more difficult but easier. We will be debating a great many practical amendments to the Bill this evening and this is one where the practical purpose of devolution would be better served by reserving such competences.
Dealing first with speed limits, I strongly suggest that it would be highly counterproductive for speed limits to differ between England and Wales because the road systems of England and Wales are closely integrated. Every day, many thousands of commuters travel backwards and forwards across the border. At certain times of year, such as holiday periods, there are considerable numbers of visitors from other parts of the United Kingdom and the continent of Europe. Such people are not confined to the principal arterial routes of the M4 and the A55, because several other important routes—going both east to west and north to south—cross the border. I am particularly thinking of the A483, the principal route between Manchester and Swansea that crosses and re-crosses the border at several points, and the A490, another well-known border route. To have different national speed limits at distances of possibly every two or three miles would be at the very least confusing and at the very worst positively dangerous.
The context of England and Wales is different from the context of England and Scotland because the integration of the road network between England and Wales is far closer. Given the practicalities, it makes no sense whatsoever to devolve the setting of speed limits to Cardiff.
Hywel Williams
I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s argument with considerable interest. Is he saying that motorists are unable to cope with speed limit changes that are signalled by appropriate signs? I know of a stretch of road in my constituency where the limit goes from 40 mph to 30 mph to 20 mph and then back to 30 mph and then 40 mph over a distance of about a mile.
Mr Jones
I think it is fair to say exactly that; the hon. Gentleman will remember the former chief constable of North Wales who generated substantial funds out of motorists’ inattention to speed limits. My point is not so much about local speed limits but about national speed limits. It is far more sensible if the national speed limit is set by the Department for Transport in London—if necessary, in consultation with the Welsh Assembly Government. Given that there is such a closely integrated main transport road network between the two nations, it makes no sense to have differential speed limits.
The second point I wish to make is about road signs and I do so principally on the same grounds; as we have such a closely integrated road network, there is the potential to cause considerable difficulty if the Welsh Government were to decide, for whatever reason, completely to redesign road signs. Again, that would be not only confusing, but positively dangerous. The competence for the design of road signs should remain with the DfT in London, although there should be consultation with the Welsh Government.
Hywel Williams
Is the right hon. Gentleman’s contention based on any research? I recall, and so will he, the extensive debate in Wales about having Welsh language road signs or bilingual signs. Research was done on various aspects of that, by the Road Research Laboratory, the AA and various people, and they predicted all kinds of doom should we have bilingual signs. Can he point us to any similar research on road signs or differential speed limits?
Mr Jones
I have no objection whatever to bilingual road signs—they should be positively encouraged. This is not so much about the language as about the design of the signage. Most of our road signs follow standard European norms, although they may not in the future. If we are to have consistency and avoid danger to motorists, we should have consistency in the design of road signage.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
My constituency contains roads that traverse both England and Wales. What a pity it would be if our gorgeous countryside was to be littered with even more road signs, up and down those roads, up and down Wales, and up and down the Marches. What a great shame it would be for the visitors who come to Wales for that wonderful experience.
Mr Jones
I am sure we could have fewer signs, although we might have more. My concern is that they should not be so different as to cause accidents on the part of motorists wondering what the heck a sign meant as they passed it. On practicality, there is not a persuasive case being made here; I never really understood the case for the devolution of road signs.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Is the far more distracting and dangerous thing in country fields not all these Tory posters we get at election time? They cause far greater danger and distraction to motorists than any road signs.
Mr Jones
I have never received anything but praise for Conservative signage, and I received even more praise for the vote leave signs that were notable by their presence throughout Wales.
This is a probing amendment and I do not intend to press it to a vote, but I would be grateful to hear from Ministers the rationale for these two proposals. Let me say again that at the very least they are confusing and at the very worst they have the potential to be positively dangerous.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I must take this opportunity to congratulate the Welsh team on giving us the brightest, most joyful memories of the past few weeks—it is safe to say that.
I rise to speak to the amendments standing in my name and those of my Plaid Cymru colleagues. They seek to amend schedule 7A of the Government of Wales Act 2006 and, thus, relate to clause 3 of this Bill, which deals with the legislative competence of the National Assembly for Wales. The vast majority of our amendments in this group seek to omit certain reservations from that schedule. The amendments are intended in some cases to restore competence in areas that are already devolved. In others, they are intended to devolve competence to the Assembly in areas that are devolved to Scotland. If the Government are not prepared to give the Welsh Assembly parity with the Scottish Parliament in these areas, we would ask for specific reasons to be given in each instance. Both the Welsh Affairs Committee in this place and the National Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee have written reports on the draft Wales Bill, with both calling on the UK Government to provide individual justifications for each of the reservations now contained in schedule 7A. As such, it is a great disappointment to my colleagues and I that the Government have not seen fit to provide us with these justifications. I invite the Secretary of State to explain why the Government have not been forthcoming in this instance. If valid justifications cannot be provided, the Government should amend the schedule so as to omit those areas outlined in our amendments.
Plaid Cymru has not been alone in saying—over many years—that the National Assembly should move to a reserved powers model. Indeed, the independent, cross-party Silk commission made just such a recommendation. Legal experts and much of civil society in Wales, recognise that adopting a reserved powers model should, in theory, provide greater legal clarity and workability. The idea of moving towards a reserved powers model has also been taken in Wales to symbolise a shift in Westminster’s attitude towards the Assembly, because it was assumed to be synonymous with a maturing of relations between the two institutions. Rather than having to justify devolving an area of competence, Westminster would be compelled to justify reserving an area of law; again, that should have represented a significant attitudinal shift, and a recognition of greater parity. The sheer length of the list of reserved areas in schedule 1 has made a mockery of that notion.
It should therefore have come as no surprise to the Wales Office that the original draft Wales Bill was met with such dismay by the Welsh Assembly and by civil society in our nation. The dismayingly long list of reservations, and the way in which the Bill went so far in some cases as to curtail powers already devolved, would fundamentally undermine the Assembly’s competence. It would do the opposite of what was, presumably, intended. Although we are grateful that the previous Secretary of State announced a pause in introducing the legislation, we still believe that schedule 7A shows a paucity of ambition for Wales and her legislature, and that is why we have drafted the amendments in this grouping.
Amendments 83, 86, 110 and 111 should be considered together, as they seek to devolve aspects of the justice system to the Assembly: the legal profession and legal services are dealt with in amendment 110; crime, public order and policing are dealt with in amendment 83; the rehabilitation of offenders is dealt with in amendment 86; and prisons and offender management are dealt with in amendment 111. As has been pointed out in this House on many occasions, and as was championed by my predecessor, Elfyn Llwyd, Wales is the only legislature that has no separate or distinct legal jurisdiction of its own. The matter of a separate legal jurisdiction was debated last week, so I will not repeat my arguments. Although I accept that the Tories fundamentally disagree with the need for a separate jurisdiction, I remain somewhat confused by the position of the official Opposition, who said last week that they supported it but abstained because the Government do not support it. If the official Opposition can only vote in favour of measures that are supported by the Government, they are not well fitted to being the official Opposition. However, given that our amendment was defeated last week, we will use the Report stage of the Bill to bring forward proposals on a distinct, rather than separate, jurisdiction. I hope that the House will be more open to working with us when that time comes.
As is well known, the Silk commission recommended the devolution of policing and related areas of community safety and crime prevention, and my party is resolute in our standpoint that Wales, like the other nations of the United Kingdom, should have responsibility for its police forces.
We are presenting amendment 83 at a time when it is being proposed that policing is devolved to English city regions—Manchester and Liverpool, for example. If the policing of these cities can be held to account in a devolved landscape, why not the policing of Wales?
Mr David Jones
As a matter of pure interest, which of the current bank holidays would the hon. Gentleman propose to dispense with in order to create one on St David’s day?
Mr Williams
I remember the right hon. Gentleman making that point in a previous Westminster Hall debate. I am not going to make that judgment because it is for the National Assembly. When the Under-Secretary responded to my debate, he talked about a review, but regrettably its results were parked in the proverbial long grass and are now in a cul-de-sac. This is a matter not for me, the right hon. Gentleman or the rest of us sitting on these green Benches, but for colleagues and friends in the Cynulliad.
Mr Williams
Without digging into the depths of the argument, I have made the position clear. Let the tourist industry make its representations to Ministers in our Cynulliad in Cardiff, not here. Let us not sit here, viceroy-like, dictating to the National Assembly. We should let the Assembly have that discussion with the tourist operatives, with the responsible Minister engaged with them, and then it can make the decision. It is a decision not for the right hon. Gentleman and me, but for our friends in the Assembly. That is what devolution means.
I want briefly to talk about policing. Silk said that:
“policing and related areas of community safety and crime prevention should be devolved”.
I must describe—I do not know whether Chatham House rules applied to our discussions in Gwydyr House, but they probably did—the genuine shock and anguish that was felt when we reported back on this matter to our National Assembly colleagues. Two of us from each party were sitting in an office somewhere in this House that I had never been to where big board meetings happen. There was shock and dismay that matters of youth justice were not, as recommended by the Silk commission, followed through in the St David’s day document. I understand how the Government have reached this position, and how the process was set in train when they talked to their colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, but that does not negate the case. Youth justice, of all issues, given its links between education, skills and health as part of rehabilitation, was not followed through in a devolutionary way.
I will now conclude my remarks, although such is the list of reservations that we could go on for hours. I hope that the Minister will respond to some of the concerns that many of us still have about the list, slightly shortened though it is.
Mr David Jones
The Secretary of State mentioned the Silk commission’s recommendations, but he will recall that I asked for the rationale. I wonder whether he could explain it, please.
Alun Cairns
I am happy to explain that given that local authorities already have the power to vary speed limits, it is a logical, sensible extension to give further powers to the Welsh Government in this area.
Time does not permit me to address in detail all the remaining amendments to schedule 1. That is in part because hon. Members from Plaid Cymru seem to seek the devolution of just about everything, and they seem to want to reverse the principles on which the Bill is based. I am pursuing a pragmatic, practical approach as we amend and develop the Bill, so I reject the amendments to devolve Sunday trading, the generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity, coal, heat and cooling networks, energy conservation, working-age benefits, child benefit, guardians allowance, most employment and industrial relations, employment support programmes, abortion, health and safety, broadcasting, safety at sports grounds, equal opportunities, bank holidays and the Children’s Commissioner.
Amendment 124, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), seeks to carve out from the employment reservation terms and conditions of employment in relation to Wales public authorities. The Government believe strongly that the underlying legislative framework of rights and responsibilities in the workplace must be reserved for the labour market to work most effectively across Great Britain.
