That this House takes note of the 20th anniversary of devolution in the United Kingdom and the role of the devolved administrations in the governance of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
My Lords, it is a great honour to open this debate. I have the greatest respect for the wealth of knowledge and experience of devolution that exists within your Lordships’ House, which is amply demonstrated by the list of speakers for this debate.
In your Lordships’ House, there are former and current members of the Welsh Government, including the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who is speaking today. There are former members of the National Assembly, such as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys. There are former Secretaries of State for Wales, including the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who is speaking in this debate.
There are also former members of the Scottish Government. The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, is not in his place, but he certainly contributes to this House with great acumen. Former members of the Scottish Parliament are speaking today, including the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Purvis. There are also former Members of the other place who have been Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland: again, I mention the noble Lord, Lord Hain. There is a wealth of other Members of this House who served with distinction in the devolved Administrations. My noble friend Lord Duncan will close the debate. He serves both the Northern Ireland Office and the Scotland Office with distinction.
Over the past 20 years, successive United Kingdom Governments have supported devolution. They have put in place arrangements that provide the different nations of the United Kingdom with the space to pursue different domestic policies, should they choose to do so, while protecting and preserving the benefits of being part of the larger United Kingdom family of nations. Devolution has also provided our four proud nations with a platform to celebrate our unique cultural heritage, while sharing a common identity, making the United Kingdom a truly precious union of nations.
I should acknowledge that some noble Lords were not supportive of devolution historically—I fall into that category myself. That has changed massively. My own views have certainly changed; I am now very much in favour of devolution and am a proponent of it. That is true of all the mainstream parties in the United Kingdom today.
It is evident that support for devolution has grown over the years. In Wales in 1997, there was a very narrow vote in favour of establishing a National Assembly. In 2011, under David Cameron, we had a further referendum on full law-making powers, supported by all four mainstream parties in Wales. All but one local authority area voted in favour of giving the Assembly those powers; even in the only area that did not, it was an extremely close call. Today, the Senedd is an established feature of everyday life, taking critical decisions on matters that affect the lives of people in Wales. It has had many notable successes.
My Lords, 20 years of devolution over four nations is a substantial subject, and the initiators of this debate are to be congratulated on their choice of it. On 12 May, we marked the 20th anniversary of the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament. Up to now, this has been what many regard as the major implemented constitutional innovation for the UK of the past two decades. It was brought about by a Government who sought not to gain narrow party advantage but to improve the governance of the UK. Making government more responsive to the particular differences of the various parts of the UK was seen as a good in itself. It owed much to the foundational work of John Smith and later the constitutional convention, to the determination of the Blair/Brown Government and to the political skills of Donald Dewar.
This year is also the anniversary—the 40th—of the first Scottish referendum on devolution, when the vote, although in favour of devolution, was not considered sufficient to enable such a major constitutional change. It was 52% in favour and 48% against. Such was how the “will of the people” was interpreted 1979.
The Labour Government of 1997 introduced devolution not only to Scotland but of course to Wales, London and, in a new form, to Northern Ireland. It must be said that these innovations were not greeted with universal enthusiasm—I note that the Minister was one of those not expressing such enthusiasm —but, as time passed and the institutions matured, acceptance and popularity increased. Many of those who opposed the whole concept of devolution gradually warmed to it. In Scotland, for example, the Conservative Party that opposed devolution initially has since come to perceive the devolved Parliament’s virtues—and not simply because it has become the largest opposition party of late.
Despite a somewhat uncertain start, devolution is now seen as a permanent part of the UK’s constitution. The motive for devolution was indeed improving governance. The introduction of voting systems that did not entrench Labour recognised that minority views should not be ignored in favour of winner-takes-all outcomes. The refusal to gerrymander the electoral system in the devolved legislatures has, it must be recognised, not always been entirely comfortable for Labour, but it has promoted government more representative of the electorate. Sometimes Governments have to take decisions on the basis of national, not party interest.
My Lords, I am delighted to see several old friends—I use that word deliberately—from across the parties who were there on that first day in May 1999 at the start of the Welsh Assembly. The fact that a significant number of us have been in the devolved institutions and are now here—and in one or two cases the reverse—strengthens both sets of institutions. It certainly means that our debates are enriched and informed in comparison with what would otherwise be the case.
I am sure that my colleagues from that time in Wales remember the sense of anticipation, challenge and excitement of being Members of the new Assembly that we worked together to create. It is important to remember what a challenge that was. Most of us did not know how it ought to work; we did not know how it would operate. In fact, we benefited from the experience of people such as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who had been in the other place and carried some of its basic rules with them. We also benefited from a lot of people who had been councillors and brought that experience with them.
The referendum was held very quickly in 1997. It is important to remember nowadays, as we talk about the practicality of a people’s vote, how quickly that referendum was held after the Blair victory. There was a wafer-thin victory in Wales for the concept of an Assembly. The moment it was created, there was an active campaign to get it abolished. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, for his wholehearted conversion to the cause of devolution, which I know is totally genuine. It is a tribute to all Assembly Members that the extent of the success of devolution can be measured by the fact that, when we held a second referendum in 2011, there was an overwhelming majority in favour of the Assembly having more powers.
