Wales Bill

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

What is the position where an overhead power line goes through England and Wales? I am talking not just about the connection point but about a significant part of the power line. Is the position on that clear in the Bill?

[Alun Cairns]

That relates to the discussions with the National Grid, which, quite obviously, has an interest in the matter. I will happily provide further detail to my hon. Friend if he has specific examples that he would like to pursue.

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[Chris Davies]

As much as it saddens me, I actually quite agree with the hon. Gentleman. The record so far suggests that it would be better to have devolution to local authorities than to a centralised Government in Cardiff Bay.

[Glyn Davies]

To follow on from the point that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) made, devolution to local government is fine. The British Government have devolved planning to local authorities, but the first thing the Welsh Government did was to take that power away from local authorities and centralise it to themselves. Planning powers are devolved to local authorities in England but centralised to Cardiff in Wales.

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[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my friend and neighbour the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), who, as always—but he is not even listening to me as I congratulate him on the quality of his speech! It is also a pleasure to have been in the Chamber for most of the debate, and to have heard some fairly strong opinions delivered in such a reasonable way. It has been a constructive debate, and it has been pretty enjoyable.

I was pleased to see a Wales Bill in the Gracious Speech, although I believe that every Queen’s Speech since I have been a Member of Parliament has contained a Wales Bill. I think it was the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) who said that we did not have many opportunities to look at the constitution of Wales and change it, but it seems to me that we have such an opportunity pretty well every year. I do not know whether we shall have one next year; that will depend on the success of the Secretary of State.

There has been a fair degree of agreement across the House today. I have sensed that everyone wants to support the Bill, although many Members will clearly want to see some changes to it. I, too, was surprised by the speed at which Second Reading arrived. It is fairly obvious to me that the Secretary of State is a man of action and a man in a hurry, given that it was only a few days ago that we first knew that there was to be a Wales Bill.

The Secretary of State told us at the beginning of the debate that his two objectives were clarity and accountability, and those objectives will form the two most significant parts of the speech that I intend to make. The Secretary of State also said that he hoped that we would be able to end the squabbling between the Welsh and United Kingdom Governments for good, and that we would have a permanent settlement. I wish him the best of luck with that, because I should be surprised if we Welsh managed to stop squabbling.

Clarity is a key aim of the Bill. Like the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), who spoke earlier, I was opposed to devolution in 1997. Indeed, I campaigned against it, and voted against it on 18 September. However, I was on the losing side. The National Assembly for Wales was set up, and I became a Member of it for eight years.

One reason why I opposed it was the obvious lack of certainty and clarity on how the devolution process would develop. It did not seem to me as if it was stable or could last. The leader of the Conservative party in Wales at that time, who was opposed to devolution, did not think that there was any certainty to the process, and a leading Labour party member described the process as being a magical mystery tour with no obvious end. My hon. Friend suggested that the end might be like Alton Towers. The truth is that we do not know, and I am still not convinced, even with this Bill, that we can ever actually reach the end, because in terms of constitutional settlements, there will always be debate and change. One day sometime in the future there may be a Wales Bill that reduces the amount of power that goes to the Assembly. Who knows?

I became Chair of the legislation Committee in the National Assembly quite early on, and partly through my experience of that I became convinced that we needed to have a reserved powers model, rather than the conferred powers model: that all power should be devolved unless there was a very good reason why it should not be. That has informed my attitude to devolution ever since. If something can reasonably and sensibly be devolved, I think it should be, and I think the move to a devolved model delivers that. It is a much more permanent settlement and is much less likely to lead to visits to the Supreme Court for arguments to be heard. I greatly support that, therefore. It is one of the two fundamental drivers behind the Bill, and one of the two issues that make me very keen to see it go through.

The second one, however, is more controversial: accountability, and in particular financial accountability. I know that there is some disagreement, certainly on the Conservative Benches, on this issue, but I became convinced many years ago that responsibility for a significant level of income tax was crucial if the Welsh Assembly was to become an accountable body that engaged with the people of Wales at election time. People could look at both sides of the ledger—how money was raised as well as how it was spent. When I first took that view and espoused it publicly, there were not many people in my party who agreed with me, but it has been consistently and solidly my opinion ever since, and it is as strong today as it has ever been.

On a number of occasions at the last election I was asked about my position on this. I said very clearly that my view was that we should devolve a significant proportion of income tax—probably the ability to levy up to 50% of income tax—and until that power was devolved, I could not see how the Welsh Assembly could be seen as a Parliament.

