Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Murphy of Torfaen

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

The noble Lord seems to think that this is about additional income tax but we are talking about tax-varying powers. They could go up or down or they could stay the same, but they would give a separate stream to the income of the Welsh Assembly, which would assist in borrowing. What disappoints me in the Minister’s reply is not to hear some idea of the fiscal framework. I wonder whether the Welsh Government have ever put forward a variation on the Barnett formula. We all oppose the Barnett formula in one way or another, but I have never heard the Welsh Government suggest an alternative way in which to raise money, other than the Barnett formula. Can the Minister say something about the broader picture?

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen]

I had not quite finished my remarks—I thought the noble Lord was intervening on me. The issue is about the principle of a referendum. Right from 1997, the people of Wales agreed on a devolution settlement. In 1979, my noble friend Lord Kinnock and I disagreed with the idea of a Welsh Assembly. Twenty years later, we agreed with it—and, as the Minister himself said, in 2011 there was a referendum to change that settlement. I approved of it, I agreed with it and I supported it. That gave legitimacy to the change, because at the end of the day the people of Wales agreed.

I suspect there has been a change in the past 18 months because, after all, this is about a change in the current law. It is not about introducing something but about abolishing something: the right of the people of Wales to have a referendum on income tax. My guess is that it has nothing to do with the spread of devolution or the other issues to which the Minister referred; it is about their thinking that they would not win it. But the principle of the referendum would give it that legitimacy. Indeed, if the Government and others thought it would be hugely popular, what is wrong with a referendum on it? If we had one on the powers, we can have one on income tax. The Minister has not explained why the Government have changed their mind about the principle of a referendum in under two years. That is a pretty rapid change, and there must be other reasons lying behind the Government’s views. At the end of the day, if the people of Wales want income tax variation—and, by the way, it is not extra money. I reject that idea; I do not think for one second that any income tax powers will produce a penny more for the people of Wales, because the block grant will be reduced. That imposition has been put on a country that is poorer than England. Having said all that, I shall not push this to a vote this evening.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

In Committee, I think I am entitled to speak as many times as I wish. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, for interrupting him in full flow, but I still look to the Minister to give us some idea at this stage of how he sees it. What is the future fiscal framework? What does he have in mind? Will it be a deduction from the block grant, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, suggests, or will it not?

Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Murphy of Torfaen

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I yield to no one in my admiration for my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan, but although I agree fundamentally with one of his amendments, I disagree fundamentally with the first. Dominion status is about the shedding of British governance. The 1931 statute of Westminster gave the dominions power over their own affairs, effectively making them semi-independent. I do not want to give up British governance in Wales; I am glad that we have it—and I am also glad that we have Welsh governance in Wales. I like the two, which is why I believe that we are in the right position in the United Kingdom whereby we have devolved Governments in those places that require them—Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I hope that we can extend the same system of government to parts of England, too. I have always believed that, and I think we are heading towards it.

I cannot agree with the first of the amendments, but I fundamentally agree with the second—that a working party should be set up to look at the operation of Schedule 1 to the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, is absolutely right and put his finger on it when he asked why this particular list has come to fruition. It has come to fruition because individual government departments have made a wish-list of what they wanted to keep. It was not about looking at the bigger picture of what should happen in this new dispensation for Wales. So to have a body that looks at the operation of the new situation in Wales, with the reserved power Assembly, with this schedule, is absolutely right and I support it.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

