Wales Bill

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a debate of rare quality. As has been said, we have had contributions from five former Secretaries of State—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, and the noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell, Lord Hain, Lord Hunt and Lord Murphy—all, obviously, with vast experience of this area. We have also had a contribution of rare quality as a maiden speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. It was truly excellent and I am sure we all look forward to many contributions from her in the future, not only on Wales but focusing very much on it. We have also benefited greatly from the contributions of former Assembly Members, party leaders and former Ministers, from the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, to the noble Lords, Lord Wigley, Lord Howarth and Lord Elis-Thomas, who also brought their great experience to bear.

I will try to deal with key points that have been made during the course of the debate. Obviously I look forward to engaging in Committee and thereafter on some of the detail. There is a genuine feeling that we want to move forward in a consensual way, as far as possible, and obviously many areas of the Bill have been welcomed pretty much universally—not least in the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, on some of the internal workings, elections and so on, which we both agree should have been matters for the Assembly from a much earlier date—probably well preceding 2014.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, for her kind words in opening. We go back a long way together on devolution matters and I know that she is now adding her wisdom to the counsels of the Assembly. I thank her for what she said and look forward to engaging on some of the issues that she quite fairly set out.

Let me look at some of the key ones. First, on taxation, I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hain, that there is no neoliberal assault on the part of the Government. This is a pragmatic approach to an issue that it is high time that the Welsh Assembly—who knows, henceforward perhaps the Welsh Parliament—were able to deal with. It is appropriate that a body of such maturity has the tax powers we are talking about.

It is not, of course, a wholesale tax package. Listening to one or two noble Lords, it sounded as if we were devolving the whole of income tax powers to Wales. That is not the case. We are devolving 10p and there is an ability for the Government of Wales—which is currently the Labour Party, with a Liberal Democrat Minister—to set that at current rates. There is no obligation to vary it. They have to set a rate but they are quite at liberty to set it at the existing rate if that is what they want to do. We have taken away the condition that they are obliged to vary all the rates together. The lock-step has gone, which means that they can be varied quite separately.

That is appropriate now, devolution having come so far. It is nearly 20 years since there was the issue of whether a separate question being put in Scotland should be put in Wales, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. We would not be doing Wales any great service by holding things back and saying that there has got to be a referendum on the issue. There is no assault on the state. Listening to the present Prime Minister, it is quite clear that she realises that the state has a powerful role to play. That seems to strike a chord with the electorate because that is where the electorate is, too. That is important. I disagree on this issue with my noble friend Lady Finn. It is appropriate that we move forward on this without greater delay because, in my view, it would hold back Wales.

Moving on to look at that in the wider context of the fiscal framework and the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, put to me initially about whether we should wait until we have got the legislative consent Motion, I can assure her that I think that that is absolutely appropriate. Although legally we could move this legislation forward without the LCM, that would not be the appropriate thing to do. We are looking for progress from the Welsh Assembly and, as I understand it, discussions between my right honourable friend David Gauke, the Chief Secretary, and Minister Mark Drakeford are going well. I hope that progress continues and that I will be able to give more details to noble Lords as matters progress. That is certainly our intention.

[Lord Hain]

I welcome what the noble Lord said. Could he give some guidance as to whether clarity on the financial framework will be provided before Report in this House?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I anticipate that it will be, but it does not have to be. Obviously we will want to make sure that steady progress is being made before Report. As things progress it is anticipated that we could have agreement on these issues before Christmas, but I will ensure that the House is updated on this. As I said, I certainly anticipate we will not go to Third Reading without it and probably we will not go to Report—but I will want to make sure we are making the progress to which I referred before we commit to taking it to Report.

I move to the question of the single jurisdiction. I think there was broad support for saying that, certainly at this stage, there is no desire to move away from a single jurisdiction. I have spoken to representatives of every single law school in Wales and that is pretty much their feeling. It is also the feeling of many practitioners in Wales. We would not be doing Wales any great favours by differentiating the Welsh jurisdiction from the English jurisdiction. It is quite possible, even at this stage, to accentuate and overemphasise the differences that exist. Historically, they are not great. It is very different from the position in Scotland, where the Scottish jurisdiction historically has been very different. So parallels there are not appropriate.