Mr David Jones
I shall speak briefly in support of amendments 158 to 160 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies). He has dealt very well with the thrust of the amendments and I do not wish to repeat what he has said. However, I would like to focus on proposed new subsection (4D) which provides:
“The Secretary of State may give a direction to Welsh Ministers that applications for consent for the construction or extension of stations generating electricity from wind which would have a capacity less than 51 megawatts must be determined by local planning authorities and must not be called in or determined by Welsh Ministers.”
As I mentioned on Second Reading, there have been unintended consequences of the Energy Act 2016, which is a development of UK Government policy that provides that all applications for onshore wind generating stations should no longer be governed by the Planning Act 2008, but should instead be determined by local planning authorities. This applies also in Wales, but as a consequence of Welsh legislation, the Welsh Government have designated all wind farm developments in Wales as so-called developments of national significance, which fall to be considered by the Welsh Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire is right to insert this provision. We both come from parts of Wales where the development of wind farms has caused huge problems. They have been disproportionately scattered across rural Wales and there are large areas that almost literally have a turbine on every hillside. Local communities certainly want these applications to be determined at local level, and it is entirely right that the Welsh Government, having taken it upon themselves to adopt this power, should now have it taken away from them. The power should be returned to local authorities.
As I have suggested, this has been an example of the law of unintended consequences. I am absolutely sure that the Government did not expect that, as a consequence of the Energy Act 2016, all such applications would fall to be determined by the Welsh Government. That is what has happened, however, and local communities have been disfranchised. This proposal is therefore a sensible one, and I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to give consideration to it. If he cannot accept it this evening, will he take it away and come back with another proposal on Report to address the concerns that I have outlined?
Jonathan Edwards
I rise to speak to new clauses 4, 5, 8 and 9. I also refer Members to my speech on new clauses 2 and 3 and income tax during our first day in Committee last week.
New clause 5 would devolve air passenger duty to Wales. In 2012, the Silk commission recommended the devolution of a block of financial powers, including air passenger duty, to the National Assembly. That was a carefully crafted package of measures. Those minor taxes were clearly listed as pressing, and the commission recommended that they be devolved in the next possible legislative vehicle, which happened to be the 2013 Finance Bill. For whatever reason, however, APD was missing from that Bill and a Plaid Cymru amendment that would have included it was defeated.
On the publication of its recommendations, the commission had cross-party and governmental support. However, four years on, I am disappointed that the Government have turned their back on the commission and its recommendations. They are instead simply cherry-picking the amendments that will be the least disruptive to the current devolution arrangement for Wales. In that period, we have had a Northern Ireland Act and two Scotland Acts through which APD was devolved to those countries and, needless to say, Labour and Tory MPs based in Wales supported those Acts. Wales is, once again, getting the short end of the stick when it comes to devolved taxation.
I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) is not in the Chamber. Although she is apparently oblivious to her party’s inability to support the devolution of APD twice in the previous Parliament, she has rightly stated:
“Air passenger duty has already been devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and…to the Scottish Parliament, but despite this, the Budget did not propose that it be devolved to the Welsh Assembly.”—[Official Report, 25 May 2016; Vol. 611, c. 521.]
She asked for it to be devolved, and that is an unimpeachable argument—I agree with every word she said.
Mr David Jones
Has the hon. Gentleman given any consideration to the impact that his proposals might have on north Wales’s local airports in Liverpool and Manchester?
Jonathan Edwards
The whole point of devolving APD to Wales is to allow Welsh Ministers to set their own priorities for the aviation industry in Wales. At the end of the day, it will be up to Welsh Ministers to consider the most appropriate APD policy for Wales to maximise revenues from their own public asset. Let us remember that Cardiff airport is owned by the people of Wales. Clearly, increasing footfall at the airport could generate substantial revenues elsewhere, primarily by boosting economic performance across the whole of the economy, especially in the Secretary of State’s own Vale of Glamorgan constituency.
I am not privy to the Cardiff airport’s strategic planning, but my understanding is that the element of APD that the airport is most interested in is long-haul taxation. As I mentioned, the airport has a superb runway that can accommodate transatlantic flights, which Bristol airport cannot. If Cardiff were to develop that angle of its business, that could surely be of use to Bristol airport, if transport links between both airports could be improved. There lies a challenge for the Welsh Government, because our international airport urgently needs public transport upgrades to get people from Cardiff—and indeed Swansea—to and from the airport. The current infrastructure is awful, compared with that of Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Recent public opinion polls suggest that 78% of Welsh voters agree that APD should be devolved. That does not quite compare with the percentage who support the introduction of Welsh bank notes, but that incredibly high number is still a clear indication of public opinion. It takes a brave politician to ignore opinion poll figures of those proportions.
Furthermore, the National Assembly should have more responsibility for the money it spends. The Secretary of State for Wales himself has said that increasing its taxation responsibilities makes the Assembly “truly accountable” to the people of Wales, so why not include air passenger duty in the list of devolved taxes? Why continue to limit the financial responsibilities of the Welsh Government? Jane Hutt, the former Minister for Finance and Government Business in the Welsh Government, who I am not in the habit of quoting, has said:
“It is…disappointing that the UK Government has decided to continue its procrastination over the devolution of Air Passenger Duty. This discriminatory approach is unacceptable and unjustifiable”.
We have seen during the progress of the Bill that what the Labour Government say in Wales does not necessarily translate into voting behaviour where it counts down here in Westminster. Official Opposition Members might be relieved to hear that I do not intend to press the new clause to a Division, but I will return to the matter on Report. I hope that, in the meantime, the Secretary of State will listen to one of the most important strategic players in his constituency and his country, and I look forward to him bringing forward Government amendments to devolve APD before the Bill completes its progress through the House.
I now turn my attention to new clause 4, which would equalise the situation between Wales and Scotland when it comes to VAT revenues. The Scotland Act 2016 stated that revenues from the first 10 percentage points of the standard VAT rate would be devolved by the 2019-20 financial year. The current UK VAT rate is 20% and half of all the VAT raised in Scotland will be kept in Scotland. It is important to note that the Scottish Government will have no ability to change VAT rates.
Sales taxes in the United States are state taxes, not federal taxes, so different states have different levels of their version of VAT. We propose equalising the situation with Scotland because although EU rules prohibit different sales tax levels within the boundaries of a member state, adopting the Scottish model could pave the way, in a post-Brexit scenario, to devolving VAT in its entirety to Wales, to Scotland and to Northern Ireland. In a post-Brexit UK, it seems clear that significant political and fiscal power will have to be conceded by Westminster unless the post-Brexit vision is an even more lopsided state in which power and wealth are even more concentrated in London and the south-east.
The Scottish model has some incentivising benefits as it would help to galvanise the Welsh Government to boost the spending power of our citizens by basing a job creation strategy around well-paid jobs and seriously getting to grips with our low-wage economy. As page 4 of Cardiff University’s excellent “Government Expenditure and Revenue Wales 2016” report states:
“VAT was the largest source of revenue in Wales (raising £5.2 billion), followed by Income Tax (£4.6 billion) and National Insurance Contributions (£4.0 billion). The composition of revenues in Wales is markedly different from the UK as a whole. Large direct taxes…make up less of a share of total Welsh revenue, while a greater share is raised through indirect taxes”.
The report’s point is that indirect taxes such as VAT generate more revenue in Wales than direct taxes such as income tax. The report also indicates that Welsh tax revenues have grown by 12.3% since 2011, the main component of which was VAT revenues.
As long as we have a Tory UK Government, economic growth will continue to be based around consumer spending. If that is the case, it is all the more important that the people of Wales directly benefit from that growth and from their own spending power. Denying Wales the same powers as Scotland on VAT seems to be a deliberate attempt to undermine revenues for the Welsh Government.
New clause 4 is probing, so I will not be pressing it to a vote at this stage, but I look forward to hearing the UK Government’s justification for why they have not given Wales the same status as Scotland, especially considering the good performance of Wales—for whatever reason—in generating VAT revenues. I may return to this matter during the Bill’s later stages.
Similarly probing are new clauses 8 and 9, which would devolve corporation tax to mirror the situation in Northern Ireland. As a proud Welshman, I want my country to succeed. I desperately want our GDP to increase and to close the gap between the GDPs of Wales and the UK. If that is to happen, we unquestionably have to make Wales a more attractive place to do business. I want to make Wales the most attractive place in the UK to do business, and I hope that the Secretary of State for Wales would want the same for his country.
Most other countries are able to set their own rates of corporation tax. It is a lever with which a national Government can influence their country’s desirability to potential investors, but Wales is restricted from doing so. We are forced to compete with the other UK nations with our hands tied behind our backs. Northern Ireland has a huge competitive advantage over Wales, and we know about the rate in the Republic of Ireland, with which we share a sea border. We cannot build a High Speed 2 for Wales. We cannot electrify our railways and we cannot offer tax incentives. We are constantly forced to come to Westminster with a begging bowl. We are still waiting for even an inch of electrified railway. We are still not getting full Barnett consequentials from HS2, let alone getting our own high-speed rail, and we are once again being told that we cannot use corporation tax as a way of attracting business.
Wales Bill
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Davies
I may consider it, but at the moment I am thinking about going further, with deep regret, and looking to my first vote against the Government—my first rebellion, which is of great concern to me.
My position is not a criticism of the Welsh Assembly per se or of devolution. It is a criticism of the present incumbents down in Cardiff Bay. They have not delivered for us. Why on earth are we now looking to give them tax-raising powers? Sadly, I do not feel that they would be able to deliver that properly for the people of Wales. With great regret, I will not be able to support the Government’s proposal in this matter.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
I apologise for the fact that I was not here at the beginning of the consideration of this group of amendments. Sadly, I was detained by another engagement.
Like my hon. Friends the Members for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) and for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies), I have huge concerns about clause 16. I speak as the Secretary of State who took the Wales Bill 2014 through this House. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd, I was an enthusiast for tax-varying powers for the Welsh Assembly, because I thought that that would introduce a measure of accountability and potentially give the Assembly Government some incentive to introduce a more competitive tax regime in Wales. However, the Wales Act 2014 clearly states that such tax-varying powers should not be implemented until they are triggered by a positive vote in a referendum, and it is still right that such a referendum should be held; after all, tax-varying powers include the power to increase taxes.
If one expects the people of Wales potentially to pay more tax, it is only right that they should first be asked if that is what they want. That is what happened in Scotland in 1997, when the referendum had two separate questions, including one on taxation. Unlike hon. Members who have already spoken, I do not believe that it is beyond the bounds of possibility that the people of Wales would vote for tax-raising powers; after all, that is what the Scots did. However, imposing such a competence on the Welsh Assembly Government without giving the people of Wales the right to have their say in a referendum is utterly disrespectful of the people of Wales; after all, what was good enough for the Scots should be good enough for the Welsh.
