20 Years of Devolution

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

With all great respect, I think that the hon. Gentleman misunderstands and possibly does not really appreciate what we are saying. We suggest in our report that parity of esteem be established. It is not right that the UK Government should chair all proceedings and set the agenda; that should be the responsibility of all Governments and the chairing should be rotated—just the chairing, so not having a veto but just ensuring that that sense of equality exists between the four Governments in a setting and a forum that is supposed to be able to accommodate that.

What we said about the Scotland Office and the Secretary of State’s role probably got most of the headlines and caught most of the attention when our report came out just a few short weeks ago. When we looked at the Scotland Office and the Secretary of State’s role, we found a Department that has more or less been bypassed in two very important functions. One of them is at the highest level of inter-Government relations such as the bilateral meetings between First Minister and Prime Minister. That now seems to be conducted by the de facto Deputy Prime Minister; he does all that and there does not seem to be much of a role for the Scotland Office in those proceedings. The second thing we found, which is probably more important, is that bilateral arrangements between Ministers from Scotland and Whitehall were being conducted by themselves and they were not going through the Scotland Office. If a Minister in Scotland wanted to deal with an issue that was of importance to the UK so it was something that needed to be done together, that would go straight to the relevant Whitehall Department down here with no role for the Scotland Office. So we asked what the Scotland Office therefore really does, and why it is in place, with all the paraphernalia of a civil service and so on.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

An additional point is that there needs to be formal consideration of the interplay between legislation that is created here and that now being created in the Welsh Assembly. There is a recent example with the Joint Committee on the draft Domestic Abuse Bill: there is a piece of legislation in Wales concerning violence against women. There is no formal mechanism to examine how legislation created here and legislation being created in other places intermeshes and to ensure they do not contradict one another.

[Pete Wishart]

That points to some of the evidence we took in the Committee. It is an important point, and I know that it will be looked at when these matters are being progressed.

We found, however, that the Scotland Office did the following. It is its right and prerogative to do this, so of course it can, but it wanted to make sure that the role of the UK and the workings of its Government are asserted in Scotland. That seems to be the basis of the Dunlop review: how we can make Scotland better love what the UK does. This seems to involve a relatively large resource and budget, and it seems as though we will have to expect a lot of new UK branding with all the associated flagging paraphernalia that goes with it. It seems like some sort of bold attempt to make us love that just that little bit more by visibility.

We asked the Secretary of State about this yesterday, and I got the sense that the UK Government are trying to do a rebranding exercise. [Interruption.] Scottish Conservative Members do not like that and are saying that is not the case. We shall hear their opinions about what the Dunlop review will do, but we are very encouraged by the Secretary of State’s response to our report. I think they have agreed to look at almost every recommendation we made; we are excited that they have said they will look at most of the things around the JMC and that that will form part of the review. They are even prepared to look properly at a review of the Scotland Office and tell us what it will be doing, so we remain encouraged. [Interruption.] I did not want to sound bitter or unhappy with things, but that was what I was hearing yesterday, and the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) was at the same meeting. We have to be positive where we can be and thankful for the fact that most of that response seems to have been quite good so far, so we will just keep things going, and I say to colleagues on the Scottish Affairs Committee that we have a role in this, so we will make sure that that happens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), and I congratulate the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) on securing this debate.

Twenty years ago, our Parliament, Y Senedd, opened its doors for the very first time, and with it a new door was opened in Wales—to possibility, to hope and to a new radical kind of politics. We had decided that, yes, we wanted Wales to be out there as a country in its own right on the world stage and that, yes, we could govern ourselves. Devolution has created so many opportunities: space for greater policy experimentation, and potential for different Governments to learn from each other. The devolved legislatures tend to be more representative and politically balanced, which was of course the designed intention; there was the opportunity to put that into effect.

However, devolution has evolved in a piecemeal manner, with separate devolution processes in the separate nations. There is an absence of guiding principles, and an over-dependency on convention, which has led to disagreement about the nature of the post-devolution constitution. The 2016 referendum and its aftermath have made it more urgent that these big questions be considered by the Governments, by political parties and, potentially, through a deliberative exercise involving citizens from across the UK. I have made the case before, and I will make it again, that it is time for a formal written UK constitution and of course a new Wales Bill.

