Welsh Assembly Legislation (Attorney-General)

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to the Conservative party. Because of the social event that Conservative Members are attending tonight, it managed to engineer a little under two hours for me to make the important points that I wish to make, which is just about adequate time.

We have a Government who are Janus-faced on a vital issue. I had the pleasure last Thursday of listening to the new Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), talking about his view of the principle of devolution. He is the one that is facing forward, but I believe there is another face to this Janus. Lurking in the Attorney-General’s Office is a little nest of devolution deniers who are doing great damage.

The Minister of State said last week:

“This has been something that, as you know, I have always been passionate about. Way back in Opposition, I wrote books on the need to transfer power from the centre to the places in our country. As you probably know, I am Middlesbrough born and bred, and the founders of the infant Hercules did not need to ask permission from central government to grow and prosper. I think we need to get back to the spirit of people, the leaders of our cities, towns and counties across the country, feeling that they have the right to initiate policies, do things differently, and have greater control of financial resources.”

Hallelujah. Amen to that.

But what has happened in Wales has been extraordinary. We have seen the other face of Janus that is looking backwards. That is where the devolution denial is coming from. The Attorney-General’s Office is suffering from an acute case of CPR—it is chronically power retentive in an era of devolution. This is not something that has come about as party propaganda. We have had votes on this. We have been through the whole process. We had a referendum to get devolution in Wales and we had a referendum to get greater powers.

I speak with some pedigree on this because I can fondly recall the day in 1953 when I marched through Cardiff with people from several parties. I had a Labour party banner that said “Senedd i Gymru”, “a Parliament for Wales”. It did not say, “hanner Senedd i Gymru”. It did not say, “LCOs i’r bobl”. It did not say, “half-baked policies that can be shredded by a national Government.” It said, “a Parliament for Wales”. We still do not have one, sadly. We have a form of democracy, but it is not tax-raising and the limited powers that it has for passing laws have been frustrated at every turn.

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend recall also, on that theme, that in 1994 he and I and Jon Owen Jones, a former Member for Cardiff, Central, were censured by the Welsh Executive for speaking as Labour MPs at a conference in Llandrindod Wells for a Parliament for Wales?

[Paul Flynn]

I remember it vividly. It was a painful experience but one that resulted in promotion to Cabinet rank for my right hon. Friend. I saw the former hon. Member for Cardiff, Central today. At that time it meant challenging some of the views of the Labour party in Wales, which were not always progressive.

We got to the stage where Wales had the chance to make laws on its own soil, not for the first time in history, but for the first time in 1,000 years. Laws were made by Hywel Dda between 942 and 950, and they were very progressive. One stated that if a wife caught her husband in bed with another woman for the third time, she could divorce him and get compensation for the previous two occasions. Women had the right to own land, which was progressive in 942. There was also a law—it is rather better than the bedroom tax and other measures we have now—stating that if a person had passed through three villages asking for food but not been fed, he or she could not be punished for stealing food. That was progressive Welsh legislation, and it should have inspired the Government to realise that, as the great Welsh proverb states: Hawdd cynnau tân ar hen aelwyd—it is easy to kindle a fire on an old hearth. The old hearth was there, because we were law-makers in the past, and good law-makers at that.

Boldly the Welsh Assembly Government put forward their first law, which had the romantic title of the Local Government Byelaws (Wales) Bill. They took it through the Assembly and it became an Act. One would not have expected it to cause an enormous amount of excitement, because it just cleared up a few other laws to allow local government to pass their own byelaws, which they have been doing without trouble for a long time. There was no hesitation and no excitement, but for some reason—I am sure that the Solicitor-General will explain it when he replies—that modest Bill, the first for 1,000 years to bear the royal Welsh seal, which made it significant, even if its content was not, was opposed by the Attorney-General’s office.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend might want to recollect that before that we had the procedure for legislative competence orders, which he has referred to. The first one I dealt with, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), was the LCO on red meat. Although it was delayed, subject to parliamentary scrutiny that was a little over-onerous, we did not delay the red meat LCO too long, because otherwise it would have gone off.

[Paul Flynn]

Yes, it was a difficult period when we had the LCOs, which were a new legislative monstrosity that we were stuck with and that puzzled us, but as a result of certain ingenuity they did mean that some sort of law was made in Wales, even if in a cack-handed manner. They are now a footnote in history.