I also share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd. I stood in a general election only 14 months ago on a manifesto that made it entirely clear that there would be a referendum before tax-varying powers were triggered, and I do not believe that anything has changed 14 months later. If we make a manifesto pledge, we should adhere to it, so, like my hon. Friends, I will, sadly, be voting against the Government on clause 16. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), who is also a former Secretary of State, has asked me to indicate that she will do likewise. Sadly, she is not able to be here at the moment, but she too regards this as a point of principle. I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to reconsider. By pressing ahead, he is breaking faith with the electorate of Wales.
Paul Flynn
The opening words of the splendid book I referenced earlier are:
“Only the future is certain. The past is always changing.”
We have seen splendid examples today of people fictionalising the past. I am proud of the Welsh Assembly, and I am proud that it was a creation of the Labour party in this Parliament. In deciding on its form, it would have been possible for us to adopt a first-past-the-post principle, which would have given Labour a majority in perpetuity. However, for very honourable reasons, it was decided not to do that. We also feared creating what was described at the time as Glamorgan County Council on stilts. There are other examples of socialist and social democrat countries, such as the Nordic countries, which have had parties equivalent to Labour for many decades, and which have produced some of the finest social services and human rights policies in the world.
It is absolutely wrong and mean-spirited not to recognise that the Welsh Assembly, as set up, is probably the finest example of democracy in the British Isles. Many of us were unhappy about the number of UKIP Assembly Members in May, but they gained 13% of the vote and they got 13% of the seats, which is absolutely right. However, for two Parliaments, including the ones when we set up the Assembly, when we could have done anything we liked, 20% of the voters in Wales voted Conservative and did not have a single Conservative Member of this Parliament. Why do people not object to that?
We intend to divide the House on amendment 11. Clause 16 has obviously taken up a great deal of the House’s attention, but Wales is suffering from referendum revulsion, and so are other parts of the country. We have had enough. We have been having these all through my childhood, on whether we close the cinemas on a Sunday or close the pubs on a Sunday. We have overdosed on referendums.
Let us look at examples of public votes, such as the decisions taken by the public to call a boat “Boaty McBoatface”, and in the European referendum. The choice in the European referendum was between two sets of lies by each party. Both sides are embarrassed by what they said a few weeks ago, because it has not happened, after all the dire threats. We do not have £365 million for the health service and we do not have an emergency Budget; one could go on. I am afraid that the referendum on the alternative vote was even more disreputable, with two sets of outrageous lies put before the public. On Vauxhall bridge there was a sign saying, “If you vote for AV you’re in favour of taking protection away from our soldiers in Afghanistan and taking protection away from babies in hospitals”, suggesting that only that sort of person would vote for AV. It was nothing to do with the facts of the case. The propaganda in referendums has got to a level where the results are degraded and distorted. That certainly happened in the European referendum, and I think that faith in the process has gone.
In Wales, with each vote we have—it was a tiny minority the first time—there is momentum to build up trust in the Welsh Assembly. As the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) argued very persuasively, it is not a real parliament unless it has its own tax-raising powers. That is a normal, essential development if we are to see the parliament of which we are so proud, on the soil of our own country for the first time for centuries, grow and take on its own decisions and responsibilities. Clause 16 provides for the removal of the requirement of a referendum on this.
We are grateful for the wisdom and generosity of the Government in how they have treated this Bill. It was a fairly ugly Bill to start with, but they have amended it and accepted all the various suggestions that were made to remove some of its less wise implications. It now has widespread support in the House from all parties and Government Members. Our problem now is that the removal of these powers also takes away the involvement of the Assembly in the process of deciding when they should be brought into force. Quite rightly, several of my hon. Friends have expressed anxieties about what would result from this, because we certainly do not want to legislate for a reduction in the amounts of money that the Welsh Assembly has.
The introduction of Welsh rates of income tax will represent a step change in devolution to Wales, replacing about £2 billion of the Welsh block grant with a more volatile revenue stream. It will therefore be essential that fair and robust new funding arrangements are established before this takes place. A new fiscal framework is required, agreed by the Welsh Government and the Treasury, which addresses each of the new factors that will affect the level of spend on devolved public services in Wales. That fiscal framework should not only cover the offsets made in return for devolved tax revenue but include a long-term commitment to the funding floor announced by the Chancellor in November. The UK Government’s Silk commission, to which we owe a great debt of gratitude, recommended that devolution
“of income tax powers…should be conditional upon resolving the issue of fair funding in a way that is agreed by both the Welsh and UK Governments.”
That is absolutely essential. There are fears that this might well be a Trojan horse that could be abused in the way that my hon. Friends have suggested. This issue remains unresolved beyond the next five years. Until the fiscal framework has been agreed, there must be no move to implement the Welsh rates of income tax. The UK Government have agreed a fair fiscal framework with the Scottish Government. It is appreciated that the model of the Welsh Senedd will develop along the lines of the Scottish Government, but it would be unacceptable for the fiscal framework proposed for Wales to have any less favourable terms than those agreed for Scotland. Amendment 11 addresses that issue by ensuring that the Assembly and both Houses of Parliament have clearly defined roles in ensuring that the conditions are right for income tax powers to be devolved to Wales. It cannot be right that the UK Government could commence powers over income tax in Wales without the approval of the Assembly. I urge the Government to consider those amendments seriously.
Mr David Jones
Will my right hon. Friend explain what extraordinary event has happened in the past 14 months to move devolution on to such a large extent?
Alun Cairns
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I was about to go on to say that two important principles have been acknowledged. First, the Assembly is more mature. That is reflected in the legislation we are passing to enable the Assembly to reach out and respond further to Welsh needs.
Secondly, when my right hon. Friend was Secretary of State for Wales, he established the principle of devolving significant tax-varying powers without a referendum. In the 2014 Act, the devolution of stamp duty land tax and the aggregates levy, in addition to powers over council tax and the subsequent full devolution of business rates to Wales, account for a broad income of £2.5 billion. The Welsh rate of income tax, which we propose to devolve is—at about £2 billion—significantly less than that. This important principle has been accepted positively by the Welsh public and by civic society. That stands firm and is a backstop to clause 16.
Mr David Jones
Does my right hon. Friend not accept that the significant difference is that very many more people pay income tax than pay stamp duty land tax or landfill tax? Is that not the point, that it affects nearly everybody in Wales?
Alun Cairns
I remind my right hon. Friend that a similar number of people who pay income tax also pay council tax, and that many will be business owners who pay business rates.
Much reference has been made to the Welsh Conservative manifesto and I remind right hon. and hon. Members what it said. Our manifesto for Wales stated that a funding floor would be introduced in the expectation that the Welsh Government would hold a referendum. We have fulfilled our end of the bargain, having introduced a funding floor of 115%, as has been mentioned. That is the floor—if I may gently correct the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen)—and the spending level is currently higher. If the Welsh Government are not going to introduce a referendum—I do not think that any of us want one after the events of recent weeks—we will need to take steps, so I hope that the House will agree clause 16 as it stands.
Clauses 17 and 20 deal with the functions of Welsh Ministers and devolve important new powers to them. Clause 17 will insert new subsection 58A into the Government of Wales Act 2006, conferring common law-type powers on Welsh Ministers—the kinds of powers exercised by a natural person, such as the power to enter into contracts, make payments or set up companies. It is difficult to believe that Welsh Ministers do not already hold these powers, and it demonstrates how current legislation is out of date with modern thinking and concerns.
Clause 19 deals with the transfer of ministerial functions. The Bill provides for a clear separation between devolved and reserved powers, an important component in which is being clear about which so-called pre-commencement Minister of the Crown functions in devolved powers are to be exercised in the future. We intend to transfer to Welsh Ministers as many of these functions as we can. We will do so in a transfer of functions order made under section 58 of the Government of Wales Act and will bring forward a draft order during later stages of the Bill. Several other transfer of functions orders have been made under section 58 since the Assembly was established.
I turn now to amendment 11, tabled by Labour, which would place a requirement in the Bill for a so-called fiscal framework. I should underline that the precedent in Scotland was not for the inclusion of such a provision in legislation; instead, the UK and Scottish Governments negotiated an agreement. I would hope that a mature relationship has developed between the Welsh and UK Governments, and between the First Minister and me, in respect of how we conduct our affairs. Clearly, there is no way I want to see Wales in a detrimental position—that is the starting point of our negotiations—and I am optimistic that we can come to an agreement over the appropriate adjustments to the Welsh block. Holtham has made some recommendations that are a good starting point for those discussions. Few people believed we would ever get to the position of introducing a funding floor. I hope, therefore, that that funding floor of 115% might give people confidence.
I would like us to reach a position where the Welsh Government can grant a legislative consent motion. Under the model we followed in Scotland, a legislative consent motion came only after the fiscal framework was agreed. I would hope that, once we have reached an agreement on a fiscal framework and a Barnett adjustment, a legislative consent motion could then be used as proof and evidence. For that reason, the amendment proposed is unnecessary—appropriate structures are in place to allow for that mature discussion to take place.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Wales Bill
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Alun Cairns
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his long-standing interest in these matters. I would point out that 350 MW is quite a significant capacity. I would also remind him that the basis for this proposal was a recommendation from the Silk commission.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
Further to that point, though, does my right hon. Friend agree that in respect of wind generation, the Assembly’s powers will now be unlimited?
Alun Cairns
I will talk about the devolution of powers relating to water a bit later on. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that an intergovernmental working group has been established and that it is considering the implications of the in-principle decision that has been taken on devolved water. I will happily comment in further detail when I reach that part of my speech.
Mr Jones
My right hon. Friend mentioned what will effectively be the incorporation of the Sewel convention in statute, for the first time so far as Wales is concerned. Clause 2 of the Bill states:
“it is recognised that the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Assembly.”
If the United Kingdom Parliament were to legislate for such matters and there were to be a challenge from the Welsh Government as to whether that was “normal”, how would that matter be adjudicated?
Alun Cairns
The basis of this clause has been drawn from the Scotland Act. It would be a matter for the courts to judge in such a situation, but this underlines the principle that Parliament is sovereign in these matters, although we will absolutely respect the rights of the Assembly. That is why we have included a clause stating that we will not “normally” legislate on devolved areas.
The debate on the draft Bill, which was published for pre-legislative scrutiny last autumn, was dominated by justice issues. In particular, it focused on something that was labelled the necessity test, and the inclusion of the test led to calls for a separate jurisdiction. I have listened to those concerns, and this Bill has moved a long way from the draft version and is by general consensus more suitable. The necessity test was believed to set too high a bar, and calls were made for a lower threshold. I have gone further, however, and removed the test entirely when the Assembly modifies the civil and criminal law for devolved purposes. As a consequence, many of the arguments for a separate legal jurisdiction for Wales should have fallen away.