I will say a little about the history of liberalism in Wales, and support for devolution. My party is a firm and passionate supporter of devolution, believing that decisions are best made as close as possible to the people they affect. That has been the case ever since Lloyd George formed the Welsh Liberal Council in 1897. In 1967, on St David’s Day, Emlyn Hooson MP, who later became a distinguished Member of this House, introduced a Government of Wales Bill in the other place which advocated a Welsh Parliament. It was roundly defeated by the combined votes of Conservative and Labour MPs. So it is no surprise that we as a party continued to campaign for a Welsh Assembly and were active participants from the start. I wanted to take part in this debate today because I have the privilege of being the only person from Wales to have been in government in both the Welsh Government and the UK Government—and my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace has the accompanying position and experience in relation to Scotland. If I may put it this way, I have seen it from both sides of the fence.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, for his comprehensive introduction to this debate, covering the development of devolution across all parts of the United Kingdom and paying attention to the particular problems of how England fits into a structure that has been designed elsewhere.
I wish to say a bit about the legislation that was put together to create a reliable vehicle for this major alteration to our constitution. I should explain that my qualification for speaking is that I was involved in the legislative process in this House from the very start. I was one of the 40 or so hardy souls who worked late into the evening as the Bills were going through this House. Despite our protests, devolution always seemed to be taken as last business—and when I say that, I mean very last business. The Scotland Bill, which was my main concern, was given eight days in Committee, but the time allotted to us each evening was from around 10 pm onwards, so we were struggling with the need to complete the work while also finding time to sleep. I am not exaggerating—I am recorded in Hansard as speaking on the Scotland Bill at 2.30 am on one of those days. That was not the time at which we rose that night, and it was not the only time that we sat until the early hours.
That is one side of the picture. The other side is my interest in the legislation when sitting as a judge in the Appellate Committee of this House, in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and in the UK Supreme Court. Issues were brought before us such as whether the Scottish Parliament or Members of the Scottish Government, including the Lord Advocate, were acting within the powers that had been devolved to them; and, at a later stage in two cases that came before us, whether the Welsh Assembly had acted within the powers that had been devolved to it. I can claim credit for being the first judge to use the expression “Welsh law”, because it seemed to me that that was indeed what was developing at the time, and to my great pleasure it has developed much further since. This means that I was able to see how the system was working in practice.
My Lords, I welcome today’s debate for a number of reasons, one being my involvement a decade ago in the Calman commission, which was tasked with carrying out an inquiry into the first 10 years of devolution in Scotland. It is interesting to reflect on what has been achieved a further 10 years since 2009.
In many respects, Scottish devolution can claim to have been a considerable success. The Scottish Parliament and Government are both central and well-established parts of Scottish life. As we have heard, additional powers have been devolved, including welfare powers. Most notably, and specifically mentioned by a number of speakers, tax-raising obligations have been established with the transfer of significant new tax powers to the Scottish Parliament.
Both the Calman and Smith commissions recommended improving the financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament, which was not previously accountable to the Scottish electorate for how revenue was raised in the same way it was for how revenue was spent. Greater financial accountability and revenue-raising responsibilities have now been achieved. It is with some misgivings that I acknowledge that important and necessary step, as I now find myself living in the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom.
What has also gone well over the 20 years of devolution in Scotland, though this is less well-recognised north of the border, has been the continuing commitment of United Kingdom Governments to the future well-being of Scotland in not just reserved but devolved and shared matters. The current United Kingdom Government, for instance, have protected the Scottish Government budget, boosting the block grant budget and giving the Scottish Government more money to spend on schools and hospitals. The funding boost to the NHS alone is worth some £2 billion. The current Government are also investing in Scottish cities and elsewhere, with £1.2 billion committed to seven growth deals covering Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Ayrshire, Inverness, Stirling and Tay cities. There are more deals under negotiation, with respect to Moray and the Borderlands.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, for the generosity he showed in introducing this debate to a number of individuals in the Chamber who have made contributions over the past 20 years.
Having supported devolution all my political life, going back over 50 years, I was privileged to have organised the Government’s and Welsh Labour’s referendum campaign in 1997—though whether I should remind noble Lords of that, given the decimal-point narrowness of the win, is another matter entirely. My friend the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, will recall the drama of that night in the royal college of music, as the results came in to be centrally collated by my officials and those of Ron Davies and Win Griffiths. We had relays of depressing results, and then suddenly Carmarthenshire swept us past right at the last minute. I should point out for the record that the biggest yes vote was in my own constituency of Neath, so I take Neath as the leader of that campaign.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who has become a good friend and comrade—although I do not want to do him down in his own party—played a very important role in the campaign and fight for devolution in Wales over many decades. So too did my noble friend Lady Gale. She used to be my party boss, and will recall that I was always very obedient. But she had occasion to rap me over the knuckles when, in 1994, I attended a Parliament for Wales conference in Llandrindod Wells. It was attended by some Labour Party members, but mostly by members of Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and others, and I should not have been there, according to the Welsh executive—anyway, that is in the past.
As Welsh Minister, I helped take through the Government of Wales Act 1998. I also served as Secretary of State for Wales for seven years and was responsible for the Government of Wales Act 2006, which has been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, among others. It delivered the full lawmaking powers, subject to a referendum, which produced that verdict overwhelmingly in 2011.
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and his passionate pleading for the people of Northern Ireland. We thank him for that. I shall speak about the devolution of policing in Northern Ireland.
The devolution of policing and justice in Northern Ireland did not take place until 2010. It was called the final piece of the devolution jigsaw. The Good Friday agreement signed in 1998 envisaged that powers for policing would be devolved at some point in the future, but did not specify an exact date. It was to be done with the approval of all the political parties. In September 1999, the Patten report on the future of policing in Northern Ireland recommended major changes to the whole structure of policing. It made 175 recommendations in all.
