Wales Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this has been a debate of rare quality. As has been said, we have had contributions from five former Secretaries of State—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, and the noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell, Lord Hain, Lord Hunt and Lord Murphy—all, obviously, with vast experience of this area. We have also had a contribution of rare quality as a maiden speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. It was truly excellent and I am sure we all look forward to many contributions from her in the future, not only on Wales but focusing very much on it. We have also benefited greatly from the contributions of former Assembly Members, party leaders and former Ministers, from the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, to the noble Lords, Lord Wigley, Lord Howarth and Lord Elis-Thomas, who also brought their great experience to bear I will try to deal with key points that have been made during the course of the debate. Obviously I look forward to engaging in Committee and thereafter on some of the detail. There is a genuine feeling that we want to move forward in a consensual way, as far as possible, and obviously many areas of the Bill have been welcomed pretty much universally—not least in the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, on some of the internal workings, elections and so on, which we both agree should have been matters for the Assembly from a much earlier date—probably well preceding 2014 I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, for her kind words in opening. We go back a long way together on devolution matters and I know that she is now adding her wisdom to the counsels of the Assembly. I thank her for what she said and look forward to engaging on some of the issues that she quite fairly set out Let me look at some of the key ones. First, on taxation, I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hain, that there is no neoliberal assault on the part of the Government. This is a pragmatic approach to an issue that it is high time that the Welsh Assembly—who knows, henceforward perhaps the Welsh Parliament—were able to deal with. It is appropriate that a body of such maturity has the tax powers we are talking about It is not, of course, a wholesale tax package. Listening to one or two noble Lords, it sounded as if we were devolving the whole of income tax powers to Wales. That is not the case. We are devolving 10p and there is an ability for the Government of Wales—which is currently the Labour Party, with a Liberal Democrat Minister—to set that at current rates. There is no obligation to vary it. They have to set a rate but they are quite at liberty to set it at the existing rate if that is what they want to do. We have taken away the condition that they are obliged to vary all the rates together. The lock-step has gone, which means that they can be varied quite separately That is appropriate now, devolution having come so far. It is nearly 20 years since there was the issue of whether a separate question being put in Scotland should be put in Wales, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. We would not be doing Wales any great service by holding things back and saying that there has got to be a referendum on the issue. There is no assault on the state. Listening to the present Prime Minister, it is quite clear that she realises that the state has a powerful role to play. That seems to strike a chord with the electorate because that is where the electorate is, too. That is important. I disagree on this issue with my noble friend Lady Finn. It is appropriate that we move forward on this without greater delay because, in my view, it would hold back Wales Moving on to look at that in the wider context of the fiscal framework and the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, put to me initially about whether we should wait until we have got the legislative consent Motion, I can assure her that I think that that is absolutely appropriate. Although legally we could move this legislation forward without the LCM, that would not be the appropriate thing to do. We are looking for progress from the Welsh Assembly and, as I understand it, discussions between my right honourable friend David Gauke, the Chief Secretary, and Minister Mark Drakeford are going well. I hope that progress continues and that I will be able to give more details to noble Lords as matters progress. That is certainly our intention.