Wales: Organ Donation

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I understand that the current Welsh Assembly Government withdrew the current legislative competence order on the basis of the change that is about to take place as a result of the referendum. They have indicated that they look forward to the Welsh Assembly Government formed after the elections bringing forward their own legislation. It would not be for this Government to prevent that legislation going forward. However, under Section 112 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 it is a matter for the Counsel General for Wales and the Attorney-General, following the passage of a Bill, to consider whether that Bill should be referred to the Supreme Court on any issue of competence. I exercise a similar responsibility, along with the Attorney-General and the Lord Advocate, in relation to Scotland. These are often complex matters and it would be wrong to hypothesise about a Bill which may not come to pass and when we have not yet seen its final shape or form.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, as the House might know, there have been uncertainties about cross-border issues. For instance, for years neurology services have been sent from north Wales to Liverpool. Are they now to go to south Wales, when it takes far longer to go there? Furthermore, have we resolved the cross-border situation not only in the UK but also, in our relationship with Europe, the possibilities of cross-country involvement in Europe?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, as we do not yet have any legislation, the first part of my noble friend’s questions about the provision of services may be premature. I simply observe that practical issues could arise if such legislation were to come to pass, given that the Human Tissue Act 2004 and the equivalent legislation for Scotland means that in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and at the present time in Wales there is no presumed consent. There has to be active consent. Therefore, if there was a donation from Wales, the question would arise whether that was allowed to be used in other parts of the United Kingdom if there had only been presumed consent.

With regard to Europe, there has been a recent EU directive, to be implemented by August 2012, that requires member states to verify donor or donor family consent. It recognises that different states have different opt-in, opt-out systems of consent. There are no specific plans for a European donor card, but member states are working together to raise the important profile of donation and to encourage more people to support or agree to donation.

National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2010

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, there are two good reasons why one should welcome this order. The first is that the House is not experiencing any problem as far as seating is concerned. The second is that, for once in the history of Wales, we have a development that seems to be applauded generally and totally by everyone. That is almost unique in a land of such fissiparous divisions as my own land and nation of Wales. The Electoral Commission and all those bodies responsible for these amendments are to be commended on the way in which they have conducted themselves. They have consulted fully and have managed to achieve a rapport among all bodies. All that is involved in the order are amendments that are consequential on legislation that this House and the other place have passed over the past four years.

Having said that, perhaps I may, with the indulgence of the House, take one minute to mention other matters. No one can speak of elections in Wales without being aware of the vulturous presence of legislation that will in a few months affect Wales greatly. I refer specifically to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which will deprive Wales of one-quarter of its constituencies. That is an immense proportion. Reducing the number of constituencies of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by 50 will mean a reduction of one-thirteenth. If my mathematics is anywhere near right, that is about 7.8 per cent of the totality. In Wales, it will be 25 per cent.

Many people may say, “Well, come off it, you have managed to have this advantage for many decades. Has not the time come when you should surrender this advantage?”. That exact point was put to the right honourable Kenneth Clarke as Home Secretary when he was conducting the parliamentary commissions Bill through the House of Commons in 1992. He said, “I am not having it. Wales is a land, a nation. There is a constitutional arrangement here, which I respect and am determined to uphold”. Wales is no less a land, a nation, now than it was in 1992.

If the House wishes to have a sleepless and nightmarish experience over the next few hours, one need only contemplate the possibilities of what will happen not in May 2011 but in May 2015—assuming that Parliament will by then have passed an Act making the life of Parliament a solid five years, no more and no less. It will mean that the elections to the Welsh Assembly will coincide exactly with the elections to Westminster, and people will be in constituency A of the House of Commons but constituency B of the Welsh Assembly. It is, as I say, a wholly terrifying and nightmarish consideration. But that is not strictly relevant to this issue.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, I appreciate the words of both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, both of whom I consider as colleagues and as friends. However, looking at this order, I am not quite as appreciative of it as others who have spoken. There is some concern that the order distances us from local areas and local people. It is true that you can have one agent for the whole of Wales, but it means that the Wales campaign is centralised, not localised—or it can be. The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, knows more about this than I do. So you could have a central campaign that does not reflect local interests.