When I first came to your Lordships’ House 20 years ago this year, I was catapulted by my party to speak on most policing matters in England and Wales, so it was a bit of a shock to find myself thrust immediately into the cauldron of Northern Ireland policing under the beady eye of Lord Smith of Clifton, who was our spokesperson on Northern Ireland at that time. I should remind your Lordships of my interests as set out in the register, most of which are around policing issues, including chairing the North Yorkshire Police Authority for a number of years and being involved in national police authority work.
The Patten report received very mixed views from the public, politicians on most sides and the police themselves. Fundamental changes to policing were being proposed, and I well remember the fierce arguments that were taking place at that time about the very nature of how policing would be delivered. To refresh my memory, I went back to the Second Reading on the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill on 27 July 2000 to read again what we were discussing about the new beginning for policing. It makes fascinating reading in the light of our debate today. It reflected, at the time, the very real concerns we would later encounter in Committee on the Bill. How well I remember being loudly castigated by the late Lord Fitt when I made a contentious remark about policing in Northern Ireland with which he vehemently disagreed.
From my perspective, those successes are best demonstrated by the principle of where it is most appropriate for decisions to be taken. I think particularly of the foot and mouth outbreak and the way that was dealt with in Wales. It was appropriate for it to be dealt with there. It was to do not with a particular policy stance, but with immediacy and responsiveness and the fact that people in Wales expected it to be dealt with from Wales. The same could be said of many aspects of Welsh language delivery and Welsh culture. Not all Welsh language policy rests with the National Assembly, but that is surely the appropriate place for it to be.
One of the Assembly’s successes has been legislating to make Wales the first part of the United Kingdom—probably one of the first jurisdictions in the world—to charge for plastic carrier bags. Public opinion across the world has now caught up and we are seeing pressure to reduce levels of discarded plastic worldwide. The Assembly was ahead of other parts of the United Kingdom at that time, but the success of the approach in Wales led to it being replicated in other parts of the United Kingdom and, indeed, elsewhere.
Two other policy initiatives that were supported very widely in the Assembly were the Older People’s Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner. Other pioneering Acts unique to Wales are also attracting interest from across the globe. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act aims to improve social, cultural, environmental and economic well-being by requiring public bodies in Wales to think about the long-term impact of their decisions and to engage with local communities to tackle poverty, health inequalities and climate change, which are intergenerational issues. That seems extremely sensible. It has been happening since I left the Assembly but it seems a pioneering and interesting approach.
The Assembly also introduced a new approach to organ donation when it became the first nation in the United Kingdom to move to an opt-out system of consent. People aged 18 and over who have lived in Wales for more than 12 months and who die in Wales are now regarded as willing to donate their organs unless they have expressly said that they do not wish to do so. Other parts of the United Kingdom are considering the impact of this new system on the availability of organs for transplant.
The Scottish Parliament has also had its firsts. Scotland was the first part of the United Kingdom to introduce a smoking ban. As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, pointed out recently, it is hard to imagine that Westminster could have legislated to introduce a smoking ban only in Scotland, but that is what the Scottish Parliament did. Other parts of the United Kingdom followed later. We are still seeing significant developments. More recently, the Scottish Parliament introduced minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland. The National Assembly for Wales then passed similar legislation in June for Wales, and the Welsh Government are currently finalising their plans to introduce this policy in Wales.
In Northern Ireland we see a place transformed from what it was 20 years ago. The introduction of the Belfast agreement remains a historic landmark, providing for the principle of consent, established political institutions, reformed policing and justice systems, protections for people’s rights and identities, and new bodies to foster greater north/south and east/west co-operation. The effect has been striking. Employment is at near record levels, rising to a record high of 70% at the end of last year. Northern Ireland remains the most popular location for foreign direct investment outside of London and the south-east, and since 2011 exports are up 11%. In July, the eyes of the world will once again be on Northern Ireland as the oldest and most famous golfing championship in the world, the Open, is played at Royal Portrush. I will say something later about Northern Ireland talks. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, has had a leading part in this area. I look forward to hearing what he has to say later too.
These examples of successes demonstrate a further benefit of devolution: we can learn from the different approaches taken across the United Kingdom to address the common challenges we all face. We have a role to play in that—a number of noble Lords have experience of being Members of the devolved legislatures, as I have indicated. I was proud to serve in the National Assembly too for 12 years. Of course, the current Secretaries of State for Wales and for Scotland are also former Members of the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament respectively. I have been very proud to introduce into the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government a devolution forum that meets regularly and exchanges policy ideas and progress on different areas, because we have much to learn from each other.
We should recognise that people from the proud nations of Scotland and Wales each have two Governments and expect them to work together. One example of this happening concerns growth and city deals, where the two Governments have been working with local authorities and other local partners to develop deals that cover a range of reserved and devolved matters. Indeed, I liaise on a regular basis with Assembly Member Ken Skates on the mid-Wales growth deal, for example.
Perhaps the most striking example of closer engagement relates to the European Union and our preparations to leave. Over the last year we have seen unprecedented levels of engagement between the United Kingdom Government and the devolved Administrations, best exemplified by the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales attending UK Government Cabinet committee meetings.
As we look ahead, it is evident that our intergovernmental relations architecture needs to be refreshed to meet new challenges. We will need to build on existing relationships and work together more closely than we have before. We will also need to manage our new UK regulatory frameworks, developing structures that respect devolution and encourage still closer collaboration.
