Wales Bill

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams]

I rise to speak to amendments 32, 33 and 38 to 45. My hon. Friends will seek to catch your eye later, Sir Alan, to speak on the aspects that concern them. I also wish to speak to clause 18 stand part.

Amendment 32 is a technical amendment. Clause 8 provides that Assembly legislation dealing with certain protected matters—the name of the Assembly, who is entitled to vote at Assembly elections, the voting system and so on—would require a super-majority of the Assembly. It requires the Presiding Officer to decide whether an Assembly Bill relates to a protected matter and to state that decision, and I do not disagree with any of that.

However, the clause then requires that that statement be in both English and Welsh and that the form of that statement be dealt with in the Assembly’s Standing Orders. While we agree that such statements should be made in both languages, amendment 32, which is in my name and those of my hon. Friends, would remove those two provisions. It does that for two reasons. First, including them is at odds with much of the rest of the Bill, which recognises the Assembly as a mature legislator and allows it to determine its own internal arrangements rather than what is required by Westminster. Secondly, both Welsh and English are official languages of the Assembly—as someone rather paradoxically put it, English is a Welsh language in that respect—and both must be treated equally. Therefore, providing that the Presiding Officer’s statement must be made in both languages is unnecessary—nugatory.

Amendment 33 seeks to amend clause 12, which inserts a new section into the Government of Wales Act 2006. This would replace the previous arrangements for financial controls and provide that Welsh legislation should make provision for the matters contained within that section, such as accounts to be prepared of their expenditure and receipts by the First Minister or other Ministers who draw sums from the Welsh consolidated fund. We believe that the new section should include basic safeguards in the form of minimum requirements that Welsh legislation should provide for, and that reflect good governance. Section 124 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 currently provides for authorisation by the Assembly. Amendment 33 proposes that funds should be issued from the Welsh Consolidated Fund only in accordance with legislation or authorisation by the Assembly, and can be utilised only for the purposes for which they were authorised. This simple addition to the Bill would improve accountability and responsibility, and it would reflect the provisions for Scotland—that is, section 65 of the Scotland Act 1998.

Amendments 38 to 45 are technical in nature. They amend clause 15, which provides that if the Assembly changes its name, then any reference in legislation, instruments and documents to the “National Assembly for Wales” is to be read as a reference to the new name. This saves having to change each reference to the “National Assembly for Wales”, of which there may be many thousands. However, the clause neglects the fact that Assembly Acts are prepared bilingually, and so references to the Assembly and the commission will be in Welsh and English. Moreover, it does not address the issue of legislation, instruments and documents that refer to “Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru”. The amendment clarifies that any reference in legislation, instruments and documents to “Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru” is also to be read as a reference to the new name in Welsh.

The same issues arise with regard to any change in the names of the National Assembly for Wales Commission or Acts of the National Assembly for Wales, which are also addressed in the amendment. The heading of the section inserted into the Government of Wales Act 2006 by clause 15 refers to “translation of references”. The amendment would change that to “consequential provision”. That is more appropriate, given the overall effect of clause 15, and avoids confusion between legal translation—that is, consequential provisions—and linguistic translation of references. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope that he might consider adopting some of these changes on Report.

I now turn briefly to clause 18 stand part. This clause shows the speed of political change. After nearly five years of discussions about Silk and powers for Wales, we are now providing that Wales Acts are relevant to the European Communities Act 1972, although the UK has just voted to leave the EU. Obviously, this provision should remain in the Bill. We are still in the EU, and unpicking EU legislation from our domestic legislation will take many years and will not be easy. There are questions as to how decisions will be taken about which EU legislation remains.

I hope that the UK Government, of whatever stripe, but particularly of a right-wing Conservative complexion, will not take it upon themselves to decide what is, or what is not, relevant to Wales. We have already heard the comments from one Conservative leadership contender at the weekend calling for a “strong Union”, and we suspect that we know what that actually means. We need to know where Wales stands and how these powers will be determined. So-called Henry VIII powers, lying either with the UK Government or with Whitehall bureaucrats, will not be democratically acceptable.

