District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) Order 2012

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord McAvoy]

I agree with my noble friend for the purposes of this debate. “Mad dog” is perhaps the best description of me when it comes to the towns of Rutherglen and Cambuslang being incorporated into a Glasgow constituency. He has mentioned the boundaries—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)]

I think that the noble Lord should not make another speech at this stage. Perhaps we could hear from other speakers and then from the Minister. He can interrupt on points of clarification then. It is not correct to speak twice in these debates.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I note what the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, says, but the lesson is that wherever you are in the United Kingdom, boundaries matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, said, it is encouraging that we can have a debate and discuss these issues in Northern Ireland without, thank God, the consequences that once might have been the case. It is a more mature discussion. While I have big problems with what is being proposed, decisions have been taken and they must be respected. This order is the natural outcome of those proposals.

Perhaps the Minister will give us some idea of the timing. Of course, the Northern Ireland Office can only respond to the devolved Administration—it cannot initiate the process; it has to wait—but if elections are to take place in 2014 as apparently proposed, the timetable for this operation is vital. If the appointment is made shortly, it will be the middle of next year before any proposal can be implemented. That is leaving things very short. This process has gone on since 2001. When those new local councils take power in 2015 it will have taken 14 years to reform local government for 1.8 million people.

You could not make it up if it was anywhere else in the world—and we are supposed to be lecturing people on the democratic process and how they conduct themselves. In fact, we have been so slow with this that the whole scene in local government will be out of date before we get it going. If this commissioner is not able to do his or her work in the first half of next year, the opportunity to hold those local elections will have been lost, and they will be postponed once again. I, too, would be interested to hear the Minister’s response.

National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Housing and Local Government) Order 2010

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Grand Committee

[Baroness Gale]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his statement today, which I very much welcome. I congratulate him on his appointment as Minister responsible for Welsh affairs. As he said, this is the first time that he has spoken on such Welsh matters, but I am also aware of the Minister’s great service in Scotland, both as an MP and as an MSP, where he served as Deputy First Minister in the Lib-Lab coalition from 1999 to 2005. I am sure that in time the Minister will realise that Welsh politics are very different from Scottish politics. No doubt, the number of distinguished Welsh Peers on both sides of the coalition Government will be able to advise him on the nature of politics in Wales. I wish him well.

The housing LCO has taken considerable time to get to its final stages. The original housing LCO was considered by the Welsh Affairs Committee in 2008, having been submitted by the Welsh Assembly Government in 2007. At that time, reservations were expressed by the Welsh Affairs Committee regarding the draft and the contradiction between the Explanatory Notes and the LCO, specifically on to the right to buy. The Welsh Assembly Government undertook a consultation and elaborated considerably on the approach to social housing. There were several reports, the most important of which was, we believe, the Essex report. Many of its recommendations were incorporated in the new housing LCO.

That revised LCO was considered by a scrutiny committee of the Welsh Assembly and by the Welsh Affairs Committee in another place during the previous Parliament. Conservative members of the Welsh Affairs Committee voted against the housing LCO, objecting to the reference to the Welsh Assembly Government having reserved power to ensure that the local authorities in Wales provided sites for Gypsies and Travellers. They also believed that the LCO should not make any reference to the lifting of the right to buy.

As the general election approached, it seemed that the LCO would have to go into the wash-up, but unfortunately for the Welsh Assembly no agreement could be reached because of the Conservative Party’s objections, which were set out in a letter dated 1 April from the then shadow Minister for Wales, David Jones, to the then Under-Secretary of State for Wales, Wayne David. It outlined the two objections to the proposed order. It stated:

“We … are concerned that … it would give the Welsh Assembly competence to abolish the right to buy. You will recall that during the select committee evidence session I questioned both you and Jocelyn Davies closely on this issue. Both you and she confirmed that it was no part of the Assembly government’s policy to abolish the right to buy. In those circumstances therefore the competence … is otiose. Secondly, the order would empower the Assembly to pass Measures that would give Welsh Ministers the right to impose a location of Gypsy and traveller sites upon local communities. The Conservative Party believes very strongly that the local authorities are best placed to decide the location of traveller’s sites, being closer both democratically and actually to the affected communities”.

The Conservatives went on to make it clear that they would not agree to the housing LCO as it stood, so it was not included in the wash-up, much to the disappointment of those in the Welsh Assembly who had been waiting for a conclusion to this matter.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, there is a Division. Is the noble Baroness about to wind up her remarks?

[Baroness Gale]

No.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

We will come back to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, after the Division. The Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.