The UK Government have been clear that the devolved Administrations and legislatures will gain more decision-making powers as a result of the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU. Powers previously exercised at EU level which intersect with devolved competence will, upon exit, flow back directly to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Government have been working closely with the devolved Administrations to decide where it makes sense to do things differently in different parts of the UK, and where we will need to work on a United Kingdom or GB-wide basis—known as the common frameworks.
This process of co-operation and collaboration is helping to shape the post-exit devolution landscape, and demonstrates how the Scottish and Welsh Governments and, currently, the Northern Ireland Civil Service, together with the United Kingdom Government, are able to work together to ensure a prosperous future for the United Kingdom outside the European Union. The publication of the third European Union (Withdrawal) Act and Common Frameworks report on 16 May is testament to the constructive work that the United Kingdom has undertaken, together with the devolved Administrations, to establish common frameworks.
There is great interest in intergovernmental relations at present, not least in light of the way the three Governments of the UK and the Northern Ireland Civil Service are working together on the UK’s exit from the EU. Intergovernmental relations are vital to the effective functioning of devolution and, most importantly, to the delivery of services for all citizens across the UK. Our Governments might not always agree with one another on matters of policy, but we all agree that effective intergovernmental relations are key to delivering on behalf of the citizens of the UK.
Since the inception of devolution, intergovernmental relations have continued to evolve, to develop and, largely, to improve, to meet the needs of the various Administrations across the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister was clear in her meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee plenary session on 14 March 2018 that a fresh look into the way our Governments work together was required, in light of the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU. This work—reviewing the memorandum of understanding on devolution, known as the review of intergovernmental relations—has been ongoing between the four Administrations
Over the coming months, we need to ensure that we are considering proposals for the future delivery of our shared objectives. We want to do that coherently and in a way that provides for Governments to have effective relations but remains adaptable enough to suit their own requirements.
The devolution settlements have not been set in stone for the past 20 years. I will not go over all the changes made in that time, noble Lords will be relieved to hear, but it is worth noting the significant changes made to the Welsh Assembly under the Government of Wales Act, and the most recent further transfer of powers to the devolved legislatures and Administrations under the Scotland Act 2016 and the Wales Act 2017. Many noble Lords speaking in this debate have had a massive impact in this area.
First, in relation to the Scotland Act 2016, two decades on from the first Scotland Act, Holyrood has become one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world. Power and accountability are better balanced than ever before. The Scotland Act 2016 delivered in full the Smith commission agreement, reached by all five of Scotland’s main political parties. The Act increased the financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament; increased responsibility for welfare in areas that complement the Scottish Parliament’s existing powers; increased the scope for the Scottish Government to be more involved in the scrutiny of a range of public bodies; and gave significant new responsibility for roads, speed limits, onshore oil and gas extraction and consumer advocacy and advice.
This year saw an important landmark for the Scotland Act 2016, with all its sections that increase the powers of the Scottish Parliament now in force. This follows the commencement of Section 27 on 8 February 2019, which devolves legislative competence to the Scottish Parliament for welfare food schemes. The Scottish Parliament will now be able to legislate in every area where the Scotland Act 2016 gave it the power to do so.
The Wales Act 2017, which I was very proud to pilot through this House, delivered clarity for Welsh devolution and accountability for the Welsh Government. It implemented the commitments in the St David’s Day agreement that required primary legislation and transformed the Assembly into a fully fledged Parliament. The Act put in place a new, reserved powers model for Welsh devolution; it devolved additional powers in areas such as elections, energy and transport; and it enabled the Assembly to take control of its own affairs, including giving it the ability to decide its own name. I am pleased that the Presiding Officer is taking forward the necessary legislation, so that our Parliament will become the Senedd. The Wales Act provided a robust package that made the Welsh devolution settlement clear, sustainable and stable for the future. The devolution of tax and borrowing powers to Wales and Scotland has increased the accountability of the devolved Administrations as they have become responsible for how funding is raised, as well as how it is spent.
For Northern Ireland, this is not the 20th anniversary of devolution; there, the history of devolution goes back almost 100 years. Northern Ireland’s most recent iteration of devolution stems from the 1998 Belfast agreement, or Good Friday agreement, which is quite simply one of the most important documents in the complex, intertwined and not always happy history of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Last year, of course, marked the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. The agreement was a historic landmark in the history of Northern Ireland, representing the triumph of politics over the division and destruction of the previous 30 years, which saw over 3,500 people tragically killed and countless more lives shattered by violence. Along with its successor agreements, it has been the foundation stone of all that has been achieved.
All of us who care deeply about Northern Ireland have an overriding responsibility to do all we can to protect, preserve and promote that agreement. For our part, the Government remain absolutely steadfast in our support for it and in upholding our commitments under it: to the constitutional principles it set out, to the institutions it establishes and to the rights it guarantees. As a result of the relative peace and stability that the agreement ushered in for so many people, Northern Ireland is a place transformed from what it was two decades ago. But the murder of Lyra McKee last month was a terrible personal tragedy, as well as a sober reminder of why we must not let things slide back to how they used to be. Since that sickening attack in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland’s political leaders have shown great leadership in standing together to reject violence, but it is now time for them and us to go further.
