Wales: Commission on Devolution in Wales

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Randerson

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

I thank my noble friend for raising two new issues, the first relating to the question for the referendum. The Government’s response on this has laid great emphasis on how well we believe arrangements worked for the previous referendum on full legislative powers. In that case, the matter was very much in the hands of the Welsh Government and Welsh Assembly in consultation with the UK Government. However, there was a very important role for the Electoral Commission, whose advice was taken and was pivotal. I hope that the Welsh Government will lead the call for a referendum and that the situation in Wales will enable them to lead that call relatively soon. It is important that the Welsh Government feel that they are in a position strongly to call for a referendum, because the UK Government believe that the joint statement of October 2012 meant that there was agreement between the two Governments on the way in which future funding for Wales would be dealt with.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, the document accompanying the Statement states:

“The precise levels of capital borrowing will … depend on the outcome of the income tax referendum”.

Twenty years ago when I chaired Gwent finance committee, I borrowed £37 million from the European Investment Bank and paid it back on time. If a county council had such borrowing powers 20 years ago, why cannot the Welsh Government now be trusted to borrow to invest according to their own assessment of their ability to service that debt, rather than wait upon a referendum?

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord makes an excellent point; I, too, was a councillor a long time ago. We should bear in the mind that councils raise a significant amount of funding via what we nowadays call council tax. Therefore, their level of borrowing depends on their level of tax receipts. The UK Treasury is proposing exactly the same model for the Welsh Government.

Wales: National Assembly Elections

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Randerson

Monday 18th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords will be relieved to know that I will do my best not to repeat the excellent arguments that have already been put to the Committee, but I am caused to ask this question: what are we doing? This is only the second specifically Welsh debate we have had in your Lordships’ House during this Parliament, and what are we debating? Are we debating the impact of the double-dip recession on the people of Wales, a recession made in Downing Street? No, we are not. Are we debating the lack of economic growth or high unemployment? No, we are not. Are we debating the mean and spiteful cuts in benefit support for disabled people and the poorest people in Wales? No, we are not. Are we debating the Remploy factory closures, which will see hundreds of disabled people thrown out of work, and who will probably never get another job in their lives? No, we are not debating any of these things. Instead, we are debating constitutional reform again. I feel sure that I can report to noble Lords that in the pubs and clubs of my former constituency of Islwyn, they will be talking about nothing else. While hard-pressed and hard-working families struggle to make ends meet and keep their heads above water, this Government seem to be obsessed with constitutional change.

It was only on 11 October last year that the Welsh Secretary, Mrs Cheryl Gillan, set up the Silk commission and gave it two tasks. First, it was charged with reviewing the case for the devolution of fiscal powers to the National Assembly, on which it was asked to report by the autumn of this year. Secondly, it was given the task of reviewing the powers of the National Assembly, on which it is to report by 2013. Barely six months later, finding that she cannot wait for the commission’s report, the Welsh Secretary has surfaced once again, this time with a Green Paper on the future electoral arrangements for the National Assembly for Wales. How I wish the Welsh Secretary were here to answer the debate this afternoon. Although it is not possible, it would be far better than meeting Peers behind closed doors. However, we are fortunate that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will respond. I know that I am not alone in admiring and respecting the Minister, who is held in high regard and with a deal of affection on all sides of the House. I feel sorry for him now that he has been asked to front-up the Green Paper for the Secretary of State for Wales.

I begin by asking the Minister what discussions the Secretary of State had with Paul Silk and his commission before embarking on the exercise of producing the Green Paper. Did she ask commission members what they thought of the idea of producing a Green Paper while they were in the middle of their deliberations? Did the commission consider that the Green Paper would undermine its task? What opinions and advice did the commission give to the Secretary of State? Will the Minister give us a full report of the discussions that took place between the Secretary of State and the commission, and perhaps also publish all correspondence on the matter? I suspect that while the Silk commission was busy carrying out Mrs Gillan’s task, she bypassed it and published the Green Paper.

The Government are obsessed with tinkering with the British constitution while bread and butter issues that affect most people I know are marginalised. For the past two years since they have been in government, this has been their main thrust.

[Baroness Randerson]

I was very interested in what the noble Lord said. Does he agree therefore that the Labour Party was obsessed with tinkering with the British constitution when it introduced devolution and other significant changes, including to this House?

[Lord Touhig]

There is a huge difference between what the Labour Party did in government and what this Government are doing. I shall develop the argument and thank the noble Baroness for allowing me to do so. For the past two years, the main thrust of the Government’s legislative programme has been about constitutional change. For a start, we had the biggest act of electoral gerrymandering—the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, was more generous than me about this—with the Bill to reduce the number of parliamentary seats. It was all done for party advantage. The legislation was put forward by the Conservatives and warmly embraced by the Liberal Democrats. Government MPs and Peers trooped through the Division Lobbies time and again to reduce the number of representatives from Wales by a massive 25%. While the Labour Party and others valiantly tried to defend Wales, we witnessed the enthusiasm with which the Conservatives and Lib Dems forced through the reduction in the number of Welsh MPs.

