Wales Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, it is my pleasure to move my Amendment 7, which is that all matters regarding the electoral arrangements are subject to agreement by the National Assembly. The key phrase is,

“subject to agreement … before implementation”.

I am not personally against the following amendment, which will shortly be spoken to by my noble friend Lord Wigley, but I submit to him that my amendment is more likely to be acceptable than his, although I think that we are working to the same end.

Essentially, my proposition is clear and simple. It is as clear, pure and simple as the last amendment, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rowe-Beddoe. In my judgment it is absurd that we should be laying down the rules relating to the electoral arrangements irrespective of the views of the National Assembly. Its Members are the experts in the field. They have the experience of fighting elections for the Assembly in Wales and the decision should be left to them. Even local authorities have a degree of discretion, which is currently denied to the Assembly. Without this, the arrangements are in the spirit of high to low—“We in Westminster and Whitehall know best”, almost as if in colonial times, when the constitutional arrangements were handed down like tablets of stone to the grateful people. Surely we are dealing with a mature and maturing democracy in Wales, where the representatives of the people should decide for themselves. However, if leaving it by Order in Council wholly within the responsibility of the Assembly is not acceptable, the next best thing—perhaps the more realistic alternative—is the one proposed in this amendment. Do we really think that we know best? Have we no trust in the Assembly? I leave this question to the Minister: can it be reasonable that we do not involve the Assembly, not as a matter of generosity but as a matter of law, in decisions on its own electoral arrangements?

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I support the spirit in which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has moved his amendment and am very supportive of its thrust. Amendment 8 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Elis-Thomas transfers all responsibility for Welsh general elections to the Welsh Assembly. The provisions in it and Amendment 10 would mean that the Welsh Government could determine the electoral system used for elections to the National Assembly, as well as having control over the administration of those elections. It would certainly be my hope that, if the Welsh Assembly was granted such powers, it would vote to move towards a more proportional method of electing representatives. Plaid Cymru’s policy has long been for a form of proportional representation. I say that looking at Benches opposite and hope that they would concur warmly with that.

Any decisions relating to the electoral system would of course be up to the National Assembly for Wales to make. It would surely be a common-sense move to allow the Assembly to be in charge of its own elections, just as this Parliament is in charge of its own elections. It would once again strengthen the accountability of the institution and I hope that the Government will see the merits of this amendment.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Wales Office (Baroness Randerson)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Wigley and Lord Elis-Thomas, for tabling these amendments. I begin by discussing Amendment 7, which provides that the electoral provisions in the Bill should not be implemented until the Assembly has agreed them. Let us look at the electoral provisions in the Bill. The majority of the electoral proposals are widely supported within the Assembly. As I said earlier, the initial move to a five-year fixed term for the Assembly, set out in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, came about as a result of a vote in the Assembly. In the Government’s subsequent consultation on a permanent move to five-year fixed terms, there was also unanimous support from the parties in the Assembly for such a move.

The consultation also showed widespread support in the Assembly for the move to ban MPs from also sitting as Assembly Members, although the Welsh Government did not believe that there was currently a need for legislation on this. The Government consulted on these changes. We listened to the views of those who responded and included these provisions in a draft Bill, which was subject to extensive scrutiny by the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee. Therefore, the Assembly has had the opportunity to express its views even though I freely accept that it falls short of the legal obligation that the noble Lords are seeking.

Amendments 8 and 10 would require the Secretary of State to publish draft orders within six months of the passing of the Bill, for the approval of both Houses of Parliament, to provide for the transfer of responsibility for elections to the National Assembly for Wales. It is worth noting that the Silk commission did not make recommendations in relation to Assembly elections in its part 2 report. I also note that wholesale transfer of responsibility for elections has not been devolved under any of the devolution settlements. Therefore, at this moment the Bill is probably not the appropriate vehicle for making such a transfer on a piecemeal basis for only one part of the UK, at a time when a wholesale look is being taken at the whole shape of devolution. If there were not work going on in the Cabinet committee at this time, it would be a more appealing argument. Having said that, I go back to the point I made right at the beginning of my responses: this is a response to the provisions of the Silk 1 report in large part and the Green Paper.

[Lord Wigley]

The noble Baroness refers to this being a piecemeal approach, which is apparently not appropriate. Would she therefore use the same principle that, when there are devolution proposals for Scotland, they would not be regarded as piecemeal but rolled out for Wales and Northern Ireland also?

[Baroness Randerson]

They are being looked at in the context of Wales and Northern Ireland, yes. Piecemeal means something different from having solutions that suit the individual countries. Piecemeal is when you pick one thing off at a time without looking at the situation in the round. There are some areas where I would fully agree that the situation is very different from one country to another, and it is appropriate that we respond in different ways. There are other things, such as the conduct of elections, where one needs to look in the round at all three countries and see whether one can have a comprehensive approach—the kind of comprehensive look that my noble friend Lord Thomas referred to earlier—to devolution.

