Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Rowlands

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

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, after that rush of enthusiasm for the Wales Bill, I rise to move Amendment 23, which stands in my name and the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands. It relates to the devolution of the funds generated through the apprenticeship levy. The issue has been raised with me because of the uncertainty experienced by employers based in Wales regarding this matter. The Government’s rather chaotic and haphazard approach to the apprenticeship levy has left all the devolved Administrations scratching their heads. Although the specifics are clear for businesses in England, the way in which businesses and organisations in Wales will be able to access and benefit from the money generated by the levy remains completely opaque.

Of the projected £3 billion in the 2015 Autumn Statement, the Treasury specified that £2.5 billion would be spent exclusively on England while the remaining £500 million would be divided among Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We were told we would have our fair share. Despite the fact that this levy is due to be introduced in April, just five months away, we are left facing more questions than answers on the matter. What is our fair share? Are the receipts going to be Barnettised? What happens if the levy yields less money than projected? Will England’s funding be prioritised at the expense of that which is promised for Wales? The lack of transparency in the Treasury’s funding formula for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland is creating practical hurdles for those Governments as they prepare for their own apprenticeship schemes.

Apprenticeships are a devolved matter. So are education and training. Operating at a UK level a levy that is meant to directly fund the devolved function has every potential to cause confusion. I am told that an employer-led institute of apprenticeships is to be set up in April 2017 to advise the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the administration of funding and apprenticeship standards in England. Is this institute specifically for England? If so, where does that leave Wales? Surely a similar institution for each of the devolved areas should have a parallel role in advising the Secretary of State. Are the devolved Governments expected to set up their own bodies analogous to the institute or are they expected to relate directly to an institute whose remit extends only to England?

Online services will apparently be provided to employers in England but will not be available to Welsh employers. Another issue that remains unclear is how the levy will work in relation to companies that have headquarters situated in one country but employ people across the border in the territory of a devolved Administration. Plaid Cymru MPs were given assurances in the other place that the Treasury is working in co-operation with the Welsh Government to determine the implementation of the levy. We are yet to see any development on that front.

The apprenticeship levy status in Wales is reduced to a mere link on the UK Government website directing readers to a nondescript Welsh Government webpage that provides no clarity to those in Wales seeking information. What discussions took place between the UK Government and the Government of Wales before that link was advertised? With apprenticeships and businesses keen to take advantage of the levy in Wales in the immediate future, it is not right that they are left guessing while their English counterparts are able to plan in advance.

The UK Government are introducing legislation that pays no regard to the specific needs of the corresponding system in the devolved Governments. They are England-centric in their planning and implementation and appear to be progressing the matter without any co-ordination with the devolved Governments. More broadly, the patchwork devolution settlement being offered to Wales in the Bill will result in confusion and mismanagement. One solution to this problem, as my amendment today sets out, would be to devolve the apprenticeships levy in its entirety to Wales. This would allow the Welsh Government to administer and control the money raised and to align it with apprenticeship policies. Put simply, it would clarify any doubts over Wales’s fair share of the money raised, and would enable employers and apprenticeships to plan their programmes in a co-ordinated fashion. This is a constructive proposal to address a very real problem. I appeal to noble Lords on all sides to indicate their support for the amendment and I appeal to the Government either to accept it today or to undertake to return on Report with their own amendment to answer these very real difficulties. I beg to move.

[Lord Rowlands (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as honorary president of the National Training Federation for Wales, and in its early years I was one of its advisers. The federation brings together many or most of the training providers that deliver the apprenticeship and skills policies and funding from the Welsh Assembly Government. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for tabling this amendment and bringing to our attention the peculiar and now very difficult situation that has arisen as a result of the introduction of the levy.

I say nothing about the merits of the levy. Frankly, it is a fascinating piece of interventionist politics in the labour and employment market. In fact, it reminded me—although I make no direct comparison—of when I was first in the other place in 1966 and a Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced something called the selective employment tax. I am not sure how many Members still remember that or it its fate. It was a novel tax which did not last; I wonder how long this novel levy will last.

Government of Wales Act 2006 (Amendment) Order 2015

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Rowlands

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I rise to ask for clarification from the Minister. I do not think that many people would want to block the order, because it seems a patently sensible thing to do—but if the House did not pass this order, it would be a case of the unelected Peers blocking the wishes of both the elected House of Commons and the elected National Assembly for Wales. That strikes me as a rather unsatisfactory position to be in—albeit that the powers are being used in this instance with a recommendation and to move forward.

