Intergovernmental Relations Within the United Kingdom

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. I thank the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers for initiating this debate and for dedicating his interest to issues of devolution, particularly since his election to his new position. Those of us who have highlighted the difficulties faced by our devolved parliaments in recent years welcome his support and his empathy.

In October last year, Mark Drakeford, the Welsh First Minister, appeared before the Welsh Affairs Committee in the other place and explained how in the first 20 years of the existence of the Welsh National Assembly, now the Welsh Senedd, relationships between Welsh officials and UK government officials were cordial and positive. That was confirmed for me in a conversation with my noble friend Lady Randerson, who was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Wales Office from 2012 to 2015, in the coalition years. She recalled how, through co-operation and sheer hard graft, legislation that might have breached the Sewel convention—the convention designed to ensure that the UK legislates in devolved areas only with the consent of the devolved legislatures—was worked upon late into the night. Legislation was sometimes held up until agreement was reached between the two Governments so that legislative consent could be granted.

All that changed in 2019, with the incoming Brexit Government and their focus on a unionism that has sometimes been described as hyper-unionism and a focus on legislation intended to “bind the Union together”, whether it broke Sewel or not. Now the Sewel convention is broken almost routinely—it has been broken at least seven times in recent years—and, when the Welsh Parliament refuses legislative consent to a Bill because it encroaches on its devolved responsibility, we see that UK Ministers just go ahead and enact the legislation anyway, leading to a breakdown of relationships.

Calls for a return to more co-operative working and for regular meetings between officials of the UK and those of the devolved Governments led to the publication of the Review of Intergovernmental Relations in January 2022. I pay tribute to the work of officials of all four nations for their efforts in producing the new agreement. It was a time-consuming endeavour, and I hope it grows to be more successful over time and that there is scope to strengthen its weaknesses.

This agreement between the four nations has three tiers and appears to be working quite well at some levels. The biggest disappointment is that the Council of Ministers has met only once, when the new Prime Minister took office. Unfortunately, there was no Northern Ireland Executive to take part in that meeting to represent the voice of the people of Northern Ireland. I am sure we all hope that this issue is resolved soon. I believe that the Council of Ministers has not met since then.

The Welsh First Minister was both realistic and frank when he said he has

“an impression of a Government that knows that it is coming towards the end of the current parliamentary term and whose energy to invest in reviving intergovernmental relations is at a relatively low ebb”.

Certainly, it is becoming clear that the present system cannot be successful if the UK Government, as the major player, are not fully committed to leadership and partnership working.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, I welcome the publication today of the report by the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, which concluded that the way in which Wales is ruled is unsustainable and cannot continue because it does not provide stability or prosperity. The commission hopes that the report will act as an impetus for change for the people of Wales and, it stresses, that the conversation will continue. It presents the people of Wales with three options: enhanced devolution, a federal UK or independence. Enhanced devolution, it argues, runs the

“risk of continued relatively poor economic performance, low incomes and poverty”.

A federal UK is more complicated and would depend on greater devolution to the regions of England, which is not presently there. Independence would mean

“hard choices in the short to medium term”,

but the commission notes that

“it took Ireland … 50 years and EU membership to grow its economy to match the UK’s”.

It also calls, of course, for the Sewel convention to be legally binding.

Perhaps it is time to accept that all the work on intergovernmental relations in the UK is merely a sticking plaster unless the UK Government are completely committed to its success, and that the future lies in one of the commission’s three options. The commission does not support any one option but provides information to enable the people of Wales to come to their own conclusion. My hope is that another Government of another colour at Westminster will, in the near future, enable the change that Wales needs.