However, I recognise the validity of some of the points raised during pre-legislative scrutiny about the existence of Welsh law. The Bill formally recognises for the first time that a body of Welsh law made by the Assembly and Welsh Ministers forms part of the law of England and Wales within the England and Wales jurisdiction. The recognition of Welsh law needs distinct arrangements. As a result, I have been working with my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary to establish an officials-led working group to look at how those administrative arrangements should be improved. The group includes representatives from the Judicial Office and the Welsh Government, and it will take forward its work in parallel with the progress of the Bill through this House and the other place.
The single jurisdiction can readily accommodate a growing body of Welsh law without the need for separation. There are many reasons why a separate jurisdiction would be to the detriment of Wales. As well as the unnecessary upheaval and cost of such a change, the economic and commercial interdependence of the legal profession on both sides of the border means that separation would undermine the success of one of Wales’s fastest growing sectors—the legal profession.
Alun Cairns
That relates to the discussions with the National Grid, which, quite obviously, has an interest in the matter. I will happily provide further detail to my hon. Friend if he has specific examples that he would like to pursue.
Mr David Jones
Further to the point raised by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), is it the case that the Assembly’s powers will be limited to 132 kV transmission lines, and not to the major grid connections to which my right hon. Friend is referring?
Alun Cairns
My right hon. Friend has expert knowledge. Obviously, he has some detailed understanding of this Bill and a range of other Acts that relate to such decision making. As this Bill progresses through the House, particularly through Committee, we will be able to examine, line by line, the consequences of each individual clause. I will happily write to him should he need further information.
Alun Cairns
I have two points to make in response. First, it was the Wales Act 2014 that devolved tax-varying powers to the Assembly. This Bill will go one step further by removing the requirement for a referendum. Secondly, devolution has moved forward since that time. We can either seek to have the hollow argument about rowing back, or we can make the Welsh Government more accountable and more responsible for the money that they raise. Under current legislation and current arrangements, the Welsh Government already have responsibility for raising £2.5 billion of their own income, through council tax, business rates and other taxes such as stamp duty, land tax, aggregate tax and landfill tax. According to the forecast of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the devolution of income tax will transfer something in the region of £2 billion to the Welsh Government, which is a smaller sum than the one for which they already have responsibility.
Mr David Jones
To develop the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies), is it not the case that just over 12 months ago the Conservative party fought on a manifesto that pledged that there would be a referendum before any tax-varying competence was devolved to the Assembly?
Alun Cairns
My right hon. Friend played a significant part in the development of legislation relating to Wales when he was Secretary of State. He will recognise how quickly the devolution make-up of the UK has developed and matured in that time. This is the next logical step in making the Assembly more mature and responsible, and ultimately more accountable to the people of Wales, because it will have to consider how money is raised as well as how it is spent.
Nia Griffith
It comes as no surprise that an intervention from the hon. Gentleman focuses on his party’s determination to see Wales become an independent state, regardless of the economic consequences. As I have just explained, it is crucial to give the Assembly the opportunity to negotiate a proper, fair fiscal framework with a “no detriment” principle before it accepts responsibility for income tax. That opportunity is extremely important.
Mr David Jones
The hon. Lady mentions what she sees as the need for the Assembly to consent to the devolution of tax powers, but what about the people of Wales? Given that the people of Scotland were consulted in a referendum prior to tax-raising powers being given, does she not think that the people of Wales deserve the same respect?
Nia Griffith
We have moved on since the last Wales Bill, but it is vital that there is a mechanism to establish a clear financial framework with a “no detriment” principle so that the Welsh Assembly can have the confidence to decide whether to accept the devolution of tax-raising powers.
As I said at the outset, this Bill is not perfect and it will require amendments, but I hope that the UK Government will commit to working constructively with the Welsh Government and with Opposition parties to ensure that we deliver the strong, stable, workable settlement that the people of Wales deserve.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on introducing the Bill. I have to say, however, that that should not be interpreted as meaning that I greet it with unalloyed enthusiasm. This is the fourth major piece of constitutional legislation aimed at conferring devolved powers on Wales in less than 20 years. The very fact that we are in the Chamber to debate this yet again shows just how flawed the original devolution settlement was and how important it is that, on this occasion, we try to get it right at the fourth time of asking.
The Secretary of State has very kindly presented a briefing note on the Wales Bill, in which he acknowledges that
“there is more work to do”,
and that there are “unresolved issues” and “unfinished business”. He goes on to say that he is looking to
“amend the Bill if necessary during its parliamentary passage.”
I must say that he is probably not likely to be disappointed in that regard.
The opening clauses of the Bill follow the current fashion for declaratory legislation. We are solemnly told that the
“Assembly and the Welsh Government are a permanent part of the United Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements.”
We are also told that they are
“not to be abolished except on the basis of a decision of the people of Wales voting in”—
yet another—
“referendum.”
We are told that there is a “body of Welsh law”, which should not of course be in any way confused with a Welsh jurisdiction. There is a declaration that in effect incorporates the Sewel convention into statute, in that the Bill declares that this Parliament
“will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Assembly.”
Such declarations are all well and good, but they are in danger of overlooking the constitutional fact that this Parliament is supreme, which makes one wonder about their worth and whether they are in reality mere window dressing.
It is somewhat ironic that, having quite rightly abandoned the necessity test, the Government are now apparently introducing a normality test. As my right hon. Friend acknowledged, that means that the courts might intrude on parliamentary sovereignty by deciding or being asked to decide whether a piece of legislation passed by this Parliament is, so to speak, normal.
The Bill does of course change the devolution settlement from a conferred powers model to a reserved powers model, which is deemed to make matters clearer. I have to say that I do not believe that a reserved powers model is, as many contend, a panacea. The reserved powers model is in reality simply a mirror image of the conferred powers model. The nature of the model is less important than the clarity of language, as other Members have pointed out.
That is particularly important in relation to whether the reservations are comprehensive. The danger is that if the reservations are not comprehensive, there will be problems. I am glad, for example, that my right hon. Friend has not emulated a former Secretary of State for Scotland, who made sure that Antarctica was a reserved matter, and that we will not therefore see an attempt to create a new Patagonia on that continent.
The necessity test has been abandoned to the extent that it is no longer the case that the Assembly can modify criminal and private law only where modification
“has no greater effect otherwise than…is necessary to give effect to the…provision.”
That was a positive invitation to go to the Supreme Court. However, there is still a necessity test in relation to the law on reserved matters. Proposed new section 108A(3) of the Government of Wales Act 2006 will provide that Assembly Acts cannot modify the law on reserved matters unless ancillary to a provision that is not reserved, but modification cannot go further than is necessary to achieve the devolved objective. Words such as “necessary” and “normally” lack objectivity, and are therefore subject to interpretation, including, in difficult cases, by the Supreme Court. I do not believe, therefore, that simply changing the model of devolution will necessarily achieve the clarity that everyone wants. In Committee, I believe it will be necessary to test whether the reservations are truly comprehensive to avoid any further difficulties of the sort we have already experienced. To be fair, however, the Secretary of State has acknowledged that the Bill is a work in progress, and he will no doubt be expecting such tests and, if necessary, significant amendments in Committee.
I do not want to dwell too lengthily on individual provisions, but some matters are worth mentioning. First, as the Secretary of State will have anticipated from my interventions, I have a huge concern about the proposal that income tax varying powers in the 2014 Act should now be triggered without a referendum. As a Conservative, I have a particular concern, because at the last general election—despite the apparently rapid passage of time, I remind him that it was only just over a year ago—I and Conservative colleagues campaigned on the basis that the powers would not be triggered without a referendum. Indeed, when I was specifically asked on the doorstep whether the powers would be imposed on the Assembly without consent, I made it absolutely clear that a referendum was contemplated. I must say that it is positively disrespectful of the people of Wales for this Parliament to seek to impose new tax-raising competences without consulting them first.
That was done in the case of Scotland, and despite the interventions already made by Opposition Members, it is perfectly possible to formulate such a question and, in the case of Scotland, one that could be answered in the affirmative. If the Scots are entitled to that, surely the people of Wales should be entitled to the same level of respect. I invite the Secretary of State to think about that, and to consider whether, in the circumstances, the Bill should be amended by the deletion of clause 16.
Secondly, although this may appear to be a minor point, I find it difficult to understand the rationale for devolving to the Assembly the setting of speed limits. Wales and England have a continuous, porous border, and every day there are many thousands of journeys back and forth across the border. It does not bear scrutiny that there should potentially be different speed limits on either side of that border—it makes no sense. I cannot understand what possible reason there could be for devolving the setting of speed limits. What mischief is it aimed at? Who asked for it? Why is it necessary?
Thirdly, there is the issue of electricity generating consents, set out in clause 36. I intervened on the Secretary of State about that. The 350 MW limit provided for in the Bill seems to have little practical significance, because wind generating stations are expressly excluded. The granting of energy generation consents for capacities of more than 350 MW will remain with the Secretary of State, and there are few conventional power stations with an output of less than 350 MW.
The worrying fact is that although the Bill is silent on the subject, it devolves competence to the Assembly for all onshore wind farms, with no upper limit at all. I refer the Secretary of State to the excellent Library note, which points out that the Energy Act 2016 has transferred competence for wind farm consents to local planning authorities. A piece of Welsh legislation with which I have no doubt we are all familiar, the Developments of National Significance (Specified Criteria and Prescribed Secondary Consents) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2016, provides that all wind farm developments in Wales are designated as developments of national significance. According to the Library note, which I have no reason to doubt, that means that all such developments, whether of up to 50 MW or more than 50 MW, will be determined by procedures set by the Assembly.
Given the thrust of policy at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, I suggest that the consequence of that will be a rush to develop wind farms in Wales. Indeed, I suggest that there may be a free-for-all. Areas such as my constituency, Montgomeryshire and Brecon and Radnor, which already have a lot of wind farms, are likely to be under further pressure for wind farm developments.
Jonathan Edwards
I hesitate to accuse the right hon. Gentleman of scaremongering, but the pace of development of renewable technologies relies on the subsidy that is available, which is determined by the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Jonathan Edwards
The right hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. I have two TAN 8—technical advice note 8—areas in my constituency, and in one of them the only developments that have occurred have been determined by Westminster. The local planning authority, which is responsible for developments of below 50 MW, has turned them down.
Mr Jones
That may be the case, but I say with huge respect that I think the hon. Gentleman is missing the point, which is about competence. It seemed clear from the Secretary of State’s response to my intervention that what I said was news to him. It was based on the Library note, which I believe is accurate. I therefore ask the Secretary of State to reconsider the matter, and he may well wish to table amendments himself in Committee.
