Constitutional Commission

Lord Jones Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for his deeply committed introduction to this debate. I acknowledge his long-standing campaigning for devolved government in the other place, in the then Welsh Assembly and across the length and breadth of the lovely land of Wales—my own homeland.

In May 1945 Winston Churchill wrote to Clement Attlee suggesting the continuation of the wartime coalition and putting the suggestion to the people by means of a referendum. Mr Attlee replied:

“I could not consent to the introduction into our national life of a device so alien to all our traditions as the referendum”.


As a balance in this debate, I offer the Economist from April and its leader headlined “These septic isles”. It was blunt and severe, but it calls for a new constitutional settlement. I quote:

“Relations with Westminster are dysfunctional … Under devolution, powers were crudely handed out around the United Kingdom, but the politics favour blaming the centre rather than working with it … Under New Labour, the devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast were meant to bring bread-and-butter issues … before each country’s voters. Instead such issues are neglected, because elections are dominated by unresolved arguments about the constitution.”


Let us have the commission, but please get on with making the lives of ordinary citizens better. Our schools and the health service are urgent priorities.

Today the Cardiff Senedd offers good, honourable governance of integrity. It should be proud of its two decades of social and economic advances. It was a brilliant, seamless transfer of constitutional powers from London to Cardiff. It deserves a renewed vote of confidence. Devolution is here to stay; it is irreversible, and surely much more is to come. These two decades of powers are but an eye-blink in Wales’s national history.

Commissions there have been aplenty, but how often are their proposals effected? Harold Wilson said, smiling wickedly, that commissions decided upon in minutes take years to report. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, that Professor Helen Thompson, in the current issue of the New Statesman, emphasises:

“The Crown and the military are still the most important symbols of Britishness.”


It is a fact that Mr Gordon Brown, at the request of the party chairman and high command, is examining devolution and constitutional change. I bet he proposes more devolved government and further constitutional change. I guess that change refers to your Lordships’ House also; he is mindful of my noble friend Lady Jay’s defenestration of some 600 aristocrats not so long ago. Lastly, my further guess is that Her Majesty’s Opposition will largely espouse Mr Brown’s findings in their manifesto. A changed Government after the general election would, in all likelihood, embrace devolutionary and constitutional advances.