Ford in Bridgend

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, 40 years ago, as the Welsh Secretary, encouraged by Jim Callaghan, I provided the incentives for Ford to come to Bridgend, including, unconventionally, selling it the freehold in order to clinch the deal. The balance sheet over the years has been good jobs and good, planned industrial relations. Very little notice to Governments has been given of this calamitous decision. Will the Minister confirm that the usual yardstick of a total 4:1 loss in jobs can be expected, as happens in other industries? Secondly, can he assure me that stricter labour regulation and redundancy legislation in other countries, such as applies in Valencia, if the plant is still flourishing—I visited it as a Back-Bench MP—and Mexico have not affected this decision? Despite current denials, Brexit has loomed large over recent decisions in the whole of the automotive industry.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, first, I acknowledge the massive role that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, had in the establishment of the Bridgend plant, very close to his former constituency of Aberavon. I agree with him that the supply chain is important. I have no specific figures on that, but it is not just the supply chain; the broader economy suffers in a situation such as this. The unemployment rate in Bridgend is very close to the national average—I think it is marginally above—but this is clearly an important situation.

I have no specific knowledge of redundancy legislation in Spain and Mexico, but I will write to the noble and learned Lord, if I may. As for trade union relations with Ford, Ford’s treatment of workers in previous job situations has been fair. I do not want to talk it up too much, but it has been fair. I know that that will be very much on the mind of the task force. I am also confident that the Secretary of State will want to talk to the noble and learned Lord about his experience of Ford, and I hope that he is available, as I am sure that that would be helpful going forward.

Brexit: Welsh Economy

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

As he has just indicated, my noble friend is aware of the issues and the importance of open ports and borders. Specifically in Wales, we are concerned about Holyhead, Fishguard, Milford Haven and Pembroke Dock in particular; it is important that they stay open. He will be aware of the commitment to that in the White Paper, so that the new arrangements ensure free flow at the borders. Welsh officials and government officials are already talking with stakeholders to ensure that this is the case post Brexit.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, the original Clause 11 of the Brexit Bill totally ignored the devolved legislatures. Eventually the Government did a U-turn, following pressure in this House. What is the Government’s reaction to the blockbuster report of this House’s Delegated Powers Committee on the Agriculture Bill, which expresses its dismay at the major transfer of powers to Ministers, bypassing Parliament and the devolved legislatures? Can we expect a U-turn here as well?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I have the greatest respect for the noble and learned Lord, as he will know. In relation to the legislation he referred to, it was always the case that a legislative consent Motion from Wales was necessary; that Motion was forthcoming, as he will be aware. On the agricultural issues he referred to, discussions are ongoing between officials from the Wales Government and the UK Government. Progress is being made in that regard. I have already indicated that farm support will be protected; it will have the same level of funding as under Pillar 1 of CAP until 2020, and farm support is protected until 2022. A good dose of Welsh and British common sense will see us through on these matters.

Wales Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, I will confine myself to Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan. I am not going to repeat my Second Reading speech, in which I complained vehemently of the inclusion of such a huge number of reservations. I welcome the words of my noble friend Lady Morgan on the announced changes by the Government so far in, as I understand it, limiting them. The Wales Office has only limited experience in legislating, in drafting and in fighting its own corner to get its own way with other departments in Whitehall.

In drafting the original Welsh devolution proposals in the 1960s, I faced the same dilemma of how to deal with the self-interest of many departments in Whitehall, for which, “Devolution is all right provided it does not encroach on my back yard”. What we did then was to set up a Cabinet committee, meeting twice a week under the chairmanship of deputy Prime Ministers, and to have seconded to it rising stars from the Cabinet Office to guide it through and ensure that the Minister got his own way. In the fullness of time each of these two gentlemen became Permanent Secretaries in major departments in Whitehall—that indicates the weight of the input. The combination of such people as Ted Short and Michael Foot in turn knocked heads together. We knew what we wanted and got our Bills into shape. My advice on this occasion is for the Wales Office to enlist someone from the Cabinet Office to knock heads together. Regrettably, this Bill has the finger marks of every department in Whitehall trying to preserve its own corner.

It takes a combination of the resolve of a Secretary of State and his advisers to get the right Bill and not succumb to the blandishments of other departments in Whitehall, enumerated by the great number of reservations in the Bill. I fear that the first result will be a field day for litigants, particularly if we have again a trigger-happy Attorney-General. It will not be the end of the matter. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, illuminated at least one of the instances where we can face litigation. The second result, as sure as God made little apples, is that we will return to this issue time and again in order to seek a permanent settlement, which we all wish for, for Welsh devolution. Hence, the best line of defence for the Government is a committee, as proposed in Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, to report on the functions and powers and see how we are getting on; whether I and others are right or whether the Government are right. At least, within a period of three years, we shall know and report to the House, possibly for a debate on the developments that have taken place. Then perhaps, after that cooling-off period, as it were, we might have a more mature and resilient approach to Welsh devolution, which will then be a permanent one. That is my hope.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

My Lords, I have Amendment 82 in this group. It is a question, as my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan said, of flow. The problem for Wales is the flow of alcohol: Wales does not have the ability to control how that flow starts and how that supply chain moves. We in Wales are lumbered with the costs of alcohol abuse, both direct and indirect. There are direct costs in health and social care and indirect ones in damage to other people, either directly to another person or secondarily, through bereavement and so on. There is a real problem of culture around alcohol consumption in Wales. We should remember that while Scotland has the same culture of drinking, it has been given a degree of control. I fear that it is not always a pretty sight. Things have improved greatly but the Welsh Government does have to have the powers to do something about it.