The Bill is a further step in the process of devolution, and I believe that it is a brave attempt to rectify the errors of the past. However, I strongly question whether, in its current form, it will do the job that it is intended to. As I said, the Secretary of State anticipated amendments in his briefing note, and I have no doubt that he will look forward to them with great anticipation.
Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)
The Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee is no longer in the Chamber, but I should like to thank him for a fascinating insight into both the previous Wales Bill and the Bill that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has brought to the House today to start a new journey. The pre-legislative process certainly gave us an insight into how legislation is put together, but, perhaps more broadly, it also gave us an insight into the devolution journey on which we embarked with the creation of the National Assembly for Wales.
I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State and his team for the amendments that have brought us from the pre-legislative Bill to what is before us today. The dropping of the necessity test is very welcome, as are the inclusion of the Severn tolls in the reservations and the removal of various elements. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the cross-party Welsh Affairs Committee to establish how we can improve the Bill further as it proceeds through its various stages.
Let me begin by tackling the elephant in the room. I support the income tax provisions, but I think that the horse has bolted to some extent. If we look at business rates and council tax receipts, we see that more than £2 billion of income is being raised, and is already devolved to the Welsh Government. That is more than income tax, and it gives the Welsh Government a bit of accountability, which is welcome. The more accountability we can give that institution, the better. My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Byron Davies) touched on some of the more worrying aspects of the competence of the Welsh Government to date. It has taken many forms, but it has, I am afraid, been Labour-led since the creation of the Assembly.
I understand the passion expressed by some of my colleagues, and I find it difficult to separate my heart from my head. My heart says “Do not give the Welsh Labour Government any more power. They must prove that, to date, they have been competent in regard to education, health, local government and economic development.” At the same time, my head says that this is a very principled debate about the devolution journey and the powers that the House needs to give the Welsh Assembly as an institution. A journey is taking place in my own head, or a fight between poor performance and more principled considerations about the localism agenda.
I was very taken with the pragmatic approach of the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) to some of the battles over devolution, but I wanted to focus for a moment on the fact that the income tax provision constitutes a very welcome step. It will improve transparency and accountability, although we are already there with more than £2 billion of revenue from council tax and business rates, which the Welsh Government and Welsh Assembly completely control.
Mr David Jones
How comfortable is my hon. Friend about being asked to break a manifesto commitment?
Craig Williams
Well, the world moves on. I cannot say that I am ever terribly comfortable about breaking a manifesto commitment, but when it comes to income tax, I have said consistently to my electorate—throughout the general election period and before—that we need accountability in the Welsh Assembly and, more important, in the Welsh Government. I believe that passionately. My constituency, more than most, has seen at first hand some of the real scandals caused by complacency, such as the scandal of the regeneration investment fund for Wales, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower. Some of the most expensive residential land on the main site, in Lisvane, was sold at agricultural prices. There is a complacency, and until the place has real accountability and is shaken up, I believe we are going to continue in the same vein. I have made that very public statement, throughout my time as a candidate and in this House. I stand here comfortably, although I accept the wider point about the manifesto. However, the people of Cardiff North and of Wales put us here to make unpopular and difficult decisions, as well as the popular and easy decisions, and I think this is one of the former.
Hywel Williams
No doubt that is something that we will debate. I relish the opportunity to discuss the reservations and hear the Secretary of State or his colleagues justify them. The explanatory notes include a description or explanation of the reservations but, as far as I can see, there is very little justification for them. I therefore look forward to hearing about that in subsequent debates.
The report by the Wales Governance Centre and University College London on the draft Bill described the list of reservations and said:
“Complexity is piled on complexity...the potential for legal challenge casts a long shadow.”
I see little evidence that the revised list is much clearer. It remains, alas, a lawyer’s playground. As I have said, the shift to a reserved powers model was supposed to be made in tandem with a shift in mentality—that is extremely important—to determine what needed to be reserved, rather than what should be devolved. It is clear that the Secretary of State has instead facilitated a Whitehall trawl of the powers—a pick and mix of what the Sir Humphreys fancy bagging for themselves—sometimes based on principles no deeper than the chance to shout “Mine!”
If the Secretary of State is serious about creating a lasting devolution settlement, he cannot simply flip the current settlement from the conferred powers model to the reserved powers model, then allow Whitehall to pick and choose which tasty bits of power they want to hang on to. The process must be built on principles. I agree with the principles that he identified—clarity and coherence—but I would add proper subsidiarity.
Some time ago I had an entertaining lunch with the Irish Minister responsible for a new Irish language Act. He was quite candid, loquacious and hilarious. He had been to Canada and Quebec and had thieved—his words—a little bit of their language law. He had been to Wales and has snaffled bits of ours. He had been here and there in the rest of Europe, and hey presto, here was their language bill. We do not need to roam two vast continents, stitching together a bit of this and a bit of that. A model is already there for the borrowing and—perhaps Plaid people will forgive me for saying this—it is a home-grown British model called the Scotland Act.
The Silk commission hoped that moving to a reserved powers model would be a chance to rewrite the settlement to remove some of the defects of haste and inconsistency that have so far marred legislative devolution in Wales. The list of reservations does not reflect that hope. The director of the Wales Governance Centre has described the Bill as being underpinned by a “patronising attitude” and as continuing to regard Wales as “enjoying a lower status” than the other devolved nations. In practical terms it will undoubtedly lead to more blame shifting between Cardiff and London. That is the last thing that people in Wales want and the last thing that the governance of the people of Wales requires.
Both the Welsh Affairs Committee, which has a Tory majority, and the National Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, which was also chaired by a Tory, recommended that each reservation should be individually justified. That recommendation has been ignored and, as I said, I look forward to hearing the Secretary of State or his colleagues making up for that as we go into Committee.
The Wales Governance Centre has offered a list of considerations for identifying functions that should be devolved: is it necessary to retain function X for the functioning of the UK as a state? Does retention of Y make the governance of the UK less clear or comprehensible? Does retention of Z undermine the workability, stability or durability of the devolution settlement? These are the questions that the Secretary of State should be asking himself for each and every one of the reservations in the Bill and I hope we will have time to hear him go through those steps. Simply making hundreds of reservations for no given reason is not acceptable, particularly when the real rationale seems to be a deeply suspect power grab by Departments of Government that have failed Wales so spectacularly over the past few years.
Mr David Jones
The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech. He talks about the need to analyse each and every one of the proposed reservations. Does he think that two days in Committee will be sufficient to achieve that?
Hywel Williams
I am not sure. I am in two minds about that. If we have full days of debate, that might indeed be the case. I have been here too long, so I remember days of Welsh debates which have been interrupted by statements, urgent questions and all kinds of shenanigans that have led to Welsh debates being curtailed. If we have protected time, we shall see. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) will be looking into this point further in his remarks and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be here to hear him.
I challenge the Secretary of State to respond today and offer justifications for why he believes the people of Wales do not deserve the same responsible government as the people of Scotland. As has been said, the Secretary of State voted for the Scotland Act. He voted to give the people of Scotland a Government with full control of Scottish natural resources, policing and criminal justice. He voted to make the Scottish Government responsible for raising a significant proportion of the money that they spend. He has also voted to devolve policing to Manchester, yet he refuses to do so for Wales. What practical reasons are there to insist that Welsh police forces follow the agenda of English forces? Those who were fortunate enough to be in the House last night would have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) making just those arguments. What reason is there for focusing largely on problems prevalent in urban England, such as knife crime, rather than on meeting the needs of Wales, and in my case, particularly of rural Wales? What practical reason is there for setting, for example, a 350 MW limit on the Welsh Government’s power over energy—a point that I made to the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), who is no longer in his place—when there is no such limit on the Scottish Government? I raised the wholly practical question about that in my point to that hon. Gentleman. I will expand a little on it now, with the permission of the House.
A local hydroelectric scheme in Snowdonia was going to limit itself to 49 MW—that is the old limit. Those involved told me quite plainly that that was to avoid the entanglements of London bureaucracy. Now they are aiming for 350 MW, and they could produce more, but why should we skew reasonable economic development on the basis of a number that has, as far as I can see, been plucked out of the air? I would like to know why the figure is 350, and not 351 or 349.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Alun Cairns
My hon. Friend is of course failing to recognise that independent forecasters—whether the IMF, the OECD or the Governor of the Bank of England—have talked about the negative impact Brexit would have on the Welsh economy. A £2 billion reduction in the scale of the economy, costing 24,000 jobs, is a step we cannot afford to take.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
Is it the case that Wales Office special advisers recently had a meeting with representatives of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, and if so, what did they discuss?
Alun Cairns
We of course discuss a range of issues that affect the Welsh economy. A Brexit vote would of course affect the Welsh economy in a negative way, with a £2 billion cost to the Welsh economy, costing 24,000 jobs. As we speak, we are seeing some spectacular employment data, but they are based on strong economic foundations and access to 500 million customers across Europe.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Alun Cairns
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the new cross-border taskforce is making a bid for control period 6 funding from the Department for Transport with the aim of improving links with north Wales. Franchise negotiations are taking place between the Welsh and United Kingdom Governments, and we are determined to ensure that Members are represented properly in those negotiations.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
I, too, welcome my right hon. Friend to his position. As he said, the Budget contained excellent news for north Wales in the form of the growth deal announcement, which recognises the region’s close association with the north-west of England, but does he agree that maximising the benefit will require at least an element of political devolution to north Wales?
Alun Cairns
My right hon. Friend speaks with authority and knowledge of this issue. Devolution to north Wales from what is seen in many quarters as the remoteness of Cardiff Bay is essential. The community groups whom I met in north Wales, whether they were from the north-west, from the border or from the English side of the boundary, wanted the growth deal to work on a cross-border basis, and I am determined to explore that possibility in the interests of the region.
Macur Review of Historical Child Abuse
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
I am pleased to see you in the chair, Sir Edward. May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister on his appointment? This is not the easiest of debates with which to start. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) on her studied and sensible remarks.
This is a really difficult issue for Wrexham. It has cast a cloud over the years that I have been in Parliament, which are many now. The Waterhouse report was published in the year before I became a Member of Parliament and refers to events that occurred very often in Wrexham in the 1980s and 1990s, when I lived and worked in the area. There were great hopes for the Macur review. On Thursday, when the Secretary of State for Wales made a statement, I said that I was astonished. I am afraid that having considered the review to the extent I have been able to thus far, I do not in any way resile from my statement; in fact, I would intensify it.
The reaction within Wrexham has been one of huge disappointment and distress. The hon. Lady referred to Keith Gregory, who is my constituent and a local Plaid Cymru councillor in Wrexham, and to whom I spoke at the weekend. There is intense disappointment, but it simply confirms the view of many survivors about the political class, the political system and the whole world in which many of my constituents see politicians as operating. I am afraid that the report, with the redactions that have been referred to, will intensify the disillusion that the survivors of these incidents feel about the political and judicial system in north Wales.
