Wales Bill

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, that was an extraordinary speech, if I may say so. We Gogs certainly have an identity, and we have an identity when we know that the south-east of Wales is spending the borrowing powers that it is acquiring on two tunnels on the M4 and putting a great deal of development into south Wales that we do not see in the north, where we have our own communication problems. To talk in terms of everyone being concerned about their little valley may do very well in south Wales, but I can tell you that in north Wales we feel very differently about it and we welcome the fact that we have regional AMs in the Welsh Assembly who can express a wider view than that of the little valley that they come from.

Although I am not overly enthusiastic about the list system, I will not see it dismissed in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has done. Nor am I convinced by his idea that we should have proportionality of gender but not of political viewpoint. That would mean that the possibility of a dominant party would swiftly arise. My noble friend said that it would be the Labour Party. I would not go that far, because there are forces at work in some of the Welsh valleys today that are not essentially socialist in their approach. I am against the idea of having first past the post in Wales when it does not exist in Scotland or in Northern Ireland and when we have been fighting hard for it not to exist in England as well.

The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, made the important point that the increasing amount of legislation coming to the Welsh Assembly means that we must have more Members to deal with it. I think that the consensus in Wales at the moment is that there are not enough people to scrutinise the legislation that is going through.

The noble Lord talked about scrutiny. The fact is that this is about not just primary legislation going through but primary legislation without the advantage of a second Chamber. Your Lordships will recall that I suggested earlier that we should surely be working towards a federal, single-tier Parliament for the whole of the United Kingdom, with committees for Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland that could scrutinise the legislation that comes through. As I said, if we have English votes for English laws that have to go through the scrutiny of this House, that will be a considerable advantage compared to single parties putting through legislation without adequate scrutiny. On primary legislation in Wales, there is a lot to be done, but what is not to be done is what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, suggests in his amendment. I wholly support everything that my noble friend Lady Humphreys so ably said.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, I would welcome further explanation from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, regarding his amendment. When he suggests that two Members should be elected from 40 constituencies, should the elector have one vote or two in that election?

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Basically, whether it should be one or two votes is a matter that should be left to the Assembly. My position is that all these arrangements should be left, so far as possible, to the Assembly. It has mature politicians and it is for them to make those decisions.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, perhaps I might reply to my great colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, by saying that if you have only one vote as against two, the whole composition of the Assembly, including the one that is to make the further arrangements, will be totally distorted.

[Baroness Gale (Lab)]

My Lords, once again we have had a very interesting debate on how big the Assembly should be and how many seats it should have. I think that this debate has been going on since 1999, when the first Assembly sat. We know that many changes have been made in the Assembly that give it greater responsibilities, with increased powers to make decisions in Wales for Welsh people.

Many calls have been made about the number of Assembly Members. A number of reports have been published saying that 60 Members are insufficient to deal with holding the Executive to account. Increasing the number of Assembly Members has been endorsed by the Electoral Reform Society Cymru and by the Richard commission in 2004. In addition, we know that the current Presiding Officer, Dame Rosemary Butler, has endorsed this. The Richard commission said that there should be 80 seats. Silk 2 argued for the same and stated:

“The size of the … Assembly should be increased”.

In October 2013, the Electoral Reform Society and the Changing Union project published their report Size Matters and argued that there should be 100 Members, based on examination of legislatures across Europe and the competences for which the Assembly is now responsible.

As other noble Lords have said, there are only 42 Back-Benchers, which means that the ability to scrutinise legislation is severely curtailed owing to the capacity issues experienced by those Back-Benchers. We have noted that other noble Lords said earlier in the debate that the Assembly is small in relation to the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and other legislatures across the world. As the legislation becomes more complex, there is a necessity for our politicians in Wales to develop areas of specialist expertise. That is difficult for most Back-Bench AMs, as they are members of more than one committee and it is difficult to build up expertise. In debating this Bill, we will be discussing tax legislation—a new and complicated area where it will be essential that adequate scrutiny takes place. If the recommendations of the areas to be devolved from Silk 2 are taken up, there will obviously be still further pressure on Assembly Members.