There is another aspect of this that needs to be considered. We understand very little, really, about the way that alcohol interacts on the brain and on the reward centre, on people developing cravings. It is quite possible that the epigenetics mean that when you have a background culture of a family where there has been drinking, an individual’s reward centre responds differently. It may just be that people in Wales, having been born into a culture of drinking are more predisposed, more likely to develop an addictive tendency towards alcohol. It seems bizarre, when this is such a social problem and when the costs are really all borne at a local level, that the ability to control it is not given to the very Government that have responsibility for dealing with those problems.

Wales Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 14th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to add one word to what the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, has just said. I very much welcome what he has told us about the intentions of the Assembly, through its Counsel General, to consolidate the laws of Wales as they emerge. I raised this point earlier in the passage of the Bill. I was a consumer once, as a practitioner. Consumers generally, whether lawyers in Cardiff, Swansea, Caernarfon, London or elsewhere, want easy access to the law of Wales as it emerges from Cardiff; otherwise, they could be sued for being negligent in the advice they give. I welcome it very much and I am grateful to the noble Lord for telling us of those intentions.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 2 relating to the establishment of a justice in Wales commission. I am very pleased to hear that there has been a degree of movement by the Government on this matter. We emphasised in Committee that we were largely dissatisfied, as I think are the Welsh Government, with attempts by the UK Government to address the fact that over time there will be this increasing disparity between English and Welsh laws, albeit they will both still be dealt with under the single England and Wales jurisdiction.

We have heard about this working group and I am glad that we have had a letter to inform us of the Government’s suggestions. We have not had as much time as we would have liked to deliberate on those, but I am pleased that the Government have recognised the need for some kind of ongoing committee or representation to make sure that they are constantly taking the temperature of the changes that will be happening. We made it clear that we were unhappy with this working group; we did not think it had been thought through in agreement with the Welsh Government but had been imposed on the Welsh Government, who certainly did not feel that they necessarily needed to respect any outcomes of it. That is why we are pleased to see the move to a more equitable system in which the Welsh Government will be respected.

Whether the committee outlined by the Minister goes far enough is questionable. We wanted a commission rather than a committee, but I am not going to nit-pick on that point; it is more important to look at the purpose of this group. I am glad that the Minister recognises that there will be, and is already, a distinct legal identity to Welsh laws but a number of points need to be addressed in relation to this committee. The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, just made the point that it needs to be seen to be more independent—equidistant from the UK and Welsh Governments. We have moved from the Ministry of Justice having the chairmanship to the idea that it might be somebody from the Cabinet Office but, given that it could be chaired by a representative from the UK Government, we wonder whether it would be better to have a more independent representative chairing the committee.

However, what is more important to me is the need to be clear that the people on the committee should be senior individuals, with the independence and expertise required to carry weight with both Governments. In that sense, it is crucial that both Governments are involved in making sure that they can agree on its membership. Can the Minister give us a commitment today that that will be respected—that there will be a joint agreement on who those experts will be? I should like it to be absolutely clear that this will be an ongoing group, because the body of Welsh law is likely to grow over time. It should not be a task-and-finish group; it needs to be ongoing. I am anxious to hear the terms of reference for this group. Can the Minister give us some indication of them? Would they also be agreed with the Government of Wales? If we are not to get an independent chair, those terms of reference need to be agreed by both Governments.

I hope the Minister will listen to those few requests on this issue. I am very pleased to see that he has come a long way towards us on it. A few tiny paces further would be very welcome but there have been a number of changes, as he suggested in his opening statement. On the new definition of Welsh law and in other areas, the Government have once again kindly listened to the changes that need to be made to the Bill. I thank the Minister for that.

--- Later in debate ---

The Government’s Advocate-General, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, only last week explained to the court that the reference to the Sewel convention in the Scotland Act was simply a political accord and should not be considered a legal obstacle to Westminster riding roughshod over Holyrood. Unfortunately, under the current circumstances, Wales will yet again be patronised by such a political accord. This is hardly a big ask. Despite the complexities of our haphazard, patchwork quilt of a constitution, this issue is quite simple: making the Assembly the authority that it should be when it comes to devolved matters.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and my noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely. I firmly believe that a statutory commission is highly preferable to a non-statutory one. I learned that lesson many years ago when I was sorting out the problems of the various bodies that operated in mid-Wales. I introduced an Act in order to ensure that there was a statutory commission. I learned that at the feet of a very great Welshman, Huw T Edwards, who believed that a statute has permanence unless and until it is abolished. It has to make reports. This amendment deals with that issue. A report to Parliament is a great signal to anybody in that field that it has to consider and reflect on the observations of those who come before it. In due course, that report may be debated in London. That is a vital safeguard. I support very strongly the need for a statutory commission.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, at Second Reading, I spoke in support of the maintenance of the single legal jurisdiction in England and Wales. I argued that the body of Assembly legislation can be accommodated for now within that single jurisdiction and that a separate jurisdiction would impose significant upheaval and unnecessary costs on the people of Wales, and that remains my view.

