Welsh Assembly Legislation (Attorney-General)

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

I remember it vividly. It was a painful experience but one that resulted in promotion to Cabinet rank for my right hon. Friend. I saw the former hon. Member for Cardiff, Central today. At that time it meant challenging some of the views of the Labour party in Wales, which were not always progressive.

We got to the stage where Wales had the chance to make laws on its own soil, not for the first time in history, but for the first time in 1,000 years. Laws were made by Hywel Dda between 942 and 950, and they were very progressive. One stated that if a wife caught her husband in bed with another woman for the third time, she could divorce him and get compensation for the previous two occasions. Women had the right to own land, which was progressive in 942. There was also a law—it is rather better than the bedroom tax and other measures we have now—stating that if a person had passed through three villages asking for food but not been fed, he or she could not be punished for stealing food. That was progressive Welsh legislation, and it should have inspired the Government to realise that, as the great Welsh proverb states: Hawdd cynnau tân ar hen aelwyd—it is easy to kindle a fire on an old hearth. The old hearth was there, because we were law-makers in the past, and good law-makers at that.

Boldly the Welsh Assembly Government put forward their first law, which had the romantic title of the Local Government Byelaws (Wales) Bill. They took it through the Assembly and it became an Act. One would not have expected it to cause an enormous amount of excitement, because it just cleared up a few other laws to allow local government to pass their own byelaws, which they have been doing without trouble for a long time. There was no hesitation and no excitement, but for some reason—I am sure that the Solicitor-General will explain it when he replies—that modest Bill, the first for 1,000 years to bear the royal Welsh seal, which made it significant, even if its content was not, was opposed by the Attorney-General’s office.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend might want to recollect that before that we had the procedure for legislative competence orders, which he has referred to. The first one I dealt with, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), was the LCO on red meat. Although it was delayed, subject to parliamentary scrutiny that was a little over-onerous, we did not delay the red meat LCO too long, because otherwise it would have gone off.

[Paul Flynn]

Yes, it was a difficult period when we had the LCOs, which were a new legislative monstrosity that we were stuck with and that puzzled us, but as a result of certain ingenuity they did mean that some sort of law was made in Wales, even if in a cack-handed manner. They are now a footnote in history.

The Local Government Byelaws (Wales) Bill went through because it was uncontroversial, and there was a little bit of ceremony because we were proud to be making laws in the land of our own country for the first time in more than 1,000 years. Why on earth was it opposed? The First Minister called it a

“ridiculous situation that has arisen on what is a totally uncontroversial piece of legislation…The primary policy objective of the Bill is to simplify and rationalise how local authorities make byelaws to deal with nuisances in their areas…So why the UK government has decided to take this to the Supreme Court, at the last minute, is inexplicable.”

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[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Before my hon. Friend continues on to another Bill, may I suggest that there might be an interpretation of what justified the Westminster intervention and challenge on this? It is as simple as this: for local government, a devolved area in Wales, read England.

[Paul Flynn]

Absolutely. This is part of the long history of the neglect of Wales and the undervaluing of Welsh life by the British Government over the years that now has a chance of being corrected.

A Bill about the Welsh language was proposed that offered equal status to the two languages. While there were quibbles from the national Government about this, they did not take it to the High Court. We now have a farm workers wages Bill—a splendid Bill in many ways—that has had great support even from the farm unions in Wales. That is because there are farm wages boards in Scotland and in Northern Ireland, and the Bill tried to get the board continued in Wales. Farm workers along the borders in Wales are already exposed to market forces and do not have the protection that the 13,000 farm workers in Wales have. The Agricultural Wages Board set pay rates that gave a modest amount of protection to farm workers, whose wages have never been generous and were hardly generous under the Bill, but are certainly exposed to greater cuts now.

The UK Government warned that there were important questions for the Supreme Court to resolve as to whether the Assembly acted within its powers on that matter. Yet whatever powers the Welsh Assembly got, they certainly included agriculture. There is no question about that, because it was the decision of this House under the Acts that were passed here. However, for some twisted reason the Government decided that this was to do with employment, and by that chicanery challenged the Bill.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Does my hon. Friend share my shock at the fact that the Welsh Government Minister, Alun Davies, had repeatedly made it clear to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that he wanted to carve a different path in Wales and was simply seeking a dispensation in order to do that, and yet he was told, “No, we will abolish the whole structure of the Agricultural Wages Board and then fight the battle over whether you can reinstate something that looks like it”? What sort of respect for devolution is that?