A lot of issues will arise from the report, and I tell the Parliamentary Under-Secretary and Ministers at the Ministry of Justice that I will be pursuing many of those questions through parliamentary questions and further debate. We need a substantial debate—a full day’s debate—on this report, which is of national importance, in order to address the issues in it, once we have had the opportunity to try to read it. I congratulate the hon. Lady on reading the report: I have had real difficulty doing so because of the number of redactions in it. Many of the most important and controversial aspects of the report are very difficult to extract from the document we have.
The issue of redaction is very important. I was surprised last Thursday that the then Secretary of State for Wales made the statement, because I had expected the Lord Chancellor to make it. I have raised questions in connection with the publication of this report that have always been answered by the Ministry of Justice, which I therefore expected to be dealing with the matter. Although the report was jointly commissioned by the Wales Office and the Ministry of Justice, it is very important that Justice Ministers—I mean no disrespect to the Wales Office—should answer, because there are very technical and difficult legal questions relating to it.
It is clear that this report followed correspondence that took place between the Lord Chancellor and Lady Macur who was conducting an investigation and doing an independent report. The important issue of redaction was at the heart of that correspondence. The review itself makes it clear in paragraph 8.4 that
“the redaction of this report is a matter for the commissioning departments.”
It is very important that everyone out there understands that the redactions in the report were made by the Government, not by the judge. The only people who have seen the full report and have made the redactions are the Government.
However, that was not enough for the Lord Chancellor. Information that is given to us by Lady Justice Macur in paragraph 1.44 of the report tells us that Her Majesty’s Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor, Jonathan Jones, asked for a meeting with her to discuss the
“inclusion of names of individuals subject to unsubstantiated allegations.”
In the review, Lady Justice Macur says that she refused to have such a meeting.
That was not the end of the matter as far as the Ministry of Justice was concerned. I should make it clear that I have written to the Lord Chancellor to give him notice that I will be referring to this report and to him as an individual in this debate, because after the refusal to meet the Treasury Solicitor, the Lord Chancellor—effectively Lady Macur’s boss—wrote a letter to her. She is the head of an independent judicial inquiry investigating an alleged cover-up. He asked her to withhold the names of individuals who were the subject of allegations from the draft review presented to other Government Departments—so the Lord Chancellor asked her to take the names out of the draft report that was being sent, within the Government, to other Departments. I do not regard that as appropriate. This was an independent judicial inquiry and the matter was one for the judge.
I would have liked to question the Lord Chancellor on those points but, unfortunately, he did not present the report to Parliament, so I have not had the opportunity to do so: I will pursue those matters. In any event, the Government have redacted, as we have heard, huge swathes of the Macur review, removing in particular the names of individuals who have been the subject of speculation and who have national recognition. For example, the name Peter Morrison has been redacted from the report, but puzzlingly, other names—Greville Janner, Lord Gareth Williams—have not.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
If I may correct the hon. Gentleman, Peter Morrison’s name does appear in the body of the report. It is important that the hon. Gentleman clarifies that, because it is not redacted.
Ian C. Lucas
It appears in one part of the report, but it is also redacted in other parts of it. His name appears in the introduction, I believe, but in the part that relates to establishment figures, his name is redacted.
Mr David Jones
The point I was seeking to make is that his name is not wholly redacted, and since the hon. Gentleman is making a speech that covers very important matters, it is necessary to clarify that point.
Ian C. Lucas
I am grateful for that clarification, but in the chapter that relates to establishment figures, the two names that I referred to are not redacted, whereas Peter Morrison’s name is. It is very difficult to deduce a line of principle to see why someone made that decision. I think we need to have that information, and I think it is very important and very appropriate that the Children’s Commissioner for Wales has written to the Secretary of State for Wales, saying that
“more can be done to communicate many of the omissions to be found in the report, and seek a greater level of transparency to be afforded to victims. As such, I call on the UK Government to issue a statement explaining the methodology used for redacting the publically available Macur Review Report, giving a full rationale for the changes made. Without an understanding of the approach employed by the Government’s lawyers, many will continue to question whether there has been protection of individuals because of their position in society, rather than because there are ongoing criminal investigations, or if there is no evidence against them.”
Some of the people whose names have been redacted are dead, so there will not be any continuing criminal investigations as far as they are concerned, and it is very difficult to understand why these redactions have been made and what element of principle is involved. We need that information because we have to try to persuade our constituents that our political system is not rotten and that it does afford them some element of protection.
I am also very concerned about the circumstances in which the review was set up. There is a very interesting section starting in paragraph 1.33 of the review concerning a Wales Office note, and the involvement of the Cabinet Secretary in the compilation of a note that involved the former Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), who is here today. It seems from the report that issues that are directly relevant to the establishment of the Macur review have been left hanging in the air and that a Cabinet note, which is referred to in paragraph 1.40, has not been disclosed. That is one of many documents that are available and should be published. A huge number of questions arise from the report and I am afraid its contents do nothing to resolve the disillusion of my constituents or the many survivors who suffered at the hands of criminals in north Wales in the 1980s and 1990s.
Ian C. Lucas
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. The report took over three years and I would be astonished—to use that phrase again—if the Goddard review reported within that timeframe. That is why it is incumbent on us to ask these questions. It is unacceptable that only members of the Government see the unredacted report. I am a former Minister and an elected Member of Parliament and it is appropriate for the unredacted report to be seen by individuals in Opposition parties. Otherwise, the inference that political motives are involved will continue to be made.
Mr David Jones
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that another disturbing element of the report is the handling of the documentation of the inquiry: its transmission from the Welsh Office to the Welsh Assembly Government, and what happened when it was in the hands of the Welsh Assembly Government? Does he agree that those matters also need further clarification?
Macur Review
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Stephen Crabb
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her response to the statement, and for the spirit and tone in which she made it. I join her in paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) for her long-standing work in trying to achieve justice not only for her constituents who suffered abuse, but for the wider number of care home residents at the time.
When we discussed this issue during a recent session of Wales Office questions, the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley asked me about the redactions. I gave her a commitment that everything possible would be done to ensure that they were kept to a minimum, and that we would be able to explain the reasons for them fully. As I said in my statement, I believe that the letters that we have published along with the report set out those reasons very clearly, but I suggest that Members read Lady Justice Macur’s remarks in the report urging caution in relation to the publication of the names of individuals in the various categories that she describes. I hope that those explanations will provide ample justification for the redactions.
The hon. Lady asked whether we would make a full, unredacted version of the report available to the independent Goddard inquiry. The answer is yes, absolutely. We have also made a full, unredacted copy available to the Crown Prosecution Service, the Director of Public Prosecutions and Operations Pallial, Hydrant and Orarian.
The hon. Lady asked about changes in policy and practice, and about looking to the future. As I said in my statement, Lady Justice Macur has made a number of specific asks of the Government. She has asked for changes to be made, and made recommendations about, in particular, the way in which material is stored and archived. That is one of the weaknesses that she found in establishing her inquiry after 2012, when it was set up. She referred to the “disarray” that many of the files were in. There are important lessons to be learned by Government as a whole—devolved Administrations and the United Kingdom Government—about the way in which sensitive material is archived and protected for the future. Those lessons have been and are being learnt.
As for the wider issue of how we support the survivors and victims of abuse, I think that there has been an enormous cultural change in the last 30 years in Wales and throughout the United Kingdom. That is one of the reasons why more survivors now feel empowered to come forward as part of Operation Pallial, to relive those horrific events, and to make specific allegations, which are being pursued rigorously by the National Crime Agency.
The really positive developments that have taken place since the 1990s, including the establishment of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, show that as a society we have made a lot of progress. Of course we do not get everything right, and there is much more that we need to learn to do, but we have made a lot of progress over the past 30 years on the way in which we support victims of sexual abuse and address this issue. I do not wish to sound complacent in any way, however, and indeed there is no sense of complacency in Lady Justice Macur’s report that we are publishing today. I hope that that addresses the hon. Lady’s specific question.
The hon. Lady also asked what support was being provided through the independent Goddard inquiry. The inquiry will shortly open an office in Cardiff to reach out to survivors in Wales, and it will work through the mediums of English and Welsh.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I also pay tribute to the work done by Lady Justice Macur. I know that it has been a monumental undertaking for her. The events she was investigating have cast a dark cloud over north Wales and the Chester area for many years. I am hopeful that the report published today will ease those concerns, but I have to say to my right hon. Friend that I continue to have my own concerns in two respects. The first relates to the absence of documentation. I fully accept what he has said about its storage, which has frankly been little more than a catalogue of disaster, but will he assure the House that not only his Department and Her Majesty’s Government but the Welsh Assembly Government, who had custody of the documents but lost them, have learned the lessons from this?
My second concern relates to the redactions, which I believe will cause the most concern in north Wales. I fully understand the reasons that my right hon. Friend and Lady Justice Macur have given for this, but can he confirm that Justice Lowell Goddard will have the right to pursue in her own inquiry the identities of those whose names have been redacted in today’s report?
Stephen Crabb
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his questions. He was one of the joint commissioning Secretaries of State for the foundation of the Macur review. He asked two specific questions. The first was about the absence of the relevant documentation. The conclusion that Lady Justice Macur comes to is that she is confident she has seen enough documentation from the Waterhouse tribunal to make some strong conclusions about the overall findings that Waterhouse reached, and that she supports the overall findings of Waterhouse based on her exhaustive trawl through 1 million-plus pages of documentation. Where there are gaps, she has concluded that they are not sufficient to cast into doubt her overall findings.
My right hon. Friend’s second point related to redactions. Again I make the point that a full unredacted copy has gone to the Goddard inquiry. He asked whether Goddard would be able to pursue those names in the unredacted report. Let us bear it in mind that one of the specific recommendations of the Macur review is that the police and the judicial process will be best placed to go after those people against whom specific allegations have been made, and that public or private inquiries are not the best forum in which to do that.
Welsh Affairs
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
May I take this opportunity to wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, a belated happy St David’s day? May I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on securing this important debate? Traditionally, it has always been held close to St David’s day. It reminds the entire House that, even in an age of devolution, many of the most important decisions that affect Wales are still taken in these Houses of Parliament.
There have been busy times recently for the Wales Office. We recently had a very full debate on the draft Wales Bill, so I do not propose to rehearse the remarks I made then, save to tell the Minister how pleased I am that he and his colleagues have taken the opportunity to have a pause in the process of developing what will be extremely important legislation. It was generally agreed by hon. Members, and indeed by commentators outside this House, that the draft Bill was really not ready and not fit for purpose.