There was a time when I was a young candidate and every ward had its own committee room on election day and every constituency had its central committee room—its swyddfa ganolog. Then there is the region. Yes, you can get on in the region, but remember that Welsh regions, like Scottish regions, are quite massive sometimes; they can stretch for many miles. The agent is far away, even at a regional level, from the local activity. We could possibly accept this, but some may remember when we had not one agent for Wales, but we had subagents covering so many areas of a constituency. To have an office located anywhere in Wales could present difficulties in the organisation of election days and electoral officers. It needs to be very well thought out.

The region-less ballot paper—the new one that has been presented to us—is far less cluttered than previously because, as has been stated, no candidate’s name is printed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, suggested that Scotland has the same kind of ballot paper. Is this the first time in the United Kingdom that we have had a ballot paper with just the party’s name but no candidates? Is this a step in the right direction? I can understand why, because many parties—my own included, I am sure—have in the past nominated, say, 12 candidates for each region. Let us say that you have six or seven different parties contesting and most of them give you a dozen candidates. Wow, that ballot paper will be very cluttered. But to go further in a different direction and simply say Conservative, Labour, Plaid Cymru, Liberal Democrats, Greens, without giving any indication of who is the lead candidate, would cut away the personal link. It makes the regional candidates second-class Assembly Members, because they have not been elected as individuals, even though, as the noble Baroness mentioned, you can have a list of them in the polling station. When I go into a polling station—and I am allowed to vote at some elections, including the Welsh Assembly election—I do not look at the posters, I just look at the ballot paper I vote on.

I would ask—and other people are thinking this way—that we do not put 12 names for each party, but that we print the four top names selected by each party on the ballot paper of a regional list. At least we would have a personal involvement. People will have some idea about who they are going to return, not just someone who they have never heard of and whose name is totally strange to them. I speak to the Minister as a very dear friend of mine. I hope it is not too late to amend this order. I suggest we have four names—it might be three, it might be five—so that we keep that personal link with the regional list members as well as with the constituency members.

What you are doing also is that you are increasing the authority of a party and making it far superior to the individual candidate. Is this a danger? I think it is a dangerous step—a very dangerous step. We do not have to take that step—it is not too late—because we can amend it to include the lead names for each party.

I am more than happy with the constituency ballot paper. It is clear and the sort of ballot paper that we are more or less used to. Mind you, there is one great sadness. You are asked to put an X in one of the boxes. I hope the time comes when we do not ask for Xs but for 1, 2,3, and 4 and we have a proportional system.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, in so far as that particular specimen ballot paper is concerned, has the noble Lord noticed that all the names used were Anglo-Saxon ones—there was not a Jones, an Evans, a Morgan or a Williams? It may very well be that this was done, as lawyers would say, ex abundanti cautela—out of an abundance of caution; I must say it struck me as rather strange that there was not a single Welsh name among them.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I of course defer in this to the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan; he not only has one name on the ballot paper, he has two. I am reduced to the very inferior status of a Roberts, but, as a Roberts, I say, yes, I welcome the constituency ballot paper. Then I ask the Minister to look again at the absence of names on the regional ballot paper. I think that we may have to accept the one agent for the whole of Wales, although I still remember the ward committee rooms with great affection.

National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Housing and Local Government) Order 2010

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, for jumping to the pulpit ahead of me. Perhaps I may suggest a sermon. I look to the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which we hear about a race that is run quite slowly sometimes. This race has been run slowly: it has taken a long time to get the orders. I am told that for education 18 new powers have been transferred to the Assembly but that there has been only one new power for housing. I am told that most of them do not come from legislative competence orders but that 60 per cent of them come from Bills.

Speaking of the sermon, I feel that I am surrounded by a mighty cloud of witnesses, of people from various departments—for example, the Department for Health, the Home Office, the Welsh Office and others—who have worked at this over many years, which I appreciate. I know them and I call them my good friends, on whichever side of the House they may sit. They have battled away on the Welsh scene over many years.

