Wales: Commission on Devolution in Wales

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord makes an excellent point; I, too, was a councillor a long time ago. We should bear in the mind that councils raise a significant amount of funding via what we nowadays call council tax. Therefore, their level of borrowing depends on their level of tax receipts. The UK Treasury is proposing exactly the same model for the Welsh Government.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, while applauding those impactive and genuine matters of devolutionary significance which are contained in the Statement, may I tempt the Minister to a wider consideration? Does she not agree that in so far as fundamental constitutional changes in the United Kingdom are concerned they should be planned and administered on a comprehensive, and not a piecemeal or haphazard, basis? In other words, once the Scottish people have given their verdict on the issue of independence, a powerful body of the wise, the good and the great should be set up to consider, first, the relationship of the House of Commons to the House of Lords and vice versa and, secondly, the relationship of Westminster government to devolved authorities, whether they be two or three in number. Does she agree that that is the only way in which we can avoid the humiliating debacle of what was called an attempt to reform this place two years ago?

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord maintains a keen interest in constitutional issues and I have a similar interest in them—I do not always share the same prescription or viewpoint, but I have a similar interest. It is important that once the changes that we have proposed today have worked their way into legislation and the referendum on Scottish independence is dealt with, whatever the outcome, those people who look at constitutional issues start looking forward again. I have always espoused this rather neat and tidy approach to the British constitution, but that is not the way in which it has developed.