There has been a lot of change in administrative terms. There is already an administrative court to deal with judicial review and similar applications involving the interpretation of the legislation of the Assembly. However, this is a far way off from a wide separate jurisdiction. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who argued that there was no need for procedural change and that the principles of statutory interpretation will remain the same. I would just continue to urge that more cases be heard in Wales.

However, although this is the position for now, I appreciate that the body of Welsh law will grow, with diverging Welsh laws over the years. My noble friend the Minister has listened to concerns that it is sensible to keep under review the functioning and operation of the justice system in Wales. I welcome his announcement that there should be a non-statutory committee— I have to disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris—within the justice system that will undertake periodic reviews as the law continues to diverge. I believe that this is a proportionate and considered response that allows for a sensible evolution of the system.

A non-statutory review with a clear remit is the right way forward. The proposed statutory commission would have a broad remit and be unnecessarily expensive and complex to administer. Therefore the proposal from my noble friend the Minister is a sensible way through the issue. It recognises that the vast majority of laws will continue to apply across England and Wales and that there is no great appetite at the moment for a separate jurisdiction, with all the attendant cost and disruption. At the same time, it addresses the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and of other noble Lords that it is important to keep the situation under review as the body of Welsh law grows and the system evolves.

Wales Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) : House of Lords
Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to make a brief point which I believe will be of practical importance. Some three years ago I gave evidence to the Constitutional Committee of the Welsh Assembly. It was my view that while there was undoubtedly a growing body of Welsh legislation the time was not yet ripe to deal with it in the way proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. There will come a time when we will have to grapple with it but it is certainly not a matter of urgent importance now and there are serious practical points of difficulty in moving in that way.

I say this against the background that much has been done in an administrative way; I join in the tributes paid to the former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who moved so much of the work of the higher courts to Wales, followed by the present Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. The work has been done and it has met many of the problems, one of which is that more cases of this kind should be set down in Wales. The process should start there as opposed to being started in London.

The serious issue is the consolidation of legislation already passed by the Welsh Assembly. Over the years that the Assembly has been in existence, Act after Act has been passed, particularly during the most recent period. Any practitioner, be they in Wales or in England, who has to advise a client in Wales on a matter arising in Wales concerning property, employment and so on has to turn up a whole host of literature in order to give proper and responsible advice, otherwise he will be accused of being negligent. I hope that before it is too late the Welsh Assembly will use its powers and resources to consolidate the existing legislation and thus make it easier for practitioners and ordinary litigants.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation among so many distinguished lawyers to make two brief points about the argument we have been having. The Government have acknowledged that there is a problem by setting up this working party, but I am not persuaded that they have done anything other than offer the working party as a sop to those who are concerned about this issue. If the working party was going to be rigorous and reach any kind of useful conclusion for us, it would have met several times by now. Otherwise it is up to the Government to say to us today that it will not be reporting this autumn but, rather, at some point in the distant future because it has discovered that there is a great deal of work to do. I therefore support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Thomas because I believe that three years is a reasonable timescale for a commission to look rigorously and thoroughly at all the aspects of this.

I also endorse the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon. The consolidation of Welsh law is becoming increasingly urgent. I know that the Minister is aware of it, having been a Member of the Welsh Assembly. Because the Assembly puts things on its website on the internet, they are not available in the printed format in which most law is available. People can find it difficult and complex to seek out legislation in order to find out which is the most recent version of the law. That issue needs to be discussed. Moreover, something that no one has mentioned so far in the debate is EU law, much of which has been incorporated into Welsh Assembly legislation. Once we have the great repeal Bill, I would ask the Minister how it is anticipated that this will be recognised within the single jurisdiction and whether the working party is considering the issue of EU law.

Wales Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I may put on record my appreciation of the way the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, who takes his title from my home town, has done so much to mould opinion among his colleagues. The Assembly, as he stated earlier, is now a permanent feature of our national life in Wales.

The Bill is another step in the granting of democratic control to the people of Wales, sitting as an elected body in Cardiff. When I introduced a Wales Bill as far back as the 1970s, I got a great deal of flak for using the word “Senedd”, meaning senate; it was a bridge too far for many of my nervous colleagues. How we have moved on since then. This Bill is an improvement on the last offering of the Wales Office, but it still fails to grasp the fundamental point that every opportunity should be taken on the face of legislation to avoid litigation, first by limiting the number of opportunities and secondly by ensuring there is clear water in the demarcation of what Cardiff can legally do and what must be reserved to Westminster. There are, as has been mentioned, more than 20 pages of specific reservations—something of the order of nearly 200, if my arithmetic is correct. This in itself makes the Bill deserving of rejection. The Government should go back to the drawing board and think again.