It is really heart-warming to hear my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan—and I call him that—go back to the dominion status which was the lodestar of the early days of Plaid Cymru. Saunders Lewis did not want total independence; he wanted dominion status. I have no doubt that 1931 was very much on his mind at the time, having regard to the date of the statute of Westminster. I have always regarded that as totally unrealistic, requiring as it does that Wales should look after its own defence, foreign affairs, social security and so on. That is what dominion status means, and always has meant. So whereas I have always been a supporter of devolution, I rather go along with the Gordon Brown argument, which was so successful in the Scottish independence referendum, when he reminded his fellow countrymen that the United Kingdom is united because it shares risks and wealth. Those areas that are depressed at one time in history can be supported by those that are successful.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the highest wages were paid in the Rhondda valley, and as a result it attracted in the Irish and people from all over the United Kingdom. It was the Aberdeen of its day, if you like. Aberdeen has attracted people from all over and is currently suffering because of the fall in the price of oil and the possible diminution of oil resources in the North Sea. But it will be balanced by another part of the United Kingdom—and that is the important point. We are not really concerned with going back in history and talking about a British colony. I recall that Henry Tudor came from Wales and brought with him the Cecil family, who played a very big part not only in the proceedings in this House but in British history ever since. Although he had a Donald Trump attitude towards sex, he was nevertheless favourable towards Wales. His introduction into Wales of the assize judicial system and his formation of the counties of Wales was for their good, not in order to conquer them as his predecessors tried to do.

I do not go along with the idea of the English colony. As a Welshman, I do not feel, and never have felt, that I am in any way subject to the colonial oversway of the English. We have provided leadership in the United Kingdom over the years with our politicians—some great men who, as the noble Lord will no doubt recall, have held the highest offices in this country. For example, I will refer not to Lloyd George but to Aneurin Bevan. Many, many Welshmen have played their part in the governance of the United Kingdom as a whole. We have to stay with that and not go back to what I consider to be, with the greatest respect to my noble friend, the rather romantic aspirations of dominion status. I therefore support the basic proposition in the Bill that the Welsh Parliament—as I hope it will be—should have all the powers it needs but on a reserved powers model, not a conferred powers one. We should work towards that.

Although I have some sympathy for the second amendment which the noble Lord has put forward, it is our duty to try to deal with these issues here and now, as the Bill goes through, not simply kick them into the hands of a commission. That would, no doubt, be made up of great Welshmen but would sit in Cardiff or elsewhere and chunter over the provisions of the reserved powers set out in the Bill. In my Second Reading speech, I argued that we should not have 190 separate reservations. One effect of the Agricultural Wages Bill was that we became very interested in detail, whereas one could describe the powers which should be reserved to the Westminster Parliament in much broader terms, such as defence, foreign affairs and so on. I am very sorry: although I voted for the noble Lord in 1964 when he was a Plaid Cymru candidate, I cannot go along with his interesting and reminiscent arguments for dominion status.

Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Murphy of Torfaen

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

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen]

If I had my way I would change the whole system—probably not to what the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, wants, but to the alternative vote system, for example. The point I am making is that the people in that part of Wales did not get the opportunity to say, “I don’t want that person because they do not live in Wales”. They were voting for a party instead of an individual. I cannot see any reason why, when we set up a Parliament or an Assembly in one of our devolved parts of the United Kingdom, a person should represent it without living in it. All the arguments that have been addressed are valid and I hope that the Minister will look favourably on these amendments.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, this debate takes me back to 1981, when I applied to be a candidate in a constituency not very far from my home. It was impressed on me that I should buy a cottage in this constituency, to which my reply was that I lived half an hour away and had a fast car. That was one factor that meant I was not chosen as the candidate. The other was that I was competing against my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew. That was much more important.

I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. We had problems in my party in the Assembly election before last where two candidates could have been disqualified by being members of public bodies at the time they filed their nomination papers as candidates. One was in a paid office and one was not paid. But they could have been disqualified. One of them succeeded, as noble Lords will recall, in gaining entrance. The other did not.

My recollection is that in the last Wales Bill we adopted a similar provision to that of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley; namely, that they should have ceased to hold those public offices by the time they were sworn in as Members of the National Assembly for Wales. I think that is fair. A candidate does not know, particularly in my party, whether he is ever going to be elected. Accordingly, to ask him to move his house and family, even if it is only half an hour away and he has a fast car, is not a sufficient reason for disqualifying that person from being a candidate. Therefore, I support Amendment 22.