Draft Wales Bill

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 General Committees

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.

It is fair to say that we have heard a range of insightful contributions from hon. Members, and it is quite clear that the Bill, as drafted, is flawed. All the contributions that we heard are worthy of serious consideration. The hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd spoke of the Bill as a lawyers’ playground, which is an alarming thought. The right hon. Member for Clwyd West decried the Bill’s bolt-on approach and made some very serious points concerning the necessity test in schedule 2, describing it as a positive invitation to make more reference to the Supreme Court, which is very worrying. My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham spoke in great detail about the whole dilemma of English votes for English laws, especially for Welsh Members of Parliament serving border constituencies. He also spoke of the need for a constitutional convention.

My hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen spoke of the many anomalies in the draft Bill, the possible dilemma concerning horses and the apparent threat to the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd called for greater clarity about where powers are held. The last Liberal standing, the hon. Member for Ceredigion, spoke of the importance of clarity, of subsidiarity and, again, of the need for a constitutional convention. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, in a wide-ranging speech, urged the Secretary of State to look at a different list of reservations, but not, we hope, at more reservations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East, who serves on the Welsh Affairs Committee, spoke of many matters, including the necessity test. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon decried red tape—a view with which we would all agree—and spoke of many constitutional issues. The hon. Member for Gower requested fewer powers. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney spoke of the fear of increased bureaucracy. The hon. Member for Cardiff North said that he was not excited about constitutional issues but volunteered to be on committees, which I think would make him an excellent representative, should we ever get to a constitutional convention. Finally, the Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Monmouth said that the idea that we can somehow scrap the Welsh Assembly is “long gone”, which I think, by his own standards, makes him devo-philic.

To be serious, however, today’s debate has shown that the draft Bill is nowhere near commanding consensus. Before it was published there was cross-party agreement on the need to give greater powers to the Welsh Assembly. Indeed, before May’s elections, all the main parties in Wales were agreed that we should move to a reserved powers model of devolution. As we have heard, the model proposed in this Bill is unclear, unworkable and unacceptable in that it rolls back the Assembly’s powers. Many hon. Members have referred to the evidence of the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. Its report is pretty incisive and damning, saying that

“the draft Bill neither meets the Secretary of State’s aims of a stronger, clearer and fairer devolution settlement for Wales that will stand the test of time, nor the view expressed in his evidence to us that ‘the new reserved powers model provides the clarity the current model lacks.’”

The Bill seems to fail every test the Secretary of State has set. It will not make the settlement stronger because it takes power away from the Welsh Assembly.

As many witnesses said in their evidence to the Committee, this is a ridiculously long list of reservations that amounts to a power grab. It is pure Gilbert and Sullivan because they are on a list, and it would not be so bad if it were a little list, but it is ginormous: 34 pages of reservations and 267 separate powers. Therein lies the problem. The Secretary of State failed to stand up to Departments to ensure a rational basis to the reservations. As a consequence, if the Bill were passed, the Assembly would end up with fewer powers than it currently has. The Bill will not make the settlement clearer either, because, as Members have highlighted today, the so-called necessity tests introduce serious complexity that could be resolved only by the Supreme Court. It would be time-consuming; it would be costly to the taxpayer, and it would lead to the unacceptable situation whereby judges, as opposed to the democratically elected Assembly Members, are deciding whether Acts of the Assembly are necessary. The tests amount to a significant roll-back of the Assembly’s powers, and hardly anybody is prepared to defend them.

The Bill will not make the settlement fairer, for, as well as depriving the Assembly of many important powers that it already has, it introduces a wide-ranging English veto on Welsh laws. Ministers in Whitehall will be able to block legislation that they do not agree with, even if it relates only incidentally to a Minister of the Crown’s powers.

The Bill as drafted will not stand the test of time. Indeed, it has not even stood up to the scrutiny we have given it today. We all agree that we need a lasting settlement that provides certainty about the Assembly’s powers, but this is not it. The Bill is so fatally flawed that if it were passed in anything like its current form, there would undoubtedly be a need for another Bill in the very near future, which takes us back to “The Mikado”.

Today’s debate has not only highlighted the serious flaws in the Bill, but spelled out the changes that must be made for it have cross-party support—which is what we want—both here and in the Assembly. As my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said this morning, we will not support the Bill unless it is radically amended. We cannot support it in its current form, because we believe in an Assembly with greater powers. Our party created the Welsh Office in the 1960s and established the Welsh Assembly and gave it greater powers through the 2006 Act, so we will not vote for a Bill that leaves the Assembly with fewer powers than it has at present. The people of Wales will not stand for that, and neither will we.

I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I hope you will forgive me, Mr Hanson, but in my old age my approach to politics is getting cynical. I think that what really concerns the Labour party is not the roll-back of powers, but the possible inclusion of fiscal powers—income tax sharing powers—in the Bill. Will the hon. Lady make a commitment that, if the Secretary of State moves on some of the rolled-back powers, the Labour party will support a Wales Bill that proposes more fiscal powers for Wales?

[Susan Elan Jones]

Let me be clear: the Labour party in Wales has always supported a fair funding settlement for Wales. We will not settle for rhetoric—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order.

[Susan Elan Jones]

We will not settle for rhetoric when what we want is fair funding for the people of Wales and proper funding for services. We will not vote for a Bill that leaves the Assembly with fewer powers than it has at present, because that is not acceptable.

Wrth orffen, hoffwn fynegi fy siom mai Saesneg yw’r unig iaith a ganiatawyd yn y Pwyllgor yma heddiw. In finishing, I would like to express my disappointment that English is still the only language permissible in this Committee. I have raised the issue with the Leader of the House and have written to the Chair of the Procedure Committee. It is not acceptable in this day and age, when Wales has two official languages, that we are allowed to use only the English language in our proceedings here.