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Government of Wales Bill

I have listened intently and with great respect to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and I, too, am a considerable admirer of what has been achieved in the report and its recommendations. It must be one of the most assiduously considered and imaginatively crafted reports on any constitutional issue for a very long time. One must start from the proposition that although as the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, says, it would be a massive change and although it may well be that there is justification for taking the voices of various interests and peoples in Wales on as wide a plane as possible, I nevertheless apprehend that it is an issue that simply will not go away and will have to be considered. Remember that of the 22 county councils in Wales all but five have a membership in excess of 60. In other words, if the vast majority of local authorities in Wales can only be properly served in a committee system by a number in excess—and in many cases far in excess—of 60 then clearly the case is made out for a greater number of Members in the Welsh Assembly. But there is also a deeper justification for the amendment and it is that it would remove an essential absurdity, which is that at the previous Assembly elections in 2003 the Labour Party won three times as many seats as all the other parties put together. I appreciate that it had long been determined before that, and that first-past-the-post crudity should be removed from the system and ameliorated by a system of regional Members in addition. Be that as it may, what it means is that a party that has enjoyed power in Wales for more than three-quarters of a century will from time-to-time find itself unable to exercise its powers as a government. I will readily confess that when these matters were under consideration in the late 1990s with a view to setting up a Welsh Assembly, I was a judge at the time and was in no position to make any political comment whatever, but I very fondly adhered to the idea that there should be some form of additional member system. I regarded that as being honourable and chivalrous and as avoiding the certainty of a long-term Labour hegemony that might ultimately have a stultifying effect on the Assembly, and thought that it might be the best way out. I was wrong—totally, absolutely and utterly wrong. I confess my guilt and penitence in that regard. The ideas behind the additional member system were good and proper, and there was every reason to believe that there would be an inclusive attitude by all the parties concerned. Without in any way suggesting that there is a monopoly of original sin for those minor parties that does not belong to the Labour Party, that was clearly not to be. I have no doubt that had the situation been totally in reverse, the same faults would have appeared. We have a system now whereby, dependent upon illness or some other quirk of fate, there is the possibility from week to week of a vital vote being lost purely on the numbers game, and little to do with merit. That is a situation that cannot be allowed to prevail. Likewise, looking back at the system, I think that even if it had not worked out exactly that way, it is a flawed concept of government for there to be two different types of members in the same assembly. The role of the regional members is so undefined—although I have no doubt that in most, if not in all, cases, they are people who work conscientiously and honourably—that it is very difficult for them to work side by side with the first-past-the-post elected member. Like the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, many years ago when I was a Member in another place I felt that there was a bond and almost a chastity between the elected Member and his electorate, save for a period of about four or five weeks leading up to an election. But I felt that that chastity was respected, generally; other Members did not come into your constituency, either from your own party or from other parties, save on the basis of notice and understanding and, indeed, of total courtesy. I find it very difficult to imagine how regional members and an individual constituency member can work in a way that is in any way parallel with that principle. So the system must be changed—and if it must be changed, I should have thought that STV was as good an alternative as any. I do not think it perfect, because I believe that you break that link that should exist between the electorate and the single member. If you double the membership, of course you do not have a single member any more. My only plea would be that in clustering together the constituencies, one should make that cluster as small as reasonably possible. In other words, if it can be confined to three, four or five members, all the better—but, even then, no single member will be responsible for that constituency.