Empowerment and Responsibility: Financial Powers to Strengthen Wales

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, I appreciate very much the opportunity to speak again on these matters; as we have heard, this is one of a series of debates we are holding. The Silk commission is the natural progression of what has been happening in Wales over the past century. It is a natural development, not an explosion, in Wales; perhaps it is because we are a more reasonable people that we act in such a way. You could go back to the century before last—although perhaps I should not in a time-limited debate. However, you can go back to ET John, a century ago, with his first Bill for a Welsh parliament, and then on to all the developments that we have had in education, such as the University of Wales, and with health boards and the setting up of the county councils. There have been myriad developments over the past century and the previous one as well. The former Secretary of State for Wales, Jim Griffiths—whom we admire whichever party we are from—did a tremendous amount. Others have had a hand in developments such as the setting up of the Council for Wales and Monmouthshire, with Huw T Edwards as its chairman, and the setting up of the first Welsh Office, in its embryonic sense; before Jim Griffiths of course, the Home Secretary shared the responsibility of being in charge of Wales.

However, these are different days. We have our own, very vibrant, television channel, which has done so much to safeguard the Welsh language, and the Welsh school movement. It is gradual but certain development, and last year of course we had the referendum that gave us more authority in 20 defined areas. We are on our way. We are not going as fast as some would like us to go but I think we are going as fast as it is possibly wise to go. Some might not agree with me, but we are on our way to having more responsibility and authority over our own affairs.

There is a great deal of unfinished business. I brought up three things with financial implications in a debate a wee while ago, which we have to look at again. What is the future of the television services in Wales? When will the DCMS and the BBC lose their grip and the Welsh Assembly Government take responsibility and have financial responsibility? We have problems there, and there are strong financial implications.

Then we have Welsh Water. I and others remember the great outburst when the Welsh valley, Tryweryn, was drowned and Liverpool took our water without any payment or anything. How are we now going to have authority over the water supplies, the rivers and the reservoirs, of Wales? There are great financial implications there.

I have worried about cross-border issues many times in the Chamber. The Welsh border with England is about 160 miles long. The Scottish border with England is only 96 miles. The problems of border responsibility are much greater for Wales than they are between Scotland and England.

The health service is another issue. It is much easier for us in north Wales to go to Liverpool or Manchester than to go to Cardiff or Swansea. Whatever happens, we have to keep these links with the north-west of England in a healthy state.

Then there is transport in Wales. The Welsh border is woven with railways and roads from the north to the south. You could never dig Offa’s Dyke again because the transport system would go berserk. The border issues mean that, whatever decision we take, in Wales we must always keep that link, in a healthy and positive way, with those on the other side of it.

We need the wisdom of Solomon or the magic of Merlin to be able to resolve some of the border issues, but they all affect Welsh revenue. How much revenue we are going to have, how we are going to dispense it and what taxation systems we bring in under the auspices of the Welsh Government are all involved.

I make one plea. I do not see independence for Wales as our final destination. I see a more federal establishment where, as now, the devolved issues in Wales—education, health and so on—remain entirely under the authority of the Welsh Assembly Government. Things such as defence would remain the responsibility of the Parliament of the United Kingdom: the four nations represented here at Westminster.

Where are we going with our devolution? I worry about the result of the Scottish referendum in a year or so. If Scotland, with 59 Members of Parliament, withdrew from the UK Parliament, you would have here what amounted—to some people’s delight, but not to mine—to a permanent Conservative majority. If that happened, the people of Wales would be very, very unhappy. At the moment, we have only seven Conservative Members for Wales—more than the Liberals, we admit—with a majority of Labour Members. The people of Wales would find life pretty intolerable under a permanent Conservative Government. I plead with the people of Scotland to vote no in their referendum for Wales’s sake.

We will have to tackle these issues, and not always by ourselves. Some things we in Wales can do, but for other things we are dependent on what happens in Europe, in the world and in financial circles. So we advance with care and with a wide vision, saying and realising that we are not absolute masters of our own destiny.