The reservations have all the fingerprints of every department in Whitehall’s objections, solemnly paraded in statutory form. We had similar problems in the 1970s. The difficulty is that today’s Wales Office has a minuscule staff and very limited statutory drafting experience. Our remedy was to bring in Cabinet Office nominees to knock heads together, which is what Sir John Garlick and Sir Michael Quinlan—both to become outstanding civil servants—did. That is how we eventually got the Bill off the drawing board. As night follows day, this Bill will be the precursor of more Wales Bills and is an unnecessary exercise in constitutional navel-gazing, when the public’s concern is over the quality of government in Wales on the issues that affected my constituents for more than 41 years—health, education, social services and jobs.

The ethos of devolution is that such issues are decided in Cardiff, but we should not be blinded to the successes and alleged shortcomings of the Welsh Government. A wise Government might consider, now that so many years have passed, having some form of independent assessment—a sort of Welsh mini-royal commission—to give a considered view of their record and to suggest possible improvements. I suggest this not as a critic but as a friend of the First Minister and of the Assembly, who are to be congratulated on what they have achieved so far. My personal experience after what could have been a near-fatal motor accident a year ago was, regrettably, questionable so far as hospital care was concerned, which left a lot to be desired when it came to the availability of different forms of treatment and indeed of a ward where one could sleep night after night undisturbed. I have been pursuing my former constituents’ interests ever since and am I grateful for the co-operation of the senior staff at Carmarthen.

The health service in England, too, as we all know, has many problems. It is the provision of comparable health treatment, social services, education, and success in inward investment, that we should be talking about, particularly after the dismantling of some of the machinery that I set up—the WDA, the Land Authority and the DBRW. Our Civil Service, good as it is, can always do with the infusion of expertise from business and trade unions, which are closer to the coalface. With grown-up Governments in Scotland and Wales, do we really need Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales? They seem to be, at best, claimers of credit for the achievements of other departments—and, at worst, state-paid propagandists for their parties at Westminster. Surely the time has come for more intergovernment negotiations without intermediaries.

I confess to having created a role for the Attorney-General to march up and down Offa’s Dyke to ensure that the Welsh Government did not exceed their powers. It was intended as a nuclear deterrent—a weapon of last resort, not an opportunity for a trigger-happy Attorney-General to rush to court time after time. We know of intergovernment disagreements only when they are aired in court. How much time is spent by a busy Civil Service on those issues that do not come to the public eye? The Bill may give even more opportunities for litigation unless the Attorney-General’s chambers have learned lessons from burning their fingers too many times.

Historically, there are two important milestones in my party’s commitment to devolution. The first was the invitation by Jim Griffiths, MP for Llanelli and deputy leader of the party, to Lord Prys-Davies, whom we miss, to put his thoughts about an elected all-Wales democratic institution on paper, in 1952-53. My party had nothing at the time in writing. He published his pamphlet, An Elected Body for Wales. In the main it dealt with local government powers, but it was a national body that he envisaged. I had no responsibility for that, but I would return home from Cambridge and from the Army in Germany for long and earnest discussions with him on Wales’s future. I had been planning to study the Stormont Government as part of my master’s degree at Cambridge, but there was no other model at the time.

The second milestone was the setting up of the Royal Commission on the Constitution by Harold Wilson—first under Lord Crowther and then, when he died, under Lord Kilbrandon—in 1968-69. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, used his substantial influence to persuade his boss, Jim Callaghan, who was then Home Secretary. The commission and its assistant commissioner for each country comprised persons of exceptional intellectual ability and experience in the affairs of state. It may have been the last royal commission; it is not easy to get such eminent persons together. Regrettably, its conclusions were very divided; each one was hammered out and intellectually well-argued, but the sheer variety gave you room to choose whatever solution you wanted.

Totally unexpectedly, I was appointed Welsh Secretary in 1974—to my amazement and indeed the amazement of Wales. I will never forget the PM’s words to me in the Cabinet Room: “You are a devolutionist and I would be interested in your proposals”. I was given a blank sheet of paper. Despite the absence of its mention in the first draft of the Queen’s Speech—this is not very well known—we became committed to flagship legislation. Given other priorities, the big question was: could there be devolution Bills for both Scotland and Wales in the first Session of Parliament? Could Wales be shunted to the end, as a “tail-end Charlie” option?

I opted for the least radical of the Kilbrandon proposals, hoping to persuade most of my colleagues. There is a rich reward for political students if they read my noble friend Lord Donoughue’s diaries from the ringside at the many all-day away meetings of the full Cabinet at Chequers. There was a different set of objections at each meeting to any form of devolution. In my noble friend’s words, they were “quarrelling like monkeys”. Only the PM’s determination kept the ship afloat. I assure the House that a reserved powers Bill for Wales was not remotely on the cards at that time. That was the realpolitik of our long and exhausting summer days at Chequers. The rest is history.