I am glad that the Minister and his colleagues are giving further consideration to the matter. They are looking at the issue of the list of reservations, but my concern was not so much with the reservations, as he knows, as with the necessity test, which was rather sketchy and ill-defined. I hope he will be able to come back to the House with something that is more fit for purpose.
I wish to speak—briefly, Madam Deputy Speaker—about north Wales, because that is the part of Wales I come from and in which I have lived all my life. Welsh Members frequently think that north Wales is something of an afterthought in Westminster and in Cardiff Bay. In the case of the Welsh Assembly Government, I think few of its members come from north Wales and understand the peculiar circumstances that prevail there. For example, I do not think it is fully understood by members of the Welsh Government that most of north Wales is, in reality, closely tied to north-west England; in fact, it is fair to say that it is very much part of the north-western economic region. That lack of understanding has resulted in certain problems for north Wales, and I am glad to say that north Wales Members of Parliament are beginning to address that through the formation, under the excellent chairmanship of the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas), of the new all-party group for the Mersey-Dee north Wales region.
North Wales needs to maintain its close links to north-west England. Traditionally, it has always looked, culturally and economically, to the great cities of north-west England—specifically Manchester and Liverpool. However, devolution carries with it the danger that those historical and traditional links will be loosened. It is important, now that Government policy is firmly focused on developing the northern powerhouse agenda, that north Wales is not overlooked in that process.
One aspect of the northern powerhouse that north Wales needs to link into is the rail network. I was glad when, a few months ago, the Chancellor announced that he was making funds available to upgrade the Halton curve, which many Members on both sides of the border—not least my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans)—had been pressing for for some time. However, there is much more that needs to be done.
North Wales MPs hear constantly of the wonderful electrification upgrades in south Wales. Before long, the Great Western line will be upgraded to electrified status all the way through to Swansea.
Mrs Moon
Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that it appears from announcements by the Department for Transport that the north Wales line to Manchester will be held by an English franchise and that there will be no opportunity for a Welsh franchisee to hold it, because it will not be possible for any franchise that starts or ends in England to be held in Wales?
Mr Jones
I do have concerns about the franchise, but now that the hon. Lady has raised the subject, I am bound to say that the citizens of north Wales would not express much satisfaction with the franchise that has been put in place by the Welsh Assembly Government. Arriva Trains provide a very poor service. It is actually much quicker for me, as a north Wales MP, to travel to London by Virgin Trains than to Cardiff by Arriva. Certainly, issues of topography are partly responsible for that, but they do not explain the appallingly low standards of comfort that one experiences on Arriva. I would certainly hope, therefore, that all aspects of the franchise will be looked at, not least the adequacy of the service that is provided at the moment.
The north Wales coastal line needs to be upgraded. We must not miss out on the opportunity to tap into the new service that will be provided as a consequence of the advent of HS2. It looks very much as if a new hub will be provided at Crewe, and it is essential for the travelling public of north Wales that proper, electrified services connect the whole north Wales coast, from Holyhead, all the way to Crewe.
In that connection, valuable work is being done by the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, and the new all-party group can play a role in that. It is hoped that there will shortly be a meeting that will be attended by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), who is the northern powerhouse Minister. I was very pleased to see the Minister at a meeting organised by the board in Llandudno a few months ago. It is essential that the Government do not take their eye off the ball, because electrification of the north Wales line is fundamentally important to the economy of north Wales and to its connectivity with the northern powerhouse.
Similarly, consideration should be given to the Borderlands railway line that runs between Wrexham and Bidston, connecting the two enterprise zones at Wirral Waters and Deeside. Electrification of that stretch of line, particularly between Bidston and Shotton, would provide a relatively inexpensive, but highly desirable, piece of infrastructure. It would put Deeside industrial estate within commuting distance of the centre of Liverpool, again improving connectivity.
Ian C. Lucas
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words earlier. He knows that I strongly share the agenda he is outlining. The Welsh Government have invested £43 million in dualling the Wrexham-Chester line, which is hugely important, and we need to do more. Will he join me in pressing the Welsh Government and the UK Government to put their money where their mouth is? The Welsh Government, to be fair, believe in cross-border transport so much that they have dualled the line in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) rather than in Wrexham, and we want it to run right through to Wrexham.
Mr Jones
Yes, that is the burden of my speech. As the north-eastern part of Wales is so dynamic and so important to the economy of north Wales, as well as that of the country of a whole, and because it straddles a border—a line on the map that was not there in reality until fairly recently—we need to ensure that differing policies on either side of the border do not have any unforeseen effects. Yes, of course it is essential that both the Westminster Government and the Welsh Government should be working extremely closely together in this regard.
Before I sit down, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am very much alert to your strictures on time—I will mention the A55 coast road, or expressway, which is the most important route in the whole of north Wales, linking the areas around the border to Holyhead. The road is now quite old and in desperate need of upgrading. A few years ago, arrangements were made whereby borrowing powers were given to the Welsh Government—in fact, they were given the right to access the old borrowing powers of the Welsh Development Agency—in order to upgrade road infrastructure. That was stated to be specifically for the M4 and the A55. The Welsh Government are taking steps to upgrade the M4 around the Newport area, and that is all well and good, but looking at this from a north Wales point of view, it is rather galling that they do not appear to be accessing these borrowing powers to upgrade the A55. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to give his colleagues in the Welsh Assembly Government the message that they should realise that the A55 is just as important to the people of north Wales as the M4 is to the people of south Wales.
There is a strong perception among us north Walians that we always get the short straw. I very much hope that the Welsh Government are listening to the contributions made to this debate and will understand that there is life north of Merthyr Tydfil and that the people of north Wales need their own specific economic interests to be reflected—and that means more connectivity and more integration with the great north-west economy.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
I would like briefly to refer to three issues: first, what has happened to the draft Wales Bill; secondly, the importance of the European Union to Wales; and, thirdly, the need for the third runway at Heathrow airport from a Welsh perspective.
I have to ask where the Secretary of State for Wales is this afternoon. Surely this is an important debate and his place really ought to have been in this Chamber listening to what Members have to say and responding to their remarks. It is not asking too much that he show some courteousness and political common sense by coming here. I very much hope that he will learn the lesson from his embarrassment this afternoon. The Under-Secretary will clearly take that message back to him.
Quite a significant decision has been taken by the Secretary of State over the past week—to withdraw the draft Wales Bill—but I am concerned that there has been no oral statement or even a written statement. There has been no communication with the House of Commons. We learned about the decision from the press. That is a gross discourtesy and an undermining of the parliamentary system that we are all committed to.
That brings me to my main issue. I ask the House this question: what do the following individuals and organisations have in common? They are the Wales Governance Centre, the leaders of three political parties in Wales, the Learned Society of Wales, Sir Paul Silk, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, the head of the Wales office of the Law Society, and the professor of governance and constitution at University College, London—and the list could go on. The answer is that they all said that the draft Wales Bill was not fit for purpose. There was relative unanimity on that among those in Wales who follow these issues closely—the objective experts and academics, and the people who are at the sharp end of implementing legislation. I am sure the Under-Secretary will say, “Well, yes, that is why we withdrew the Bill—we listened”, but would it not have been better if he had listened at the start?
Concern was expressed about the draft Bill right from the very beginning, when it was first published. I have a copy here, and quite a heavy tome it is. The Secretary of State said in the foreword:
“This draft Bill sets out in detail how the Government plans to deliver the St David’s Day commitments to create a stronger, clearer and fairer devolution settlement for Wales that will stand the test of time.”
It stood the test of time for four months, and then he recognised what everybody else was saying—that it was not fit for purpose and he should go back to the drawing board and start all over again.
Mr David Jones
I have listened to the hon. Gentleman’s criticisms, but does he not agree that it is far better to get the legislation right than to bring through hasty legislation that does not stand the test of time? In that regard, did he read the recent report by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that bemoaned the fact that the Blair Government of 1997 hastened through legislation that has now resulted in the West Lothian question not being addressed?
Wayne David
I agree up to a point. Pre-legislative scrutiny is good—it makes for better legislation—but it would have been far better if the Wales Office had recognised that meaningful constitutional change can be achieved only on the basis of a high degree of political consensus. It cannot be achieved by a Government—any Government—trying to push through legislation that does not command broad support and is seen by some people as partisan and not properly thought through. That was one of the fundamental problems with the draft Bill. Many people thought it was purely impractical and would therefore lead to bad governance. That lesson ought to be learned.
Craig Williams
The hon. Gentleman is trying to ruin the consensus within my party as well as the debate. I will try my best to skirt around that issue. Although I disagree with Andrew R. T. Davies, a good friend and colleague, we will work those things out when he is First Minister. I therefore would not worry about that.
Let me move on quickly to the redevelopment and challenges that I envisage for the south Wales and Cardiff economy. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) is not in his place, but I am sure that he will read Hansard later. The barefaced cheek of saying that we are waiting for some sort of financial package from the UK Government for the M4 relief road is unbelievable. That borrowing power—the old Welsh Development Agency powers—has been available to the Welsh Government for a considerable time and they have not done much to progress that.
Mr David Jones
Does my hon. Friend accept that although the Welsh Government may not have done much in south Wales, they have done nothing at all in north Wales?
Craig Williams
I wholeheartedly accept that, and I feel for the A55 as much as I do for the M4. However, the M4 relief road is key for our links to Heathrow, as is the spur for Network Rail. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) referred to Andrew R. T. Davies—the next First Minister—and he has committed to having, within 12 months, a spade-ready M4 relief road. I massively welcome that and look forward to its coming to fruition.
I am conscious of the time, but I want to touch on the redevelopment of the M4 and the Eastern Bay link road. It is a shame and a travesty that Wales’s capital city does not have a circular road around it, and any visitor to the National Assembly for Wales who comes out of the Butetown tunnels then sees the national disgrace of a road that ends—it is a road to nowhere and it needs finishing. I know that phase 1 is now on the cards, but it is ridiculous to do one phase of a circular road, but to leave out a small section up to what would be an excellent gateway to the new M4 relief road. I have also touched on the metro and the tolls, on which there is cross-party consensus.
Let me briefly mention the Commonwealth games, and a bid that we must champion as a nation. Cardiff is at the core of that, but the games have the opportunity to be a real Welsh national Commonwealth games. When we consider what happened in Glasgow and Scotland, and at the Olympics in London, the kind of economic redevelopment and opportunities that a Commonwealth games presents for Wales cannot be missed. I hope that all parties in the upcoming Assembly election will have in their manifestos a clear commitment to the Commonwealth games. Sports, businesses and Welsh civic society are behind that bid, and we need political vision and leadership from Cardiff Bay. I hope that that will be the only bid within the United Kingdom, and that we can have full support from the UK Government.