The Local Government Byelaws (Wales) Bill went through because it was uncontroversial, and there was a little bit of ceremony because we were proud to be making laws in the land of our own country for the first time in more than 1,000 years. Why on earth was it opposed? The First Minister called it a

“ridiculous situation that has arisen on what is a totally uncontroversial piece of legislation…The primary policy objective of the Bill is to simplify and rationalise how local authorities make byelaws to deal with nuisances in their areas…So why the UK government has decided to take this to the Supreme Court, at the last minute, is inexplicable.”

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong case about the first law, which was very historic, as he mentioned. Did he share my surprise, along with other members of the Welsh Affairs Committee, that the Secretary of State, and apparently the Attorney-General’s office, did not even seem aware of the cost to the taxpayer of referring that very modest measure to the Supreme Court?

[Paul Flynn]

I am glad that my hon. Friend has intervened, because I can remind him of the costs that the Government seemed indifferent to. The legal cost of the Treasury Solicitor’s Department for representing the Attorney-General in relation to the Bill was £59,000.

[Mr Hain]

That would cover a lot of the bedroom tax.

[Paul Flynn]

Absolutely. We could have saved lots of the bedroom tax if this had not been done. The legal cost incurred by the Welsh Government was £30,000, and about £15,000 was spent on civil service time in the Wales Office. The total bill was £150,000. Why? Because some pernickety piffle artist in the Attorney-General’s office was trying to make some kind of stand against devolution. He went through the might of the High Court. Five judges were there, looking dignified and wise in their wigs. The total number of judges who agreed with the Government was zero. It was a unanimous vote that this was a frivolous intervention.

[The Solicitor-General (Oliver Heald)]

While following the very excited way in which the hon. Gentleman is putting his case, I cannot let him get him get away with that, because the Court made it clear that it was a perfectly justifiable application, and in fact it clarified the law in an important way.

[Paul Flynn]

I think that a number of them agreed and the judgment was won.

[Mr Hain]

I am not sure that it is entirely fair for my hon. Friend to put all the blame on officials in the Attorney-General’s office in the way that he graphically described, because it was the Secretary of State in the Wales Office who referred the matter to the Attorney-General. As the then Secretary of State, I was the author of the Government of Wales Act 2006, under which this process took place. I can tell my hon. Friend, and the House, that in no way was that Act drafted and designed to allow for this situation to occur. The drafting of the relevant clause dealt with cross-border issues where there were questions, for example, about rivers that flowed across the border or other environmental concerns about which there might be disputes after a Wales Act had been passed by the UK Government in Westminster. There needed to be a reserve power by which the Secretary of State for Wales could clarify or tidy up anything that resulted from such a cross-border issue. It was never intended to allow the Secretary of State to ride roughshod over the devolution settlement and veto what the Welsh Assembly had decided.

[Paul Flynn]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his expert view on this.

Another Bill was then presented by the Welsh Assembly.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Before my hon. Friend continues on to another Bill, may I suggest that there might be an interpretation of what justified the Westminster intervention and challenge on this? It is as simple as this: for local government, a devolved area in Wales, read England.

[Paul Flynn]

Absolutely. This is part of the long history of the neglect of Wales and the undervaluing of Welsh life by the British Government over the years that now has a chance of being corrected.

A Bill about the Welsh language was proposed that offered equal status to the two languages. While there were quibbles from the national Government about this, they did not take it to the High Court. We now have a farm workers wages Bill—a splendid Bill in many ways—that has had great support even from the farm unions in Wales. That is because there are farm wages boards in Scotland and in Northern Ireland, and the Bill tried to get the board continued in Wales. Farm workers along the borders in Wales are already exposed to market forces and do not have the protection that the 13,000 farm workers in Wales have. The Agricultural Wages Board set pay rates that gave a modest amount of protection to farm workers, whose wages have never been generous and were hardly generous under the Bill, but are certainly exposed to greater cuts now.

The UK Government warned that there were important questions for the Supreme Court to resolve as to whether the Assembly acted within its powers on that matter. Yet whatever powers the Welsh Assembly got, they certainly included agriculture. There is no question about that, because it was the decision of this House under the Acts that were passed here. However, for some twisted reason the Government decided that this was to do with employment, and by that chicanery challenged the Bill.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Does my hon. Friend share my shock at the fact that the Welsh Government Minister, Alun Davies, had repeatedly made it clear to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that he wanted to carve a different path in Wales and was simply seeking a dispensation in order to do that, and yet he was told, “No, we will abolish the whole structure of the Agricultural Wages Board and then fight the battle over whether you can reinstate something that looks like it”? What sort of respect for devolution is that?

