Wales Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hain]

20: After Clause 8, insert the following new Clause—
“Candidates at general elections
In section 7 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (candidates at general elections), before subsection (1) insert—“(A1) At a general election a person may not be a candidate to be an Assembly member unless the person is recorded on the electoral register as living in Wales.””

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 20, I will speak also to Amendment 21. Both stand in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen, and assert the fundamental principle that to represent Wales in its legislature, an elected Assembly Member should actually live in Wales—the same principle asserted by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, which I also support. In doing so, I find myself in the ironic position of seeking to amend my own Act, the Government of Wales Act 2006, which I took through Parliament as a Bill as Secretary of State for Wales. It never occurred to me until the last few weeks that any Welsh Assembly Member would, or indeed could, live outside Wales.

Amendment 20 makes the acceptance of formal nomination as an Assembly candidate contingent on living within Wales. However, if it is felt that is too prohibitive a requirement, since no candidate can be certain of election in advance, Amendment 21 instead makes the membership of the Assembly—that is, for an elected candidate—contingent on living within Wales. That is to say, disqualification would follow without residence within Wales and registration to vote within Wales. Either way, the principle is put in statute, as it would be by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, Amendment 22.

At the most recent Assembly election, 21 candidates stood who did not live in Wales. Fourteen were from the Monster Raving Loony Party, four were Conservatives, one was a Liberal Democrat and one an English Democrat. There was one UKIP candidate, Neil Hamilton, who was elected as a regional Assembly Member and who, I understand, still does not live in Wales but has nevertheless claimed and been granted appropriate expenses, in the same way as those Assembly Members who actually live in Wales. I am not suggesting that there is anything improper here, just that it is an anomaly.

To deal with another question that has been raised, I am informed that to be a Member of the Scottish Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly, there is similarly no requirement to be resident in Scotland or Northern Ireland, but that is no reason for Wales not taking the view which I advocate. Since devolution, Wales has been the first to adopt policies subsequently followed by other parts of the UK in a number of areas; for example, establishing an Older People’s Commissioner and free bus transport for pensioners. There is no reason why Wales cannot be innovative in this matter either. Indeed, I have been notified that there is widespread cross-party support in the Assembly for the amendment, including from Welsh government Ministers.

On the substance of the amendment, it is an insult to voters in Wales not to live in Wales, within the nation you are seeking to represent and may find yourself representing in the Assembly. Personally, I have always believed that a constituency Assembly Member, like a Member of Parliament, should live in or, at the very least, very close to their constituency, as I did as Member of Parliament for Neath.

Of course, regional Assembly Members have different duties and no constituents in the same way, but surely they should at least live in Wales as well. How can any Assembly Member living outside Wales possibly keep in touch with public opinion in Wales? How can they keep in touch with issues that arise day to day in the political culture, public life or civic life of Wales? How can they spot new problems or opportunities as they arise in the course of their daily experience living as normal citizens of Wales do? How can they reflect Welsh culture without living within it, as I have been privileged to do? How can they really understand the evolution of Wales’s young democracy as it very quickly develops?

It is fundamental, to me at least, that in a democracy, representatives are of the people and for the people, whatever your political party. I hope that the Government will agree with this principle and accept at least one of these three amendments. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on these amendments. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for bringing the matter forward and, indeed, for admitting to a degree of “mea culpa” on earlier provisions.

The amendments would prevent individuals not resident in Wales, and not recorded as such on the electoral register, being Members of the National Assembly for Wales. As the Government committed to in the St David’s Day agreement, the Bill devolves powers over its own elections to the National Assembly for Wales. This includes the eligibility to stand as a candidate at such an election and the criteria under which a candidate may be disqualified from being an Assembly Member. These would be matters for Wales and the National Assembly for Wales. There is a slight irony in the fact that earlier we debated what “not normally” covers, yet here are seeking to legislate in areas that will now be presented to the National Assembly for discussion and decision. It is absolutely right that this area relating to electoral practice should be a matter for the National Assembly for Wales. I indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Hain—and I have had lawyers look at this—that these matters will be transferred to the National Assembly for Wales and it is right that it considers them.