Because the Scottish Secretary and I had our hands full in running our own countries, John Smith MP was brought in and, after Second Reading, brilliantly piloted the Bill through. I had the able and exceptionally industrious assistance of no more than two Parliamentary Secretaries at any one time—my noble friends Lord Jones and Lord Rowlands, and the late Mr Alec Jones. I particularly record my gratitude to them. I make the point because, according to the Library, there are now 12 Ministers in the Welsh Government—certainly there were on 27 May. Their tasks are of course different from ours, but I would be interested in a comparison of the ministerial costs. When the issue is considered of creating and increasing the number of Back-Bench Assembly Members to scrutinise the Government—and there is a problem of scrutiny—I hope the possibility of reducing and redeploying some of the Ministers is taken into account.

After an 18-year gap, it was a privilege for me as Attorney-General to be a member of the Cabinet committee considering Mr Blair’s Wales Bill, not as a policymaker but as the Government’s principal legal adviser, and to see the Bill through its course. Indeed, it was an unexpected pleasure as Attorney-General to be invited by Mr Alun Michael and his colleagues to the opening of the first session of the Welsh Assembly and to present to Her Majesty a dummy Bill in both languages for her signature.

I hope that some day we will see an end to this parade of Welsh legislation and have a proper reserved powers Bill and—who knows?—a constitutional convention to consider the future constitutions of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, too. That is a path I have been treading since 1953.

Wales Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

Finally, on a matter raised in our excellent debate earlier this month on membership of the Assembly in Cardiff, will there be a movement deliberately to increase the number of Members to make it a body that can be a credible legislature, which it can never be unless and until there is an addition to the 60 Members because there is no critical mass of Members available to scrutinise this issue? These matters are of the utmost importance and to which the people of Wales are entitled to have answers.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I may invite the government Front Bench to point out the protocol for the Motion that the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

As I understand it, it is not normally debated but it is quite in order to do so.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords, it is not my intention to detain the House, despite this interruption, for more than a few minutes. I welcome very much the significant powers granted to Wales in this Bill, which has been so ably steered by the Minister. Perhaps of greater importance will be the conclusions of the consultations which will be produced, I hope, by 1 March. They will be groundbreaking. I also welcome very much the role being played the Secretary of State who is carrying out what I hope is the mandate given to him following the reshuffle by the Prime Minister in the words of my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan.

Following 7 May, my hope is that a Labour Government will bring forward proposals. By our votes in Committee, the Labour Front Bench underlined its commitment, as did my noble friends Lady Morgan of Ely and Lady Gale at Second Reading. They have provided the basis for a manifesto commitment. In the 1970s, when I set up the role of the Attorney-General to police the Assembly if it exceeded its powers, I never expected or contemplated one of my successors being so trigger happy and repeatedly trying to overturn the Assembly, and getting, for his pains, black eyes on two occasions. A simpler, cleaner, reserved powers model would be much better.

I close on the need for a high-power constitutional convention. In 1969, the setting up of the Kilbrandon royal commission by a Labour Government was the vital catalyst for the path that we have been treading over the years. I shall never forget the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, coming up from the beach at Newquay in Cornwall one lunchtime and brandishing his idea for a royal commission as a way forward. It seems from the papers I have seen at Kew that other work along the same lines was also being done by Ministers. The announcement at the next Labour Party conference of a royal commission was the culmination of that work.

Today, something more profound and influential than even a royal commission is needed to map out the role for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England as partners in the future of the United Kingdom. I hope that there will be courage on the part of all the parties to work out a broad-based convention so that we can come to the end of piecemeal reform.

[Lord Elis-Thomas]

My Lords, I have no wish to detain the House but I want to place on the record on behalf of my noble friend Lord Wigley and myself, both of us former Members of the National Assembly. In fact, I am still a Member—so far—dependent on the will of the electorate, as were the Minister and her colleague on the Front Bench. I thank the Government for their very positive response on all these matters. I should like to refer in particular to one great joy as regards this Bill, which is the passing of a phrase with which I have always had constitutional difficulty: the Welsh Assembly Government.

First of all we were the Welsh Assembly. That meant all of us—the whole family of legislators, officials and Ministers, or rather secretaries in those days. Then we went through a transitional period as the Welsh Assembly Government. Now, thank goodness, we are the Welsh Government for Plaid Cymru and the National Assembly for Wales, and long may we remain so.

Wales Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, it is with pleasure that I support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan. There are three reasons why I do so. First, the Welsh Assembly has won its right to a new and better model of government, and its right to be granted, like Scotland, all the powers not reserved to Westminster.

Secondly, with experience, it is now indefensible, within a small kingdom, to have different forms of government —for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Hence my firm belief, which I have advocated for some time, in the need, particularly post the Scottish referendum, to appoint a constitutional convention, with greater authority than the Kilbrandon royal commission because it would have party leaders on it, to give it maximum authority. Royal commissions have fallen out of favour; Kilbrandon itself was inconclusive. The thrust was there for devolving government, but the options were many.

Thirdly, with the symmetry of equality of powers for the three Governments, we could then consider the part that England would play in a federal state. I explored the proposals of the MacKay commission in my National Library Archive lecture last November, and surmised then that there would be a great deal of agonising before any agreement was reached. I trust that my party will take a statesmanlike view and a broader perspective than short-term number-crunching, and will make the good governance of the whole of the United Kingdom paramount.