The best possible way of showing those who oppose peace and democracy that their efforts are futile is for all the political institutions of the Good Friday agreement to be fully restored and functioning, as was intended by those who reached that historic, epoch-making agreement 21 years ago. The stability and safety provided by the agreement have allowed Northern Ireland to thrive. Northern Ireland is now a leading destination for inward investment; unemployment is at a record low and employment at a record high. Northern Ireland now needs a devolved Government to allow for local decision-making, strengthen the economy and build a united and prosperous community, and to help guarantee continuing peace and better communal relations.
I turn to English votes and English decentralisation. The recent history of devolution is not exclusive to the devolved Administrations’ relationship with the UK Government and Parliament. Devolution is an exercise of bringing power closer to the people, and this Government have moved quickly to bring about decentralised governance in England through the metro mayors. We now have nine metro mayors throughout the country, if one includes London in that tally, most recently in the North of Tyne region. We have also undertaken to come forward with a Statement on the future of metro mayors and devolution, which we will do shortly.
As noble Lords will know, changes have also been made to how Parliament operates to give effect to the principle of English consent, and sometimes English and Welsh consent, where votes concern only those nations. This approach seeks to address fairly the long-standing West Lothian question.
At the heart of the United Kingdom is the unity of our people: a unity of interests, outlook and principles. This transcends party politics and institutions, the constitution and the economy. It is about the values that we share in our family of nations.
Our union is strongest when each of its constituent parts is strong and working together; we are committed to the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom. When we come together as one people, we benefit from the security and stability that come from being part of one of the largest economies in the world, pooling risks and sharing benefits.
Twenty years on, devolution is indeed the settled will of the people. The settlement has proved itself adaptable and strong. It has given the different nations of the United Kingdom the space to pursue different domestic policies while protecting and preserving the benefits of being part of the larger United Kingdom family of nations.
We remain focused on ensuring that the interests of each nation are fully represented within our union. In the short term, leaving the EU will have a great impact on the future of devolution, including increasing the powers of the devolved legislatures and Administrations. The review of intergovernmental relations will ensure that the way the Administrations work together is appropriate for these new developments.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to open the debate today, to reflect on the achievements of devolution and to mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament and the renewed Northern Ireland Assembly. Our commitment to devolution is total. The cause of bringing together our United Kingdom is a noble one. It is a cause in which I know your Lordships’ House will play its full part. I look forward to listening to the debate today on these important issues. I beg to move.
Although the planning of devolution aimed at a relatively fixed set of arrangements, the reality has been an almost continuous process of evolution, with further powers being attached on the devolved legislatures. Wales voted in 2011 in favour of full legislative powers for the Assembly, shortly to be renamed the Senedd; Scotland, via the Scotland Acts 2012 and 2016, gained power over income tax; in Northern Ireland, despite the problems with power-sharing, the Assembly remains the desired constitutional option for the majority. Of course, these Benches share the Minister’s encouragement of the return of a working Assembly.
The creation of new legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has unsurprisingly not been without problems. Government is difficult and devolved government was found to be more difficult than many expected, especially as most of the elected representatives were beginners in the business of legislating and governing. In addition, there are fewer legislators available than at Westminster to scrutinise legislation and, of course, there are no second chambers, of which we all recognise the benefit. The use of scrutiny committees was intended to improve the consideration of legislation but, at least in Scotland, this has not always proved to be the case. As my noble friend Lord McConnell has observed, scrutiny committees, when subject to party whipping, run the risk of becoming less effective. There is also a concern that capacity is stretched by the amount of legislation coming before the committees. This appears to be the case especially in Wales.
None the less, a real benefit of devolution has been the potential for experimentation with policy initiatives differing from those of the UK Parliament. Interestingly, these initiatives have sometimes been picked up by the UK Government: one example already referred to is the smoking ban in Scotland in 2006, which was followed not only by the UK Parliament but by the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies. Another example, again already referred to, is the Welsh Assembly’s legislation to impose a levy on plastic bags in 2011, which has been followed by the rest of the UK. Experimentation in the nations of the UK introduced by the nations themselves avoids the democratic default when it is imposed by central government. Few in Scotland can forget the debacle when Scotland was used by central government as the experimental ground for the poll tax.
In the business of government there has been development to provide an arrangement more compatible with national requirements both in Scotland and in Wales. The 2007 reform of the Civil Service in Scotland to introduce collective rather than departmental objectives appears to have produced a more coherent, more flexible organisation more in keeping with the smaller scale of government. The Civil Service in Wales has adopted a similar structure. One complaint one hears, however, is that the past practice of moving civil servants from Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast to London and back again has been substantially reduced, with a concomitant loss of skills transfers to the devolved Administrations.
One development in recent years that was not foreseen by the proponents of devolution at the outset has been the degree of fiscal devolution. The power to spend being substantially divorced from revenue-raising created tensions across the devolution settlements. Devolved Governments of a different political stripe from the UK Government argued for tax-raising powers and central government, wishing to improve financial responsibility, tended to agree. The subsequent divergence of taxes within the UK may be said to encourage the experimentation that has occurred in other areas of policy, but it has also shaken the coherence of the UK tax regime. Divergence has been most marked in Scotland with the introduction of a more progressive income tax structure and stamp duty rate than the rest of the UK. The one unforeseen consequence according to business—one assumes that it was unforeseen—has been the difficulty in attracting higher paid executives to Scotland from the rest of the UK. An employee earning £50,000 per annum currently pays £1,500 more income tax in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. The lower-paid have a lighter tax burden, which, of course, is a positive. It will be interesting to see how such divergence translates into the overall economy in the years to come.
