HC Deb 02 March 1998 vol 307 cc728-32 '( ) The Assembly may promote or oppose private or local legislation relating to Wales.'.—[Mr. Wigley.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Wigley

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause relates to the issue of private legislation and is, to some extent, a probing new clause, if that term may be used. Clarification is needed on several questions regarding private Bills—I emphasise that we are talking about private Bills, not private Members' Bills.

I imagine that the answer to the first question will be yes. Does the assembly, as a geographically defined body within the United Kingdom, have the right to promote private Bills, as would a local authority or any other body, and the right to oppose private Bills?

The second question is: can Wales, as a unit, be considered as an area for which it is appropriate to initiate private Bills—can the assembly initiate private Bills that apply to the whole of Wales but which would need to pass through the private Bill mechanisms in the House?

The third aspect of the new clause concerns the extent to which the assembly may deal with private Bills. In the fairly recent past, fairly controversial private Bills from Wales have taken hours and hours on the Floor of the House. The Cardiff Bay Barrage Act 1993 is a perfect example of legislation that should be dealt with in the assembly instead of swallowing time on the Floor of the House of Commons.

There are less controversial examples—such as the Porthmadog harbour revision order that affects part of my constituency. From time to time, all hon. Members become involved with such legislation. The hon. Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams) is in the Chamber. A few years ago, a Bangor Market Bill passed through the House by way of the private Bill procedure—and no doubt another resembling it will do so again in future.

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Such matters need not be dealt with in the House of Commons; it should be possible to deal with them in the assembly. However, the Houses of Parliament have a very tight procedure for dealing with private Bills and I am not convinced that the Government intend to make it easier for all that procedure to take place in the assembly.

There is some parallel with the order-making facility that is within the assembly's purview. The fact that the assembly may pass secondary legislation gives it a fair amount of power. If the Government are worried about the amount of power that may be transferred and about the need for checks and balances on the use of that power, I argue that it is no more radical to transfer to the assembly the power to deal with private Bills than to give it order-making powers because, as we heard earlier in the Committee, the power to pass secondary legislation is substantial.

Those are the three aspects of the new clause. We do not intend its wording to be wide enough to cover all three adequately. Our intention is to discover what will be the role of the assembly when dealing with private legislation and to express the hope that it will be possible to develop the assembly into—if it is not so from the start—a body that can deal entirely with these matters. The time of the House of Commons should not be used on matters that are essentially local and should be dealt with by people from Wales, in Wales.

Mr. Letwin

I shall briefly ask the Secretary of State a question that is in line with the probing new clause. In the context of the developing argument about the legal status of the National Assembly for Wales, it would be interesting to know whether the Secretary of State believes that, in the absence of such a new clause—although the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) may disagree with me, I think it likely that the Government will not accept it—the vires exist for the assembly to promote private legislation.

When I inquired, the Clerk in the Private Bill Office told me that any individual in the United Kingdom can promote a private Bill without having any special rights, duties or powers. Is the National Assembly for Wales, in that sense, a legal person? Does it have, therefore, the right to promote a private Bill and, if so, what would be the scope of that right and which moneys would it deploy in its promotion?

Would the assembly have the right, in promoting such a Bill, to use moneys that the Secretary of State had allocated to it for its general purposes? If so, would there be any constraint on that, or might the assembly spend 100 per cent. of its budget on the promotion of one private Bill?

Finally, to illustrate why I ask the extreme and apparently ludicrous question about the 100 per cent., if the nature of the private Bill in question were very special—if it were one which the right hon. Member for Caernarfon and his colleagues might want to be promoted, relating to the governance of Wales—would it be debarred by some means, or would it have to be debarred only by the ordinary processes of the House in considering private Bills?

Mr. Ron Davies

I thank the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) for opening the debate and I am pleased to tell him that the Government accept the broad principle of new clause 7. I hope that we will return at a later stage with an appropriate new clause because, as he suggested, the wording of his new clause is somewhat defective.

The Welsh Office has previously promoted at Westminster legislation that would have been local legislation if it had not been promoted by the Government; examples are the Conwy Tunnel (Supplementary Powers) Act 1983, the Cardiff Bay Barrage Act 1993 and possibly the Caldey Island Act 1990.

We do not want there to be any doubt about the power of the assembly to promote or oppose essentially local legislation, as the Secretary of State for Wales has done in the past. I cannot give the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) a direct answer to his question at this moment, but it is because we want to avoid doubt that the Government are minded to accept the thrust of the new clause 7.

The right hon. Member for Caernarfon asked whether Wales would be regarded as an acceptable geographical entity for the purposes of promoting private legislation. The answer is yes, I understand that that would be accepted.

Acceptance of the thrust of the right hon. Gentleman's case would not confer on the assembly the power to make primary legislation. The assembly could promote only a private Bill in Parliament.

The Government are considering further the precise terms of their new clause. For instance, it may be desirable to require a decision to promote or oppose local legislation to be supported by more than a simple majority of the assembly. We are looking into such matters and if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to make representations during this brief debate or subsequently, I shall listen carefully to them.

We must also consider the interaction with the Transport and Works Act 1992. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the many hours of happy debate that the House had on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill. Those proceedings have largely been overtaken by the Transport and Works Act 1992. We must ensure that the assembly could not promote an order for development under that Act and approve it itself. We will ensure that the new clause is technically correct in that respect.