The arguments against my noble friend’s amendment, which I have learnt from the considerable time that I spend in Spain, my favourite European country, amount to “mañana”—or, to paraphrase St Augustine, “Oh Lord, make me good—but not yet”. However, I am confident that the ever efficient Whitehall machine has already done a great deal of the spadework. Indeed, it had done that as far back as the devolution Bill of 1976, of which I was the architect—and, I suspect, also did it as part of the work on the schedule of powers in the most recent Act, to which my noble friend referred. Those powers were not delineated lightly. So, from my experience of legislating, my noble friend’s proposal of six months seems a perfectly reasonable time within which to bring forward proposals.

At Second Reading, we heard some quite ill informed criticism of the present arrangements. As the architect of Harold Wilson’s Bill, I plead guilty, together with the other members of the Government I was proud to serve. I was warned then that this was a novel and untried proposal, and that reserved powers would be much simpler. Let me enumerate briefly the realpolitik facts—they can be proven historically—about why the decision was taken on granting powers as opposed to reserving powers.

First, we were spoilt for choice by the many proposals of the Kilbrandon commission, which deserve rereading. Secondly, the first draft of the Queen’s Speech in 1974 did not include any devolution proposals. I was warned in the first few days of the new Government to send an amendment to No. 10 to include devolution, and I did so—as it happened, from my sick bed. The reason for the omission was that the Cabinet Office drafters thought that a reforming Labour Government would have other, more general, priorities in the first year of government.

Thirdly, my great fear was that there would be a Bill for Scotland but not for Wales—mañana again. Wales might come at the tail end of a Parliament. My mission was to hang on to the coat tails of Scotland and, if necessary, compromise my ambitions to ensure that there would be contemporary Bills in the early years of the Labour Government.

Fourthly, the Labour Party was split, and many of my colleagues lacked appetite for any kind of devolution.

Fifthly, the Cabinet was split. The Prime Minister was the main protagonist and appointed his two deputies in turn, Ted Short and Michael Foot—such was the importance of the committee—to chair the Cabinet committee dealing with the day-to-day work of drafting the Bill. The difficulties, fears and doubts of all Whitehall departments were paraded in the twice-a-week meetings of that committee.

Eventually, one of the greatest and most intellectual civil servants, Sir Michael Quinlan, a distinguished future Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, was appointed to head the Whitehall machine. I tend to gauge the prospects of success of a particular policy by the quality of the civil servants appointed to run it. I knew with the appointment of Sir Michael—he was Mr Quinlan then—that we would get the proposals over the hurdle of the Cabinet legislative committee.

If anyone wants intellectual analysis of our political difficulties, I invite him to read or reread the admirable diaries of the period written by my noble friend Lord Donoughue, who had a ringside seat at many of the all-day meetings in Chequers and elsewhere. They are historical proof of the difficulties resulting from the different views of the Cabinet. The opposition changed from meeting to meeting: Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Elwyn Jones and so on—all big beasts. At one time, my noble friend says, they were quarrelling like monkeys at Chequers. It was only the steadfastness of the Prime Minister that got us through, and I am eternally grateful to him.

The intellectual defence of our proposals, which we now find inadequate, was that we proposed what we thought we might get away with in the party, in the House of Commons and in Wales. That was the realpolitik. In the event, we were proved wrong because of, as Mr Macmillan once said, “Events, dear boy, events”. Now is the opportunity to right the wrong. I, for one, marvel, now that everyone—well, almost everyone—is a devolutionist, how far we have moved in the 55 years of my parliamentary life.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, it is a delight to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, and to learn some aspects of this question that I had not been aware of before. I am very glad that he has added his considerable expertise and weight to support the amendment. I am delighted to support the words of my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan and I am grateful to him for putting this amendment forward. I pay tribute to him for his consistent advocacy for the maximum self-determination for Wales within the framework that we are discussing.

I moved a very similar amendment to this in Committee, supported by my noble friend Lord Elis-Thomas. I do not intend to repeat the arguments that I put forward then, but I would like to highlight two points. First, the basis for having a reserved powers model is that it would be similar to that in Scotland and Northern Ireland, so it at least has arguments of symmetry in its favour as well as the practical arguments that have already been outlined. Secondly, the reserve powers model was unanimously recommended by the Silk commission, which included people from all four parties in Wales. There were some discussions before coming to that conclusion, and clearly it is something that should carry weight.

The principle of that amendment in Committee was supported by noble Lords on all Benches. It was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell—I was delighted at that time to hear his words—and by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford, Lord Rowlands, Lord Richard and Lord Anderson, as well as my noble friends Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Elis-Thomas.

In her response to that amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said:

“I am delighted that there is now a broad consensus that moving to a reserved powers model of devolution is desirable”.

She assured the Committee that the Wales Office was,

“working proactively on how we go forward to a new reserved powers model … we must … ensure that sufficient work is done on the reserved powers model so that there is cross-party agreement”.—[Official Report, 13/10/14; col. 26.]

She was then challenged by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, as to why the reserved powers model,

“cannot be accepted in principle in the Bill, with all the details to be worked out in due course”.