It is a privilege to have two of my own party colleagues on either side of me. My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace has led in the Scottish Parliament and my noble friend Lord German has been the Deputy in the Assembly in Cardiff. I am lost in this place today. Since 1931, my Liberal colleagues have sat on opposition Benches. Suddenly, we are transferred to the government Benches. We are just settling in. It makes such a difference and it gives us the opportunity to stir things up as regards some of these legislative competence orders.

The hope is—I am sure that this is general to all parties—that in the spring the referendum on additional powers for the Assembly in Wales will result in a yes vote throughout Wales. I think that we have to do it. For one thing, it will save a lot of time and money on these orders coming here and we will be able to devote our time to other issues that possibly deserve more time than they get at present.

Two tests should be applied to this order, as to any other order, according to the Government of Wales Act 2006. The issues to be passed to the National Assembly must correspond to the executive functions of the Welsh Assembly Government—we are not able to introduce anything else—and must relate solely to Wales. Scotland led the way in the settlement that was reached. We have been saying, “If only we had the same powers as Scotland”. We are moving on this issue, but, as I say, the rate is slower in Wales. However, it will speed up after the spring. In Scotland, people knew which powers they had and which powers they did not have. In Wales, we have just kept on asking, “Please can you include such a power and such a responsibility?”. I am sure that this is not the correct way to say it, but we have been opting in, whereas Scotland knows which powers it does not have at present.

This housing order is important. It is a part of devolution in Wales. It gives us the authority to deal with housing matters in Wales. It has been mentioned that we could look at the sale of council houses or social houses. Like many other places, Wales has the problem that the situation differs from county to county, even from parish to parish. In some areas, the housing situation is so grave that it might be necessary—possibly not—to look again at the reasonableness of selling council houses. That could well be a necessity, particularly given the present crisis in which some people are losing their homes. If it gets to that desperate state, we in Wales will have the authority to say, “For the time being let us look at this area and this need”.

The order will add substantially to the powers in Wales. The Assembly Government must decide how they will use those powers. That is what government is about and what devolution is about. It is not that we keep on saying, “Don’t do this, don’t do that”. However, we have the authority in health, education, public transport and now housing to decide our own agenda. It must be within the Assembly’s competence. This order marks a significant move in the development of the Assembly’s powers. Therefore, we on these Benches wish it well. We wish the Assembly Members who will exercise this discretion all the wisdom and all the powers that they need to meet the needs of people in different parts of Wales.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I will detain the Grand Committee for only a very few moments. I, too, join everybody else in congratulating the Minister on his first foray into Welsh affairs in this Committee. I wish him every happiness and every success for the future. I agree very much with the precept that was articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands. We are not here to consider the basic merits of these devolved matters; we are here to say whether the procedures of devolution set out so clearly in Part 3 of the 2006 Act are properly adhered to. I say that because, like more than one Member of this Committee, I have heard it argued here over the past two or three years that there seems to be some onus of proof on whoever seeks to justify a measure of this nature to show that it has a fundamental benefit for the people of Wales. That is not what devolution is about. If we were to apply such a test, we would be going contrary to the principles set out in the 2006 Act in Parts 3 and 4.

I wholeheartedly support the measures. Indeed, having said that we should not consider them, I would say that they have every merit. In this respect, if ever there was a devolvable issue in relation to Welsh matters it must be in relation to housing or local government. We are dealing with a situation in which there are so many distinctive Welsh nuances that it cries out for devolution. The executive devolution took place a long time ago, soon after 1964, when the Welsh Office was set up. It is only right and proper that there should be primary legislative devolution to attach itself to that.

I take the point made by more than one Member of the Committee that nothing that we do here on these LCOs creates one word of legislation. All that we do is give a passport for legislation to take place in another place. We peg out an area and say to the Welsh Assembly that, now that it has asked for it, within that defined area it can build a legislative edifice. I am not sure how many Measures have come directly from LCOs; I suspect that it is about a dozen, with about half a dozen from other sources.

I have only one other thing to add. I thank whoever was responsible for the Explanatory Memorandum. It is one of the very best that I have read in relation to any legislation, but particularly in relation to these matters.