Draft Wales Bill (Morning sitting)

Craig Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 General Committees

[Nia Griffith]

As a bare minimum, we should expect the Secretary of State to have confidence in his own draft legislation, not to rush forward with some half-baked set of reservations that not even he supports.

The failure of the Wales Office to challenge Departments to explain what needs to be reserved, not just what they want to have reserved, is quite remarkable. In the words of the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee:

“The absence of a principled approach has contributed to the excessive number and complexity of the reservations.”

In this week’s report by the Wales Governance Centre and University College London, they describe the failure to think rationally about what needs to be reserved as a “fundamental defect” in the Bill.

Perhaps if the Secretary of State and his Department commanded more respect in Whitehall we would not have ended up with a shoddy list of reservations that literally no one supports.

The biggest problem with the reservations is the completely ill-advised decision to reserve the entirety of criminal and civil law. That makes absolutely no sense and is the clearest example of the Bill rolling back the Assembly’s powers. The Assembly is a law-making body, so preventing it from having any ability to change the law is both illogical and unacceptable. It reduces the status of the Assembly to a second-class legislature. It is directly contrary to the Silk Commission’s warning that the reserved powers model must

“do nothing to restrict the existing and future ability of the National Assembly to create criminal sanctions where it is necessary”.

The rationale behind the decision to reserve the entirety of the law is given in the explanatory notes. The Bill seeks to provide

“a general level of protection for the unified legal system of England and Wales, whilst allowing the Assembly some latitude to modify these areas of law”.

But the 2011 referendum was about giving the Assembly full powers to legislate in the areas devolved to it, not some latitude to modify the law. So the Secretary of State needs to reconsider this crucial aspect of the Bill. One solution would be to introduce a distinct legal jurisdiction for Wales, as recommended by the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee and endorsed unanimously by the Assembly.

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

Since the hon. Lady is fond of quoting, will she comment on the view of Lord Morris of Aberavon, her predecessor and a Labour Attorney General, who ruled out the single jurisdiction? If she supports that, will she explain what she means by “distinct”? Does she have a simple term for it? What does it mean?

[Nia Griffith]

The term “distinct” has been used to suggest that we would not need to have separate courts, that lawyers could practise on both sides of the border—we would have, if you like, a separate book, separate legislation, but not a separate court system. As I just said, that is one solution that might be suggested; it is not the only solution. If the Secretary of State can show us what other plans he might have, perhaps he can bring forward something different, but it clearly needs to be looked at. We understand the problem; we have not yet had a solution from the Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Williams]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way to me?

[Ian C. Lucas]

I will give way to the Back Bencher opposite.

[Craig Williams]

The hon. Gentleman touched on S4C. Does he welcome the fantastic announcement that its budget will be protected by this Parliament and this Government?

[Ian C. Lucas]

I do welcome that. I tabled parliamentary questions on that very issue earlier this week. I am pleased that Welsh MPs across the Chamber have had a strong voice in the matter.