Wales Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill as a major step forward in the long-running saga of the principle of giving more power to the people of Wales, where it rightly belongs. Depending on the length of this debate, I apologise in advance if I miss one or two speeches as I have to preside at an event of interest to Welsh lawyers at the Supreme Court, regrettably clashing with the change of date for this debate.

We have come a long way since I introduced the Wales Bill in the Commons in November 1977—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for his reference to it—and longer still since the 1950s, when I discussed Jim Griffiths’ remit to Lord Prys-Davies to put on paper a model for an elected council for Wales, the first practical step, a foundation, upon which we developed as a party and delivered—indeed, the only party that can deliver at Westminster.

In 1974 my party was split. We had not sufficiently prepared Wales for the momentous task of choosing the way forward in a referendum. In the past, the Conservative Party has fought resolutely against giving any power to Wales, from the setting up of even a Secretary of State’s office. The last Secretary of State kept a very low profile on the Prime Minister’s last visit to Cardiff. Not a few years ago, he was advocating in the Assembly that no taxation powers should be given. I surmise that the change of heart of many Conservatives in Cardiff owes a great deal to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth. I thank him and his fellow commissioners on the Silk commission. We are all devolutionists now: or, should I say, mostly all?

In 1998, Lord Callaghan told this House,

“that the age of small nations has arisen as a kind of backlash to what is happening globally”.—[Official Report, 21/4/98; col. 1056.]

I wish the new Secretary of State well, despite the Prime Minister’s inflammatory comments at the Royal Welsh Show yesterday. I just missed him, as it happens. The Secretary of State’s first task, when he sits down during the recess, is to find ways of bringing the war of words between Westminster and Cardiff to an end and, despite the approaching 2015 election, find ways of working with the First Minister for the better governance of Wales. The Prime Minister is not encumbered by past battles and should have shown leadership and a way forward. We all have to deliver on our priorities. Sometimes they can be right and sometimes they can be wrong or improved upon. Given the problem on both sides of Offa’s Dyke, the administration of health and education cannot be perfect in today’s conditions. If there were no problems with the health service in England, which we read about, day after day, week after week, perhaps it would be allowable for the pot to call the kettle black. However, this is not so and there are problems on both sides of Offa’s Dyke. The more we learn from each other, the better. The whole idea of devolution is that we can be different and learn from each other. From plastic bags, at the bottom end of the scale, to experimenting in a small way with administering the health service, Wales can learn from England and vice versa.

It is interesting that the 2015 general election will be fought, in Wales, on matters not within the province of Westminster MPs. I was aghast when a Welsh Assembly Member is reputed to have said that it was constitutionally inappropriate for a Welsh MP to give evidence to an Assembly committee on a devolved matter. I gather that my right honourable friend Ann Clwyd has now given evidence. Likewise, a Welsh Minister is reputed to have refused to give evidence to a Commons Select Committee. I have consulted the Clerk of this House and the contention of inappropriate behaviour is without any foundation. The sooner we learn that Wales and England are interdependent, not independent, the better. Only two years ago, I travelled to Cardiff, at the invitation of an Assembly committee, to give evidence. Since then, I have received another invitation. I am pleased that the thrust of most of my earlier evidence was accepted and I am delighted at the proposal to grant modest borrowing powers to the Assembly. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Rowe-Beddoe, can remind us what the borrowing powers of the WDA—which I created—were. He will be able to say better than I but, looking at it as a whole, they are modest. I congratulate the Assembly Government, and their most effective Business Minister, on being decisive in their proposal to use some of those borrowing powers to invest in better communications around Newport. We all suffer from being held up by the problem there: I do so week in, week out.

When I became Secretary of State, not a spade was being dug to further the M4. I maintain my firm belief that the secret of Wales’s prosperity is good east to west communications. I spent many long hours—including once on a long business trip to Japan—expediting the planning process for the A55 in north Wales. In that time, I agreed the line of the road but, unfortunately, I had to defer the problem of Conwy because of the lack of evidence on the practicality of a tunnel. Eventually, the evidence was forthcoming and my successors—I congratulate them—built the A55. Good east to west communications in south Wales and north Wales are crucial. If the Newport bottleneck is tackled, other problems will be seen and dealt with in north Wales. It is a matter of availability of resources and I firmly believe that this is the way forward. This is why, in my time, I rejected grandiose economic plans for the whole of Wales. In the north, there would be very little interest in what was being done in the south and vice versa. What was important was communicating with the markets in England.

I am less enthusiastic about the detail of taxing powers in the Bill. My bottom line is that, whatever taxes the Welsh Assembly raises—at its peril—Wales must not lose out in any Treasury subvention. Taxation does go with representation, so there is a lot going for the principle, but the end result must be clear and untrammelled by unnecessary restrictions. However, it should follow and not precede reform of the Barnett formula. I was there on day one when the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, on the back of an envelope, conceived the idea of the share of the money I should have. It was never intended to be a formula and it has never worked as a just way of allocating resources. Governments —particularly my own, I fear—did not attempt the reform. I ask, rhetorically, whether this was because Scotland was gaining so much more from it than Wales was. It should have been reformed years ago. Whatever Government are in power after 2015, it is essential that that is tackled now.

Before I close, I will make one fundamentally important point, which has already been referred to. The Bill’s weakness is that it is yet another manifestation of a drip-by-drip granting of new powers to Wales. Surely there is a better way of utilising parliamentary time, despite what the Minister has said. The time has come for the adoption for Wales of something similar to the original Scottish model of the transfer of all powers, save those that are reserved to Westminster, with further consideration to the Scottish position after the referendum. The constitutional position would be clear and the boundaries of powers would not need updating every few years. It would avoid the Attorney-General marching, metaphorically, up and down Offa’s Dyke, acting as a policeman to ensure that the Welsh Assembly did not exceed its powers, a role which I created in 1977. The last Attorney-General was trigger-happy and only last week came unstuck before the Supreme Court. His intervention seemed to lack an understanding of the purpose of the granting of a particular power and that is where he went wrong.

After we have examined the mechanics of the Bill, which should pass, we should, after 2015, concentrate on the granting of a settlement based on the reserved powers model. I cannot emphasise that too much. The next Government should then set up a constitutional convention, a body with a membership even superior to and with more clout than the Kilbrandon commission, the genesis of Scottish and Welsh devolution—perhaps party leaders might even serve on it—to examine the sheer unevenness of the constitutional arrangements for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, how devolution is still largely unrecognised and ignored in the workings of Westminster, and the future roles of both Houses of Parliament for the devolved assemblies.