Government of Wales (Devolved Powers) Bill [HL]

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a very sad day in some ways, in that Northern Ireland is probably going to the people in elections. That is awful, because the position there will be polarised and solve nothing. At this point, I urge the Government to continue negotiations to try to avoid the difficulties that lie ahead.

But today, we talk about Wales. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I was Secretary of State for Wales twice, under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, but I take a slightly different view from him, although I think that, generally, our positions are very similar. Devolution has, of course, evolved over the past 25 years. I have evolved over the past 25 years. In 1979, I was treasurer of the Labour “No Assembly” campaign. I changed my mind as the years went by and, in the end, I fully supported the extension of legislative powers to the Assembly when we had a referendum some years ago. However, since then, Wales might have changed but I am not convinced that Whitehall and Westminster have.

My experience over the years, both as a Labour Minister and in opposition, is that Governments of both parties, Conservative and Labour, have not really understood the intricacies and details of devolution. Basically, the Sewel convention is failing. That legislative consent Motions are brought forward but then ignored indicates that devolution and the relationship between the Governments here in Westminster and in Wales has failed, and that is proven by actions of the last few Prime Ministers. Boris Johnson, for example, had a rather cavalier attitude towards the devolved Administrations, particularly during the pandemic. Liz Truss had no attitude: she did not speak to them, so that was fairly simple to understand. The present Prime Minister, to his credit, phoned the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales on his first day in office, and I hope that presages a new relationship between Westminster and the devolved Administrations because, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, they are here to stay.

It is good that over the past few months, the Government have looked at the relationship between the devolved Administrations and Westminster and produced a report on intergovernmental relations. I hope the Government will stick by that, because my experience over the years is that, frankly, the institutions we established for dialogue between the devolved Administrations and Westminster did not work very well at all. That has to improve considerably.

But why this Bill? It is necessary in two ways, the first of which is to highlight what I just described—the bad situation that has arisen over 20 years between Westminster and Wales—and to try to improve it. Secondly, in itself it would mean, I hope, that the farce of legislative consent Motions being passed by the devolved Administrations and then being ignored by the Westminster Government would come to an end. If the Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017 is repealed, that will be a great sadness, not simply because of its intrinsic value but, again, because of the relationship between Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, one hopes, and London.

The problem is that because devolution extends to just 10 million people and 60 million people are effectively under an English Government, that inevitably means that people forget about what happens in the devolved Administrations. Eyes glaze over. I have seen it many times in Cabinet: you talk about Wales and people say, “Yes, that’s Wales; they look after themselves”, but it is not like that any more. It is very different, because the lives of people in Scotland, Wales and, hopefully, Northern Ireland are determined in every respect domestically by their respective Parliaments and Governments.

I hope that, in dealing with this Bill, we look towards a new era of relationships between all the Governments in our country and that we look particularly at the need for what is effectively mutual respect between all those Governments and their public representatives.