In view of the undertakings that I have given, I hope that at the appropriate time the right hon. Gentleman will withdraw the motion.

Mr. Wigley

I am grateful to the Secretary of State and I am glad to have had positive responses from him on two of the matters that I raised. At the end of his remarks, he touched upon, but did not clarify, the third.

The right hon. Gentleman acknowledged that the assembly is a developing body. To what extent is it possible—and to what extent is the possibility constrained—for the assembly to develop into a body that not only promotes Bills, but can dispose of them? For example, local authorities in Wales could propose their private Bills to the assembly if the Government deemed that to be appropriate. The order-making facility in the Bill—in clauses 22 and 141, I think—may indeed allow that to happen.

I realise that there must be checks and balances in the process of private legislation, that there may be private interests that need to be balanced and that there is a role for the House of Lords as well as the House of Commons. None the less, it may well be that the assembly could handle some aspects of private legislation from within Wales—that from local authorities, for example—without their needing to come through to Westminster. What is the Government's thinking on that?

Mr. Davies

We shall have to consider the matter carefully before we table the new clause that the right hon. Gentleman seeks. The problem is that private legislation is effectively primary legislation. I made it clear that we cannot through this mechanism confer on the assembly the power to make primary legislation. I said earlier that such a provision would have to be made by the promotion of a private Bill in this Parliament.

I understand that it would be largely a matter for the House authorities to decide whether a private Bill was an appropriate private Bill or whether it exceeded the provisions of this place for the handling of private legislation. I regret that I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman a precise answer on that point.

We must examine closely the operation of the Transport and Works Act 1992. The assembly cannot use order-making powers under that Act to create de facto primary legislation. That is not the purpose of the Act and we will have to ensure that our new clause takes that into account.

The hon. Member for West Dorset asked a fair question and I tried earlier to answer it. He asked whether the absence of new clause 7 would mean that the assembly would not have the power to promote private legislation. The assembly is a creature of statute and is given certain powers. That particular power is not conferred by the Bill, although there may be arguments about whether, de facto, the assembly could decide to do that. The Government have accepted the argument advanced by the right hon. Member for Caernarfon to avoid doubt.

Once we have tabled our own new clause, there will be no doubt and the assembly will have the power to promote primary legislation. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question about whether that would be in order in the present circumstances is that there is an element of doubt. Instead of prolonged debates about whether that can or cannot happen, the Government have decided to clarify the position by tabling their own new clause.

Mr. Letwin

I am grateful to the Secretary of State. His surprising response to the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) invalidates part of my question, as the problem will not arise.

I repeat the second part of my question. Under the Government's version of the right hon. Gentleman's new clause, will there be any limits on the expenditure that the assembly will be able to incur in promoting private legislation?

Mr. Davies

I am trying to be helpful to the hon. Gentleman, but we do not have the new clause written yet, so I cannot tell him whether there will be such limits. Perhaps I can give him a steer. I do not think that it would be appropriate for us to lay down financial limits that should apply to the assembly in the exercise of its powers. The purpose of the Bill is to create the assembly and give it substantial powers to decide its own priorities. A pretty good case would have to be put to me for circumscribing the powers with a financial limit.

Mr. Wigley

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his positive response to at least part of the thrust of my new clause. I hope that the Government's new clause will be ready for our consideration, otherwise we shall have to look to the House of Lords to deal with it and we shall have a further opportunity to consider the matter when the Bill returns to this House.

I put it to the Secretary of State that given that there is a facility in the Bill to amend primary legislation by order in certain restricted areas—the Henry VIII powers, as they are fondly known, and we are all growing more knowledgeable about what Henry VIII could and could not do—

Mr. Ancram

On legislation.

Mr. Wigley

Of course. I would not for a moment suggest that heads should be rolling around the Chamber. Given that those powers exist, if that principle is applied to private Bills, as it may be applied to certain limited areas of public Bills, it might be a way of ensuring that the assembly can deal with certain matters without having to take up the time of Parliament on them. A range of issues arise and it is ridiculous that they become centralised to Westminster and take up the time of the House of Commons.

In drawing up the new clause, the Government may bear that in mind and give the assembly the flexibility to get on with scrutinising and deciding on some local matters, without every single one having to come through Westminster. That would accord with the general tenor of the Secretary of State's approach to other aspects of the Bill. I hope that the Government will move in that direction at the appropriate time.

Mr. Ron Davies

I shall reflect on the points that the right hon. Gentleman has made. The Henry VIII powers to which he refers apply only to specified legislation that is stipulated in the Bill. I have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman's comments and, on the basis of our dialogue, I hope that he will withdraw his new clause and give the Government the opportunity to reflect on his case.

Mr. Wigley

I intend to do precisely that. We look forward to seeing the wording of the amendment or new clause that the Government will propose at the appropriate time. No doubt we shall return to our discussion of the detailed questions then.

Although the Henry VIII powers apply to specific legislation, the powers of clause 141 are fairly broad with regard to existing legislation to the extent that they impact on certain matters dealt with in the Bill. Flexibility along those lines would be helpful not only to the assembly but to successive Governments in this place. The ultimate control of granting an order to facilitate matters may rest with Governments in Westminster. There is no question of the assembly's marching away with those powers, but it should have the flexibility to ensure that matters are dealt with reasonably in Wales rather than centralised in Westminster. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

The First Deputy Chairman

We now come to new clause 11. Who will move it?

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