Government of Wales (Devolved Powers) Bill [HL]

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome this Bill, but I regret the circumstances which have necessitated it. I make just four short observations. As the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, said, part of the problem has arisen from the way in which the Sewel convention and legislative consent Motions have been treated. The genius of our constitution is to try to avoid Bills of this kind and to rely on conventions—they are our bedrock—and it is a sad day when something drives us towards such a Bill. Secondly, there can be no doubt whatever that the powers of the Welsh Assembly, the Senedd, are being gradually whittled away.

It is important to realise that when one is debating Bills relating to the Infrastructure Bank or to the control of subsidies, for example, they involve issues of great importance to the UK, and when one tries doggedly to raise points about the whittling away of Wales’s powers, it is difficult. It does our constitution no credit whatever that much of the success of that depends on the dinner hour. People are appalled to realise that our constitution changes on the basis of the happenstance of where the clause is in the Bill and when it is debated. There should be no whittling away of powers in this way.

Thirdly, there is no legitimacy for what is being done in whittling away the powers. It is interesting to look at the 2019 Conservative manifesto and the true statement in it that the Government had upheld the devolution settlements. It is to the credit of the then Secretary of State that the 2017 Act was a very sensible measure, but they did not, as they promised, strengthen the union or uphold the devolution settlements, so there is no legitimacy in the policy that has been pursued.

Finally, it seems that the Government have taken the view that they want to strengthen muscular unionism, as it is called—a better phrase than that used by the leader of the SNP: “aggressive unionism”. What we should be doing in a country of our kind is working co-operatively together, but absent that co-operation it seems that we are driven to a Bill of this kind. That is the reason, regrettable though it is, why I support what is being put forward. I do so because it is clear that, in increasing numbers, the younger generation—indeed, some of the older generation—is looking to the independence of Wales as a way out of this. I deeply regret that this is happening, but cast your minds back to what has happened in Scotland. We must not allow the same to happen in Wales.

However, there is a degree of hope, although I do not believe that it in any way dispels the necessity of considering the Bill. It is clear—at least it looks like it—that the new Administration believe in co-operative unionism and will return to what we saw prior to 2019. I warmly welcome the approach of the Minister in this House; I hope that her approach to these issues will be the kind of approach that the new Government will follow. I too welcome the telephone conversations that took place but, against the background of what has happened, can we trust telephone communications? I fear not. We need to move to a Bill of this kind. It is deeply regrettable that we have been driven to it but I very much hope that we will put it in place, because the mechanisms that our constitution has traditionally offered do not appear to be working. We are therefore moving inexorably towards what I think all of us in this House will regret: greater legalism rather than a spirit of co-operation.