I will now touch on sporting success. I asked permission from my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire to mention one hero, but I will actually mention three. He mentioned Barry Williams. I spent many a Saturday morning more than two decades ago selling match programmes with him, and he is a true champion. We finally have something in common again, because he is up for election in the Peter’s Pie competition for a Welsh rugby hero. Outside of Cardiff North, Welshpool rugby club is the finest rugby club in Wales, and I support his bid wholeheartedly. He is a true champion of Welsh rugby and a great friend.
Lewis Wilkins is a young scientist from my constituency, and he is coming to the House of Commons on Monday as part of the SET for BRITAIN initiative to encourage, support and promote Britain’s early-stage and early-career research scientists. It is a great scheme to get young people into science and research and development so early on. He will be in Portcullis House—I will not give the time and date, but if anyone wants to join me in going to see Lewis Wilkins, they will meet a true champion of science and a true advocate for Cardiff and Cardiff University.
Finally, I want to mention Mrs Beth Baldwin, whose son tragically died of undetected type-1 diabetes. This week she presented a petition to the Assembly on raising awareness of diabetes and on having a simple prick test—perhaps as part of schools’ injection processes—to discover whether children are diabetic. She received the Pride of Britain award, and she is an incredibly brave woman from an incredibly supportive and great Cardiff family that have turned a tragedy into a great campaign. She is a true Welsh hero. I am delighted that she will be coming to No. 10 later this month to present another petition about having a gold standard or minimum for GPs and other health care professionals to routinely test for diabetes.
I hope that I have captured the economic development, excitement and potential of Cardiff and Wales. We should not talk it down too much. We have great opportunities, but a Commonwealth games bid could draw much of that redevelopment together, and I very much want that to happen.
Draft Wales Bill
David Jones Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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The Chair
I advise hon. Members that about nine hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye before the end of the debate. I intend to call the winding-up speeches from 3.30 pm. The right hon. Member for Clwyd West was on his feet.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
Welcome to the Chair, Mr Hanson.
Before we adjourned, I was expressing both support for what the Wales Office is seeking to do via the Bill and concern about whether the Bill is the best vehicle for achieving that. The difficulty we have in this country is that, as other hon. Members have said, we have experienced piecemeal devolution over many years, going back to the original defective settlement imposed in 1999. We have asymmetric devolution, which that is not necessarily a bad thing. One of the strengths of this country is the inherent flexibility of its institutions, so I do not think that the asymmetry is the problem. I think that having had years of piecemeal devolution, we are continuing the process and keep tinkering with the devolution settlement. We are trying to fix the big end when what we need is a completely new engine.
I commend to members of the Grand Committee the work being carried out by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, as are the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and for Newport West. That Committee is carrying out an extensive inquiry into the British constitution, and evidence we have heard in recent weeks follows a pattern, which is that progress of further devolution is proceeding too quickly, with too little thought and, frankly, not in a holistic manner.
For example, we visited the Welsh Assembly some weeks ago and were told by Dame Rosemary Butler, the Presiding Officer, that changes to the devolution settlement are being rushed. Only yesterday we heard evidence from Lords Forsyth and Lang, former Scottish Secretaries, who expressed the same concern; and that concern was echoed in the report by the Wales Governance Centre published yesterday. I know there is anxiety and keenness within the Government that the Bill should proceed as quickly as possible, but I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to give careful consideration to the evidence that is emerging, not only from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, but from external sources, that if we carry on at this pace of reform, we are going to make an even bigger mess.
Suggestions have been made, for example by the First Minister, that there should be a constitutional convention. That suggestion has been echoed to a certain extent by Lord Norton of Louth, who has called for a constitutional convocation. There have also been suggestions that a high commission on the constitution should be established. There is merit in giving consideration to all those suggestions.
What we are all seeking is a constitutional settlement that ultimately will settle the question of devolution. I remember when I arrived in this House in 2005 being told by Lord Hain, who was then Secretary of State, that the Bill that became the Government of Wales Act 2006 would settle the issue of devolution for Wales for a generation, and here we are talking about it again. There has to be a terminus to this process and it has to be a terminus that is fair and reflects all the interests of all the people of this country. I do not believe that the bolt-on approach represented by the Bill is the right approach.
I entreat my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State not to proceed at such great speed. I know that, from the point of view of the press, there is tremendous attraction in a Wales Bill being introduced to the House on 1 March—the St David’s day Bill. We need something much more substantial than that. While fully applauding my right hon. Friend’s desire to put right the mess that we inherited from previous Parliaments, I ask him to think about pausing the process. I ask him to give the whole process more time, to listen to the interested parties who are now increasingly making their voices heard, and to consider with his colleagues in Government putting in place a process that gives the people of this country the opportunity to have a devolution settlement that endures, not one that—God forbid—we have to revisit in five years’ time.
Mr David Jones
I do not know if the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that all those issues should be devolved to Wales. I notice he mentioned gender recognition. Would that mean that someone could be a man in England and a woman in Wales?
Mr Mark Williams
I thank the right hon. Gentleman, if only because he has given me a chance to catch my breath. Would seeing those powers controlled in Wales mean the unravelling of our constitution and the end of the Union? Should we have not started from the principle that what is devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland should be devolved to Wales? Better still, if one believes in subsidiarity, should we have not started with the principle that all powers are devolved, and it is for the Secretary of State and Westminster to argue the case for reserving them to Westminster?
However, we are where we are and we have this Bill. The hon. Member for Wrexham, who is not in his place, talked about the need for a constitutional convention and the right hon. Member for Clwyd West said he was open to the case for that. He described the Bill as a “bolt-on”. That and the devolutionary drift in other parts of the UK points to the need to look at such matters in the round. My party has always believed in a federal Britain, with home rule for Wales, and we need a constitutional convention to look into that.
Some have asserted that there should be a pause and, on balance, I agree. Too many concerns have been expressed, as the Select Committee will reveal at some point in the future. The question is: how much of a pause should there be? If a pause means that we lose a legislative slot for the Wales Bill to carry forward devolution, I would be immensely concerned. However, the issues on which the Secretary of State has openly reflected, such as looking again at the necessity test, or whatever form of words we use for that, ministerial consents and the scale of the list of reservations, are a big body of work that needs to be done urgently.
I would not say that the Secretary of State was disdainful when I talked about the need for robust dialogue with Assembly colleagues, but that dialogue needs to happen. I was privy to discussions between Westminster MPs representing the four parties and our Assembly colleagues and given the level of concern expressed since the draft Bill was published, that needs addressing. There are rumours of delays to the suspected date of Second Reading. I do not expect to get a date at the end of the Committee, but we need to be mindful of that and of the work that needs to be done.
The Secretary of State said that he wants the matters to be settled. The issue of a distinct jurisdiction has gained much traction in discussions, with various questions fired around the Committee today asking people to define what that means. I am not a lawyer—perhaps that is obvious—so I cannot give that definition.
Byron Davies
I understand the Secretary of State’s point. We have to realise that the scandal, as he calls it, of the regeneration investment fund for Wales was examined by the Wales Audit Office, which produced a damning report, and by the Welsh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, whose damning report was published only last week. I hope that I can have some faith in his suggestion that if we give the Welsh Government this responsibility, they will grow into a more responsible—
Mr David Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that while it is all well and good to give the Assembly Government the responsibility for accounting for the money that they spend, tax-varying powers should not be conferred without the acquiescence of the Welsh people, as was the case with the Scottish people in 1997, and that therefore a referendum should be held on the issue?
Byron Davies
It is well known that I think that the people of Wales should have had a referendum on that issue, and it is in the public domain that I have made that known to the Government.
Alun Cairns
I am grateful for that point, which I accept in the spirit that the hon. Gentleman intended. I intended partly to give a light-hearted example of a constitutional convention, and partly to probe the motives of some who call for such a convention to ascertain whether they really want a Bill.
Mr David Jones
I fully appreciate my hon. Friend’s point. We do not want a talking shop that goes on for years. I also understand his possible suspicion of Members of other parties, such as the First Minister of Wales. However, given that Lord Norton of Louth, who is a well-respected Conservative peer, is calling for a constitutional convocation, should not the Wales Office at least consider that?
Alun Cairns
Certainly, the Wales Office and the Government will listen to all the points that are expressed, but I was merely highlighting the one example that we have in modern history of a constitutional convention and how complicated that became to give a context for the difficulty of trying to resolve some of those issues.
I remind people who have been extremely critical of the draft Bill, the St David’s day agreement and the process that the Secretary of State undertook, of the Richard Commission and the amount of time that that spent, only to be rejected by the Government of the day. That left us with a complex situation and the LCO mechanism. How many of us remember how complicated that was, whether we were in the Assembly or in Westminster? It is therefore a bit rich for some people to suggest that there is a simple and straightforward way of resolving the issues. We are keen to listen to and develop the debate, and the draft Bill was published in that spirit.
To underline the points that were made at the outset, there is a lot of rhetoric and misunderstanding. Some comments that have been made in Committee are simply inaccurate. I will pick up on some of them shortly, including those made by the hon. Member for Clwyd South. The draft Bill is ambitious and extends significant amounts of new powers to the Assembly. Matters that have been raised—be it the necessity test or the consents—are not about limiting Assembly powers. There is no Machiavellian plot to clip the Assembly’s wings. It is about giving the Assembly the powers, with two Governments that have responsibility for matters that relate to Wales: the legitimate Welsh Government, who will have legitimate powers over devolved matters, and the UK Government. Who knows? In the long-term future, there may be a Labour Administration, although I do not expect that to happen for at least another two or three general elections. However, in future, Opposition Members in this Committee Room, who may be Ministers in such an Administration, could be grateful for the powers that the Bill will grant to marry the interface between Wales and the UK Government.
Not unexpectedly, several Members raised the necessity test, and I will not have time to go round all those who mentioned it. Let me clear up the misunderstanding that exists. The necessity test applies only when the Assembly seeks to legislate in relation to England, in relation to reserved matters and in relation to underlying principles of criminal and private law. It has nothing to do with the Welsh Government legislating in Wales on a devolved matter. The necessity test is about when something touches reserved matters and matters that could be deemed to be the responsibility of the UK Government.
I will give a practical, straightforward example relating to the education of a child with special educational needs. If that child, from Wales, is being educated in a school in England, Estyn would naturally have the responsibility for inspecting the provision for that child in the school in England. It would not have the authority to close the school in England, because that would be a matter for the UK Government, but it would have the power to go to that school in England. The necessity test is about making the Welsh legislation effective when it crosses the English border. That is one practical example: there are a whole host of higher education institutions that have bases in England. The necessity test is about making the Welsh legislation effective as it applies to England. That is the scope and the scale of the necessity test. It is about enforcing legislation made by the Assembly.