In reply, the noble Baroness said that she would,

“take it away and think about it”.—[Official Report, 13/10/14; col.28.]

She invited me to withdraw my amendment, saying that events were moving on very rapidly. It was on that basis that I withdrew the amendment that I had put forward.

Well, we are now at Report stage. I warmly invite the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, now to indicate that the Wales Office has indeed worked proactively on this matter and can now accept the amendment and tell the House of the anticipated timescale to get the constitutional change put into effect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

The amendment refers to starting within six months of Royal Assent to this Bill—and, of course, that will not take place for some time yet, even assuming that it has a swift passage through the other place.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

I may have misheard, or it may have been a slip. Did the noble Baroness say St David’s Day 2016 or 2015?

[Baroness Randerson]

I will of course look at the record but I was firmly intending 2015. I think noble Lords understand that.

Perhaps I may have a moment to flesh out a little further the plans that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and I are attempting to achieve. We are determined to achieve a comprehensive approach to the next stage of devolution in Wales and to achieve cross-party consensus. The simple fact, therefore, is that the noble Lord’s amendment is unnecessary.

The Government are committed to taking forward an ambitious programme for Welsh devolution and to achieve that programme through agreed, cross-party discussions. It is an ambitious timetable—much more ambitious, certainly, than that proposed in the amendment —but it is achievable and the Government are committed to delivering on it. Indeed, it is important to note that we are already working on this.

In this context, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment because the Government are determined to deliver on these commitments. We want to establish a common set of commitments that all parties in Wales have signed up to for the 2015 general election. This is an historic opportunity to achieve a major step towards a lasting and fair devolution settlement for Wales so that we are not constantly, year in and year out, having an ongoing discussion about what the next powers to be devolved to Wales should be. We want to settle this for the foreseeable future. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Wales Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill as a major step forward in the long-running saga of the principle of giving more power to the people of Wales, where it rightly belongs. Depending on the length of this debate, I apologise in advance if I miss one or two speeches as I have to preside at an event of interest to Welsh lawyers at the Supreme Court, regrettably clashing with the change of date for this debate.

We have come a long way since I introduced the Wales Bill in the Commons in November 1977—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for his reference to it—and longer still since the 1950s, when I discussed Jim Griffiths’ remit to Lord Prys-Davies to put on paper a model for an elected council for Wales, the first practical step, a foundation, upon which we developed as a party and delivered—indeed, the only party that can deliver at Westminster.

In 1974 my party was split. We had not sufficiently prepared Wales for the momentous task of choosing the way forward in a referendum. In the past, the Conservative Party has fought resolutely against giving any power to Wales, from the setting up of even a Secretary of State’s office. The last Secretary of State kept a very low profile on the Prime Minister’s last visit to Cardiff. Not a few years ago, he was advocating in the Assembly that no taxation powers should be given. I surmise that the change of heart of many Conservatives in Cardiff owes a great deal to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth. I thank him and his fellow commissioners on the Silk commission. We are all devolutionists now: or, should I say, mostly all?

In 1998, Lord Callaghan told this House,

“that the age of small nations has arisen as a kind of backlash to what is happening globally”.—[Official Report, 21/4/98; col. 1056.]

I wish the new Secretary of State well, despite the Prime Minister’s inflammatory comments at the Royal Welsh Show yesterday. I just missed him, as it happens. The Secretary of State’s first task, when he sits down during the recess, is to find ways of bringing the war of words between Westminster and Cardiff to an end and, despite the approaching 2015 election, find ways of working with the First Minister for the better governance of Wales. The Prime Minister is not encumbered by past battles and should have shown leadership and a way forward. We all have to deliver on our priorities. Sometimes they can be right and sometimes they can be wrong or improved upon. Given the problem on both sides of Offa’s Dyke, the administration of health and education cannot be perfect in today’s conditions. If there were no problems with the health service in England, which we read about, day after day, week after week, perhaps it would be allowable for the pot to call the kettle black. However, this is not so and there are problems on both sides of Offa’s Dyke. The more we learn from each other, the better. The whole idea of devolution is that we can be different and learn from each other. From plastic bags, at the bottom end of the scale, to experimenting in a small way with administering the health service, Wales can learn from England and vice versa.

It is interesting that the 2015 general election will be fought, in Wales, on matters not within the province of Westminster MPs. I was aghast when a Welsh Assembly Member is reputed to have said that it was constitutionally inappropriate for a Welsh MP to give evidence to an Assembly committee on a devolved matter. I gather that my right honourable friend Ann Clwyd has now given evidence. Likewise, a Welsh Minister is reputed to have refused to give evidence to a Commons Select Committee. I have consulted the Clerk of this House and the contention of inappropriate behaviour is without any foundation. The sooner we learn that Wales and England are interdependent, not independent, the better. Only two years ago, I travelled to Cardiff, at the invitation of an Assembly committee, to give evidence. Since then, I have received another invitation. I am pleased that the thrust of most of my earlier evidence was accepted and I am delighted at the proposal to grant modest borrowing powers to the Assembly. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Rowe-Beddoe, can remind us what the borrowing powers of the WDA—which I created—were. He will be able to say better than I but, looking at it as a whole, they are modest. I congratulate the Assembly Government, and their most effective Business Minister, on being decisive in their proposal to use some of those borrowing powers to invest in better communications around Newport. We all suffer from being held up by the problem there: I do so week in, week out.