How quickly that enthusiasm has evaporated. It evaporated when the Boundary Commission completed its review and produced the first draft of its report on 30 new parliamentary seats in Wales. If the report is accepted, Conservative and Liberal Democrat representation from Wales in Westminster will be all but wiped out. I judge that the governing parties are not as enthusiastic as they were about reducing the number of Members of Parliament for Wales.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was designed to keep this failing Government in office no matter what happened. As a result, it is no longer enough for a Government to lose the confidence of the House of Commons before they lose office. It is now necessary for two-thirds of the Members of Parliament to vote to throw them out of office. The Bill is a blemish and a stain on Great Britain’s long and cherished democratic system of parliamentary democracy.

Here in the United Kingdom, we are proud of our past. We are proud of the fact that we moved from empire to Commonwealth. We see ourselves as the fountainhead of democratic government, which we tell ourselves is the envy of the world. We were encouraged and flattered when many newly independent Commonwealth countries followed our example of a representative parliamentary democracy. However, I contend that if the Government of one of our Commonwealth partners were to use such a blatant act of gerrymandering to stay in office, Great Britain would be the first to challenge and charge them. I have no doubt that the Liberal Democrats would be at the forefront of such a condemnation and would probably want that country thrown out of the Commonwealth. What high ideals and great principles a once great party of liberty has traded for a handful of ministerial red boxes.

In the middle of all this, we have the referendum in Wales on more powers for the National Assembly. I had some reservations about this, not so much about passing over more powers to the Assembly but about the fact that it represented a further piecemeal tinkering with our constitution, chipping away here and there rather than looking at the big picture. Capping this constitutional onslaught, we have the Clegg Bill to abolish your Lordships’ House and give our country 400 more paid politicians, who will have guaranteed highly paid jobs for 15 years, doubtless with a pension. I know people who would like a job—any job—let alone one guaranteed for 15 years. The Remploy workers would certainly like a job guaranteed for the next 15 years.

Finally, as my noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely said, we have the elephant in the room: a referendum in Scotland that could see our union split apart. Will all this constitutional tinkering never end? The Minister could do no better than go away from this debate today, reread this little blue book—I am sure he has already read it—and take up its sound advice. It recommends that we have a constitutional convention looking at the whole of the constitution of the United Kingdom, and stop this piecemeal tinkering with our constitution.

This Green Paper is a bit thin. It poses four questions, but why so few? If we must go through this process, there are many more questions that ought to be asked and answered. As the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, now that the National Assembly has primary lawmaking powers, is it able to scrutinise the Executive and hold it to account? I am certainly not suggesting more Assembly Members—although I know that some people think we should have at least 80—I am simply asking whether, in view of the major lawmaking powers now held by the National Assembly, its Members can adequately scrutinise legislation. Can the Opposition hold the Welsh Government to account in a way that we would want them to do?

Moving on, should we not be asking about the system for electing Members of National Assembly? Frankly, the present system is barmy. I know it was introduced by my party; then again, madness and being a member of the Labour Party are not necessarily mutually disqualifying. It is a barmy system. In Wales we have 40 first past the post elected Assembly Members. On top of that, we have an electoral top-up system of 20 Members, which gives the party with the most votes no seats and the party with the least votes seats.

Take the last election: setting aside the election of 40 first past the post seats—I know some of your Lordships believe we should have a different system, as has been well articulated today—in the election for the 20 top-up Members of the National Assembly, the Labour Party polled 37% of the vote and got two seats. The Liberal Democrats, with 8% of the vote, got four seats, and the Conservatives, with 23% of the vote, got eight seats. In the North Wales region, Labour got 32% of the vote and no seats. The Liberal Democrats got 6% of the vote and one seat. In South Wales Central, Labour won 41% of the vote and gained no seats. The Conservatives won 22% and gained two seats and the Liberal Democrats, with 8%, got one seat. South Wales West was even more bizarre. Labour won a massive 46% of the vote and did not gain a single seat. The Liberal Democrats, with 7% of the vote, got a seat.

Is it not funny how the Liberal Democrats always gain the lowest vote but always end up as winners? I am sure their Conservative colleagues in government have come to understand that that is their working relationship. Certainly, it is a puzzle to me. I suppose it is what happens when you have coalitions. I just hope that the leader of my party will recognise that those who get the lowest votes often end up on top in these kinds of situations.

The electorate of Wales do not understand the present system, so why does the Green Paper not consult them? Further, if we are to have a PR element— I favour first past the post rather than PR—why do we not split the first past the post election from the election for top-up Members? The public would then vote for the party candidate of their choice in the first past the post election, and the party of their choice in the constituency part of the election, and their choices would be elected. Giving the electorate what they want might seem novel, but at least they would understand what they were being given.

On the whole there has been a negative reaction to aspects of this Green Paper—to what it does not ask rather than what it does. It is a friendless Green Paper. Not even the Conservative leadership in the National Assembly will support it—and if the largest party in government will not support it, why should we?