National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Housing and Local Government) Order 2010

Lord Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I will detain the Grand Committee for only a very few moments. I, too, join everybody else in congratulating the Minister on his first foray into Welsh affairs in this Committee. I wish him every happiness and every success for the future. I agree very much with the precept that was articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands. We are not here to consider the basic merits of these devolved matters; we are here to say whether the procedures of devolution set out so clearly in Part 3 of the 2006 Act are properly adhered to. I say that because, like more than one Member of this Committee, I have heard it argued here over the past two or three years that there seems to be some onus of proof on whoever seeks to justify a measure of this nature to show that it has a fundamental benefit for the people of Wales. That is not what devolution is about. If we were to apply such a test, we would be going contrary to the principles set out in the 2006 Act in Parts 3 and 4.

I wholeheartedly support the measures. Indeed, having said that we should not consider them, I would say that they have every merit. In this respect, if ever there was a devolvable issue in relation to Welsh matters it must be in relation to housing or local government. We are dealing with a situation in which there are so many distinctive Welsh nuances that it cries out for devolution. The executive devolution took place a long time ago, soon after 1964, when the Welsh Office was set up. It is only right and proper that there should be primary legislative devolution to attach itself to that.

I take the point made by more than one Member of the Committee that nothing that we do here on these LCOs creates one word of legislation. All that we do is give a passport for legislation to take place in another place. We peg out an area and say to the Welsh Assembly that, now that it has asked for it, within that defined area it can build a legislative edifice. I am not sure how many Measures have come directly from LCOs; I suspect that it is about a dozen, with about half a dozen from other sources.

I have only one other thing to add. I thank whoever was responsible for the Explanatory Memorandum. It is one of the very best that I have read in relation to any legislation, but particularly in relation to these matters.

[Lord Jones]

My Lords, I support this order and wish the Wales Assembly well when it receives, operates and exploits it. Housing is the basic provision for any family life and I have no doubt that the Wales Assembly will always bear that in mind. The sum total of happiness will be advanced somewhat by the fact that these powers are coming nearer home for the people of Wales. The order will be operated by an Assembly that really believes in it.

I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, make his speech. He will not mind my saying that it was a Methodist speech, perhaps in more than three parts just slightly so. I always listen with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy. Nobody has served Wales longer than he has or with more dedication. He has great experience, which one hears in his observations on a matter such as this. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord the Minister on his appointment to his office. I saw his entry to the other place, I saw him leave it and I have seen him come back. He has made a strong beginning. I also offer most sincere congratulations to my noble friend on the Front Bench. Nobody knows Wales better than she. She knows Wales like the back of her hand and has served it with great compassion, conscientiousness and commitment. We will all wish her well on the Front Bench in her duties.

After the last general election in Wales, I took the trouble to go to the opening of the Wales Assembly by our sovereign Her Majesty the Queen. She was accompanied by the Consort, the Duke, and by the heir, the Prince of Wales—and he by the Duchess of Cornwall. Having been present in the Chamber looking down on the Royal Family, facing the Government of Wales and the Assembly, I thought that I was seeing some history. The conclusion that I draw from that moment is that the Welsh Assembly is for ever. It is an Assembly of stability and great potential. In any consideration of the order, one has the understanding of where it is going and how it will be best used to the advantage of the people of Wales.

It occurred to me that, having been present at that historic moment for the nation of Wales, I could not see how there would not be more legislative powers in time. I could see the status of the Assembly growing by the year. I could see its importance always advancing and it having more authority and power to raise more moneys, with its standing always growing. I saw the process as irreversible, but I asked myself, “Did the Assembly need to have more Members?”. I then asked myself, “Would this Parliament have fewer Members?”. I do not wish to debate that issue now—nor should I—but I suspect that our nation, Wales, is on track and that the British nation will see something approaching federalism in the decades ahead, whether that should be or not.

None of us, I suggest to the Committee, should be in ignorance of the consequences of what we are doing when we pass these orders for Wales. There is a consequence over and above the use of the order. I sometimes wonder whether Parliaments fully comprehend the consequences of the legislation that they make.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, this has been a positive and constructive debate. I start by thanking all the noble Lords and the noble Baroness for their kind words of welcome and congratulation. I consider it a privilege to be able to engage with noble Lords and, indeed, to re-establish some friendships and acquaintances from my time in the other place, particularly with the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands. Exactly 27 years ago this week—I am an anorak in this sort of thing—I served along with the noble Lord on my first Standing Committee in another place, which was considering the Petroleum Royalties (Relief) Bill. It certainly means a lot to me to be here and to engage with him again.

The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, suggested that I would, over time, get to realise that Welsh politics is different from Scottish politics. The learning curve has been very steep indeed but I had already appreciated that, although I am sure that there is still much more to learn. In fact, with the happy situation of belonging to a federal party along with my noble friends here, we have learnt from one another over a number of years how the body politic functions in different parts of our United Kingdom. I join the noble Lord, Lord Jones, in congratulating the noble Baroness on assuming Front-Bench duties. I rather suspect that there will be a number of occasions when we will be facing each other across the Dispatch Box, either in Grand Committee or in the Chamber, and I very much look forward to those encounters.

I welcome the fact that there has been broad agreement and support for the order. Perhaps I might respond to a number of the points raised. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, made a point about the timing of the laying of the order. She asked why my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary had apparently changed his position. We could always go into forensic detail about what happened when in the weeks of February and March. My understanding is that the order could have been laid before Parliament before the wash-up. It does not necessarily help us today to speculate on why that did not happen. The point is that, after a bit of a troubled history when another order fell foul of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, we have an order today that has commanded support.