The Bill provides for a referendum to be held on the devolution of a portion of income tax, among other things, and ensures that the decision of when and whether to hold this referendum is in the hands of the Assembly. It is important to point out that issues such as referendums obviously have an impact across the UK and need to be properly considered by not only the Assembly but Peers and MPs. In devolved areas there is already provision in Section 64 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 for Welsh Ministers to hold a poll in all or part of Wales to determine how any of their functions should be exercised.

I hope that the work of the Cabinet committee on devolution will result in a less piecemeal approach to devolution in the UK, and I point out to noble Lords that the Secretary of State is working across the parties in Wales to achieve consensus on a more robust settlement for Wales.

The amendments, if accepted, would represent a fundamental change to the devolution settlement in Wales. It is therefore important that they are considered in the context of party manifestos for the 2015 general election, and I therefore ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

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[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I hope that this amendment will be quite straightforward. I hope to make the case that this Bill is the right Bill at the right time for dealing with this matter, as I will explain.

The amendment is straightforward because it seeks to put the names of the candidates back on the regional ballot paper. This situation existed for all National Assembly elections until the last one. I want to go back to the days when I remember the ballot paper saying—noble Lords who were around at the time will remember it, too—Welsh Labour Party: number 1, Rhodri Morgan; number 2, Sue Essex; number 3, Jane Hutt. That seemed to send quite a clear message to send to people who wanted to vote Labour. If they put their mark alongside, they were voting for those people in that order. This would also return us to what goes on in European elections, where the names of the candidates for whom you are voting appear on the ballot paper.

To understand why this amendment is the right amendment at the right time, now, we must try to find out why the names were removed in 2011. I have before me the reply to a letter that I wrote to the Electoral Commission prior to the 2011 National Assembly for Wales elections, and which I received before those elections took place. It outlines the reason why it recommended the names be taken off.

It states:

“After the Assembly elections in 2007, our published election report identified that a number of complaints had been raised by voters about the size of the regional list ballot paper. Voters found it difficult to complete in polling booths and to fold and put into ballot boxes. The ballot paper size was also problematic for printing and counting”.

The commission’s recommendation to resolve this issue was to reduce the number of candidates eligible to stand on the regional list. The letter stated that each party was still able to nominate up to 12 candidates, even though since 2007 candidates had been prohibited from standing for both the regional list and the constituency election.

As we all know, four candidates are elected in each region. The Electoral Commission stated:

“In our view, it would be sufficient that each party could nominate up to six candidates for the regional list. Three of the main political parties in Wales supported our recommendation to reduce the number of candidates nominated, but the other main party did not. The change would also require”—

this is the crucial part—

“amendment to the Government of Wales Act 2006, for which there was no apparent legislative opportunity at the time”.

I do not know whether it was my party that did not say yes to reducing the number to six. Certainly, nobody asked me about this issue at the time. However, the important consequence was that, as it did not have the time to change the primary legislation and did not have the agreement of the parties, the Electoral Commission decided to follow the alternative route of simply taking off the names of people standing on the regional list for each party.

As many Members of your Lordships’ House will know, on the regional list ballot paper there are not just parties but independent candidates, so part of the reason for the growth of the ballot paper was not just the number of names against parties but the independent candidates—usually only one name. The restriction on ballot papers by the Electoral Commission and by regulations on the size of the fonts and of the ballot papers passed by your Lordships’ House made it impossible for any other change to take place because the Electoral Commission had run out of time.

The letter also states:

“We shall assess the outcome of the change in our statutory report on the election, based on feedback we receive from parties and returning officers”.

There was feedback post the election. I have described the situation that led the Electoral Commission to recommend that change. In its report on what happened afterwards it stated:

“Early on polling day”—

it is almost like the story of the man with the bricks and the ladder—

“there were complaints that regional candidates’ names were not displayed or were displayed inadequately by some Returning Officers”.

There was a rule that you had to put them up somewhere in the polling station. As noble Lords know, many polling stations are in schools, where children’s work is often on the walls and the space where you can put up a list of names may not be apparent. It was certainly not alongside the polling booth or in the polling booth itself but could be anywhere. I went to a polling station where the list was on a steel box. They could not put drawing pins in it, so they had to use tape. The only tape they could find obliterated half the words. They put the list on the outside wall of the property, so people went in and it was then too late to see the names. The Electoral Commission goes on:

“There were also a small number of complaints from postal voters that they did not have access to the names of regional list candidates other than by consulting notices in public places or local authority websites”.

So people who voted by post had no knowledge of the names of the candidates and people in polling stations had no idea where to find the names. You had to be pretty good at hunting around in the polling station to find the names.

The Electoral Commission states:

“We conclude that, following the experience at the elections, the question of whether candidates’ names are included on the regional list ballot paper should be reconsidered. However, before certain relevant matters are resolved … it would be premature to make decisions on the regional ballot paper. We will revisit this issue no later than December 2014”.

