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Government of Wales Bill

But it might be the case that the question is impossible to put because the process whereby one develops the interests of the people of Wales is more difficult than the yes/no concept of a referendum question. Why should it be more complex? Is it because the Government have set out to make it more complex? No, because what the Government have created and what has been in place for the people of Wales is a partially-devolved Administration and powers that are very limited. We always anticipated that these powers would be subject to pressure for enhancement and improvement as the Assembly developed in its confidence and as the Executive became more and more responsive to the Assembly. The two main concepts are in this Bill; on the one hand separating the Executive from the legislature, which is one major principle in the Bill; and secondly how we have a process that is subject to democratic scrutiny both in Wales, which will be the origin of the request, and in the United Kingdom in both Houses of Parliament when the requests come forward. It might be said that this looks like a very torturous road, and a partial road, and one which will take a period of time to deliver. So it will. My noble friend Lord Richard—who has been ever-present with us and now when I want to call him in aid regrettably is not in his place—thought that the process would take up to 2011 before there were additional powers for the Welsh Assembly. Under this process, if the National Assembly so wants it, and if this House and the other place so agree, the process will operate more quickly. It might be said, ““This is a pretty complex operation””. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, who was looking for difficulties rather than helping us with solutions, said, ““What about a situation where the Assembly Government in Wales might be different in political hue from the rest of the United Kingdom?””. That is a concept that beggars belief at present. If that were to occur, the noble Lord is right to identify that there would be greater difficulties. I have no doubt that a government hostile to what the National Assembly of Wales sought to achieve would use this process, through its democratic mandate, to resist some of these proposals. After all, it would have that right; that is how these Orders in Council are meant to be processed. Does anybody think that that is more difficult for the people of Wales than what obtains at the present time? Does anybody think that it is easy for the National Assembly and the Executive in Wales to contemplate how they would successfully influence United Kingdom legislation if the Executive that initiated such legislation was from another party? It is a clash of two mandates which we all recognise. In any devolved administration that clash will, from time to time, happen. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, cannot say that this process will throw up a great many difficulties when a clash of two mandates occurs. Before this concept was ever devised, differences between the administration of the United Kingdom and that of Wales would throw up just such difficulties. Let us make no bones about the fact that the Conservative Front Bench is proposing, for the first time in the Conservative Party’s recent history—I cannot refer back to Edmund Burke, though I am conscious that one or two noble Lords may be able to do so—that it is in favour of enhancing the democratic rights of the people of Wales. It is in favour of greater democracy in Wales, subject to a referendum, but it does not have the faintest idea what the question put to the people of Wales would look like, or even if it would be intelligible. The alternative is the Bill; I support and defend the Bill.