Wales: Council Tax

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, as I made clear in answer to my noble friend on the consequentials and the block grant given to the Welsh Government, it is a matter for the Government there to determine their priorities and to be accountable for these priorities. If they choose to spend it on health and education, they will clearly be accountable for that expenditure. Separate bilateral discussions are continuing between the UK Government and the Welsh Government on all proposals arising from the Holtham commission, including the idea of a funding floor and the commission’s wider proposals for reform.

[Lord Morgan]

My Lords, at a time when we are debating the Scotland Bill, which gives greater autonomy and freedom to the Scottish legislature to decide its own spending priorities, would it not be paradoxical for us to be restrictive and prescriptive in the case of Wales?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I indicate to the noble Lord that the Government are not being prescriptive. They recognise that the consequentials that were made available are for the Welsh Government and the Welsh Assembly to determine. While additional powers are being conferred on the Scottish Parliament as a result of the Scotland Bill, the noble Lord will be aware that there has been recent agreement to set up the Silk Commission, which will look initially at the financial accountability of the Assembly and, having reported on that, move to looking at its powers.

Scotland Bill

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morgan]

My Lords, I rise with a good deal of apprehension as the first non-Scot to speak and one of three non-Scots altogether on the speakers list, but, as several noble Lords have said, the Bill raises some very important general issues. I also venture to take comfort from the fact that I once wrote a book on Keir Hardie, who I am absolutely certain would have been in favour of this Bill—so, I may say, would Ramsay MacDonald, but he is perhaps not so cherished a figure on these Benches.

We have had many constitutional Bills from the Government that have been piecemeal, open to objection and coloured in many cases by partisanship. This Bill is different and much better for it. It is better for two reasons: first, it seems organically connected with previous constitutional legislation, particularly the fact of Scottish devolution; and, secondly, unlike the previous measures, it follows careful, evidence-based examination resulting from the Labour Government’s setting-up of the Calman commission and the consensual atmosphere in which its report was considered. The Bill, as we know, was carried unopposed through the House of Commons.

The Calman commission established an unanswerable and Unquestionable case for accountability: that an elected assembly should have not only political accountability but fiscal accountability. Many centuries ago, not quite as far back as the Act of Union, the American revolutionaries called for no taxation without representation. The corollary—it applies to Scotland as well as to Wales, which I shall mention later—is that there should be no representation without taxation. The reverse is also true: a proper democratic assembly should have its own resources and be accountable for them, not just for the money that it spends but for the money it raises. It should not be dependent, as the Minister said quite rightly, on handouts from others in the form of the block grant. Without that, the Scottish Government, or any government, are lacking in legitimacy and credibility.

I welcome the main thrust of the Bill—the Scottish Parliament will have the power to generate about a third of its revenues and the block grant will be adjusted accordingly. As noble Lords have pointed out, this will be done almost entirely through a Scottish income tax, within limits. The other taxes mentioned are really minor ones; income tax is the nub of the case. It will of course produce problems. Some have been mentioned—I think excessively so—about the yield that income tax would produce and the calculations. Cannot a democratic government be allowed to form their own judgment on these matters rather than people sitting in Westminster telling them how they are bound to get things wrong? As a Welsh-speaking Welshman I find that attitude really deplorable.

However, there is another point: income tax will be defined here in Westminster—the same tax rates and tax bands will apply. The Scottish Parliament will therefore have to accept the definitions and concept of income tax as sent down by a controlling Westminster Parliament, which leaves the possibility of conflict. This contrasts very much with the Holtham commission for Wales which, as the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, rightly mentioned, went further and suggested that the Welsh Assembly should be empowered not just in having a Welsh income tax but in setting its own rates and deciding its own idea of progressivity. This is something that perhaps might be considered a shortcoming here. The Holtham commission also suggested other taxes, including corporation tax, but Calman decided, probably correctly, that that was too complicated.

In general, I support the principle of the Bill. It is a good, democratic principle. It enhances the practice and the spirit of devolution and gives the Scottish Government powers and tools to do the job. It has greater borrowing powers than previously proposed. I also support the greater legislative powers being given to the Scottish Parliament but I notice on the question of air guns that it is little guns that it will have power on and not big guns. The big guns perhaps symbolically will remain in the control of Westminster. It makes devolution more credible and more coherent and does so by also ensuring that the union will be preserved. I was very glad that the Labour Party supported the Bill in the Commons and, subject to serious amendment, I understand from my Front Bench that we are going to support it here. It is a good thing. Among other things it takes the Labour Party back to its early democratic principles—the principles of Keir Hardie and George Lansbury and the ILP and the founding fathers of the party. In my opinion that is where the Labour Party, as a socialist party, ought to be.