Economic issues will doubtless become more pointed should the UK leave the EU. The EU funding of agriculture, rural development and structural funds benefits the devolved nations disproportionately. Her Majesty’s Government’s stated commitments for future post-Brexit funding are somewhat vague going into the medium term. This is self-evidently unsatisfactory. The absence of a coherent plan as to how EU funding would be replaced is likely to provoke not only continuing debate but new tensions.
The current proposal by Her Majesty’s Government to retain powers over agriculture and fisheries, regional policy and some aspects of state aid for up to seven years seems to challenge the devolution settlements. An increase in centralisation of the UK goes against the grain of devolution, and to what end? One might hope that there would be a worked-out strategy for this aspect of devolution. An ad hoc approach to constitutional development carries many risks for the integrity of the UK. We have surely learned that lesson, at least over the last few years.
In looking at the last 20 years of devolution I have endeavoured to steer clear of the political disputes that have arisen both within the devolved legislatures and with the UK Parliament, but it goes without saying that there have been many such disputes. The demands for independence and the critiques of policies on health, education, housing, the environment, justice and so on have certainly contributed to lively debate. It could not be otherwise. Have there been mistakes, unforeseen consequences and tensions with the UK Government? But of course. It may be said, as Gordon Brown did on Monday, that non-stop constitutional argument in the Scottish Parliament does not favour good government. But it may also be said that, no matter what blunders there are, those errors are made by the devolved, elected representatives themselves. We make our own errors. Moreover, the devolved Administrations do not have a monopoly on error, as recent years have perhaps demonstrated here.
On balance, devolution has undeniably improved democratic accountability within the UK. At a time of unparalleled constitutional uncertainty, that must be one positive in the UK’s governance.
In 2000, the Liberal Democrats formed a partnership Government with the Labour Party in Cardiff Bay, and we had an ambitious programme for government that included a firm commitment to further devolution. That was tricky because there was still quite a lot of opposition from the Labour Party. But Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister, was in tune with further devolution. It is important to remember, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, pointed out, that the Assembly had very limited powers. We used to say that Cardiff City Council had much greater powers because it could raise taxes and borrow money. There were no lawmaking powers for the Assembly and, as I say, no tax-raising or borrowing powers. Combined with having only 60 Assembly Members, that meant that the Assembly was dramatically underpowered. In addition, there was the funding problem of the Barnett formula, an enduring cause of anger in Wales that was understood way beyond the inner circles of politics. But we made the most of the powers we had. For example, as a Minister, I was able to introduce Cymru Creadigol, Creative Wales, and Iaith Pawb, Everyone’s Language, which were the first strategies ever on the language and the arts in Wales.
Just as we discuss Brexit here, day after day, we had our own set of dominant popular topics in Cardiff in the Assembly: legislative powers, tax-raising powers, borrowing powers, enlarging the Assembly and abolishing the Barnett formula. I am pleased to say that, to a considerable extent, these issues have now been tackled, or the power to deal with them and tackle them now lies where it should—with Assembly Members. In 2006, a new Wales Act allowed the Assembly to pass legislation. I do not know whether any noble Lords remember a wonderful thing called Measures. We could pass legislation as long as Parliament gave its official seal of approval for what we agreed to do. That was done through legislative competence orders, and it was rather like Parliament marking our homework. We did not like it at all.
So, when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition agreement was signed in 2010, it unlocked the door to much greater powers. As I mentioned, the 2011 referendum meant that the Assembly could pass its own Acts. It has used this power well; the Minister has illustrated that. It has been imaginative and bold. I was particularly involved in the very early days of the campaign for the change to presumed consent on organ donation. The Assembly has not been frightened to tackle new issues.
The coalition agreement also led to the Silk commission, with its recommendations for tax-raising and borrowing powers, and the move to a reserved powers model for the Assembly to tackle the ongoing confusion over exactly what powers it held. The Wales Act 2014, which I took through this House, came as a result of that. In due course, the second Silk report led to Powers For A Purpose, published in 2015 by the Secretary of State for Wales. That led to the Wales Act 2017, which included powers for the Assembly to change its name, its size, its voting system and the voting age. Looking back, it is ridiculous that the Assembly did not have those powers from the start.
Also during the coalition years, we took steps to deal with the problem of the Barnett formula. Some Members may remember the funding agreement signed by Danny Alexander, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and Jane Hutt, as the Welsh Finance Minister.
Finally, I want to comment on the EU’s role in the devolved Administrations, particularly in relation to Wales. Today is the day before the EU elections, so it is appropriate to think about that. We still have uneven and, in my view, unsatisfactory devolution settlements across the UK. We still have a highly centralised form of government. When I was in the Wales Office, a major part of our work was reminding other Ministers and Whitehall civil servants to remember Wales. My job was to explain to them how devolution works. I hope that that strikes a chord with the Minister.
Over the past 20 years, the EU’s powers have served to lessen tension between the two levels of government. The EU sets out high-level rules about how funds to deal with poverty, agriculture and environmental issues are to be disbursed. No one argues with those rules from a party-political perspective, because they are made on the basis of 28 countries far beyond the realm of narrow party politics. Although some of those EU powers will come down to the devolved Administrations, some of them will lie in the hands of the UK Government. The moment that happens, there will be arguments about the basic rules to be applied and which areas will be eligible for funding. I would predict that we will see a return to a lot of party-political wrangling. The Joint Ministerial Council was set up to try to deal with that wrangling. I do not think that it has ever been up to the job and I certainly agree with the Minister that it needs to be refreshed and modernised. It needs root and branch reform because we need to move to a proper federal system of devolution throughout the UK.
