Wales Bill

Lord Rowlands Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

I understand what the noble Lord is saying. The problem is probably that we need a much more detailed discussion about what those exemptions should be and to what extent they should or should not be duplicated. If this is a probing amendment, that is fine—we understand that that is the case. But taking this big step at the moment would be wrong.

Finally, I ask the Minister why an amendment on reserve powers has not been submitted if the Government have changed their position. Why cannot we now get on with the job? We know that there is cross-party consensus on this; let us not waste any more time.

[Lord Rowlands (Lab)]

I support Amendments 1 and 18A, but I do so from a rather different position. I am not a censorious critic of the conferred powers model. In the early days of the devolution settlement it was a reasonable and sensible way in which to confer powers. Indeed, in paragraph 4.3, even Silk acknowledges that there was value in the conferred powers model. The incremental argument made for additional powers made sense; it helped the Assembly and the Assembly Government to have greater competence and capacity in those fields.

However, I am now overwhelmingly in favour of moving to the reserve powers. The way in which additional powers have been granted, the whole issue of taxation and, down the line, the whole issue of Silk 2, make it imperative that we proceed and create the process to the greater reserve powers model. I do so not as a critic of the conferred powers model but from the realisation that, in fact, dramatic change has taken place and with that there is a need for the change of model that we have imposed. Therefore, I cannot quite understand why the Government, although they are not perhaps dragging their feet, have not been willing from the Dispatch Box to confirm that it is their objective, too, and that they agree with and support the processes described in Amendments 1 and 18A to proceed towards the reserve powers model. I hope that we hear a different tone from the Dispatch Box today.

Having said that, I, too, like the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, cannot support Amendment 2A—and nor does Silk. There is a much subtler discussion in Silk of the issues of criminal and civil justice than the rather bald list provided in that amendment. So unless it has been tabled with tongue in cheek, I cannot support that amendment. Silk did a very skilful job in assessing in detail, particularly in Chapter 10, the difficulties of transferring civil and criminal justice issues, even in police areas. In Silk one often reads that we will have to have cross-border co-operation—a real, meaningful co-operation between either side of the border—to make anything work in the criminal justice and civil fields. So I cannot possibly support Amendment 2A, but I certainly support Amendments 1 and 18A.