There are two other questions—one about Wales and one about England. What indeed about Wales? I am aware that my noble friend Lord Wigley is going to speak later so he will perhaps or perhaps not echo what I say. The lesser treatment consistently handed out to Wales stands out very vividly from the devolution process. It was highlighted by the referendum only a few months ago when only then did Wales get an approximation of full legislation authority. There should certainly be a Calman commission for Wales and, if I understood the Minister correctly in his announcement last July, I gather that is broadly what we are going to have. I was very pleased to hear the Government announce that they would produce an inquiry. This inquiry will find that much of the work has been done for it by the Holtham commission. It was an excellent commission. It shredded the Barnett formula as unfit for purpose. It spelt out a clear way in which Welsh funding could be indentified in the overall funding process. It spelt out a way in which Welsh needs could be defined. It asked, as I mentioned, for Wales to have control of its own tax bands, rates and exemptions and to determine its own policy in taxation. All these might or might not be accepted, but as they say, a lot of the heavy lifting has been done by Holtham and should ease the commission the Government have in mind. Otherwise, Welsh devolution has always been a hesitant process. Wales has lagged behind. It lagged behind Scotland 80 years in getting a Secretary of State. It lagged behind in devolution. It is now advancing. The Welsh Government can do their work only with proper fiscal tools including the power to introduce new taxation and the borrowing power to finance capital expenditure. I hope we are going to have a Holtham-style agenda for Wales. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us what progress is being made in setting up the inquiry he announced.

Finally, what about England? England, as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said, is the largest partner. Calman sought a solution within the United Kingdom. It wanted to preserve our increasingly confederal union state and very much so do I. Problems are likely to arise between Scotland and England—about tax rates, about the extent to which the Scottish Assembly can borrow as it wishes and, perhaps, about something which was alluded to earlier: the definition of Scotland’s share of the block grant and how that will be arrived at. All these are presently determined by decision-making in London. Whether one likes it or not there is a Government of a very different stripe in Edinburgh that may well take a different view. England will be even more displeased by the Barnett formula. It is manifestly unfair to Wales. It gives the English regions too little, particularly at a time of extreme economic difficulty, and it gives Scotland too much. Whenever the issue of the Barnett formula is raised by anyone in Edinburgh, to quote the title of a famous song, there is “The Sound of Silence” and the sound of silence echoes through the realm. Holtham has dismantled the ideas behind the Barnett formula and it seems to me wrong—I hope that we can look at this in terms of an amendment—that the finances of a self-governing Scotland should be examined while the really inequitable Barnett formula is left undisturbed.

As we have heard from other noble Lords, the authorship of this cryptic phrase has been disputed—devolution is indeed a process. It is an ongoing process; it does not obviously have an end any more than any other political process has one. There is no period when, like Fukuyama, you say that history has stopped. It has not stopped over devolution. There are many sources of possible conflict that will arise as the process of Scottish devolution unfolds. Some have already emerged; for example, over university fees and the very wrong attitude taken in Scotland there. I hope we will help along the process of devolution by allowing a clear analysis and definition of what tax powers are to be devolved and what are not. There should be a much clearer division of resources than perhaps this Bill presently allows for. Otherwise, while the Bill is full of admirable intentions, it may lead, I fear, to perhaps a more disunited kingdom.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, defines a Motion of no confidence as being either a Motion of no confidence or the defeat of a Finance Bill and gets rid of the 14 days.

The final definition—which is in every single respect perfect—has been tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster. It states basically that if there is a vote of no confidence there has to be a general election, and that a vote of no confidence occurs where the Queen’s Speech is defeated, a Motion of no confidence is passed, a Motion of confidence is negatived or the Prime Minister has indicated in advance that a particular vote is to be regarded as a vote of no confidence and that vote is defeated. The best example of that is when Mr Wilson was Prime Minister in 1976 and his public expenditure estimates were defeated one evening in the House of Commons, which was obviously a critical matter for his Government. He was keen to establish that the Commons had confidence in his Government and so he announced in advance that the next day’s Motion on the adjournment would be a Motion of confidence. That was treated by Parliament as a Motion of confidence in the Government; it went in favour of the Government and he survived.

What should the House do in the context of this galaxy of opportunities that has now been offered to it? I respectfully suggest that the House should do the following: respect the work that has been done by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, the noble Lords, Lord Martin and Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Howarth and build on it; and knock out the 14 days, which is a total waste of time and contrary to what the House of Commons would do. No one supported it during the course of debate. The way to achieve that is to amend the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and her colleagues and knock out the 14 days.

The one circumstance in which 14 days would be worth while is where a Government are formed after a general election and then immediately fail to get the confidence of the House of Commons. It would not be right to force a general election at that time. Everyone will remember the one example of that where Mr Baldwin headed the biggest single party after the election in 1923, Labour came second and the Liberals came third. The Conservatives under Baldwin produced a King’s Speech that was defeated the first time round and Labour was then given the opportunity to form its first Administration. That was a wholly appropriate working of the constitution.

[Lord Morgan]

On the Baldwin point, it is quite important to know that in 1924 there was, as it were, an understood majority in waiting. It was not a random resignation by Baldwin. Therefore, it was clear what the outcome would be.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

We have had much discussion on the need for more pre-legislative scrutiny on matters such as this, and that is a point that I respond to—but that is not the issue at this point. The issue is simply four or five, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with five.