Perhaps I may concentrate on the Scotland Act 1998. I agree with the word used earlier—challenge—because designing this legislation was a remarkable achievement. The political inspiration for Scotland came from Donald Dewar. I shall always remember his pride in the wording of Section 1(1) of the Scotland Act, which declares:
“There shall be a Scottish Parliament”.
He loved those words and he repeated them several times. But the architect was an exceptionally able civil servant in what was then the Scottish Office in Edinburgh, named Iain Jamieson. It was his scheme and it was built on three pillars around which the necessary machinery was constructed. The first pillar, of course, was that devolved competence was to be limited to the territory of Scotland and to functions exercisable in or as regards Scotland. The second—also a very important point—was that the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament was to be respected, and a provision was included in the Act in those very terms. The devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament was therefore not to affect the power of the UK Parliament to make laws for Scotland. Obviously, a balance was going to have to be struck in practice. The third pillar was that our international treaty obligations were to be respected, so it was to be outside competence to do anything incompatible with any of the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights or with Community law, which we now call EU law.
On that last point, Iain Jamieson was fortunate in two respects. At the same time as we were considering the devolution legislation for all three nations, Parliament was also being asked to approve the Human Rights Bill. That Act, as it became, was the outstanding achievement of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, during his time as Lord Chancellor. It received its Royal Assent on 9 November 1998. Royal Assent to the Scotland Act followed 10 days later. As far as the Scotland Act was concerned, the work needed to bring human rights home—as it was put—was already being done. All that was needed in the Scotland Bill was to cross-refer to that other Bill.
As it happened, human rights came home to Scotland more than a year before England. The commencement date for Scotland was 1 July 1999. It was thought that England and Wales were not ready for such a revolution and that more time was needed for preparation, so the commencement of the Human Rights Act—which applies it all to England and Wales—was put off until 1 October 2000. But no one in Scotland seemed to mind. Unlike the adventure of the poll tax, which was introduced there first, Scotland did not seem to mind getting human rights in advance of anywhere else.
The second respect in which Iain Jamieson was so fortunate, as is now plain to see, was in regard to Community law. All he needed to do was to say what that expression meant. He did not have to wrestle with how to define Scotland’s place in a single UK market, because we were already within the European Community.
I think it right to say that he was also fortunate he was not asked to provide for a second chamber. This point was raised when the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, was giving his lecture in the Robing Room last week. At the end of his excellent lecture he was asked whether there should have been a second chamber. His answer was, “No, that would have been to create a republic”. Of course, creating a separate state was not the idea; the aim was intended to be devolution, not a stepping stone to independence.
Jamieson was fortunate in another respect too. In contrast to the earlier attempt at devolution to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson, referred—which failed because the vote was not big enough—the simple rule to which he was asked to work was that whatever was not reserved to the UK Parliament was devolved. Unfortunately, that was not the situation for Wales. It had to be dragged out of the UK—I remember this so well—step by step, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, described, until eventually we have something fairly close to what we now have in Scotland, which makes the situation so much more acceptable.
So Jamieson was very fortunate. I remember spending many hours late at night in this Chamber going through the list of reserved matters, because it was so important to get these right. The remarkable thing is that in my time as a judge I can recall only one case in the Supreme Court where we had to examine that structure because it was under challenge, and it survived scrutiny. The scheme of the Act has performed remarkably well over these years.
I remember going to see Iain Jamieson with the late Lord Rodger of Earlsferry to discuss with him some points we thought needed clarification. We were put firmly in our place. He wanted to turn our conversation into a seminar and to explain the provisions we were there to scrutinise. It became clear that most of the passages that we thought were obscure were the result of prolonged and somewhat dogged arguments between him and the parliamentary draftsmen. That meant there was no discernible room for manoeuvre; we simply had to accept the package as it was.
However, in the end we were able to achieve one significant amendment. It was to a clause about the removal of judges, now Section 95. That same clause dealt with appointments, and there was no problem with that. The system was that this could be done by Her Majesty on the recommendation of the First Minister, but the scheme provided for removals to be exactly the same: the First Minister recommends removal and Her Majesty follows that recommendation. There was an objection to this, because the whole idea of convention rights was that the people of Scotland could challenge the Government as acting incompatibly with those. The First Minister and Scottish Government were people whose actions we had to scrutinise and criticise, and it was thought really quite dangerous to give the First Minister the power to direct our removal. So three of us—Lord Clyde, Lord McCluskey and I—eventually carried an amendment by 140 votes to 108 altering the system to provide for proper scrutiny of the removal process. It was to our great relief that the Government gave way on this point.
I do not want to go on too much longer, but there was one problem that we really did not foresee, which arose because of the jurisdiction we had over the criminal appeal court and the actions of the Lord Advocate. One of the consequences of requiring the Lord Advocate to act compatibly with the convention rights was that we found ourselves dealing with issues about disclosure of evidence by the police and the right of an accused person to have a solicitor present during police questioning. Scots law at that time was somewhat behind English law, which had well-developed rules. We had other rules and were fenced in by many checks and balances. In the end we decided in our court that it did not measure up to the rulings of the Strasbourg court on what was necessary to achieve the right to a fair trial. Unfortunately the judges in Edinburgh took strong exception to what we were doing, especially when we exercised the power under our rules to quash convictions. Relations between the Supreme Court and the criminal appeal court in Edinburgh became very tense. In the end the situation was resolved by an amendment in the 2016 Act that confined the Supreme Court’s power simply to determining the issue, leaving the disposal of the case to be decided by the judges in Scotland. That was a sensible scheme that we should have thought about at the very beginning.