[Paul Flynn]

My hon. Friend gives a splendid example. This is the reverse of devolution, the very opposite of what the new Minister of State at the Cabinet Office said the other day about local opinion and good ideas. Wales has a stronger case for an Agricultural Wages Board, perhaps, than many parts of England, so we should be able to make a different decision, but the Government object.

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[Paul Murphy]

There are two ways of looking at it. There are party political differences because of the different parties in the different countries, but I also experienced that when Labour was in government and other state Departments were not necessarily sympathetic to what the Welsh Government were doing. It was my job to say, “You might not like it, but you’ve got to do it because that is what devolution is all about.” Otherwise, what is the point of having it in the first place?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

When I served under my right hon. Friend as Under-Secretary of State for Wales, a signature of his tenure in office was that at all times such resolutions were dealt with early and within our mechanisms. It was a signal failure if something had to escalate to another constitutional mechanism, and it did not go at all to the Supreme Court.

[Paul Murphy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks, and there is machinery within the Government system for resolving disputes between the devolved Administrations and their Parliaments, and the United Kingdom Government. That has been set up for nearly 16 years and is precisely to deal with those areas of considerable difference. In my view, that includes whether there is a dispute, and whether something is intra vires or ultra vires. I repeat: to take the issue to the courts is to press the nuclear button and could cause immeasurable damage to the devolution settlement.

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[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) not only on introducing the debate and on his excellent peroration on the stymieing of legislation and policy in Wales by the current Westminster Government, but on expounding on the narrative history of the Chartists and why it is relevant. I can only share his disappointment that we have so little time to debate this—we could go overnight, but, in compliance with the wishes of right hon. and hon. Members, we will try to avoid that situation.

The legislative competence order process was a previous mechanism for producing legislation in Wales. It was slightly cumbersome and convoluted, and required a great deal of detailed scrutiny in Parliament. However, it passed some cognisance of the growing authority of the Welsh Government. LCOs were much criticised at the time—rightly, in some ways, because they caused delay and were complex, even for the very good officials in the Wales Office in London and in Cardiff, and for Welsh Government officials, who worked through the minutiae. The intention—to afford proper scrutiny in Parliament and ensure that the Welsh Government could introduce their own measures under the process within their clearly devolved responsibilities and so on—was good. Yes, it caused delays, but there was a good spirit. We managed to pass LCOs into legislation, even after good scrutiny in Parliament by the Welsh Affairs Committee and others. There was never any intention to hold things up unduly.

The purpose was the growing relationship under the LCO system between the right scrutiny of this place at that time and the right role of the Welsh people, through their elected officials in the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh Government, to introduce appropriate measures from Wales. As my hon. Friend pointed out, that was not without its difficulties. It could sometimes be tortuous—even the now legendary red meat LCO took a little time to get on to the books, and that was one of the more straightforward orders—but we got there eventually. On all occasions, the intention of my right hon. Friends the Members for Neath (Mr Hain) and for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) was for their officials to work with officials in the Welsh Government and the Welsh Assembly to try to progress the measures through the LCO mechanism, which was imperfect but was what we had at the time.

What has followed, with the will of the Welsh people, is ostensibly an attempt to streamline the process to give clarity on where devolved responsibilities lie, and to allow the Welsh Government, the Welsh people and Welsh civic society to get on with passing their own laws—whether we, on both sides of the House, might agree or disagree with them ideologically—to define their own democratic path. As we have heard, it has not quite gone that way. For those on the Opposition Benches it feels like there has been by the current Secretary of State for Wales—I do not blame the Solicitor-General for looking quizzical—a maybe inadvertent but deliberate attempt to hold up, to challenge, to rebuke the Welsh people for being so impertinent as to actually bring forward their own legislation.