[Lord Morgan]

I listened with great fascination to the entertaining speech we just heard, which included the argument, “Why should we change? The present system works perfectly well”. That seems to be an interesting litany on the entire programme of constitutional reforms, which have been introduced on very thin intellectual foundations time and again. I am, however, glad to hear a voice for continuity on the Conservative Benches.

I am driven very much to the view, after listening to very interesting speeches, that there is an overwhelming case for flexibility. It would be highly desirable, in my view, to allow circumstances to develop without a fixed term being announced. One could think historically of a large number of instances where, long before four years let alone five, the useful work of a Government has been done and there should be recourse to the people. Such was the case with the Eden Government, who lasted only two years and were—mercifully, in a sense—terminated by the Suez invasion, which let the Government off a very nasty domestic predicament.

So I think there is a case for flexibility, but historically, in recent decades, the argument has been overwhelmingly for four years. All Governments who have actually gone on for five years—the Callaghan Government in 1978, the Major Government in 1996, the Gordon Brown Government in 2009—have been Governments who were struggling, where their continuation led to economic and other difficulties, was a sign of weakness and led to significant parliamentary malaise. That is something on which we might want to reflect.

Much has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and others—and I respect the point—about the very long time it takes to get things going, meet the civil servants and organise things. Many of these arguments rest on the experience of this coalition. This coalition was formed in very curious circumstances: it was not the result of success at the general election; the voters did not vote for it. They certainly did not vote for the Liberal Democrats being in coalition with the Conservatives. The coalition was a result of a coalition agreement concocted in hectic circumstances, and that is why we have had so many measures that have required legislative scrutiny—not only on the constitution, but as we have seen very spectacularly, on health and other matters currently being considered in the House of Commons.

I feel there is a strong case for flexibility, but I also feel there is a very strong case for the argument put forward by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. I believe it is entirely possible to accept the general principle of flexibility but to say that, if there is a choice—and nobody has argued for Parliaments lasting beyond five years, as they did before 1911—then there has to be a terminal point and there is a good case for four years. I normally listen to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, with great approval, and I frequently have voted and spoken with him on issues in your Lordships’ House. I was disappointed in the line he took today. He seemed to have two arguments for not supporting the amendment moved by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. The first was, in a sense, a debating tactic: that he was going to support Amendment 3 and was now being asked to support Amendment 1. I did not think that was sufficient to reject the important case made by my noble and learned friend.

Then there was the important distinction made by many noble Lords between this Parliament and future Parliaments. It was said, quite correctly, that this Government have the right, as any Government have, to determine their own length. The question is not whether the Government have the right to determine their own length, but whether they should do it by statute. That is what we are debating. This Bill lays down in statute at the beginning of a Parliament, for purely party-political reasons which David Laws’s book exposed, that it was determined at a very early stage that there should be a Parliament whose length would be determined by statute. Furthermore, it is not only this Parliament. This Parliament is deemed to be setting the template for future Parliaments, and it follows logically one from the other. I therefore think that the case goes together, as my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said, with whether this Parliament and future Parliaments should or could be considered differently.

The main point about this proposal goes beyond that. This is a very disreputable Bill. It purports to strengthen the power of the legislative over the Executive. It does not. Like many of the Bills we have had, it weakens the power of Parliament. Later, we are going to debate when a general election could be held, but here we have the Executive laying down by statute at the beginning of a term that a Parliament should last for five years and no longer. It weakens the control of Parliament, as many noble Lords have said. It also weakens popular involvement and popular control. Every inquiry we have had—the Power inquiry chaired by my noble friend Lady Kennedy and others—has testified to the evidence from people that they want regular control and authorisation of what is being done and that the Government and the House of Commons should be truly accountable. This is a way of obstructing that and making Parliament very much less accountable. At a time when the repute of Parliament has, by general consent, degenerated and when people feel that politicians are doing things of which they strongly disapprove politically and perhaps morally and that their control over Parliament is diminishing, this is exactly the wrong way to do it. Therefore this Bill—it purports to be on the basis of high principle but has, like all these other constitutional Bills, been produced for disreputable, partisan reasons—is the strongest reason why we should support the amendment moved by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I support the principle of fixed-term Parliaments and, since the start of scrutiny of the Bill, I have supported terms of five years, not because five-year terms or fixed-term Parliaments themselves offer some kind of trendy radical change but because they offer the electorate certainty. Right now, people elect a Government for up to five years, but a Prime Minister gets to decide that the Government will serve for fewer if it means that his party has a better chance of serving for more. If this Bill passes, people will elect a Government in exactly the same way as before and they will know two things for sure: that the Government and their opponents will have to face the electorate on a predetermined date, whatever the political conditions at that time, and that it will happen once every five years.

