Welsh Assembly Elections 2016

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, I stand here as a poacher turned gamekeeper, as has been said. This has been an excellent debate and I will try to do justice to the contributions that have been made forcefully and with great grace. First, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for securing this evening’s debate, and pay testament to the considerable work she has done in the Wales Office. Her great and continuing commitment to public life in Wales is appreciated much more widely than in her own party. It is a tonic to see the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, back in his place. Like many others, I have missed his smiling presence and wisdom. I am sure he will be giving us both of those for many years yet.

I will say a little bit about the Wales Bill. Without wishing to pre-empt the will either of Parliament or the National Assembly for Wales, next year’s Assembly elections may well be the last in their current form. The Government will publish a draft Wales Bill in the autumn for pre-legislative scrutiny and will introduce a Bill in the Commons—the correct place for Bills of a constitutional nature that are as far-reaching as this one—early next year, to implement the legislative commitments made in the St David’s Day agreement to make the Welsh devolution settlement clearer, stronger and fairer. This work was begun before I entered the Wales Office and was pushed forward by the Secretary of State and the noble Baroness so effectively.

The Bill will provide for a clearer settlement, founded on a reserved powers model, to clarify the division of powers between Parliament and the Assembly. I will try to answer the points made in different subject areas if I can. The first of these is reserved powers, a point made forcibly by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. We are moving to a reserved powers model. I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, that it is important to get this right and not panic. We will not. There will be no attempt at a power grab but, as has been demonstrated during the debate, it is not a straightforward issue and we want to get it right. The debate has been interesting in that, much as we all want to move on to look at health, education, the economy and transport, they barely surfaced this evening. They were touched on cursorily here and there but we are still, perhaps understandably, looking at the constitutional settlement. It is important that we get that right and we will.

We need a stronger settlement with important new powers devolved to the Assembly—as they will be—over energy, transport and elections. I will come back to elections separately. Understandably, some mention was made of policing. It is quite true that this was a recommendation for devolution from the Silk commission which was not taken up in the St David’s Day agreement. However, let us not become too pessimistic about this. We have come a long way in devolution, under the previous Government and this one. There have been previous commissions which have not seen the light of day, although they should have. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, who I see in his place, will perhaps understand my point. The Silk commission has been substantially taken forward in a way that we can see in the forthcoming Wales Bill.

I understand the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and some of his frustration, but he himself went on to suggest that we drop the referendum on tax-raising powers, something that was in the Silk commission. Let us remember that we are driving this forward considerably in the Wales Bill and there will be a chance for scrutiny and discussion of that as it proceeds through both Houses. Legal jurisdiction was not something that was recommended to be subject to devolution under Silk. It is right that we should look at Scotland but, as all noble Lords have said, we should not be hidebound by what happens there. Scotland is very different from Wales, not least on the funding basis, to which I will come back in a while.

I will say at this juncture that I would happily run the noble Baroness’s campaign to get into the Welsh Assembly—we go back a long way. This will probably not do her too much good, but I hope they have the sense to pick her, and I am sure that they will. I had better say no more in case it does the noble Baroness more damage than is sensible.

A central issue raised by noble Lords was tax and funding. This is important and we want to get it right. The Finance Minister in the Assembly, Jane Hutt, and the First Minister, Carwyn Jones, are very much aware of the Government’s view that the funding floor needs to go hand in hand with some commitment to a referendum. A referendum has been accepted as central to Silk, for reasons we can understand. I agree that there has been historic underfunding of Wales, certainly under the Labour Party, which has continued for some time. We need to get that right. The noble Baroness talked about putting this on a statutory basis in order for it to be lasting. The Barnett formula, goodness knows, has lasted well for many years without being on a statutory basis, so I am not convinced that is the case, but we have certainly not closed our minds to that. If we have some agreement going forward, it may be something that could be looked at, but I am not sure that it is absolutely necessary.

In terms of elections, the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, spoke very passionately about the democratic processes and pressures that exist. Although I can understand the frustration that is felt by the Liberal Democrats and other parties about the electoral system, I gently remind him that we did of course have a referendum in the previous Parliament on electoral reform and that the fairly clear result was to retain the present system, certainly against the choice that was offered. I reassure the noble Lord that all these powers over the electoral system, the elections and the number of Members will be devolved to the National Assembly, as is appropriate. I think that will be subject to a supermajority again, as has been the case in Scotland, but they will no longer be a concern for us. Instead, they will be a concern, quite rightly, for the National Assembly for Wales.

I hope I have addressed the significant points raised in the debate. As I say, it was a very good debate and will certainly inform our thinking on the Wales Bill and the way forward. We anticipate the publication of a draft Bill which will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. This is an important piece of legislation and we want to see it on the statute book next year. Then I hope that we can move in a way that we all want so that we can consider the issues that truly matter to people in Wales. As we well know from the recent general election—and as we will see, I am sure, in the Assembly election in the same way—nobody on the doorsteps talks about reserved powers or the Barnett formula. They certainly talk about funding for Wales, but the issues that they really talk about and that really matter to them, as they matter to us, are education, health, the economy, transport, agriculture, tourism and so on.

Lastly, I come back to the final theme that emerged, which is Scotland. We certainly have to be aware of what is happening in Scotland—we do not exist in isolation—but at the same time, we have to recognise that Wales is very different from Scotland, not just in the way it votes, which clearly was the case and which is a relevant consideration, but in many other respects. For example, our legal history is very different and we have a much more porous border. Very few people live near the Scottish-English border, while a heck of a lot of people live near the English-Welsh border, on both sides of it. That makes a difference to many of the things that we want to do. We must ensure that what we do is for the good of the people of Wales within the United Kingdom. That is what this Government are determined to do.

I thank your Lordships once again for an excellent debate. We will take away all these comments and study them very closely to inform progress on the Bill.