Constitutional Commission

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Griffiths on his willingness to stand in the breach to chair so brilliantly. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. He and I were on very different sides in the 1970s, when Plaid had a more separatist agenda and I was a member of the so-called gang of six. There has been a degree of convergence since and I am delighted to debate this issue with him. It is topical and timely now, because of the number of initiatives under way, as has been said.

I make a simple point: no institution is static; all institutions are dynamic. No one seriously expects the current settlement between the different nations of the United Kingdom to be the same in, say, five years. There will be some form of development, so the question is: in what form and what direction will it take? Will it be ad hoc, modest, incremental and with no end in sight? Or will it be a more radical project, as perhaps envisaged in the initiative taken by the Government of Wales? That is the basic subject of our debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, called for options, but we all know what they are. There is a whole spectrum of options. If the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and I were to sit down together, we would say that at one end of the spectrum is independence; at the other is the status quo. There is a whole series of steps in between. I am personally inclined to favour the more federal or quasi-federal system, perhaps a more ad hoc or à la carte one, as in Spain. That is something I think should be examined well.

I will not touch on the human rights Act the Government are proposing, as I think they could run into great difficulties with the European Convention on Human Rights.

I make one final point: we have been here before. I am old enough to recall the Crowther-Kilbrandon report of 1969 and 1973, which clearly set out the options in parts 5 to 8. That commission, with all the good of the people who put their best endeavours and expertise together, has been forgotten. It is hardly a footnote in an academic treatise. There are surely some lessons for us: we should not be concerned about just options, but the political will to deliver any options around which a consensus may form.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

As the noble Lord is going over his speaking limit, perhaps he could bring his comments to an end.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

Let us be aware of and beware the precedent of Kilbrandon, and decide to deliver.