Secondly, the Minister said that the Assembly is “currently considering legislation”. I assume that those words were carefully used. Does that mean that the Assembly is currently considering legislation outside its powers? Are there issues that arise from that possibility? Is it outside its competence? If that is the case, are we asking for powers for retrospective action in order to put right something that has already been carried or debated, possibly outwith the Assembly’s powers? All these areas need clarification to avoid any instance arising, perhaps in circumstances more contentious than this. The objective of this order is probably acceptable to everyone, but one can imagine circumstances where that might not be the case and where there could be great difficulties.

[Lord Rowlands (Lab)]

I rise briefly to support this order. I followed the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, with some interest. As I understand it—I hope the Minister will confirm this, and I think she did so in her opening speech—the order confers further legislative power on the Assembly to promote the Bill that is before it. If it is that, I fully support it. It is part and parcel of the staged process of the evolution of legislative competence contained in the 2006 Act. I know that there are many critics of that process, but it has served the Assembly and the Welsh Government well over the years, prior to the referendum and the Assembly’s full legislative competence. Will the Minister confirm that this is a process of conferring further legislative power on the Assembly to fulfil its wishes to introduce this Bill and carry it through?

If it is, we should hope it is the last such order, because there is unanimity across all parties that for legislation we should move from a conferred powers model to a reserved powers model. That was what the Minister assured us when she was taking the last Bill through the House. The process she described is now in full swing, and I hope that in the near future the proposed reserved powers arrangements will see the light of day. If, as I suspect, this will be the last such order, we should recognise that. I think I am in a minority, but I believe the process that was created to introduce legislative competence was sensible. It was part of a sensible staged process to transfer legislative power, but it is now redundant. I hope that this is the last order of this kind and that we will go over to a reserved powers model.

The title of the Bill that is the driving force behind this order is the most ambitious and courageous title I have ever seen. Over many years, I have heard Ministers making the case that their Bills will improve people’s well-being, but I have never seen the words “well-being” in the title of a Bill. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Bill is an amazingly ambitious and courageous title. I sincerely hope that the performance that flows from the Bill will match it.

I realise that it is not within our competence to discuss the Bill, but considering that we are enabling it to go ahead and are supporting it, I hope it is within the bounds to ask the Minister to give us some idea about the costs that the Bill might incur. The Bill will place a duty on local authorities and a series of public bodies to promote and develop sustainability. At this stage, particularly in local government, there are horrendous problems of finance. I hope that the Bill will not create costs for local government that it cannot sustain.

The Bill that will eventually come forward is about the public sector. As I understand it, the private sector and the third sector will be covered by something called a sustainable development charter. I have not had sight of this charter. If the Minister is in a position to clarify what the charter might be, it would be helpful as a piece of background to an order which I and, I am sure, everybody else will support.

Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Rowlands

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rowlands (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand and appreciate the power of the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has just proposed to make sure that elections are not simultaneous. However, there is a case against that. The most worrying aspect in the whole of my parliamentary lifetime is the decline in turnout. In a democracy, turnout is extremely important. In the last Assembly election, the turnout was just over 40%. In the last general election to Westminster, it was 65%. The high point was in 1950 when we had a UK turnout of more than 83%. It never fell below 70% at the United Kingdom level until 2001, when it fell to 59%. But even now, at 65%, it is some 20 percentage points higher than the turnout for the latest Assembly election. I wonder whether we ought to be concerned about that. Although I understand and appreciate completely the argument that UK issues drown out Welsh issues, there is a point to make about turnout. It is extremely important in a democracy that turnout is upheld.

The turnout when I served Merthyr for 30-odd years was 70% to 75%. It fell to 70% in the last election in which I stood and I was mortified. But at the last election it fell to 59%, and that is in a highly political kind of community that appreciates and understands the nature of politics and elections. A case could be made, contrary to the one made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, that if you run the elections together you intensify the politics. Parties are more engaged in the streets and you raise the turnout from 40% to 65%.

I am dredging my memory but the last time elections were run concurrently was in, I think, 1979, when local elections and the general election were held on the same date. That raised the turnout in local elections to a dramatically higher level than ever before. Although I understand that there is consensus at the Assembly level on separating the elections, I wanted to register the point about turnout.

[Lord Wigley]

Would the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, accept that one element of an election is to give a mandate to the Government? If the mandate has been generated on the basis of a different election, how on earth can it be interpreted in the context of the Assembly?

