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Constitutional Reform

As I said that, I realised that I had probably made a mistake that the noble Lord might well come back at me about. No, I cannot explain the difference. I am sure that, with his experience, he will understand that there probably are some subtle differences, but they are well beyond me. Comments were made about when provisions of the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 will be commenced. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was particularly annoyed about the provisions not being brought in in due course. I have to point out that that matter, which was discussed by both Houses, was very complicated and we made it clear during the passage of the Bill that it would not be commenced before summer this year. What are the problems? We need to consider further precisely how the system would be enforced, how individuals would verify their tax status, and the roles of the Electoral Commission and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. He will know, though, that there is now an amendment down on the CRAG Bill—not the same amendment, of course, as the provision has already passed into law—that deals with the issue of deeming taxation in Parliament. I shall deal with a couple of points that were made in relation to the Prime Minister’s Governance of Britain commitments. I have a list of the 12 areas where the Prime Minister, in his speech in the other place on 3 July 2007, pledged to give up executive powers. It would take up too much of the House’s time to read it out but there has been progress on practically every one of those 12 pledges, and we as a Government can be proud of the fact that they are being put into effect. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, asked about devolution. He served with distinction on the Calman commission. We think that devolution has been a great success for the past 10 years. We want to make it better and more accountable. Our proposals will set out a new deal. We are committed to bringing forward a single piece of primary legislation as soon as possible in the next Parliament to ensure that people in Scotland have robust legislation, grounded in proper analysis, to deliver this enhanced devolution. As the House will be aware, the Calman recommendations were designed as a package and are being treated as such. Our feeling is that any attempt to cherry pick a small number of recommendations while simply dismissing the vast majority of proposals ignores the deliberations of the commission, evidence-based as it was, and disregards the need to ensure that these recommendations are carefully and coherently introduced. With regard to Wales, my noble friend Lord Morgan asked what view the Government took of the Jones Parry commission. I argue that we have proved our commitment to devolution in Wales. The Secretary of State for Wales and the First Minister have been working closely together over the past weeks as discussions have continued about a referendum. I understand that the First Minister will be laying a Motion in the Assembly on 2 February to be debated on 9 February. We believe that devolution has also been a success in Wales up to this point. Among the points that other noble Lords made, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made one about local authorities and the importance of town councils. I am proud that I was a mayor of a town council some years ago. It is a very useful unit of local government, in my view. There was the attack, if I may put it like that, in beautiful language from my noble friend Lord Harrison on the role of the Bishops in this House. That was a marked feature of his speech, on which I do not intend to comment. The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, made her equally articulate attack on the usual channels, while the answer to my noble friend Lord Grocott has to be yes. I dare not say anything else. In all, this has been a very good and timely debate. It will be interesting to see whether this debate is remembered and acted on after the election. We have put in place major electoral and constitutional reforms, but our work is not completed. There should not be constitutional change for constitutional change’s sake, but it must never be off the agenda and it is certainly not off ours. In this House, we have the power to debate and review the ways in which we work and make proposals to ensure that they are most effective. Today’s debate has moved us forward by giving us the space to reflect carefully and consider the views of our peers. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who introduced the debate.