Let me expand further on why I support five-year terms. In my Civil Service career, I spent five years in 10 Downing Street. I was very lucky that my time in No. 10 coincided with the tenure of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, as Cabinet Secretary, and I am pleased to see that he is in his place. I was never as distinguished as the noble Lord, but like him and the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, I have served at the heart of government in periods immediately before elections—in my case, before two general elections—and I know how Ministers and the machinery of government become distracted by them.

The noble Lords, Lord Armstrong and Lord Butler, do not support the principle of fixed terms; indeed they are supporting the sunset clause, which we will debate later. However, at previous stages in the passage of the Bill they voiced their view that, if we are to have fixed terms, they should be for five years in order that the country receives effective government for more than four of those five years. As a former civil servant, I wholeheartedly share that view.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The answer is the same as I gave a moment ago to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay—we believe there should be fixed-term Parliaments for the future and that this Parliament should be subject to the same rules, including of course the rules that would trigger an early election. Of course, there is no guarantee that either of the coalition parties will be in power after 2015 and that is why we reject the case that this is somehow our own self-interested political fix. We believe that this ought to be implemented for future Governments, including ones where we may not be in power. It was very interesting that when my noble friend Lord Rennard challenged the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, as to whether, when this Bill is enacted with the five years as proposed, a future Labour Government would amend it to four, he was not able to give a definitive answer that they would.

However, it must be recognised, too, that even under fixed terms, Parliaments come under pressure, both in their earlier and in their later years. We have had a number of speeches to that effect. At the beginning of the term, new Governments are understandably keen to start implementing their ideas, but there is increasingly a tension between that and the desire to allow more parliamentary scrutiny. If we go back to the 1970s and 1980s, there was very little pre-legislative scrutiny. We have come under some considerable criticism for not having had more pre-legislative scrutiny in our first year and it is inevitable that we are going to move to having more. If that is the case, it will limit the ability of the Government of the day to bring forward more legislation during the first year of their term of office.

Moving to the final year of a term of office, my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry indicated that in his experience five years was right, given all the pressures that were on a Government, in order to get a legislative programme through. There are real advantages, therefore, to five years. I regret that what we have been asked to do in some respects with four years is to fit a quart into a pint pot, with a squeeze at both ends. At the other end of the term, the predictability of the election date may limit some of the hurly-burly of anticipation that up until now has inevitably attended the speculation as to when an election will be called. However, at Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, albeit opposing the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, made it clear that if there were to be a fixed-term Parliament, he thought that a four-year term would not leave enough room for sensible policy-making and a good parliamentary debate before a forthcoming election began to cast what he described as its distorting shadow.

The noble Lord’s concern was that if we had a four-year term, it would start to disrupt the parliamentary business as we approach the end of three years. The noble Lord, Lord Butler—who is in his place, and I hope I am not misrepresenting him—has also expressed strong reservations about the principle of fixed terms, and indicated that his experience also lends him to the view that five years would be more effective than four. That experience was shared by my noble friend Lady Stowell, when she was in government as an official.

Clearly, if we have four years, it shrinks the time available to Governments to deliver their programme; especially if we are going to have even more pre-legislative scrutiny. Some of the arguments against five years insist that precedent in our own system favours a four-year term. In fact, if we exclude the elections since the war that took place after less than two years, the average, I think, is between four and a quarter and four and a half years. The fact of the matter is that elections that are called at the end of four years are often examples of the Prime Minister of the day seeking to give his or her party a political advantage. It was not that they thought four years was the appropriate length of time, or that the term had come to its natural break, but that it was a judgment for them—as my noble friend Lord Dobbs indicated—as to when they thought they could win. If they thought they could, that was when they went. Indeed, on the second day in Committee, my noble friend Lord Dobbs said:

“I am afraid that these decisions have nothing to do with the astrological significance of the figures four or five. It has simply been a matter of self-preservation”.—[Official Report, 21/3/11; col. 495.]

I think that when an election has been held after four years, it has been because it has been more electorally convenient for the party in power than for any great reasons of measuring accountability or suiting the political biorhythm—a view that I think is shared by my noble friend Lord Blencathra. In holding up this practice as a standard for fixed terms, the advocates of four years are arguing strongly for the very enemy that the Bill is seeking to combat—that of political expediency triumphing over the national interest, with parties holding an election after four years when they see it as expedient to do so. We are trying to take that power out of the hands of the Prime Minister and give it to Parliament. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said at Second Reading, for that reason this is a “collector’s item” of a Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Morgan, clearly wishes to intervene.

[Lord Morgan]

Is that not a totally false distinction? Do not a Government necessarily equate their party interest with the national interest? Is that not precisely what the Liberal Democrats have done by serving in this Government?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I am not sure that last Thursday would necessarily have been thought to be in my party’s interest. I shall not rehearse all the arguments for the coalition but we heard the comments of my noble friend Lord Dobbs, who has been there when some of these decisions have been taken. As he indicated, the question has been: can we win? No doubt all parties think that they are right for the country but clearly the decision is taken for partisan reasons—when they think they can win. If one looks at 1983 and 1987, it is interesting that Mrs Thatcher, as she then was, did not hold an election exactly after four years—or at least she did in 1987—but she made the decision in 1983 after the local election results had come through. If I recall correctly, that was when I was first elected. The Dissolution took place the week after the local government election results in the first week in May, when she quite clearly saw that that would be to her party’s advantage.

