Wales Bill

Lord Crickhowell Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Therefore, I ask the Minister to address in particular the need to timetable change in Wales at least at the level of Northern Ireland, if not of Scotland. Clearly, at the moment Wales still has third-grade devolution. It is time we changed that. This matter has to be debated fully, not just in this House but in Wales itself. There is an emerging consensus—and every time we move forward on devolution in Wales it is through all-party consensus. I am very keen to retain that. So I am not pushing any particular amendment; I am asking the Government to give us the assurances that we require.

[Lord Crickhowell (Con)]

My Lords, I have followed one basic principle fairly consistently: when one has had major responsibility, one should stand aside when one hands over and not be a nuisance by pursuing the matter much further. After eight years as Secretary of State for Wales, I have deliberately kept out of debates about Welsh affairs and left it to others, so I had not intended to say much during today’s proceedings. My second reason for not saying much is that I am in the middle of some uncomfortable medical tests this week and I will not be here for the whole of this evening’s proceedings, or the proceedings over the next couple of days.

However, I was struck by these amendments and thought that a few words might be constructive and helpful. I listened with a good deal of sympathy to what was said about Clause 1 and the report on reserved powers. That caused me no great difficulty and I shall listen with great interest to what my noble friend on the Front Bench has to say about it. I was, however, somewhat alarmed by Amendment 2A. I was rather relieved when, in his introduction to it, the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, at least qualified his enthusiasm for the proposed new clause. I think that he was suggesting that it was a testing amendment and might not be pursued too vigorously, at least at this stage.

Similarly, I sympathise with some of what the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, had to say on Amendment 3, particularly his final comments about the pace of change. There are important issues to be considered in the aftermath of the Scottish referendum. I am not unsympathetic to that. I was, however, a bit startled by the omission in the amendment of all the exceptions.

That takes me back, rather neatly, to my doubts about Amendment 2A. I confess that it is a long time since I have looked at the Government of Wales Act 2006. I must have done at the time, but it is not as familiar to me as it clearly is to the two noble Lords who have just spoken. I got it down from the shelf and read Schedule 7. I find the extent of what is proposed in Amendment 2A rather alarming. We see the proposed transfer of, essentially, the responsibilities of the Home Office, including youth justice, criminal justice and the courts, sentencing, legal aid, the Crown Prosecution Service and judiciary, and the prison and probation services. That takes us to some of the responsibilities of my right honourable friend Mr Grayling.

What struck me about these provisions is that many of them involve matters of constitutional significance. As a member of the Constitution Committee, I feel almost certain that if these matters were being pursued with vigour at this time, the Constitution Committee would want to examine them carefully and draw its thoughts and conclusions to the attention of the House. I am pretty certain that we would not want to go further along the road at this time without that kind of advice.

The same goes for Field 38, which refers to,

“the Welsh constitution and electoral arrangements”.

That is broad and sweeping, too. If you want to start on that, it would have implications not just for the constitution of Wales in electoral arrangements but almost certainly for other parts of the United Kingdom as well. Again, therefore, I am sure that those issues would need to be looked at much more closely before we pursued them further.

On the subject of broadcasting, I note only that now that I live about 500 yards from the border of Wales with England, I find myself in the extraordinary situation where my Sky set is directed to England rather than Wales, although I live in Wales. I have to have an adjustment on my set so that if I wish, as I often do, to look at the Welsh news in the morning, I have to switch to the appropriate item. I make that point only because it identifies the fact that broadcasting is not a simple and straightforward matter, confined to only England or Wales. Broadcasting has a much wider sweep and I think that we would want to think a good deal more carefully before we moved down that road.

My only point in rising at this time is to say that, yes, I will listen with sympathy and some interest to what my noble friend on the Front Bench has to say about the report on reserved powers and, possibly, the timetable. However, I urge caution about how far the other amendments may take us. It would be rash at this stage in proceedings on a Bill, which, after all, has already been examined in considerable detail by another place, if we were to sweep on to what would be a major set of changes to the devolution settlement. That might make progress on the Bill more difficult and not easier.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, many of us warned that the referendum vote in Scotland between Second Reading and Committee was likely to change the nature and tone of the debate on the Bill and it has very much turned out that way. The Scottish referendum has changed the tone of that discussion and the discussion of the constitutional development of the UK as a whole, with our hitherto ad hoc approach to constitutional reform found wanting. There is a desperate need now to review the entire constitutional structure of the UK—and Wales, of course, needs to be at the centre of that discussion.

We have to remember that the cri de coeur from Scotland was not just about constitutional arrangements but a cry from members of civil society and the public, who feel cut out of that political process. It was a plea from people to heed the fact that they do not feel as if they are being listened to. We have to recognise the depth of the disillusionment that has developed regarding the nature of government and its relationship with citizens. It is imperative that we now reach a new constitutional settlement that will lay the foundations for a new, reformed democracy throughout the United Kingdom. There has to be a wider process to draw a settlement reflecting the aspirations of all the UK’s constituent parts. It is time for our constitution to be put on a much more coherent footing. It is also important to respect and honour the promises that were made to Scotland during the referendum campaign. The appetite for more powers in Wales has also been stronger.