Welsh assembly to get new powers
The government of Wales bill finally passed in the House of Lords last night, with the result that the Welsh assembly will take on new powers from next year.
Opposition peers maintained their opposition to a key plank of the bill, which prevents assembly candidates from standing both in a constituency and on a party list.
But they conceded the government had made concessions on several other issues, such as the political balance of committees, and the bill was passed without a vote.
It will receive royal assent today, and from next summer the Welsh assembly will be able to apply on a case-by-case basis to Westminster for extra powers.
As first minister Rhodri Morgan explained: “We can go to parliament with a proposal for a bill and parliament can say after 90 minutes in the House of Commons, 90 minutes in the House of Lords, we are transferring to you the power to do the job yourself.”
The government of Wales bill also provides for a referendum in the near future, providing parliament and the assembly agree, in which the country’s voters would be asked if they wanted fully devolved powers on a par with the Scottish parliament.
Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had supported the extra powers, but expressed concern that plans for choosing the membership of the assembly’s committees would have given Labour too much power. This has since been resolved.
However, the dual candidacy bar continued to be controversial, because of concerns that it would again benefit Labour more than any other party.
“The change is undoubtedly partisan in that it is an attempt to protect the interests of the sitting constituency members against the rivalry of regional list members,” said Lord Roberts of Conwy for the Conservatives.
“It is not irrelevant that all Labour members of the assembly are constituency members and none regional list members. Whether the prohibition will succeed in improperly protecting sitting constituency members remains to be seen.
“What it will do, as [the] Arbuthnott [electoral boundary commission] pointed out, is,
‘restrict voter choice and potentially diminish the quality of constituency contests’.
Political parties will have to find more candidates and this increase may affect quality.
“Nevertheless, the fact has to be faced that the political parties in Wales have already reconciled themselves to the requirements of this legislation even before its passage into law and are already appointing candidates to contest the assembly election next May.”
Lord Livsey of Talgarth, for the Liberal Democrats, noted that only three other countries – Thailand, the Ukraine and Palestine – had a ban on dual candidates, saying it was “very unsatisfactory indeed”.
However, like his Tory counterpart, he was resigned to the issue, saying: “The clock is ticking, and there are matters in the bill, particularly the possibility of getting primary legislative powers in due course, that are too important to ignore. “
