Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Hain and Baroness Morgan of Ely

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 15th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, in supporting the persuasive case made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, I want to press the Minister on the question of job searches, which are automatically part of the careers service—careers being devolved, as has been mentioned. Has the Bill been drafted with a view to DWP questions, which of course are reserved? Jobcentres, in managing benefits, are also concerned with getting people into work and therefore job searching and providing skills and so on. Are the Government looking at this matter from a DWP and therefore a reserved perspective, but not taking account of the fact that careers are devolved and job searches are by definition part of a supportive, active, flexible careers service?

Perhaps the Minister could clarify this when he responds. If the DWP dimension is the reason that this is not being devolved in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has argued should be the case, will he look at it again to see whether it is possible to reconfigure this part of the Bill?

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

My Lords, I will follow up on my noble friend Lord Howarth’s point on the principles that guided the determination of what should be reserved. To be fair to the Minister, we asked this question before but it was past 10.30 pm so I will give him another opportunity to state on what basis those principles were set—why have they been determined in this way? I underline the point made by many other noble Lords: we know the Minister to be a friend of Wales and that he is doing his very best for Wales. However, it would be interesting to understand why and on what grounds the other departments are making their case on the basis of reserving quite so many powers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hain]

I was going to say that I strongly support Amendments 58 and 97, in the absence of an assurance from the Minister to the contrary, because there is a strong case—following the St David’s Day agreement, the work of the Silk commission and, indeed, the logic of the case—that responsibility for this franchise should lie with the Welsh Government. To avoid taking up any more time, I hope the Minister will confirm that it will be devolved and the Government will bring forward an amendment to that effect at some point, presumably on Report.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

My Lords, as currently drafted, reservation 183(c) removes the ability of the National Assembly to introduce town and country planning legislation relating to the development of railways. This aspect of the Bill clearly rows back on the existing devolution settlement, as the National Assembly currently has the ability to legislate on town and country planning matters, which can include the construction of railways.

The Welsh Government are clear that the development and use of land for such infrastructure falls within the current devolved planning system. This is supported by the fact that, since devolution, subordinate legislation has been made by the Welsh Government under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to make provision for railway development, and that such development can be, and has been, given consent under the planning system.

More recently, the Welsh Government made regulations under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as amended by the Planning (Wales) Act 2015, to make provision for railway development to constitute development of national significance in Wales. At no point during the scrutiny of the Planning (Wales) Act was the issue of legislative competence raised in the context of railways by stakeholders, which included the UK Government. The inclusion of railways in the reservation would restrict the National Assembly’s ability to legislate further for railway development in the context of developments of national significance. There is a clear need to preserve the existing devolution settlement, which Amendment 70, in deleting reservation 183(c), achieves. I urge the Committee and especially the Minister to support this amendment.

Amendment 109 deals with railway franchising. At present, the majority of rail services in Wales are provided under the Wales and Borders franchise operated by Arriva Trains Wales. This was concluded following the joint parties’ agreement in 2006, which set out the division of responsibility for the management of the Wales and Borders franchise between the two Governments. From early 2017, the Welsh Government will become a franchising authority in their own right, with responsibility for awarding the next Welsh rail franchise, due to start in October 2018.

The current Railways Act does not allow the Welsh Government to permit public sector organisations to bid for rail franchises—a matter which was conceded for Scotland following Smith commission recommendations. We on this side of the House do not have ideological objections to the nationalisation of railways, unlike the UK Government. In fact we think that the German nationalisation model, which has been allowed to run franchises in the UK, has simply stuffed UK taxpayers’ money into the pockets of German taxpayers. The French nationalised railways run a much cheaper and more efficient system than any of our current players in the UK. We would like to see flexibility so that if the Welsh Government wished to bid for that franchise, they could do the same for Welsh people. The Welsh Government have stipulated time and again that they may be interested in applying for such a franchise or allowing a not-for-profit organisation to bid. Again, we would like the UK Government to explain on what grounds they justify this discriminatory action.

[Lord Hain]

I strongly support my noble friend’s case. Would she also say that the model of Welsh Water could be a very good one for the Wales and Borders franchise? That is not least because, being a not-for-dividend company, Welsh Water is able to raise capital at a far cheaper rate than on the open markets in the City, as other water companies are required to do. It is therefore a better model and that option should be available to the Welsh Government, should they choose to pursue the franchise in the future on that basis. I do not think that the existing Bill allows for that.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

The noble Lord is quite correct in his assessment. One of the problems is that the Welsh Government have indicated that they would be interested in looking at some kind of not-for-profit model, such as that of Dwr Cymru. But one of the real problems here—the real shame—is that the timing on this issue is very bad because while we hope that the Government will accede to our request on this matter, if they agree to do so it will come too late for the current procurement round. That round has already opened, so the earliest that we could see a Welsh public sector bid or a not-for-profit franchise bid on this matter would be 2028. I suppose that would be better late than never; at least we will be ready for the next time. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some comfort on this issue.

I support the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, in relation to devolving the training, testing and certification of driver licensing to Wales.

Finally, I ask the Minister for clarification on a point regarding the regulation of bus services in Wales. Traffic management is already devolved, in addition to the regulation of transport facilities. These will continue to be devolved, thankfully, under the Bill by virtue of the fact that they are not reserved. Under the new settlement, there is new scope for the Assembly to legislate concerning local bus registration. Ministers currently have limited executive powers in respect of local authorities co-ordinating bus operations, as set out in the Local Transport Act 2008, including voluntary and statutory quality contracts.

I believe that there should be scope in the Bill to allow for the regulation of buses in Wales. I hope that the Minister can confirm that this is indeed the case. Can he confirm whether the associated benefits of regulation, include the possibility of capping and regulating fares and integrated ticketing, will also be possible? It is unclear to me whether reservations concerning competition and consumer protection could prevent these important issues being pursued. Some assurance on that would be helpful. Can he also confirm that the Bill in its current form does not prevent the Assembly legislating in relation to the registration of bus services and franchising, or indeed other areas covered by traffic management and regulation in addition to other transport facilities and services, such as parking, street works and the blue badge parking scheme?