Wales: Devolution

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I start with an apology. I am desperately anxious to catch an early train that will get me back to mid-Wales by this evening. I have asked the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her permission and she has graciously granted it. I hope that the House will accept my apology. I, too, warmly congratulate the noble Baroness on having secured this debate.

It is essential not only that there should be a commission of this nature looking at the situation as it now exists and reporting in two parts—the second part, if I remember rightly, by the middle of 2013—but that the monitoring process should be a permanent process and not a temporary act. Devolution, after all, in my submission, is a progressive process and endeavour, and one should never regard it as something that is limited to a single act or collection of acts and frozen in time. I hope, therefore, that thought will be given to having some sort of monitoring body of this nature that will continue to monitor and survey the situation from time to time.

I take the point that has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about the sequence of the two parts of the report. Logically, it would have been much better the other way around: first, ascertain what powers the Welsh Assembly should have and, secondly, decide exactly how they should be paid for and who should be accountable in that regard. However, that is not the end of the world. I make the point, though, that whatever the report might say about powers, it will be wholly essential to look at the situation post-October 2014 when the Scots, in their referendum, will come to a decision about independence and possibly one or two other matters. Whatever the Scottish nation decides or does not decide will certainly having a knock-on effect and a substantial impact on Wales.

I turn to the question of powers. The first matter I will mention is of a cosmetic nature, which is that the Assembly should be referred to as a parliament, and should no longer be called “the Assembly”, because, with the referendum in March last year, the last vestiges of that sort of subsidiary body disappeared. We have a full, legislative, home rule parliament. Remembering Gertrude Stein’s line that,

“a rose is a rose is a rose”,

we should say that a parliament is a parliament is a parliament. It would be nonsense to call it anything else.

On the question of the totality of powers that have been devolved to Wales, as more than one contributor to this debate commented, the situation is completely impossible for those who practise the great vocation of the law. In Scotland or Northern Ireland, there is a complete block transfer of each subject heading, subject to some very specific and easily ascertainable exceptions. In the case of Wales, I do not know what the exact figure is, but I would guess that, by now, there are more than 700 different pieces of legislation that have to be traced, all of them like needles in haystacks. Although of course I accept that tracing them is a monumental task—I am sure that the Minister, who will be replying to this debate, will accept that—it is one that has to be tackled some day, by way of consolidation. In carrying it out one will discover various odd bits and pieces that one has assumed have been devolved but in fact have not been. It will at one and the same time be a very important and significant tidying-up exercise.

I turn for a moment to the question of finances. I believe that it is not merely one question, but, essentially, two. The first is, what powers should a Welsh parliament have over finances? The second, and perhaps even more important, question is, should it use all or any of them? It is my respectful submission that there is no earthly reason why those powers should not belong to the Welsh parliament immediately. When the debates about the establishment of the Assembly took place at the end of the 1990s, a great deal of evidence was tendered on the fiscal powers granted to some regional parliaments, and how, in western Europe, it was almost inevitably the rule that they were never used. Dozens of bodies, in fact, have those powers, but for one reason or another have decided not to use them. I am not an economist but I am a Cardiganshire man, and in Cardiganshire we are very careful about any decisions that concern money. I can well imagine that there are various pros and cons: there are possibilities and pitfalls. All I would wish would be that those powers should be in the hands of a Welsh parliament, and that we, the Welsh people, should determine whether we want to use all or any of them.

With regard to the Barnett formula, it is central to the whole situation. Whether the actual loss would be £300 million or £550 million, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has calculated—and I have every reason to believe that his calculation is a valid and proper one—there is no doubt but that a vast treasure of finances has been lost to Wales over the years. If there is an adjustment that would on the face of it justify a docking of the block grant to make up for it, I would argue very strongly that one should, at the same time, take into account what one would call the proper, restituted claim of Wales in this regard. Those who belong to the great vocation of the law will know that in civil law the adage is restitutio in integrum—restitution in full. That would mean that the money that Wales has had squeezed out of it in the past 13 or 14 years should be taken fully into account.

I turn now to opinion polls. We have had scripture quoted by the noble Lords, Lord Roberts of Conwy and Lord Roberts of Llandudno. I will add the advice from the psalmist:

“Put not your trust in princes”.

I am talking about the princes of the 21st century, the pollsters, who tell us exactly what we think, or should think or wish, in relation to everything on earth. Polls can change. There has been reference to the ill fated vote of 1979. I had the responsibility of being the president of the campaign for a yes vote. I remember that, some nine months before the vote itself, the two voices were almost equal. Then, of course, as far as the yes campaign was concerned, it went steadily downhill.

I very much welcome the Silk commission. It could be a path to a more wholesome and more complete Wales. Let us hope that it will not be a silk road—that institution of massive length in ages past.