Wales Bill

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

I trust that I have persuaded Members on both sides of the House of the need for our amendments. Let me now deal with the Opposition new clauses and amendments. New clause 2, amendments (a) and (b) and amendments 1 and 63 to 65, tabled by the hon. Members for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), would devolve legislative and executive competence to the Assembly to regulate the number of high-stakes gaming machines authorised by new betting-premises licences in Wales. They would also devolve legislative competence for betting, gaming and lotteries in Wales to the Assembly. Betting, gaming and lotteries are not devolved to the Assembly, and will be reserved subjects under the Bill. The Silk commission made no recommendations on their devolution, and the subject was therefore not considered under the St David’s Day process, the thread of thinking that resulted from the Silk commission.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned the amendments that I tabled. Has he had representations from the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh Government? Has he followed the debate in the Welsh Assembly, and listened to Welsh Ministers’ comments? Has he factored that into the equation? There certainly seems to be some interest in some devolution in Wales.

[Alun Cairns]

I have had representations from the Welsh Government, and we are happy to continue a dialogue in order to refine the reservations. However, amendments 63 to 65 would extend extremely broad powers in this regard. We do not intend to accept them, because we do not believe that devolving the wider competence to which they refer would be the right course. They were not raised by the Silk commission or in the St David’s Day agreement. Nevertheless, in our usual pragmatic style, we are naturally happy to continue to discuss a range of issues. Indeed, the Bill has continually refined itself through its progress, from the Silk commission and the St David’s Day agreement to the draft Bill, and thence to the stage that we have reached today.

New clause 3, tabled by the hon. Members for Newport West, for Arfon, for Dwyfor Meirionnydd and for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, and new clause 10 and amendment 67, tabled only by the Plaid Cymru Members, seek to probe the progress that the Government have made in implementing our commitment to devolve executive rail franchising functions. New clause 3 also seeks to press the Government to make a decision on whether to enable Welsh Ministers to invite public sector operators to bid for rail franchises for which they are the responsible franchising authority.