Very good points have been made by noble Lords in relation to the arguments. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, spoke about the residency requirement for those who may live just over the border at Knighton—close to the station perhaps, which is in England—rather than in the town of Knighton, and so on. They are issues that the Assembly will want to look at, just as it will no doubt want to look at the point made by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth on the choice for electors. I speak as somebody who as an Assembly Member was determined to live in the area I represented; certainly, it was true then that everybody who was in the National Assembly for Wales lived in Wales. These are valid points for the Assembly to look at; they are not matters that we should pontificate on. With respect, I therefore ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Hain]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I will briefly respond to his points at the end of my remarks.

When I moved this rather innocent, inconspicuous amendment, I had no idea that it would provoke such a rich debate about political principles, political theory and the nature of democracy; it has been very instructive and valuable indeed. My noble friend Lord Murphy really came to the nub of the matter when he said that this was about a country’s parliamentary legislature. This is something very precious to Wales and which needs to be given proper respect. That, in a way, links to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, which she expressed very eloquently indeed. She said that Assembly Members should—by living in Wales, in this case—be subject themselves to the laws that they are passing and subject themselves to the policies that they are instrumental in enacting.

The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, made a number of interesting points, but at one point he was almost saying that there should be no restrictions at all on candidature, or at least on Assembly Members. The main gist of his argument was about candidates, and I anticipated that, with my noble friend Lord Murphy, with our Amendment 21, as did the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, with his amendment. I do not think that this is the same issue as that about Members of Parliament, because the constituency boundaries are not being changed by the change in the parliamentary constituencies at all. Of course, the parliamentary constituencies do not cross the border of Wales. The new legislation, if eventually enacted, does not do that either.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about his amendment. Frankly, I could not have done as effective a job as MP for Neath as I hope that I did without living in the constituency. That means living and breathing the life of the local rugby clubs, the local businesses and the local schools and hospitals, as I did for nearly a quarter of a century. He made a series of fair points in relation to pressing his amendment, by which I am rather persuaded. We can happily concede that. He asked about the Neath by-election. I had actually bought a house in the constituency five months before that by-election, although I must admit that I had a crazy mortgage, in retrospect. That was an important principle that I, like the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, felt was right.

The noble Lord, Lord Norton, raised some very interesting points, but he seemed to offer no restrictions on where one must live in order to stand for, or be a Member of, the Assembly. You could be living anywhere—hundreds of miles away from Wales. I simply do not think that that is acceptable. My noble friend Lord Murphy made the point that, in practice, Welsh voters do not have a real choice about the particular Assembly Members they get through the regional lists, and I do not think that he addressed that point. It is, as my noble friend Lord Murphy said, a question of voting for the party.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My point was that one should change the system so that the electors actually have a choice. The noble Lord is quite right about the point I was making. I would make it as open as possible for electors to choose whoever they want. I am all for eroding the restrictions on candidature. It is fundamentally a matter for the electors, so if a candidate does live hundreds of miles away, that is a matter for the electors. I remind him that, many years ago, it was actually a Labour Member who listed his address as Greece.

[Lord Hain]

I did discover all sorts of anomalies when I was Leader of the House of Commons about what was actually going on in terms of people’s residence, and I will not embarrass the noble Lord by mentioning where some of the Conservative MPs lived—that is another matter entirely. I am, as I say, more persuaded by the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, than by my two, if I have not dropped my noble friend Lord Murphy in it, so I am happy to withdraw our amendment in his favour.

I also think that my noble friend Lady Gale made an important point about the Assembly having the right to do this and I would like the Minister to look at actually inserting into the Bill a power explicitly conferred to the Assembly to make provision for the eligibility of candidates. On that basis, and agreeing with the point of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that the principle at stake here has to be addressed one way or another—if not by this Parliament, then I hope by the Assembly, though it is a matter for that body—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 20 withdrawn.