Wales Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

Finally, on a matter raised in our excellent debate earlier this month on membership of the Assembly in Cardiff, will there be a movement deliberately to increase the number of Members to make it a body that can be a credible legislature, which it can never be unless and until there is an addition to the 60 Members because there is no critical mass of Members available to scrutinise this issue? These matters are of the utmost importance and to which the people of Wales are entitled to have answers.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I may invite the government Front Bench to point out the protocol for the Motion that the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

As I understand it, it is not normally debated but it is quite in order to do so.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords, it is not my intention to detain the House, despite this interruption, for more than a few minutes. I welcome very much the significant powers granted to Wales in this Bill, which has been so ably steered by the Minister. Perhaps of greater importance will be the conclusions of the consultations which will be produced, I hope, by 1 March. They will be groundbreaking. I also welcome very much the role being played the Secretary of State who is carrying out what I hope is the mandate given to him following the reshuffle by the Prime Minister in the words of my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan.

Following 7 May, my hope is that a Labour Government will bring forward proposals. By our votes in Committee, the Labour Front Bench underlined its commitment, as did my noble friends Lady Morgan of Ely and Lady Gale at Second Reading. They have provided the basis for a manifesto commitment. In the 1970s, when I set up the role of the Attorney-General to police the Assembly if it exceeded its powers, I never expected or contemplated one of my successors being so trigger happy and repeatedly trying to overturn the Assembly, and getting, for his pains, black eyes on two occasions. A simpler, cleaner, reserved powers model would be much better.

I close on the need for a high-power constitutional convention. In 1969, the setting up of the Kilbrandon royal commission by a Labour Government was the vital catalyst for the path that we have been treading over the years. I shall never forget the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, coming up from the beach at Newquay in Cornwall one lunchtime and brandishing his idea for a royal commission as a way forward. It seems from the papers I have seen at Kew that other work along the same lines was also being done by Ministers. The announcement at the next Labour Party conference of a royal commission was the culmination of that work.

Today, something more profound and influential than even a royal commission is needed to map out the role for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England as partners in the future of the United Kingdom. I hope that there will be courage on the part of all the parties to work out a broad-based convention so that we can come to the end of piecemeal reform.

[Lord Elis-Thomas]

My Lords, I have no wish to detain the House but I want to place on the record on behalf of my noble friend Lord Wigley and myself, both of us former Members of the National Assembly. In fact, I am still a Member—so far—dependent on the will of the electorate, as were the Minister and her colleague on the Front Bench. I thank the Government for their very positive response on all these matters. I should like to refer in particular to one great joy as regards this Bill, which is the passing of a phrase with which I have always had constitutional difficulty: the Welsh Assembly Government.

First of all we were the Welsh Assembly. That meant all of us—the whole family of legislators, officials and Ministers, or rather secretaries in those days. Then we went through a transitional period as the Welsh Assembly Government. Now, thank goodness, we are the Welsh Government for Plaid Cymru and the National Assembly for Wales, and long may we remain so.