Local Authorities (Contracting Out of Tax Billing, Collection and Enforcement Functions) (Amendment) (Wales) Order 2013

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Rowlands

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley]

Perhaps I may ask for clarification on a couple of points by the noble Baroness. First, am I right in saying that the interpretation of this order is the provision of greater powers of privatisation for local authorities if they choose to use them? Is that the implication—services that would otherwise be in-house in local authorities can be undertaken by private companies on their behalf?

Secondly, I refer to Article 2 on,

“Amendment of the Local Authorities (Contracting Out of Tax, Billing, Collection and Enforcement Functions) Order 1996”.

In subsection (2), there is reference to,

“the Detection of Fraud Regulations”.

Are these regulations that have already been made? Are they made by the Assembly or here? Is there already a statutory instrument in effect on that, or are we awaiting something to be confirmed?

[Lord Rowlands]

I wish to ask two questions. First, how much contracting out has been carried out since the 1996 order was introduced? What percentage of local authorities have already contracted out in this field? The Minister referred to my next point. One should perhaps be concerned that we are handing over information on the personal financial matters of individuals and families to a variety of different organisations which might have potential conflicts of interest as opposed to a local authority, which will not, because it is a statutory body. The Minister talked about safeguards and data protection but if you diversify and decentralise in the manner in which this order hopes and expects, how will the individual be safe in the knowledge that his or her finances cannot be abused in any way? At least when the local authority has this information, it is a statutory body and therefore is obviously accountable in every sense of the word. How will that accountability be enforced across a range of other organisations or companies that will be delivering these services?

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Rowlands

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rowlands]

My Lords, I will speak to my amendment, which would delete Clause 13, and to Amendment 87A, which suggests that parliamentary consent should be added to that of the Secretary of State for powers under the clause. I will preface my remarks by saying that my record shows that I have been a fervent supporter of transferring legislative competence to the Assembly through the procedures that we have had in the past. I refer to the legislative competence orders that were in Part 3 of the Government of Wales Act and to individual framework clauses in Bills that have come before the House in the past two or three years. I supported them because this was an important and useful way in which to transfer legislative competence until the referendum decided that the Welsh Assembly and Government should have full legislative powers. I am not an opponent of such transfers.

However, when I saw Clause 13, I thought that it was a step too far. This House has many times reflected deep concern and uneasiness about sweeping, ill defined powers granted to Ministers. The report of our Regulatory Reform Committee stated that the powers in Clause 13 were “insufficiently limited”. The committee made the same objections that it had made to Clauses 1 to 6, which was that Minsters were given,

“unacceptable discretion to rewrite the statute book, with inadequate parliamentary scrutiny of, and control over, the process”.

There have been many changes to the Bill, but the fundamental issue of the sweeping nature of the powers in it has caused serious concern. Henry VIII looks like a parliamentary democrat when one considers the powers that we are giving to Ministers in the Bill. I still feel extremely uneasy that an Act of Parliament is bestowing these powers on Welsh Ministers. This should be the National Assembly’s responsibility now that it has the power to do so after the referendum; that would have been a better process.

My second point, to which the Minister made no reference even though it is the reason for yet another new clause in the Bill, is that our Regulatory Reform Committee also drew attention to an extraordinary aspect of Clause 13. The committee states:

“The net result of what is proposed here is that Parliament should delegate to Welsh Ministers the power to amend Acts of Parliament in matters as respects which Parliament has not delegated to the NAW the power to amend Acts of Parliament by enacting measures, and all subject to no Parliamentary control at Westminster whatsoever”.

In other words, we were seriously blurring in Clause 13 the division of responsibilities between devolved and non-devolved powers. I accept that, since then, amendments have been made that clearly define the nature of the devolved functions and the powers that Welsh Ministers will have in Wales in relation to this Bill. I welcome that. However, in the Government’s response to this fundamental criticism that they were blurring the division of responsibilities, lo and behold the only two precedents that could be dredged up to justify such a power were the European Communities Act 1972, which everyone recognises is unique to say the least, and a subsection from planning legislation of 1998. I have looked at both and I do not think that they are comparable in any shape or form. Fortunately, it seems that, as a result of the pressures that have been applied and the criticisms that have been made, the clause defining the devolved and non-devolved powers relating to Wales has now been reasonably satisfactorily resolved.