Part of this Bill is about giving the Welsh Assembly the name “Parliament”, but how can we have a Parliament that does not have the ability to levy the most important tax that people understand? Without that, it cannot properly be described as a Parliament; there have to be powers over income tax.

Members have referred to the £2.5 billion that is already devolved to the National Assembly, but it is income tax that engages people. When voters in an Assembly election are looking at what parties to support, income tax is what engages them. They consider not just the parties’ spending promises, but how they are going to raise that money. It is crucial that we go down that road.

Apologies to Labour Members, but it is a weakness to assume that the Welsh Government will always be a Labour Government. There will not always be a Labour Government in Cardiff. It is not the Welsh Assembly that passes the laws; it is the Labour Government who do so. If we can properly engage with people at election time—financial accountability is a key part of this—we might be able to have something other than a Labour Government. We might be able to have a genuine view among the Welsh people and the possibility of a Conservative Government in Wales.

There will be debates on many other parts of the Bill as well, and we have already talked about a separate legal jurisdiction for Wales. There is no doubt that a body of Welsh law is developing. It is a small body at the moment, but it will grow. It will be a long time, however, before it becomes a significant body of law and I do not feel that it is justifiable to have a separate legal jurisdiction to deal with the limited amount of Welsh laws that we have. I cannot justify having a separate jurisdiction from the current England and Wales jurisdiction.

There has also been quite a lot of debate about the justice impact assessments. We removed the necessity test, which was pretty important. Almost everybody thought that that was the right thing to do. However, it seems unreasonable that there should be no mechanism within an institution to assess the impact of the laws it passes on any other institution. All this means is that when the Welsh Government pass legislation, they will have to assess the impact of that legislation on other legislation. That seems entirely reasonable, and I suspect that every other legislative body in the world does it, so I really cannot see why this should be an issue.

Policing has also been an issue. Perhaps this is just my view, but I have never been opposed in principle to the devolution of policing. However, we cannot support the devolution of policing to Wales until a very strong case can be made that it would improve policing there. We need to know how it would be improved and whether the new arrangement would work well for England and Wales.

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[Simon Hart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Glyn Davies]

Are you intervening on me or on the hon. Gentleman? Go on!

[Simon Hart]

I thought it might be helpful, before my hon. Friend replied to the Plaid Cymru intervention, to take careful note of the fact that the Dyfed-Powys police helicopter has not been lost, and that it would be a gross misrepresentation of the truth to claim that it has been.

[Glyn Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend; that is exactly what I was going to say.

I also want to touch on the question of devolution in regard to energy. We all pay a price when we support a Bill that is as comprehensive as this one, because there are often parts of the Bill with which we are very uncomfortable, and I have to say that devolving power over wind farms up to 350 MW to the Welsh Government really sticks in my craw. For me, that is a high price to pay to support the Bill. Perhaps I did not make what I meant absolutely clear in an earlier intervention, but we know that the Welsh Labour Government—perhaps supported by some of the other parties—are hugely enthusiastic about covering mid-Wales with wind turbines, wind farms and pylons. There has been a huge battle to try to stop them, but the Welsh Government are very keen to do it.

On 1 March this year—St David’s day—the United Kingdom Government passed powers over onshore wind to local government across England and Wales. In England, local government now has the power to make decisions on wind farms of any size, and that power has also been devolved to Wales. On that same day, the Welsh Government took that power unto themselves. In Wales, everything over 25 MW is therefore now decided by the Welsh Government in Cardiff, but in England local authorities decide this. That is one reason why I find this part of the Bill to be extremely difficult to support.

I am looking forward to the Committee stage, where we will debate a series of aspects of the Bill, as we are not able to touch on everything today. The Bill is really worth while. We can perhaps change one or two parts of it, but it is a good Bill that will bring more stability, more security and more democracy, in the sense that through financial accountability people will be more engaged with the democratic process than has ever been the case in Wales before. That is why I very much hope that the Bill makes its way through the House.

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[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate on the next stage of Welsh devolution. We have heard a range of insightful contributions from Members from across the Chamber, including from those valiant souls who have served on the Welsh Affairs Committee and did much of the pre-legislative scrutiny. We are deeply grateful to them all. Their inquiry into the Bill was quite an undertaking, and it is important to thank them properly for it.

