Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Lord Crickhowell

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

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I support both the noble Lord and my noble friend in their remarks. My noble friend Lady Morgan has outlined very well what “devolved matters” means in the Bill, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, quite rightly spoke about the sloppiness of the term “normally”. I think that it opens up huge possibilities for rift between Cardiff and Westminster unless there is a proper definition, if the Government want this, as to when the Assembly is not allowed to pass its comments upon legislation going through this Parliament which affects so-called devolved matters. Is it for the Secretary of State for Wales or a Cabinet committee to decide what is “normal”? No, this is an absolute recipe for conflict between the Assembly and Parliament, and between the two Governments. I hope that the Minister will take this back and either strike it completely from the legislation or, if they insist that there should be qualifications as to when the Assembly cannot utilise its powers, these should be defined very precisely indeed.

[Lord Crickhowell (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke at Second Reading and earlier today about the need for clarity in the Bill, and I must say that I share the concerns about the word “normally”. Those concerns were reinforced earlier today by the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who produced what seemed to me a pretty devastating analysis and related it to a subsequent clause—I think it was Clause 53. It seems to me that the Government would do very well to ponder what has been said today very carefully. I also have some sympathy with the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench about the use of the word “devolved” when we are dealing with reserved powers. It seems to me that that, too, is likely to be a cause of some confusion. I am not sure that I followed all her arguments, but I am not speaking about those; I am simply seeking clarity. I hope that my noble friend will not dig his heels in tonight, but will take these comments away and give them much careful thought before coming back at a later stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen]

My Lords, I agreed to put my name to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Hain because it is both timely and relevant as the Wales Bill passes through this House. It is not all about Neil Hamilton but it is a bit about him in the sense that he is, as far as I am aware, the very first Member of the National Assembly for Wales who has not lived in Wales. Not only has he not lived in Wales but he lives a long way from Wales, and it highlights why we, as a Parliament, should address this issue—it is different from the franchise that we have known in our country for generations. We are talking about a country; we are not talking about a constituency. I think it is important that you live in your constituency but that is another issue; sometimes it is not practicable or reasonable to do so. However, we are talking about a country that now has a legislative Assembly which passes primary and secondary legislation for that country and which runs the country in many different ways.

The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, asked, very relevantly, what happens if you live in a town or village bang on the border. Of course, the border between England and Wales is very different from, for example, the Northern Ireland and Ireland border and it is different from the Scottish/English border, which has lots of built-up areas on it. However, there is a big difference between being a few hundred yards away in Monmouth and being in Wiltshire, and that in a way—

[Lord Crickhowell]

I say straight away that I entirely agree with that. I am not arguing for someone who lives in Wiltshire; I am merely pleading the case for those who have worked all their life in a Welsh town but, because of the geography, perhaps live a couple of hundred yards outside the town.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen]

I think that can be addressed if, in dealing with this amendment, the Government look at what happens in local government. You can be a member of a local authority and live within, I think, three or four miles of the boundary of the local council, and I suppose that could happen with the Welsh situation. Thus, if you lived within a mile or two of the border but felt very much part of a town or village in Wales and you felt Welsh, the accident of the border could be overcome by applying local government laws to the Welsh Assembly.

I turn to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, about the ability of electors to elect an individual to represent them in the Welsh Assembly. There is an awful lot of merit in that. People should be given that choice but, again, there is a difference. The only example of someone living in England and not in Wales is the UKIP leader in Wales. He was elected as a top-up Member. He does not represent an individual first past the post constituency; he is part of a top-up regional list.

The difference is that on that regional list, one generally elects the party and not the individual. When people voted as they did in that region in Wales, they voted for Mr Hamilton not as Mr Hamilton but for UKIP. Therefore, they did not really have a choice of saying, “I don’t want this person because he doesn’t live in Wales”. They did not get a choice in that. In one form or another, I represented people in Wales for 43 years. People then had the option of saying, “I don’t want him on the local authority or in Parliament”, because, perhaps, the candidate did not live in the constituency, ward or whatever. They had that chance, but they do not have that chance with regard to the top-up seats.