Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales

Lord Harries of Pentregarth Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My noble friend makes some good points. We do not know how much money has been spent on this commission, but it is a large commission and one can only assume that it has been a priority for the Welsh Government—I am not sure that the people of Wales have the same priority. I note that, in a recent poll in WalesOnline, in October—just before the spending review—of the top 10 concerns of the Welsh people, nine were in devolved areas. The last one was that the UK Government were not giving enough money to Wales—and I think we convincingly negated that argument in the spending review. However, one of the concerns was on infrastructure, and roads in particular. It is still disappointing that the Welsh Government will not allow the M4 relief road around Newport, which would unblock a lot of the problems in south Wales.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

I would like to press the Minister on the question of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. I am sure that she would agree that the relationship between the four nations of the United Kingdom and the London Government is not fixed and final—in recent years, there has been an indication of unease about that. Does she agree that this is a real opportunity for the Government to contribute to this commission, not just on a quick, politically orientated, ad hoc basis that has been cobbled together but with some serious, long-term thinking?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

There is a wonderful expression about Wales: it is a land of commissions, conventions and panels. Obviously, we will contribute seriously to this review, if asked to do so, but I recall from the Dunlop review that no intergovernmental review machinery is capable of resolving fundamentally different political objectives. But it is realistic to expect serviceable and resilient relationships, and that is what we should all be striving to achieve.