That is two months from now.

I ask noble Lords to consider whether that needs to be done slightly faster. The commission gave its report after the 2011 elections and we have waited a further three years for an answer to this question. Because there was no legislative time available last time, it meant that that change could not be made to reduce the number.

The obvious answer is to reduce the number of names on the ballot paper to six, which was the Electoral Commission’s recommendation. I am not actually wedded to six, but it seems a reasonable number, because there are only four places available. Even if a party won all four places, there would still be two left in case the first two fell under a bus halfway through the election period. It is unlikely that, during an election campaign, four candidates would die and no people would be left to fill up the names on the list. We have to make that change according to the number of spaces that there would be on a ballot paper, to make it less unwieldy. That is the only argument that I have heard, as explained by the Electoral Commission, for making the change and removing the names.

It is a fundamental right of people, when they place their mark on a ballot paper, to know the names of the people for whom they are voting. These are the people who will represent them on an equal status. The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, has said to us on many occasions that those who are elected by the regional list system are of equal status to those who are elected from the constituency. Therefore, it is important that people should know the names of those for whom they are voting and the order in which they are elected.

It is not our favourite system; in our party, we would not want to say that. But we are approaching the time when the chance to make this change is fast running out. If there is to be a change to primary legislation and, following that change to primary legislation, secondary legislation has to come to provide the appropriate rules for the election in 2016, it would require a piece of primary legislation to be placed before Parliament in the first four months of a new Government. I know that many noble Lords will think that for this very purpose that is not a very likely procedure. This Bill is the right one in which to make that simple change to the line that appeared in the Government of Wales Act 1998 as well as the 2006 Act:

“The list must not include more than twelve persons (but may include only one)”.

[Lord Wigley]

I am following the noble Lord’s argument with a lot of interest and considerable sympathy, but would he and his party not go one stage further by having an open list and allowing electors to determine the order in which people fill those slots?

[Lord German]

I would indeed. As I say, this is such an urgent matter to change and to change the electoral system to make that happen might be a step too far. I might be told, in exactly the same way as the noble Lord has been told many times this afternoon, that this is not the right time or place or Bill. But because there is only one chance to do this, this Bill is the right place and it is the right time. I hope that my noble friend and the rest of the Government will see the wisdom of this action and give people the right to see who they are voting for on their ballot paper.

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[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, on this. Clearly the sons of Denbighshire had it right in that the forgotten ironmaster, possibly Wilkinson, was responsible for “Senedd”. Certainly, I used the phrase and Lord Hooson used the phrase. It is the appropriate title for a Welsh Assembly/Parliament—but I prefer to call it the Senedd.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, many of us campaigned for a Parliament for Wales for many years and in that context, obviously, the ambitions for a legislative body that has full competence, including tax raising and tax varying, fits with the concept of a Parliament.

The one point that I would make—and undoubtedly the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has thought about it—is that the building in Cardiff is now known as a Senedd, which makes it even more complex, with the differential between the Senedd building and the Cynulliad Cenedlaethol or National Assembly that is within it. We are of course aware that in France the National Assembly is the primary body. Therefore, my feeling is that whereas I have total sympathy with what my noble friend is aiming at, perhaps this, like so many other issues, is one that in the first place the National Assembly itself and its Members should decide on.

Changes have been made, as has been referred to earlier today, with regard to moving from the First Secretary to the First Minister and from secretaries to Ministers; something that was picked up by custom and practice in the first place and then became accepted. I hope that if there is to be a move in this direction it is by the initiative of the Members of the National Assembly itself. What is most important—I am sure that the noble Lord would agree—is the powers and functions that that body has to serve the people of Wales.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, for his amendment, which seeks to change the name of the National Assembly for Wales to the Welsh Parliament. Clause 4 of the Bill does amend the statutory title of the Welsh Assembly Government to Welsh Government. Since law-making powers were devolved to the Assembly in 2011, the Government have almost universally been referred to simply as the Welsh Government. Our clause reflects that reality. The same is not the case for the National Assembly for Wales, which is still commonly known as the National Assembly, the Welsh Assembly or the Assembly.

My view is that, once the Assembly has the powers of a Parliament, it should be called one. At the moment that is not the case. It is, however, worth pointing out that there are several national legislatures called assemblies. There is the Assemblée Nationale in France, the Quebec Assembly and the South African Assembly. So there is a swap-over in the use of the words.

Honourable Members will be aware that the Silk commission recommended that if the Assembly wishes to change its name to the Welsh Parliament, this should be respected. The noble Lord’s amendment goes further than Silk by simply changing the name of the Assembly in primary legislation—crucially, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has said, without the Assembly itself what it feels about the issue. I think it is essential that such a change should not take place without consulting the Assembly. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.