Mark Williams
Main Page: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)Department Debates - View all Mark Williams's debates with the Wales Office
Draft Wales Bill
Mark Williams Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Hanson. Whether you are calling me to speak from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench or the Liberal Democrat Back Bench, I do not suppose it matters much these days—[Interruption.] It is a Bench, that’s right.
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd. He used the word “enjoy” liberally as he reflected on our deliberations and pre-legislative scrutiny in the Welsh Affairs Committee. With no disrespect to our Chairman over there—the hon. Member for Monmouth—it has not exactly been enjoyable, but none the less, the process we have been undertaking is incredibly worthwhile and important.
To respond to a point made by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd, is the draft Wales Bill the great talking point in the aisles of Morrisons in Aberystwyth or in the mart in Tregaron? I suspect not. However, the heart of our democracy involves clarity and coherence. People need to know who to go to—whether it is their Assembly Member or Member of Parliament—and what powers such people have. The Secretary of State is right to seek a much clearer devolution settlement through the Bill, and, on those grounds alone it is important that it proceeds.
Many of the points that have been made today are ones that I and my colleagues in the Welsh Assembly have made since the draft Bill was published. There are genuine concerns about the Bill, and the Secretary of State has been big enough and realistic enough to acknowledge that there are challenges. It is a draft Bill, and as part of the process we want it to morph into something more substantive. We will have Second Reading in the Chamber to address many of our concerns.
The draft Bill has a fair number of Liberal fingerprints on it. Its origins were in the coalition Government with the creation of the Silk Commission I and II, the referendum and the St David’s day agreement. I was privileged to be part of those discussions. However, it would be difficult for me as a Liberal Democrat to support the draft Bill. We are where we are and part of the process of pre-legislative scrutiny is to seek remedies to the problems and for the Secretary of State to listen to the overwhelming evidence that expresses those concerns, which have certainly been heard by the Select Committee.
The Secretary of State candidly talked about his history, and his journey to being a devo-pragmatist. I, too, remember those early days on the Select Committee when he did not always have the views he has now. I celebrate that movement towards devolution, whatever the motivation behind it. He has given us a challenge to get a Bill that is right.
As the Select Committee deliberated, it was sometimes quite hard. We had discussions about what really underpins the Bill. Is it an attempt to remedy a failing system based on existing legislation? The right hon. Member for Clwyd West described it as a “bolt-on” and I think he is right in that analysis. It is certainly there to alleviate problems. Is it simply seeking to import a model from Scotland? Maybe parts of it, yes, and there are failings there, because Scotland has a very different system from what we need and require in Wales. If we could start again, I would like to see the principle of subsidiarity embedded in the legislation far more clearly: the notion that powers are best exercised at different levels of government, as close as possible to the people we serve.
The Secretary of State has wisely said that the list of reservations must be diminished, and diminished it must be. I will quickly go through the list of issues controlled by London, not all 267 of them, I hasten to add: hovercraft; knives; pedlars and street trading; dangerous dogs; gender recognition; sports ground safety; driving instruction; auctions and mock auctions; hallmarking; gun-barrel proofing; regulation for the carriage of animals on aircraft; fire safety; pedestrian crossings; traffic signs; exemptions from speed limits; insurance of motor vehicles; coal; the sale and supply of alcohol; misuse or dealing in drugs or psychoactive substances; the classification of film and video recording; licensing and the provision of entertainment and late-night refreshment; betting, gaming and lotteries; Sunday trading; railway services; the Boundary Commission for Wales; the regulation of estate agents; timeshares and package travel and package holidays; the regulation of unsolicited goods and services and trading schemes; railway heritage.
Mr David Jones
I do not know if the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that all those issues should be devolved to Wales. I notice he mentioned gender recognition. Would that mean that someone could be a man in England and a woman in Wales?