[Paul Flynn]

My hon. Friend gives a splendid example. This is the reverse of devolution, the very opposite of what the new Minister of State at the Cabinet Office said the other day about local opinion and good ideas. Wales has a stronger case for an Agricultural Wages Board, perhaps, than many parts of England, so we should be able to make a different decision, but the Government object.

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Should it not be the case—it certainly was when I was Welsh Secretary—that disputes between devolved Administrations and the United Kingdom Government should be resolved at a governmental and political level, and that they should never get to a stage where they are resolved by the courts?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn]

That is absolutely right. Leaving decisions to the courts and depending on expensive silks is no way to run devolved Assemblies or national Governments.

A Bill on recovering NHS costs for asbestos treatment is also of great value. It went through the Assembly over the summer and is at an advanced stage. The first people to have their lives destroyed by negligent employers, or by defects in the health service with which they were provided, have suffered—it is a terrible, crippling disease—and they will be entitled to compensation from those who were responsible for causing the problem. What is wrong with that? The Bill has not been finally resolved, but if there is a problem with such Bills, surely the two authorities should discuss and resolve it.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that Bill is important because it will recover money for the health service, which is a very worthwhile thing to do? One would have thought there would be support for that across the whole of the UK.

[Paul Flynn]

That is absolutely right. The main part of the Bill is to get money back for the health service from the negligent people who allowed diseases to take hold. Many of the unfortunate people affected by asbestosis in Wales worked in industry.

Tied to all this is the Government’s view of devolution. The Silk commission reported after a referendum that measured popular opinion in Wales. We know that the Tories have always had trouble with devolution. They were very much against it in 1994 when, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) has said, three of us were disciplined by the Labour party in Wales. Only one of their candidates in the first Assembly was elected by first past the post, while a few others came in through the assisted places scheme.

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. We are still awaiting the latest information on the findings of the Silk commission. Devolution delivers the things we need for the people of Wales—Welsh solutions to Welsh problems—and yet we cannot seem to prise that information out of the Government. It is a great shame that we cannot make progress at the pace that the communities and citizens of Wales want when we are putting all this time and effort into good governance.

[Paul Flynn]

My hon. Friend expresses very well the position we are in now. The Silk commission, after an exhaustive inquiry, made certain recommendations. We were promised that the Government would reply in the spring, then the summer, then the late summer and then the early autumn, but when will they actually respond? Carwyn Jones rightly said over the weekend that this is a major problem. An urgent bypass is required in Gwent and other constituencies that suffer continual traffic congestion, such as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), in order to find an alternative route for the M4. As Carwyn Jones said, the situation is frozen. The Welsh Government cannot move forward until there is a response to the Silk commission and action is taken on that.

In a few weeks’ time, on 4 November, Newport will recall the great day when thousands of Chartists made their protest against the Government of the time. They intended to establish a republic. The plan was to stop the mail going from Newport—that is the Royal Mail, not the Daily Mail, although there may well be riots about that now—so that the signal would go to the rest of the country that a revolution was going on and that a republic was to be set up. It was very good of Her Majesty to organise a party tonight to give me enough time to explain what happened. Those people wanted to run their own affairs and to have autonomy 174 years ago.

I will conclude, because I am sure that my hon. Friends will want to contribute to the debate, by reading a poem about that march in 1839 by Gillian Clarke, who concludes by saying that the “grudged gift” of devolution was given sparingly:

“Their bones ached from the shift, wind in the shaft,

the heat of the furnaces, yet on they marched,

their minds a blaze because their cause was right,

through darkness from Ebbw Vale, Blackwood, Pontypool,

faces frozen and stung by the lash of rain,

trudging the roads to Newport through the night.

At the Welsh Oak, Rogerstone, betrayed by daylight,

Frost’s men from the west, Williams’s from the east,

Jones’s men never arrived. The rest struck on

To stand united, of one heart in the square

before the Westgate. Had they stood silent then,

had they not surged forward, had they not been shaken

by rage against injustice, had they muzzled

the soldiers’ muskets with a multitude

of silence, had reason spoken,

those steely thousands might have won the day.

But they stormed the doors to set their comrades free,

and shots were fired, and freedom’s dream was broken.

A score dead. Fifty wounded. Their leaders tried,

condemned, transported. The movement, in disarray,

lost fifty years. Then came, at last, that shift

of power, one spoonful of thin gruel at a time,

from strong to weak, from rich to poor,

from men to women, like a grudged gift.”