It is also suggested that Parliaments that have gone to five years have been destabilising—I think that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, used the expression “an awful fifth year”—but in many respects the term has been self-selecting, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra indicated. There have been fifth years under Governments who did not have the confidence to go to the country after four years because they did not think that they could win, having run out of steam and lost their way. No doubt they thought that if they carried on for a final year something might just turn up. That is not a very good argument for saying that five years would not work. I shall pay a passing compliment to the Government of whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, was a member. I suspect that if the Government elected in 1997 had gone into a fifth year, that year would still have been very purposeful. The noble and learned Lord shakes his head but I think that he may be doing a disservice to his party.

As my noble friend Lord Rennard pointed out, it is also interesting that when the Government gave the devolved Parliament in Scotland and the Assembly in Wales the opportunity to change their election date to avoid a clash with an election in 2015—the offer was to hold an election between the first Thursday in May 2014 and the first Thursday in May 2016—in each case they opted for a five-year term. They could have gone for four years and six months or three years and six months but they opted for five years, and that Motion was, I think, assented to by the leaders of all parties, including the Labour Party, in both the Parliament and the Assembly.

The question that has been raised, not least by the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Pannick, is: how do we ensure accountability? Accountability can come in many ways. It is not just in parliamentary general elections that parties and politicians are accountable. My noble friend Lady Stowell talked about some of the ideas that came out in the Power inquiry to try to engage ordinary people in the political process. The point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in what I thought was a very thoughtful contribution, that five years is very often required for an assessment to be made of the effectiveness of a Government’s early policies and for people to make a proper and informed decision after there has been an opportunity for those policies to feed through.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morgan]

This has been a very enjoyable debate, notable for the criticism from eminent Conservatives: the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who are not in their places, and most certainly the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in his splendid maiden speech. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, shredded the Bill entirely and left it just a pile of ruins. I particularly wish to say how much we all appreciated the admirable maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I have had the privilege of being one of the trustees of the history of Parliament group under the genial presidency of the noble Lord, which has been very strongly marked by a sense of historical awareness. It brings back to my mind the famous novel of my late Swansea colleague, Kingsley Amis, and the professor who observed “history speaking”; that is how I respond to the noble Lord’s admirable views in welcoming him here.

It is late in the day and I want to strike one new note, at least from these Benches. There is one important feature of the Bill that I very strongly welcome: it is a step towards a codified constitution. That seems to be an admirable principle, originally brought forward in his last months by Gordon Brown, now being considered by the House of Commons Constitution Committee. It is a further nail in the coffin of the royal prerogative, which has always been an obstacle to a more democratic constitution. In the sense that the Bill creates a stronger sense of citizenship and a stronger sense that the people are in ownership of their own institutions, I welcome it.

As has been said, there are arguments in favour of fixed-term Parliaments, but some features of the Bill seem to be less admirable. It is, first, like other aspects of the constitutional programme that we have had, a contrived measure put together, as the Select Committee said, not after mature long-term reflection, but hastily during the behind-the-scenes discussions that led to the agreement. It is reflective of short-term consideration, as was the original proposal, happily now jettisoned, to have a 55 per cent vote to trigger a Dissolution. The purpose of that was to give an instrument to the Liberal Democrats so that they would have a significant role to play in the timing of a Dissolution.

This is designed for the needs of the Conservatives, who did best but did not quite win the election, and the Liberal Democrats, who did extremely badly. The Liberal Democrats polled 23 per cent and lost several seats, but are nevertheless driving the constitutional agenda. It is a question of an imbalance between two parties, which they are trying to rectify, as it was in 1918 in the coalition of Liberals and Conservatives and in the 1931 coalition of Liberals and Conservatives. To quote a famous American baseball player:

“It's déjà vu all over again”.

It is also open to objection because other constitutional reform measures are not considered. It is a piecemeal, non-comprehensive system of constitutional change. For example, the proposal for fixed-term Parliaments rests on the proposition that we keep our present voting system of first past the post and there will be an adversarial situation in the House of Commons. However, it is perfectly possible that AV might come about, in which case hung Parliaments would become the norm and coalitions would become far more prevalent. The trigger for a Dissolution would then be far less certain in its operation.

There is no clear connection either between a fixed term of five or any other years and the timing, as has been said, of the boundary reviews and how they will relate when a general election comes about. Also, there is no obvious link between this and the elections that might or might not be held if we have an elected House of Lords. Frankly, like a good deal of constitutional reform in recent years, it has been a piecemeal and non-inclusive affair and unfortunate for that.