When I became Secretary of State, not a spade was being dug to further the M4. I maintain my firm belief that the secret of Wales’s prosperity is good east to west communications. I spent many long hours—including once on a long business trip to Japan—expediting the planning process for the A55 in north Wales. In that time, I agreed the line of the road but, unfortunately, I had to defer the problem of Conwy because of the lack of evidence on the practicality of a tunnel. Eventually, the evidence was forthcoming and my successors—I congratulate them—built the A55. Good east to west communications in south Wales and north Wales are crucial. If the Newport bottleneck is tackled, other problems will be seen and dealt with in north Wales. It is a matter of availability of resources and I firmly believe that this is the way forward. This is why, in my time, I rejected grandiose economic plans for the whole of Wales. In the north, there would be very little interest in what was being done in the south and vice versa. What was important was communicating with the markets in England.

I am less enthusiastic about the detail of taxing powers in the Bill. My bottom line is that, whatever taxes the Welsh Assembly raises—at its peril—Wales must not lose out in any Treasury subvention. Taxation does go with representation, so there is a lot going for the principle, but the end result must be clear and untrammelled by unnecessary restrictions. However, it should follow and not precede reform of the Barnett formula. I was there on day one when the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, on the back of an envelope, conceived the idea of the share of the money I should have. It was never intended to be a formula and it has never worked as a just way of allocating resources. Governments —particularly my own, I fear—did not attempt the reform. I ask, rhetorically, whether this was because Scotland was gaining so much more from it than Wales was. It should have been reformed years ago. Whatever Government are in power after 2015, it is essential that that is tackled now.

Before I close, I will make one fundamentally important point, which has already been referred to. The Bill’s weakness is that it is yet another manifestation of a drip-by-drip granting of new powers to Wales. Surely there is a better way of utilising parliamentary time, despite what the Minister has said. The time has come for the adoption for Wales of something similar to the original Scottish model of the transfer of all powers, save those that are reserved to Westminster, with further consideration to the Scottish position after the referendum. The constitutional position would be clear and the boundaries of powers would not need updating every few years. It would avoid the Attorney-General marching, metaphorically, up and down Offa’s Dyke, acting as a policeman to ensure that the Welsh Assembly did not exceed its powers, a role which I created in 1977. The last Attorney-General was trigger-happy and only last week came unstuck before the Supreme Court. His intervention seemed to lack an understanding of the purpose of the granting of a particular power and that is where he went wrong.

After we have examined the mechanics of the Bill, which should pass, we should, after 2015, concentrate on the granting of a settlement based on the reserved powers model. I cannot emphasise that too much. The next Government should then set up a constitutional convention, a body with a membership even superior to and with more clout than the Kilbrandon commission, the genesis of Scottish and Welsh devolution—perhaps party leaders might even serve on it—to examine the sheer unevenness of the constitutional arrangements for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, how devolution is still largely unrecognised and ignored in the workings of Westminster, and the future roles of both Houses of Parliament for the devolved assemblies.

Wales: Commission on Devolution in Wales

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

I am disappointed that the noble Lord, who has given a great deal of thought to this matter, has not been able to welcome the vast majority of the Government’s response. I take issue with the idea that we are blindly following Scotland. There is no blindness about this. The Treasury has made its decision on this, based on the evidence that it took in relation to the specific situation in Wales. I have already referred to the significance of the very porous border between England and Wales, and to the fact that so many people live close to and cross it on a daily basis. That was borne in mind by the commissioners at the Silk commission when they produced their report, and the Government have had to take that into account as well.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Statement, and Mr Paul Silk and his fellow commissioners for the work that they have done.

In general, I welcome warmly the new powers for the Government of Wales, particularly borrowing powers, which are badly needed. But first, as the income tax proposals require a referendum, do I understand it correctly that the Welsh Ministers will campaign for a yes vote for all the tax powers proposed? Secondly, can the Minister clarify a problem that I have already raised with her at Question Time? Will the borrowing powers to be used for the upgrading of the M4 around Newport and other major road improvements in Wales be financed solely from the new powers of taxation, or will some funding still come from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if so how much?

[Baroness Randerson]

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, for referring to borrowing powers. As we discuss tax-raising powers, we should not overlook the significance and importance of borrowing powers, particularly as they will enable us to be fleet of foot and ensure that the Welsh Government get the money that they require.

The noble and learned Lord asks how Welsh Ministers will be campaigning in a referendum. I cannot speak for Welsh Ministers. They must make up their mind—they are members of a different party and Government from me. However, it seems fairly unlikely that a referendum would be called if they were going to campaign against it, but it is not impossible.

I am unable to give the noble and learned Lord a detailed answer on the precise funding model for the M4. That still has to be worked out. The devolved responsibility for infrastructure means that the burden of the repair and construction of roads in Wales falls on the Welsh Government to a very large extent.