My party, Plaid Cymru, is the official Opposition in Wales and the second largest party after the elections two months ago. The balance of competences review did not consider Wales in particular depth, but, post-Brexit, we must consider the question of which powers should be in Wales’s hands and not those of Westminster. The vote in Wales to leave the EU was not a vote to centralise power in Westminster.

I draw the House’s attention to today’s Assembly debate on a motion standing in the name of our former colleague, Simon Thomas, which states that the Assembly

“believes that following the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, provisions should be made to ensure that all legislation giving effect to EU Directives or Regulations pertaining to areas such as environmental protection, workers' rights, food safety and agriculture are retained in UK and Welsh law unless they are actively repealed by the relevant Parliament.”

The debate will repay close reading.

Whether or not Vote Leave was in a position to make the promises it made, they must be honoured by the Westminster Government because they were the Brexit promises that people voted for. That means additional money for the NHS through the Barnett formula, as well as protecting funding for our farmers and regional and structural funds post-2020.

It is right for clause 18 to remain part of the Bill, as it will be relevant until any official departure from the European Union takes place. However, the clause, like so many others, shows how the Bill has already been overtaken by events and why Wales should have so much more power than it provides. The Bill is far from being a once-and-for-all settlement, and we give notice that we will return to this matter later in this Parliament.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Alan, for calling me to speak on this hugely important Bill. The work leading up to it has played a significant part in my time in politics.

I pay tribute to the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn). I have a special reason for welcoming him to his position: of all the other Welsh Members of Parliament, I am probably the nearest to being an octogenarian, and his wonderful example gives me promise and ambition for the future. If he can do it, there is no reason why I cannot. I thank him for that, as well as for the great wit with which he has entertained me over many years.

The Bill is wide-ranging. Inevitably, opinions on it will differ and there will be an element of compromise. In his response to earlier amendments, the shadow Secretary of State said that we need to be pragmatic. We all have different opinions, including in my own party. We all, I think, want this Bill to go through, but we need to accept that we are going to have to compromise.

The big compromise that I have to make relates to the fact that the Bill transfers energy powers to the Welsh Government, the idea of which fills me with horror. I would find it difficult to support the Bill, except that the Welsh Government have, disgracefully, already taken unto themselves those powers through their local government responsibilities. That makes the Bill’s transfer of energy powers much less damaging to mid-Wales and much less of an attack on the people of mid-Wales than it would otherwise have been.

The intention behind the Bill is to provide a much more stable, long-lasting and permanent settlement for Wales and to provide clarity on it. I am not sure about the word “permanent”. I do not think it is wise to have a Wales Bill every five years, which is pretty much what we have been doing. This is not permanent: I think we will come back to developing devolution at a pace at which we can bring the people of Wales with us. Plaid Cymru Members spoke earlier about the judicial position. When the body of Welsh law is no longer tiny and grows to be substantial, we may have to revisit the issue in the future, and the same may be true of other issues that we have not entirely foreseen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Susan Elan Jones]

I speak in support of amendment 11 on income tax powers. I am interested in much of the Bill, but during the past week, in the aftermath of the Brexit result, a thought has come to me. I am now absolutely determined that, like highly calorific chocolate, constitutional experts are to be valued, savoured and enjoyed, but not indulged in very frequently. I spent the referendum evening sitting around a table in a television studio in the company of a constitutional expert—I would argue that he is probably one of Wales’s finest. As we looked at the results coming in, many of them fairly miserable, the constitutional expert sprang to life and said, “Do you realise the impact of that on parts of the Wales Bill? Do you realise its impact on this and on that?” I sat there thinking that I was a little more interested about potential job losses at Airbus, what would happen to farms and all the rest of it.

Let us get back to the amendment. I have always supported a referendum on devolving income tax. Our amendment 11 would do something really practical. We argue that income tax powers should not be devolved to the Welsh Assembly until a full fiscal framework for Wales has been approved by both Houses of Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. That is an agenda of total respect.

I will tell the House why that is important. We all sit around discussing what it means to be Welsh, our patriotism and our different interpretations of it, often with the view that we have the one complete, absolute truth on the issue. But there is one thing that matters more and more, especially in the aftermath of the Brexit result. I can think of a million ways in which every single one of us in this Chamber could express our Welsh patriotism, but there is one way we can never do so: by supporting a deal under which ordinary Welsh people become poorer. That must be our litmus test, and that is why we must not only vote on this issue in both Chambers of this House, but we must also place it in the hands of our Welsh National Assembly.

