West Lothian Question

Wayne David Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

I shall make two brief points, which have crossed my mind recently, largely because of my experience as a Minister in the Wales Office for the best part of two years in the previous Government.

The first point is that the devolution settlement is far from straightforward. It is not neat; as we say in Wales, it is not tidy. Reference has been made to the block grant, which goes exclusively from Westminster to the Assembly. The assumption is that health and education are devolved matters and are nothing to do with England, but things are not quite that straightforward. For example, even after the referendum, which gave the Assembly legislative powers in clearly defined areas, we still have English and Welsh legislation on health and education, and it is still possible to put forward Welsh clauses with the support of the UK Government.

We in Wales are also mindful of the fact that we have a large border with England. One thing that continually struck me in the Wales Office was the time devoted, quite rightly, to cross-border issues. Offa’s Dyke is not that significant or that high, and our border is more apparent than real in many ways. Cross-border issues will therefore always be significant for the UK Government in Westminster and the Welsh Assembly.

It is also important to recognise that devolution is very asymmetrical in the UK as a whole and in Wales and England. Wales is relatively small compared with England, and what happens in England inevitably has a tremendous influence on Wales. We see that even on issues that are primarily devolved, such as health and education. The debate on higher education in Wales cannot be conducted in isolation from what is happening in England, as we have seen recently. That reality cannot be denied and it will not go away.

Much, but not all, of the responsibility for the environment is devolved to the Welsh Assembly; for example, the Environment Agency in Wales is still responsible to the UK Government. That complex interface is a reality, and parliamentary processes must take account of that. Another example is the economy. Certain aspects of micro-economic intervention are devolved, but macro policy is not devolved at all. Again, what happens at a UK level has a huge impact on the Welsh economy. My first point, therefore, relates to the sheer complexity of the devolution settlement, which has not been fundamentally altered by the recent referendum result.

My second point is that devolution has certain unintended consequences. One is the frequent assumption in Whitehall and Westminster that the devolution of powers to Wales goes much further than it actually does. For example, when I was in the Wales Office, I was continually struck in the discussions that were necessary with the Home Office by what people thought the devolution settlement meant for Wales. Despite the excellent efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who was a Home Office Minister, the assumption—primarily among civil servants—was often that the Home Office did not need to bother with Wales any more, because Wales had an Assembly. The incorrect assumption was that Home Office responsibilities, including for policing, were devolved, but that is not the case. It is important to recognise that.

Following on from that, the Home Office had a tendency, which had to be corrected time and again—it is still there, but I fear that it is not being corrected—to make policy as though it applied only to England and not to Wales. Little consideration was given to how the relationship with the Welsh Assembly should develop over the foreseeable future, and there was little understanding of the particular needs of Wales. The assumption was that Wales had an Assembly so the Home Office did not have to concern itself with Wales. That is wrong, and something of which we must be mindful. That leads me to the conclusion that it is important for Welsh MPs not to be confined to certain areas, but to continue to have an influence on all legislation relating to England and Wales. Two categories of MPs would be intrinsically wrong. It would be bad for Wales and also for England.

[Mr Hanson]

Is it not also important, therefore, that MPs representing constituencies in England use the facilities of the Wales Office—where my hon. Friend once worked, as I did 10 years ago with my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy)—to raise Welsh issues through the Secretary of State for Wales’s office?

[Mr David]

Yes, I think that is very important. It is necessary, in this complex mosaic of devolution in Britain, that we have a series of different relationships. Quite often the representation of English MPs to the Wales Office is indeed important. One concern I have is the lack of proactivity from the Wales Office. Increasingly people are asking—

[Chris Ruane]

Where is the Secretary of State?

[Mr David]

Yes, where is she, and what is the point of the Wales Office? The Wales Office has a point; there is a need for a Secretary of State for Wales, but he or she has a job to do. That job needs to be promoted effectively, which is not being done at the moment.

I want to pick up something said by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas). As someone who passionately believes in devolution—as power should rest close to the people—and who believes in Wales and the United Kingdom, my concern is that there is almost an unholy alliance, an inadvertent alliance, between Welsh nationalism and the Conservative party. Although they might sometimes be pulling in different directions, the common ground is the break-up of the United Kingdom. The Conservative party is becoming an English party. That worries me intensely. It goes against the whole grain of history. Nevertheless, it is becoming an objective truth.

[Mr Mark Field]

The fact is we have eight seats; the Conservative party is the second party in Wales. As the hon. Gentleman will know, only two years ago, we got more votes in the European election than the Labour party, for the first time in living memory. I do not think that there is any sense that the Welsh Conservative party wants to break away. In many ways we are very committed to the United Kingdom and to Wales.

[Mr David]

Yes, but my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham made the important point that it spoke volumes when the Secretary of State for Wales had no opinion in the recent referendum. That shows the attitude of the Conservative party towards Wales. At the very least, it is not interested. It does not want to know.

That brings me to the last point I wish to make. It is extremely important to have this England and Wales debate and to recognise that the United Kingdom has particularities, but there are also many things that unite us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I will not give way, because I have only five minutes to deal with all the issues that have been raised. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who is no longer in his place, referred to the fact that a number of his constituents living in Wales use English public services. He said that he should have a say in those services. The point that I made in my intervention was that many of my constituents have to use public services, such as the health service, in Wales. They have no say over how those are set up, because those policy decisions are made by the Welsh Assembly Government.

[Mr David]

Does the Minister not recognise that an extremely important cross-border protocol is in place, which directly influences what happens in Wales and England?

[Mr Harper]

In my experience as a constituency MP, the protocol does not work well. The cross-border issues, which, as the right hon. Member for Torfaen said, are much more important between England and Wales than they are between England and Scotland because of the way in which the population is distributed, were not very well thought through when the devolution settlement was arrived at. Many things do not work very well across borders. The experience of my constituents is that the English-Welsh border has become more of a real barrier since devolution than it was before. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) referred to that issue when he asked whether English MPs knew what they were voting for. I am not sure that they did, because the cross-border issues were not very well thought through.

The right hon. Member for Torfaen asked—at least he was fair enough to ask the question; one or two other Members put it as a statement—whether the Conservative party was still a Unionist party. It absolutely is; it is the Conservative and Unionist party. We were the only party that contested seats in all four parts of the United Kingdom. It is fair to say that our experience of contesting seats in Northern Ireland did not go as well as we had hoped, but we did contest seats in all four parts. We are a Unionist party, and we want to keep the Union together. Indeed, that is why we want to tackle the West Lothian question. Some commentators believe that any threat or damage to the United Kingdom would stem from the resentment of English voters—not MPs—so it is important to deal with the issues to keep the United Kingdom together.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster pointed out what would happen if we had a United Kingdom Government who did not have a majority in England but insisted on governing as if they did. Given that we have a devolution settlement in Wales and Scotland, the resentment that would ensue could have the effect that the right hon. Member for Torfaen fears.

This debate shows the complexity of the issue. A number of Members leapt into potential solutions, mainly focusing on what the Conservative party had set out before the election. Of course, the two coalition parties come at the issue from different angles. Unusually, my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster may find the Liberal Democrat federal solution more to his liking. The Conservative party had a different approach. Our agreed solution is to get the commission to examine the issue so that we can try to reach a thoughtful and sensible conclusion. We are thinking about the composition, scope and remit of that commission. Once we have finished setting that out, we will announce it to the House.