It has also been claimed that the purpose of the Bill is to give the House of Commons more control over the termination of a Government and the processes of devolution. In fact, the Bill will have precisely the opposite effect. It will actually strengthen the power over the legislature and make it more difficult to dissolve a Parliament. It will offer more opportunities for an Executive to stay in office. Therefore, the recourse to the will of the people will be weakened even if there is a clear wish or need to have a general election.

While other noble Lords were speaking I was reflecting on the Parliament Act of 1911. That could not have come about under this legislation because neither of the two 1910 elections would have been possible. The first was to confirm Lloyd George's People's Budget and the second was to confirm the terms of the Parliament Bill. In both cases, the Liberals had a clear majority. Therefore those elections would not have been held and what seems to have been a highly desirable political transformation would not have come about.

In addition, as other noble Lords have said, there has been remarkably little scrutiny—no Green Paper and no White Paper; and, as my noble friend Lord Anderson observed, amazingly selective quotation. I would quite like to appoint the Minister as my literary agent as he would be an absolute genius at finding the two or three subordinate clauses in a book review that said the book was valuable or interesting and being able to wave aside a whole swathe of criticism saying it was boring or foolish. It is a talent, but a political talent and one that might perhaps be used elsewhere.

Many questions have been raised, including the issue of why the period should be as long as five years. Many noble Lords have considered this from the standpoint of the effectiveness of government. I would like to look at it from a different point of view—that of the will of the people. It is perfectly clear that this diminishes the control of the popular will over government. There was lots of evidence to the Power inquiry—chaired by my noble friend Lady Kennedy—saying that people wish to have more frequent elections and that they wish to have more opportunities to give their views to the Government, but that opportunity is being whittled away. The clash with the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly is really deplorable—it is a form of Anglo-centric imperialism from the 19th century, which they have just presented on a “take it or leave it” basis. I regard that as a quite contemptuous attitude and I hope that the noble and learned Lord who comes from one of these fine countries can make an observation on that. There has been no public debate on the timing. We might even have a referendum—at any rate have the popular view and not sheer guesswork—even though there is no guide as to why we have them or what we have them on.

The whole process for triggering an election is extremely unclear and an area ripe for confusion. There is no necessary link between having the confidence of the House, having a vote of confidence—and, as noble Lords have said, defining what that vote of confidence should be on—and then triggering a Dissolution. There would be 14 days of mayhem, and, if we have hung Parliaments, it would be even more inconclusive. It is absolutely central to define what a vote of confidence is. If the Government are defeated over their proposals in the Finance Bill, how can they get going? It may be less formal than that—I do not want to be too historical, but one of the various Dissolutions that my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer referred to was in 1895. The Government were defeated on an utterly trivial issue, but it was their first defeat and they had lost the confidence of the House, with majorities of two and seven against them. I simply make the point that you do not need a formal vote of confidence necessarily to feel that a general election should come into play.

It will also seriously compromise the position of the Speaker, just as the definition of money Bills has latterly put the Speaker’s role into some question. There are many cases when the democratic thing to do is not to defer a Dissolution, but to proceed. The alternative can be a Government meandering and a House in total stagnation. Many examples have been quoted—October 1974 and perhaps earlier in 1951. There is an overwhelming need for a proper Government who can govern without the complications and hazards of this Bill. The effect of it will be to diminish popular control. The great slogan in American politics was “Throw the rapscallions out”. Throwing the rapscallions out—I think sometimes other terms have been used—will be made more hazardous and more difficult. Dissolution of a Parliament will be governed, not by the needs of the country, not by having a Government necessarily unable to govern, but by party manoeuvres in the House of Commons. Much of this is a comment on the role of Members of Parliament in deciding whether a Government should continue. It is based on a very curious view of Members of Parliament, as though they are isolated entities, like Rodin's “The Thinker”, rather than people who are in fact swayed by the Whips and whose views are, therefore, imposed on them. That will decide the Dissolution rather than the will of the people.

Much of the argument about reducing the role of a Prime Minister is highly exaggerated, and some of it is thrown in with attacks on Gordon Brown, which is what the coalition supporters do: when all thought stops, you attack Gordon Brown. Prime Ministers have not made much use of the prerogative. I can think of at least two occasions when Prime Ministers tried to cut and run early: Edward Heath in 1974 and Harold Wilson in 1970. Those uses of prime ministerial prerogative proved resoundingly unsuccessful. To a degree, power would continue to lie in the Prime Minister and in his room for manoeuvre in a divided House, but it would put power primarily in the party machines in the House of Commons rather than in the hands of the voters.

This is not a satisfactory Bill. It is not based on high constitutional principles. It is not based on the outcome of a public debate but of a private deal. It is not a fulfilment of democracy but a bypassing of democracy.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morgan]

I lend my support to this amendment, which has been so admirably moved; there have been a number of excellent speeches. I see that I do so in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who, among other things, represents the powerful traditions of David Lloyd George, whose spirit hovers over this debate. I think that the proposals to reduce Welsh representation in this way are deeply unfair to Wales as a nation and deeply damaging to its interests, to the House of Commons and to the United Kingdom.