There is a body that is looking at the legal arrangements. As I have indicated, I will update noble Lords on how that body is getting on, because there is an appropriate interest in making sure we have Welsh judges—when I say “Welsh judges” I mean judges not necessarily of Welsh nationality but with Welsh experience—deciding issues that are steeped in Welsh law. That is quite appropriate and what the administrative arrangements we are looking at should take hold of.

I move on to look at reservations—another key area which overlaps to some extent with the Welsh jurisdiction issues around the separate position on alcohol. I well remember as a student at Aberystwyth that the time I felt most thirsty and in need of a drink was on a Sunday. Inevitably, the only place you could get a drink on a Sunday in Aberystwyth was the student union because it was membership only. Of course, the queue was about a mile long to get there. The alternative in those days was getting a bus into Montgomeryshire, which was a popular thing to do. So I can understand the strong feelings that exist on that issue.

Some of the points made on reservations were somewhat wrongheaded. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned the position on knives in relation to the position on devolution to cities. Of course, cities will not have legislative powers in relation to knife crime, so I do not think it is a perfect analogy—but no doubt we can look at this as things develop in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, said that adopting a reserved model is not a solution to all ills. Hear, hear to that. I never thought it would be. Obviously, the discussion on this will be about what is and what is not reserved. I am sure that we will take different views on some of that, but I look forward to discussing it when we come to Committee.

It is great to see the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, in his place, firing on all cylinders as always. I thank him for his kind comments. I do not agree with his position on dominion status. I do not hear that as a great clarion call for something that the people of Wales want, but I understand that he has some material points to discuss in relation to reservations and I look forward to hearing them as we move forward.

The conferred model was silent about many issues that nobody would ever anticipate, as opposed to reserved issues such as defence, immigration, the Crown and foreign affairs. Sensibly, nobody was suggesting that therefore these were matters the Welsh Assembly could deal with. It is quite a difficult manoeuvre to go from conferred to reserved. I am very grateful that noble Lords have recognised that we have made progress on this. I look forward to hearing from noble Lords on some of the remaining issues of concern.

I will touch on one or two other aspects raised by noble Lords that are worthy of further investigation. One, brought forward by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell and echoed by the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Morgan, was the importance of working with existing institutions—perhaps getting the physics right, not just the chemistry, of the relationship between different Ministers to make sure we have some underpinning for when it is necessary for decisions, policies or interactions to be discussed between Cardiff and Westminster. That is a very good point that I will take away and look at to see what we can do on it.

Without getting into the purely philosophical, another issue that the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, mentioned was the permanence of the Assembly and the strength of the new clause that says the Assembly is permanent. That was something pushed for very hard by the Plaid Cymru representative on the Silk commission—but, on that issue, just as the India Act could in theory be repealed by the Westminster Parliament, I would not overlook the symbolic importance of including the clause that states that the Assembly is permanent because it perhaps underlines the way it is regarded politically. It is a matter of political realities. I am not suggesting that we can alter the Kelsen Grundnorm of the fundamental basis of the constitution, but it is something that has been widely welcomed.

As I said, this has been a debate of rare quality. I thank noble Lords for engaging constructively and I look forward to that constructive approach continuing. Lastly, air passenger duty is not just an issue of the potential unfairness to Bristol, which clearly was and, in the interim, remains an issue relating to the state aid position. It is also a question of fairness within the United Kingdom and in Wales. There is a great danger that we see this as just a tax, the variation of which can help Cardiff Airport. People in north Wales would not consider using Cardiff Airport; they use airports in England. Likewise, in central mid-Wales they would use Birmingham. It is a much broader issue of whether we do something about air passenger duty—as a Treasury issue, that is well beyond my pay grade—across the whole of the United Kingdom, which remains a possibility.

Once again, I thank noble Lords very much for the constructive way they have engaged. I look forward to Committee and continuing to provide information as it becomes available on the way that discussions are proceeding between the Treasury and Cardiff Bay. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.