Our debate has been very positive. I will speak about some contributions, and apologise that I will not be able to go into greater depth, but it would not be on for me to speak for 80 minutes—we do not believe in letting Ministers off the hook that way.

The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), the Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, was once an arch devo-sceptic, but I think he is thawing a bit—on 24 June he might even decide he likes the European Union. He discussed a range of constitutional issues, complete with theme park analogies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) gave a wide-ranging speech. He talked about visionaries, and about how devolution is about practical measures that improve people’s lives, stating that we always need to take the people of Wales with us. That is very important. He mentioned many other things, including the important debate about votes at 16. We will hear more on that on another day, I think.

The right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones)—a former Secretary of State, of course—raised a number of concerns about the reserved powers model and various aspects of income tax varying powers, along with the fact that no referendum has been promised.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) gave a characteristically wide-ranging speech. I am amazed that he was around with that placard in nineteen-fifty-whatever-it-was, but I believe him. As he discussed the current democratic discourse, and spoke of the Chartists and of Cymru Fydd, he reminded me—I will come on to this again later—that there has been a very proud Welsh Labour tradition of support for devolution, even if it has taken us a little time to bring everyone else on board.

The hon. Member for Gower (Byron Davies) expressed concerns about the introduction of income tax powers without a referendum, as well as concerns about levels of scrutiny. My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) raised the practical point of the importance of measuring our work by its impact on the lives of ordinary people, and how we can empower ordinary people in Wales.

The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Craig Williams) discussed numerous aspects of strengthening the Welsh Assembly. The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) raised many issues, including the welcoming of the reserved powers model. He spoke of his fears of being taken to the Supreme Court if we do not get the Bill exactly right. Lord knows we need to get the Bill exactly right, because life is too short to keep coming back here every year.

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies) expressed what I think Sir Humphrey might have called “a few concerns”. He said that he felt the Welsh Assembly Government were “not capable of handling the powers they have”. That is his comment, not mine.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) spoke of his party’s long-standing support for devolution. He also raised a number of issues, including some very thoughtful reflections on justice impact assessments. I suspect we might hear a bit more about them, too.

The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), in a wide-ranging speech, was broadly supportive of the Bill. He expressed his support for a reserved powers model and for income tax-levying powers. The hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) raised several issues, some of them quite technical, including those relating to the justice impact assessment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) gave a very thoughtful speech, raising a number of legal matters and the very important issue of access to justice. He paid tribute to the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Welsh Affairs Committee and to the Welsh Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. He spoke about Jim Griffiths—we do not talk about Jim Griffiths often enough in this place—who was pro-devolution and pro-UK. I am sure that if he were around now, he would have been pro-EU as well.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) spoke about a fiscal framework. He said that he hoped the next referendum in Wales would be on independence “when the time comes”. How wonderfully vague! I think Plaid Cymru AMs were probably a little more direct when they were having their conversations with Neil Hamilton. The one thing I would say is that we can always rely on the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr to be a bit partisan, so he should expect a bit of that from me, too.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) gave a very powerful and moving speech about access to justice and legal advice, and how that is reflected in the Bill.

The process that has led to the Bill has been long, and, I think we could say, rather fraught. When we last met to discuss the draft Bill at the Welsh Grand Committee, I think we can say that it did not exactly command consensus. Lawyers, academics, members of civic society—all those people in Wales who write at length, speak at length and normally disagree at length—all agreed: they felt it was time we sent the Bill back. The previous Welsh Assembly, of course, was unanimous in its criticism.

We have come a long way since then. While not perfect, this Bill is a big improvement. There is, however, still work to be done to deliver the clear, well-founded devolution settlement recommended by the Silk commission. I hope the Secretary of State will proceed in the spirit of consensus to make sure we get the Bill right, because none of us, absolutely none of us, wants to be here again in a few years’ time. We owe it to the Welsh electorate to deliver a coherent settlement that will allow the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh Government to do their jobs and deliver for the people of Wales.

Welsh devolution has moved on at a rapid pace since Labour established the Assembly just 17 years ago. My late, departed constituent, one Owain Glyndwr of Corwen, would probably make the point that, as we have been waiting 600 years for our Welsh Parliament to reconvene, it is fair enough that we have been making up for lost time. But since then the Assembly has gained full law-making powers and what a delight that is.

[Glyn Davies]

I think Owain Glyndwr lived a significant part of his life in my constituency of Montgomeryshire—in Sycharth in Llansilin.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Boundary changes are upon us, so who knows what might happen.