Parliamentary representation is central to what has happened in the modern history of Wales. We heard the famous quotation from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It was a Welsh Bishop—not the Welsh Bishop who is the distinguished ancestor of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, but another, the Bishop of St David’s—who said that there was no such place as Wales. He said that it was geographical expression, as Metternich had described Italy.

Since then, Wales has advanced rapidly. It has acquired increasing recognition of its nationhood and its identity. It has, in important ways—if the Minister will allow this thought—achieved equality with Scotland, and with other areas on the rugby field, more than equality, I think. This has been acquired through parliamentary persuasion. It has been in large measure political, but it has had social and cultural aspects as well. The interesting feature to me, and a feature of the history of modern Wales, is that this recognition of nationhood has gone along with ties with the Union of the United Kingdom remaining extremely strong, even after devolution. Therefore, the history of Wales in the United Kingdom, and the history of Ireland in the United Kingdom have been manifestly different.

The motor of change has been democracy; that means the use of the parliamentary persuasive method. I note the very sound point made by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, that the quality of the people involved is important. If Wales were represented by 40 idiots or people of mediocre talent, perhaps it might not matter how many you had. If you had a genius, Wales could be represented by one person. But I also think—to quote a famous advert—size matters, and a significant number to make a collective point at all levels of the legislature of the United Kingdom is extremely important.

If we look back, as I am prone to do, we find that the achievements of Wales have relied very heavily on the parliamentary pressure that Welsh MPs have been able to bring. A great landmark was the beginnings of legislation for Wales alone. That legislation was the ill starred Sunday Closing Act 1881, which is commonly thought of in a moral or religious context, but it was very important because it stated for the first time that you could have a statute that applied to Wales—a distinct legislative principle that did not apply to England. Obviously, that depended heavily on Welsh parliamentary pressure and representation. It was followed by the famous Act that set up the county schools in Wales and eventually, as it was seen then, the great triumph of the disestablishment of the church in 1920. There have been many cultural aspects associated with this, such as the National Library, the National Museum of Wales and the University of Wales, for which I had the honour to be vice-chancellor for some years. All of that depended on effective political pressure through Parliament. That was the way the Welsh chose—the method of persuasion. It is significant that throughout this period not only did Welsh parliamentary representation increase in quality but the numbers of Welsh Members of Parliament went on increasing, from 34 to 36.

In the period after the First World War, parliamentary achievement stalled. I think that that was because the United Kingdom was involved in social and economic problems of a great kind. Trade unions were strongly unionist in sympathy. The Labour Party changed quite remarkably in the interwar years from support for local devolution shown by people, such as Keir Hardie, to a strong commitment to centralisation. There was no advance between the wars but no retreat either. What we have heard about the Speaker’s Conference of 1944, including the very sensitive approach adopted by Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister at that period, shows how the point about Welsh nationhood and identity had been absorbed.

From the 1960s, as everybody knows, there was a period of very dramatic change. We had the Welsh Office, devolution and associated major changes in the cultural life of Wales, including aspects of a culture in the visual arts, for example, not traditionally associated with Wales. The movement for Welsh recognition has gone on but, as we have heard, the connection between Wales and Westminster and Whitehall has remained extremely powerful. We have heard of many areas such as social services, justice, and so on, indicating the enormous importance for Wales in having strong representation and pressure to sustain its interests. Throughout that period, representation went up until it reached a total of 40 in the Act of 1986.

One important point that strikes me from this historical background is that all the parties have contributed. It has been profoundly to the advantage of Wales that all the main parties have adopted a non-adversarial and constructive approach. The Liberal Party played a glorious and distinguished role before 1914. It is interesting to see how the Liberal Party changed its approach to Welsh matters. Gladstone, that great man who was concerned with home rule for Ireland, came to realise that Ireland and Wales were different. If you had, for example, disestablishment of the church in Ireland, that was taking you along the road of separatism. In Wales, that disestablishment of the church was an alternative to separatism and was committing you the more strongly to being in the United Kingdom.

The Conservative Party has been increasingly sympathetic, if the Bishops’ Bench will allow me to say so, since the disestablishment of the church. That was the great incubus for the Conservative Party in Wales. It was thought of as an English party and the party of the Church of England in Wales. Since the disestablishment of the church, the Conservative Party has been able to be hugely more constructive. Winston Churchill set up a Ministry of Welsh Affairs. We heard the recollections of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, on setting up the Welsh television channel, which I was fascinated to hear. We have had a series of remarkably sympathetic Administrations under the Conservatives in the Welsh Office. I recall the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, and when I was in Aberystwyth, Lord Walker. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is remembered with great affection; Mr Redwood, I do not recall with quite the same warmth and affection. However, we had the talisman of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, who was enormously valuable and deeply sympathetic. I used to argue that the Conservative Party would benefit enormously from devolution in Wales and that it would have a much more positive and central role in Welsh life. So it has proved.