What is remarkable is that here we are, post referendum, with power having been transferred to legislate in Cardiff on this and other issues, yet in a Bill of this House we are writing out in detail the procedures that Welsh Ministers have to go through to justify and consult. In other words, we are writing into Welsh Ministers’ responsibilities the super-affirmative procedures that we are applying to UK Ministers. Putting aside the general merits of the issue, I think that it is quite extraordinary that at this moment in time we are seeking to write into a Bill a remarkable clause that lays out in great detail the responsibilities of Welsh Assembly Ministers to consult. Again, I respectfully suggest that that should be the decision of the Assembly.

The Minister’s reply is that on 8 March we suddenly had an approval of all these proposals by the Assembly. Although the powers in Clause 13 have been evident since last October, it is quite clear that Assembly Members have not endorsed the original clause. That is why I have sought to remove the clause. I accept that since then there have been changes. Obviously the conversations that have gone on between Welsh Ministers and UK Ministers and officials have clarified the position in a number of important respects since I tabled my amendment, but I think that we ought to be wary about offering such powers at this stage to Welsh Assembly Ministers. They should seek them themselves from their own Assembly. Having said that, I accept that at this stage in the proceedings it is going to be difficult to turn back. Miss Jane Davidson, the Environment Minister, has fulfilled that portfolio with vision and commitment. She has now retired but I understand her desire to have these types of powers.

Finally, I hope that, if nothing else, the Minister will accept my Amendment 87A. Changes to these bodies will have consequences across the border. Quite rightly there is a provision that the Secretary of State has to consent to any changes made, just as consent has to be sought from the Assembly Ministers and the National Assembly to any orders that could affect Welsh devolved powers in relation to these bodies. However, in this case, only the Secretary of State’s consent is required. I accept that that consent is necessary on any cross-border issues, but surely both Houses here should approve such changes as well. Just as Assembly Ministers and the National Assembly are expected to confirm their consent to changes that might be made by a UK Government, I honestly believe that we should also insist that both Houses of Parliament should approve any Secretary of State’s consent that could alter and change the role, functions and money of the bodies that are covered in these clauses.

I accept and understand that now, because Clause 13 has been transformed and additional safeguards have been put in place, there is a clear distinction between devolved and non-devolved powers in the Bill, but I press the Minister to agree to Amendment 87A, if nothing else, so that this House and the other House have to approve the consent of the Secretary of State in relation to the clauses.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I pick up some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, which will no doubt exercise the House again in future because they touch on the lack of symmetry with regard to devolution. The powers in Scotland and Northern Ireland are different from the powers in Wales, even after the referendum that took place on 3 March. One of the arguments in favour of the changes that came through that referendum was transparency: people must be able to see clearly where responsibility lies so that the Government taking the decision can be judged and held to account. As the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, said, anything that blurs that question undermines the intent of the devolution settlement.

There is also the more general question of the way in which orders are used to effect changes. When one has the capability in democratic fora, such as the National Assembly for Wales, to do things more openly and transparently than when everything is done by order, that should be used. None the less, I take the noble Lord’s point that some concessions and changes have been made to try to meet some of those points as the Bill has progressed.

I believe that Ministers in the National Assembly are broadly content with the provisions and that the Presiding Officer, the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, is likewise content. I have not tabled any amendments, but two or three issues would benefit from further clarification. First, can the Minister give an assurance that in every instance where matters are devolved, it is the Ministers in Wales who have the full powers with regard to any implementation of the Bill applying to Wales? I believe that that is the case, but I would be grateful if we could have that confirmed from the Dispatch Box.

Secondly, where there are cross-border issues, to which the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, referred, can we be assured not only that, when there is an initiative in Wales, Welsh Ministers should consult first with their Westminster counterparts, but that, likewise and equally, when Westminster Ministers propose changes that have a cross-border implication, they, too, will consult Welsh Ministers before taking any action? That again concerns symmetry and transparency and ensures that there is harmonious co-operation on such issues.

Thirdly, when Bills or orders before either Chamber in Westminster have an implication for Wales in matters that are devolved, can we have an assurance that consultation will take place much earlier in the process as the Bills or orders proceed through their scrutiny in Parliament? That earlier consideration would be very valuable, as it would have been in the context of S4C, for example, which we have debated under the Bill.

This applies not only to matters that are devolved; there are also matters that are not devolved or not fully devolved where there is specific relevance for Wales. I would imagine that, in the spirit of the co-operation described in the amendments, there will be full consultation on those matters also. I press that any such consultation should take place as early as possible so that there is full engagement and the response to consultation can be built into that process. With those few comments, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.