I agree with part of what the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) said, but it is a pity that he has an obsession about never wanting a Labour Government in Wales again. Last week the Secretary of State said some interesting and thoughtful things on television in the wake of the EU referendum.

[Glyn Davies]

Let me clarify my view on that. We should not be in a position where we never have a Labour Government in Wales from time to time, but I object to the idea that we should never have anything but a Labour Government, and the assumption that Wales must always have a Labour Government or be led by Labour. We need variation—let us have somebody else, and then Labour can come back.

[Susan Elan Jones]

It does not much matter what I or the hon. Gentleman think—it has far more to do with what the electorate in Wales think. In all seriousness, this is about how we get the best deal for people in Wales, and for those of us who have never had an ideological objection to the Assembly having tax-raising powers, what we are proposing is sensible, workable, and goes with the grain of the majority of opinion in the Assembly, in this House and across Wales. The hon. Gentleman will probably disagree with me, but he said something interesting about how the Welsh Assembly, which was elected in 1997 with a small majority, has turned into something that very few people in Wales would want to get rid of, and quite right too. I think that this change and incremental increase in devolution, and the support for further fiscal powers, is right and proper, and it is time that the House supported it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Cairns]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate, Mr Gray.

In opening, I say that it is a pleasure to welcome the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) to his place. He is the Member of Parliament for my parents-in-law, and an active constituency Member. We all know how active he is, usually on the Back Bench, but it is a pleasure to see him on the Front Bench. I extend a welcome to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris)—I have some roots in Swansea, having been brought up in that part of the world. I also pay tribute to the hon. Members for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), for the work that they have put into consistent scrutiny of the Bill in its early stages. I am grateful for the co-operation and support they gave me as we sought to bring about broad agreement on where the Bill stands. There is not agreement on everything, but I am grateful to all Members who have contributed for the broad consensus that has come forward.

Clauses 8 to 21 and the amendments related to them deal with changes to Assembly processes, the devolution of income tax powers, and the functions of Welsh Ministers. Clause 8 would insert a new section into the Government of Wales Act that determines what types of protected subject matter would, if contained in an Assembly Bill, require that that Bill be passed by a super-majority, which is two thirds of all Assembly Members. The protected subject matters in clause 8 include the name of the Assembly, those entitled to a vote in the Assembly elections, the system used in Assembly elections, the specification or number of Assembly constituencies and regions, and the number of Members returned for each constituency or region. These are in line with the protected subject matters included in the Scotland Act 2016, with two exceptions. The Bill provides that any change to the name of the National Assembly for Wales be subject to a super-majority requirement. The Bill also provides for the specification of constituencies, regions or equivalent electoral areas as protected subject matter. The super-majority requirement will ensure that there is broad support across the Assembly for those fundamental changes.

In the first instance, it would be for the Presiding Officer to determine and make a statement on whether or not an Assembly Bill relates to any of those protected subject matters. It is this part of the clause that amendment 32, tabled by Plaid Cymru, seeks to change. The amendment would remove the requirement for the Presiding Officer’s statement to be made in both the English language and the Welsh language. It would also remove the requirement for the Assembly’s Standing Orders to determine the form of the statement and the manner in which it is to be made.

It goes without saying that the Government are fully committed to the Welsh language. The Wales Office has two Ministers who speak Welsh, of which I am one, and a third Minister who is learning Welsh. It is good to see that the political tension around the Welsh language seems to be a relic of history, which is, I am sure we would all agree, a positive move. But the intention behind proposed new sections 11A(5) and 111A(6) of the Government of Wales Act 2006, as inserted by clause 8, is to ensure that the Welsh language is treated equally with English when the new super-majority processes are incorporated into the workings of the Assembly.

[Glyn Davies]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it is outrageous for those organisations supporting the Welsh language to assume that because we are leaving the European Union the support for the Welsh language will in some way be greatly diminished? The UK Government and Welsh Government have been huge supporters of the Welsh language, and there is no earthly reason why that should not continue in future.

[Alun Cairns]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. A broad consensus has developed on the Welsh language over the past few decades, which is very different from what we might have seen before.