The Labour Party has oscillated. It began with a very devolutionist view, then became a very centralist party, perhaps in the 1920s to the 1960s or 1970s, and has suffered from that electorally. The Welsh Office and devolution were the work of a Labour Government and the Government of Wales Act took the process of devolution considerably further. We will have the referendum on further powers for the Welsh Assembly in March and I hope very much that it will be successful. All that will create a more diversified but more durable United Kingdom and sets Wales firmly in its place.

I worry that this Bill is quite different. It gets away from this all-party constructive approach to Welsh politics. It inflicts greater damage on the Welsh political system than any legislation we have had since the mid-19th century. The ties of Parliament with Wales will be weakened at a time when the powers of the Welsh Assembly call for a strong Welsh presence in Parliament and when, as the noble Lord, Lord Howard, said, the economic recession will make the need for a strong protective mechanism for Wales in Parliament more necessary than ever, given the greater importance of the public sector in Wales. This is a very damaging change of stance by the present Government and I find it deeply ironic that the party of the union is proposing a step that will weaken the ties between Wales and Westminster.

As the noble Lord, Lord Rowe-Beddoe, observed, the perception is deeply important, and perception can lead to other things. It has been done in a thoughtless and casual way. We look forward to what the Minister will say, but so far there has been no compromise, no consideration or alternative views. We had the rejection of an idea of a Speaker’s Conference. There is no suggestion that we might have the kind of Boundary Commission that would take local views into account and reflect on a range of issues. As my noble friend Lord Touhig observed, a mishmash of new constituencies will be created, based on the crudest mathematical formula without concern for geography, history or community—the idea for which philosophers whom the Conservative Party reveres, such as Edmund Burke, have called across the centuries. The crudity of the process ignores the subtle variations within Wales, which as we have heard has very large constituencies, where the connection between electors and the Member of Parliament can be very difficult to sustain. It is particularly harmful to the Welsh-speaking areas of Wales. Again, slightly demurring from the stance of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, I believe that what is important is preserving Welsh communities. It is quite true that most Welsh people live in south Wales—the Cardiff et cetera bourgeoisie—working in the public service. The huge concentration of governmental machinery in south-east Wales is a major reason for that. We want to take account of communities in sparsely populated rural areas. As I mentioned the other day, I have a Meirionnydd mother and a Cardiganshire father divided by the River Dovey. There are subtle variations that the mathematical formula pays no heed to at all.

I dread the thought of some of these new constituencies coming into play. We have already had aberrations in the reorganisation of Welsh local government. I well recall when I was at Aberystwyth dealing with a monstrous aberration called Dyfed, and confronting the councillors in Llanelli and Burry Port, trying on occasion perhaps to play the Labour Party card and totally failing because they did not really regard that area of the frozen north, as they saw it, as a part of Dyfed at all.

We must have a formula for the size of constituencies that is flexible. I find the irrational process in which this change has been conducted deeply distasteful. It is a result, as with so many of the policies we currently have, of secret backstairs private discussions within the coalition. But we have not had them within Parliament so far. The House of Lords is doing, as it so often does, what the House of Commons was not enabled to do. There was no debate on these dramatic changes in Wales that occurred because of the use of the guillotine. I regard these proposals as a throwback to the cultural imperialism of the 19th century, with a coalition claiming, in effect, that there is no such place as Wales; that they really do not care about it and they are not prepared to listen. That is, unless their policy changes, very deeply to their discredit.

National Assembly for Wales: Referendum

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I note that when the National Assembly for Wales voted on whether there should be a referendum under the Government of Wales Act, the vote was 53 to zero. I am sure that people on both sides of the argument were voting because they want a referendum, but it is not for me at this Dispatch Box to say what the outcome should be. I have no doubt that my noble friends and my friends in the Liberal Democrats in Wales will want me to take a particular view when I am campaigning, but, as I have indicated, the Government’s view is that we want the referendum to take place and the preparation for it to be as thorough as possible.

[Lord Morgan]

My Lords, will the Minister acknowledge that the lack of urgency in his Answer is deeply disappointing to many of us? Peter Hain, the previous Secretary of State for Wales, endorsed a referendum in the autumn. It has been endorsed by every political party in Wales and the Jones Parry report made an unanswerable case for it. Why are the Government dragging their feet? Is this yet another fault line in the so-called coalition?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I wholly reject any allegation that the Government are dragging their feet. I quote from the letter from my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales to the First Minister:

“Your decision that the date and question should not be considered until after the General Election has meant that we have not yet submitted a question to the Electoral Commission, which has confirmed that it will need at least 10 weeks to carry out its assessment and then report”.

I hope that I indicated earlier to your Lordships’ House that the timeline is an extensive one. We want to ensure that this happens properly, and we do not want to take any risk that by taking short cuts we could open ourselves up to legal challenge. I believe that we are taking the proper steps in the right order.