Draft Wales Bill (Morning sitting)

Mark Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 General Committees

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman can caricature the discussions in that way if he wants to, but he will remember that they were a lot more meaningful and substantive than he gives them credit for. The Silk Commission, which my right hon. Friends the Members for Chesham and Amersham and for Clwyd West established, took a broad range of evidence not just from politicians but from stakeholders, who included representative of the parties. If hon. Members read the Silk document, as I have done several times in great detail, they will see that some of the recommendations lack a lot of detail; some of them do not give a precise, clear policy steer. There is a lot of good in the Silk Commission documents, but it is up to elected politicians to decide how to take forward the recommendations, which is why the official Opposition, the Labour party, could not sign up to the recommendations around the devolution of policing and justice.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I think there were rather more than two meetings, and I am not sure they were quite as characterised by my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. However, with hindsight and given some of the problems the Secretary of State has encountered since the publication of the draft Bill, does he regret that the St David’s day process was not more inclusive of our colleagues in the National Assembly?

[Stephen Crabb]

The process was inclusive. I had discussions with them in Cardiff Bay as a group; we had discussions in this place with the Cardiff Bay leaders of the parties; and I met them all individually as well, so it was a process that encompassed both the Cardiff Bay bit of the Welsh political parties and Westminster.

The Conservative party went into last year’s general election with a clear package of new powers that we put to voters and the people of Wales made their decisions at the election. The package included putting in place an historic funding floor in the relative level of Welsh funding, as we committed to do in the St David’s day agreement. Members will recall that during Labour’s leadership election last year, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) revealed that when he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury he knew that Wales was being sold short by the Barnett formula but admitted that he could not do anything about it. It took Conservatives in government to do something about the Barnett formula and bring forward an historic funding floor.

The St David’s day package also included making further progress on income tax. Hon. Members will know that in his autumn statement the Chancellor announced a decision to remove the referendum requirement for devolving a portion of income tax to Wales. We are doing that in recognition that the debate has moved on from the Wales Act 2014, and because we believe that income tax devolution will help deliver more accountable, responsible devolved government for Wales. Within the mature devolution settlement that the draft Bill will deliver, the Welsh Government simply cannot continue to be a purely spending Department. They need to take responsibility for raising money as well as spending it.

As part of the devolution package, we are also legislating for a new reserved powers model through the Wales Bill. Hon. Members for Welsh constituencies who have been in this House for a number of terms will recall that the call for a reserved powers model has been around for some time. I remember during discussion of the Bill that became the Wales Act 2014 a former Secretary of State, the former Member for Torfaen, saying on the Floor of the House, “Now is the time to move to a reserved powers model.” That was, of course, before we took forward the St David’s day process. At that time I warned that simply moving to a reserved powers model, in and of itself, is not a panacea. It does not fix all the complexities around the Welsh devolution settlement—in fact, moving to a reserved powers model throws up new complexities. It is not a quick fix that clarifies Welsh devolution. The detail of the wiring underneath is what matters, and that is where a lot of the controversy around the current Bill lies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. We are in the early stages of that work and we are having discussions about it with a view to being clear about what distinctive arrangements Wales needs to make sure there is effective delivery of justice in Wales that takes account of the growing body of Welsh law. We will make some announcements about that in due course, but that work does not need to happen within the context of the Bill. It does not need to be put into legislation to give effect to it. A lot of practical work can just be got on with fairly quickly.

Ministerial consent is another controversial area in the Bill that we are looking at again. Let me put on the record some thoughts about it. Much has been said about the consent requirements in the draft Wales Bill. They are intended to provide flexibility for the Assembly to legislate but with a demarcation of responsibility between the Assembly and the UK Government. It is only right that the Minister’s consent is required to amend the functions of reserved bodies that are accountable to UK Ministers, just as it is right that the UK Government seek the Assembly’s consent to make changes to the law in devolved areas.

I am told that when making legislation that changes the responsibilities of UK Ministers or the functions or duties of a reserved body—a public body that is the responsibility of a UK Minister—the Welsh Government should have the ability to do that without the relevant UK Minister in Whitehall being able to have any say on that. To any fair-minded Welsh man or woman, that is not a reasonable proposition, because the United Kingdom Government are responsible for those areas of policy. However, this seems to be emerging as the new consensus in Cardiff Bay. We are told that we need to take away the draft Bill and remove the consenting requirements. The threat is that the Bill will be blocked if there is any attempt to make the Welsh Government more responsible in making changes to things that are the responsibility of UK Ministers. We do not believe that is a credible position.

I know from my discussions with business leaders and others in Wales that there is a large body of pragmatic and reasonable opinion on devolution, which does not endorse the rhetoric and criticism of the Bill that is coming out of Cardiff Bay which says the Welsh Government should be able to change the functions of a UK Minister, and change the duties and functions of a UK public body that is the responsibility of a UK Minister, without any consenting requirement. This is about basic respect for the devolution settlement. It is a key principle of ours that we respect the Welsh Government in recognising the areas for which they are responsible. When we make legislation in this place that touches on devolved areas, there is rightly a process of seeking the consent of the Welsh Government. We believe that the principle should work in reverse. I do not think that is an unreasonable proposition.

We have hit a number of major stumbling blocks with the Bill on the differences of viewpoint between how we see the devolution settlement working and how the Cardiff Bay Welsh Government want it to work. They believe that the draft Bill should give legislative effect to the new consensus that they believe in with the expanded devolution boundary that they believe the Supreme Court has given them with the ability to make law unfettered that affects reserved matters or England without any hurdle or boundary or safeguard around that, or any requirement for consent. That is not something that we can go along with.

I appeal to Members of this place and Assembly Members to try to understand the devolution settlement from the viewpoint of the interests of the UK Government, in the same way as I have spent a lot of time trying to understand the devolution settlement from the perspective of Cardiff Bay and the Assembly,

I am going to wrap up there to allow other Members to speak. We have heard language such as “English veto”. There is nothing in the Bill which provides for an English veto. When the First Minister uses that phrase, he is talking about the UK Government—the UK Parliament. He is saying that all of us sitting here are English—the hon. Member for Newport West is English, and the hon. Member for Llanelli is English, because they are part of the UK Government. Let us be absolutely clear—this goes to the core of my approach to the Wales Bill—Wales has two legitimate Governments: the UK Government, who exist for the benefit of all parts of the United Kingdom, including Wales; and the devolved Welsh Government, who exist to create law in devolved areas. The purpose of the legislation is to create clarity and respect about the roles of those Governments. It is not to delegitimise and push back the role of the UK Government and say that Wales has an elected Government in Cardiff Bay who are the primary legitimate Government for Wales.

[Mr Mark Williams]

The Secretary of State talks about respect and says he hopes our colleagues in the National Assembly will be listening to what he says as much as we are here today. Does that extend now to a meaningful dialogue with the Assembly and the officials at the National Assembly on the core issues he has identified—the necessity test and ministerial consents and reservations? I do not doubt the primacy of this place to make the law, but will a meaningful dialogue remedy those issues with the National Assembly now?

[Stephen Crabb]

My door is always open. I do not think anybody has tried to bend over backwards and be pragmatic and flexible on this stuff more than I have. I have spent the past 18 months moving the position of the UK Government, compromising on a number of very key areas that have proved controversial. From our perspective, it feels as if we have made all the movements on our side, and we have run into the buffers of stubbornness and a lack of reasonableness.