Mr Mark Williams
I thank the right hon. Gentleman, if only because he has given me a chance to catch my breath. Would seeing those powers controlled in Wales mean the unravelling of our constitution and the end of the Union? Should we have not started from the principle that what is devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland should be devolved to Wales? Better still, if one believes in subsidiarity, should we have not started with the principle that all powers are devolved, and it is for the Secretary of State and Westminster to argue the case for reserving them to Westminster?
However, we are where we are and we have this Bill. The hon. Member for Wrexham, who is not in his place, talked about the need for a constitutional convention and the right hon. Member for Clwyd West said he was open to the case for that. He described the Bill as a “bolt-on”. That and the devolutionary drift in other parts of the UK points to the need to look at such matters in the round. My party has always believed in a federal Britain, with home rule for Wales, and we need a constitutional convention to look into that.
Some have asserted that there should be a pause and, on balance, I agree. Too many concerns have been expressed, as the Select Committee will reveal at some point in the future. The question is: how much of a pause should there be? If a pause means that we lose a legislative slot for the Wales Bill to carry forward devolution, I would be immensely concerned. However, the issues on which the Secretary of State has openly reflected, such as looking again at the necessity test, or whatever form of words we use for that, ministerial consents and the scale of the list of reservations, are a big body of work that needs to be done urgently.
I would not say that the Secretary of State was disdainful when I talked about the need for robust dialogue with Assembly colleagues, but that dialogue needs to happen. I was privy to discussions between Westminster MPs representing the four parties and our Assembly colleagues and given the level of concern expressed since the draft Bill was published, that needs addressing. There are rumours of delays to the suspected date of Second Reading. I do not expect to get a date at the end of the Committee, but we need to be mindful of that and of the work that needs to be done.
The Secretary of State said that he wants the matters to be settled. The issue of a distinct jurisdiction has gained much traction in discussions, with various questions fired around the Committee today asking people to define what that means. I am not a lawyer—perhaps that is obvious—so I cannot give that definition.
Mr Mark Williams
I know his question, but I am not going to give him an answer because he tried it on the hon. Member for Llanelli. A debate is going on about the question of a distinct—not separate—jurisdiction. The genie is out of the bottle and if the Secretary of State wants a resolution—I know he is sincere about that—that issue must be addressed and I think it should be addressed in the Bill.
Sir Paul Silk said that politicians should be open to a review between the Assembly Government and the Westminster Government and a time period of 10 years was referred to, which is probably too long, given the debate that we have had. That issue will not go away. Hon. Members still here in a few years’ time—I hope to be—will have to revisit the Welsh jurisdiction issue unless it is dealt with soon.
Stephen Crabb
The hon. Gentleman is making a good speech. I urge a bit of caution in the discussion about distinct and separate jurisdiction, because I fear that history is slightly repeating itself. Two or three years ago in Welsh Grand Committee and on the Floor of the House people were saying, “We need the reserved powers model,” but simply to say that we will move to a distinct jurisdiction would not tackle the problems of the complexities of consenting that we have been talking about. It does not tackle the complexities around the spillover effects of the Welsh Government making law that affects reserved matters or has an impact in England. All those really difficult and contentious issues still need to be addressed, whether we are maintaining the joint jurisdiction or somehow moving to a distinct or separate jurisdiction.
Mr Mark Williams
Of course, the Secretary of State is right. That is the difference between the draft Bill and the final Bill that he will present before us in due course. He partially answers my point. He is right that three or four years ago people were talking about a reserved system. That is what is being proposed now. My point is that unless the issue of a distinct jurisdiction is dealt with, he or his successors will have to deal with it in a few years’ time.
I will end in the same way as the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, my neighbour in west Wales, ended her speech. I want to vote for the Bill. I want the march to devolution—in my party’s case, to home rule—to continue. I want to vote for the Bill on Second Reading, but I can only do so if certain changes are made. The Secretary of State is making very encouraging noises about listening to people. He needs to address the concerns that we and others in Wales right across the board in civil society, as well as our colleagues in the National Assembly, have raised. He needs to make those changes.