[The Solicitor-General]

I am surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman suggest that LCOs are better than the current system, whereby the National Assembly for Wales has primary powers in 20 areas. What is more, most of the Bills are going through without any difficulty. There have been difficulties with two, but the idea that we should go back to LCOs is wrong.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I could not agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman more. Perhaps I should clarify what I was saying: LCOs were clearly imperfect, but the new system is meant to be better. Even with the LCO paraphernalia—it was difficult and cumbersome—attempts were made within the constitutional arrangement, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen has made clear, to work through those difficulties. If necessary, and as a last resort, they would be escalated up the constitutional food chain for resolution at a higher level, but there was certainly not the seemingly macho political posturing of taking it outside of this place without recourse to internal mechanisms and straight to the Supreme Court. I can see only one possible justification for that: to prove some sort of point and say to the people of Wales and the democratically elected representatives in Wales, “Know your place.”

[Stephen Doughty]

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is also an opportunity cost here? What is the Secretary of State for Wales doing with his and his officials’ time, attempting to stymie and frustrate the will of the Welsh people and the National Assembly instead of focusing on standing up for Wales around the Cabinet table? He was evasive when we questioned him on this point in the Welsh Affairs Committee. He would not give us an estimate of the amount of time that he and his office had spent on this. I suspect it was far more than it should have been.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. There is a clear case for a cost-benefit analysis of the tasks the Secretary of State is spending his time on, and for asking why he is not finding more useful things to do. There is also the question of the cost of challenging this through the Supreme Court. In an era of what we are told is great austerity, cutbacks and stringent demands on Departments, I am amazed that the Wales Office thinks it fit to throw on to Government—albeit another Department—the cost associated with a Supreme Court challenge.

I turn to the Agricultural Wages Board, about which I know some small amount, given that I was the shadow Minister who stood here frequently in opposition to its abolition. Just as frequently, I put the case that the Westminster Government merely needed to allow Wales to continue as it was by putting a clause in the Bill, as requested by the Welsh Government, saying, “Ignore Wales for these purposes.” We only asked that they let us carry on and find a way to do it ourselves, rather than abolishing the whole mechanism and saying, “Now do what you want.”

I pay tribute to the work of Unite, in Wales and throughout the UK, which stood up for the lowest of the low-paid agricultural workers, for skills and training and for the development of earnings and capacity among agricultural workers. I also pay tribute to colleagues in the Welsh Assembly, including Mick Antoniw and others, who fought the good fight in Wales and to the Farmers Union of Wales—for goodness’ sake!—which said, “The reason we want to keep it in Wales is that we are slightly different from England. We have a higher proportion of small and medium-sized farms, which do not only employ individuals. That is why we want the clarity provided by the Agricultural Wages Board. We also rent ourselves out.” They would say to me, “I as a small farmer, rent out, and I know the terms of the contract.” I am talking of the young farmers of Wales too. These are not organisations that would automatically side with Labour on every issue in defence of something such as the Agricultural Wages Board, but my goodness they did on this occasion.

All that the Welsh Government and Alun Davies, the Welsh Minister, were asking was, “Give us time and space to define our own future”, but that did not happen. We debated it long and hard, we fought the good fight, speaking up for the Agricultural Wages Board not only in England, but in Wales, all the while conscious that the voice of representatives in the Welsh Government and the National Assembly was not being heard anywhere except in the media. We had to speak for them.

Wales lost without having had a direct say, and all that was required was for a Westminster Minister to say, “We concede that agriculture is a devolved responsibility. We won’t challenge you. We will put a clause in the Bill that will allow you to proceed.” That, I say to the Solicitor-General, would have shown respect for Wales and the devolution settlement. Rather than that, and symptomatic of the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West, we had a firm no. The door was shut in our faces. In effect, it wiped Wales off the democratic map. That is a regret.

The Solicitor-General is a reasonable and fair-minded fellow. The cacophony of pleas from the Opposition might remind him of the old poem about Welsh people worrying the carcase of a dead song and being a bit too melancholy, but we are not melancholy; we want to be joyous and we want to celebrate devolution and respect the fact that the people of Wales supported greater devolution. We just ask the UK Government, whatever political perspectives make it up, also to show that respect.