Yesterday, Plaid Cymru Assembly Members held a debate on strengthening our Senedd. We called for clear, positive and urgent reform. We also called for an increase in the number of Assembly Members, so that the Senedd can properly hold the Welsh Government—we have seen the problem of the dividing line between the Welsh Government and the Welsh Assembly—to account, to improve policy development and fulfil the Senedd’s potential as a Parliament for all the people of Wales. Policy and its implementation depends very much on the quality of scrutiny. If the scrutiny is not there, we can guarantee that the policies formed and the way they are carried out will not be up to scratch. Increasing the number of Assembly Members has been recommended by every commission that has examined devolution since 1979.

Plaid Cymru Assembly Members also called for an immediate move towards a fully proportional electoral system. Implementing a single transferable vote system by 2021 will ensure that we have a strong Senedd that is able to operate as an effective Parliament by reflecting the diversity of the population it represents.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about accountability. Is she not dismayed, as I sometimes am, that in Wales the true test of accountability, which is the ability to remove a party of government, has not been exercised under devolution? Throughout the past 20 years and all the turbulence of British politics, during which we have seen big changes in Scotland and in Westminster, we have not seen any major changes in Welsh politics. We still have, basically, one-party rule, so accountability is not ever fully exercised.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

The dynamic of change is a critical aspect of how we have accountability, quality of policy and innovation of ideas. We have yet to see that—it can be interpreted in many ways—in Wales. I believe we can very much strengthen democracy in Wales in that respect.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

Let us be honest: a change of Government in Wales would demand a coalition between parties other than Labour. Is the hon. Lady of the view that the right way forward should be a coalition, and that that coalition should not exclude the Conservative party?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

From Westminster to every Parliament of the United Kingdom, the adversarial way in which we operate is not serving any of the nations of the United Kingdom effectively. I urge us all to find new ways of working, rather than this duality of adversarialness, which frankly does nothing but score points.

The reforms that Plaid Cymru put to the Senedd yesterday are evidently—it was interesting to hear agreement from Conservative Members—in the interests of our country and of Wales, yet Labour refused to support our motion. Instead, Labour put in place obstacles to avoid achieving immediate reform. Many of us present feel that the need is urgent for Wales. Wales deserves a world-class Parliament and a Senedd that makes decisions in the best interests of the country, not in the best interests of the Labour party.

With the impending threat of a no-deal Brexit and the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) as Prime Minister, change is more vital than ever. Brexit has shone a pitiless light on the inadequacies of the UK constitution. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act will, with the aiding and abetting of the Labour Welsh Government, weaken the devolution settlements that the people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have enjoyed for the past two decades. Not only did the Labour Welsh Government capitulate on the withdrawal Bill; they withdrew the only means of protection that the Senedd had against the Tory Government: they repealed the Welsh continuity Act.

First Minister Mark Drakeford’s whole argument for repealing the Act was premised on his belief that the Scottish Government would lose the Supreme Court case over their equivalent legislation. He said that if Scotland lost it would have nothing, while Wales would still have its paltry agreement with the UK Tory Government. It is sad to recount that his wager backfired in spectacular fashion. Scotland won the case, meaning its powers are legally protected. It is Wales that is left with nothing, defenceless. We have nothing left but a bad deal that gives away Welsh powers to Tory Ministers, with no guarantee that we will ever get them back.

My party’s position for Wales’s future is clear: we want the people of Wales to run our own affairs. In all honesty, who aspires to come into politics and into government but would not aspire to that? In truth, who would not aspire to that? Sometimes, when we spell this out, we are told that to call for independence is somehow irrational and unreasonable—something to which we should not aspire—but in all honesty, who among us would ever have come into politics unless the people we represent had the chance to represent themselves? Why would we ever tell people that they do not have the means, the means to aspire or the potential—that they do not have it in them to manage their own affairs? That is what motivates many of us here on the Opposition Benches.

I acknowledge that, in the interim, we need a collaborative procedure for the creation of UK-wide frameworks, given that the Government are so determined to press ahead and remove us from the already functioning EU frameworks in which we know where we stand. Such UK-wide frameworks would have a significant impact on the existing evolved devolution settlements and therefore must be created jointly by all the sitting Governments, not dictated from this place by Ministers of the Crown. This is only the first step to ensuring that devolution is not just respected, but upheld in the upheaval that the Government are creating and forcing on us by leaving the European Union.

In future, there must be no first among alleged equals, but equality of respect, means and potential. Welsh democracy is facing its biggest existential threat of its 20-year anniversary. We face a stark choice of two futures: will Wales be a peripheral geographic unit, crumbling under the pressure of an increasingly London-centric Unionist Government, or will we be an independent European nation, with a fit-for-purpose and dynamic Parliament? I know which future I would choose for the people of Wales and the people I represent.