Of course, the architecture had one other feature that was not fully developed: the need to work out and respect the devolution system in the working of this Parliament at Westminster. There was the Sewel convention, now reproduced in statutory language in the 2016 Act, but perhaps we should have gone a bit further in developing the rules in that way. That might have saved quite a bit of time.
Overall, I think those pieces of legislation—the 1998 Act for Scotland, the Wales Act as it developed and the Northern Ireland Act—were all remarkable achievements. As in the case of the Human Rights Act, they all say a great deal in relatively simple and concise language. I hope that Iain Jamieson, to whose efforts the Scotland Act owes so much, derived much pleasure in seeing it put into effect.
The UK Government are also supporting some of Scotland’s most vital industries. The whisky industry is benefiting from the spirits duty being frozen for a second year in a row; the North Sea oil and gas industry is benefiting from a tax regime that aims to help its continued recovery from the 2014 oil price crash; tax barriers to new investment have been removed; and work is ongoing to further strengthen the position of Scotland and the UK as a global hub for decommissioning. The Scottish fishing industry is benefiting from the UK Government’s £10 million fisheries technology fund, which aims to help transform the industry and make fishermen in Scotland world leaders in safe, sustainable and productive fishing.
How important is this continuing level of broad support for a devolved Scotland by successive United Kingdom Governments? The answer is that it is vital and will continue to be vital. Scotland’s deficit is more than four times that of the United Kingdom’s and larger than that of any other EU member state. In 2017-18, Scotland’s deficit of £13.4 billion equated to 7.9% of its GDP, compared with the United Kingdom’s deficit of 1.9% in the same period. It should therefore be recognised that, impactful as Scottish devolution has undoubtedly been in changing the political and civic landscape in Scotland over the past 20 years, it none the less owes much to the continuing underpinning strength and substantial support of the United Kingdom and successive United Kingdom Governments.
Mindful of the importance of this interrelationship, I want to touch on one dimension of the two decades of Scottish devolution that, to my mind, cannot be said to be a notable success. In 2009, on the 10th anniversary of Scottish devolution, the Calman commission reported that the need for greater intergovernmental and inter-parliamentary co-operation should be urgently addressed. All the evidence we had taken from other countries with more than one level of government pointed unequivocally to good intergovernmental and inter-parliamentary arrangements being an important element of a stable political constitution, as well as serving the public interest. For good reason, this issue prompted one of the longest chapters in our Calman commission report, and generated some 23 separate recommendations.
That was in 2009. In 2014, five years later, the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, likewise called for better intergovernmental relations when launching the Smith commission report. He said:
“Both Governments need to work together to create a more productive, robust, visible and transparent relationship. There also needs to be greater respect between them”.
The following year, in 2015, the House’s Constitution Committee published a report on intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom. It was similarly concerned with what it found and, as with the Calman commission, produced a series of recommendations and urged that the issue be urgently addressed.
In a debate in this House in October 2017, after the Government had finally responded to the Constitution Committee’s 2015 report, a number of noble Lords expressed disappointment that intergovernmental relations within the UK remained as much of a concern in 2017 as they had been in 2009. Here we are now, in 2019, still needing to see greater progress achieved in respect of intergovernmental and inter-parliamentary relations.
I do not underestimate the difficulty posed by those happy to see co-operation frustrated for their own party-political purposes; nor am I suggesting that there has been no progress whatever over the past 10 years in improving relations. My noble friend the Minister referred to the progress that has been achieved, but he also talked about the need to refresh and evolve relations. However, I am not quite sure whether refreshment and evolution by themselves go far enough.
If you consider the timeline and take account of the recommendations issued in 2009, 2014 and 2015, you have to be disappointed that we have not achieved more progress between the respective Governments and parliamentary authorities of the United Kingdom and Scotland. Many of the unimplemented recommendations from the past 10 years remain relevant today. Most are relatively modest, most are straightforward and few, if any, require legislation.
The evidence to the Calman commission on the 10th anniversary of Scottish devolution revealed a widely held expectation by business and civic interests that close co-operation between Governments, officials and Parliaments should and would be the norm. I suggest that the 20th anniversary of devolution in Scotland should be marked by a renewed determination by all concerned, on both sides of the border, to deliver the level of co-operation that people rightly deserve as the norm.
The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, was straightforward enough to say that there was bitter Conservative opposition in the referendum campaign to both the 1998 Act and the 2006 Act. It is a great credit to the movement of opinion that we are having this commemorating debate. The case for devolution in Wales is now overwhelmingly supported, including by his party and to his credit. As Welsh Conservative leader in the Assembly, he played an important role in influencing his party to come around to accepting the critical importance of devolution to Wales. Imagine if we did not have the Welsh Assembly. Imagine where Wales would be now as the only nation in the United Kingdom without its own legislative Assembly. It would have been left behind. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, reminded us, a lot of innovation through legislation has come through the Assembly, including the Children’s Commissioner and the Older People’s Commissioner, which were replicated in other parts of the UK later on. It is now unthinkable for anyone, even those in nearly half the voting electorate in 1997, to imagine the Welsh Assembly being abolished or devolution being reversed. Indeed, the progress has been to extend and empower Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland between 2005 and 2007, under Tony Blair, I helped to negotiate the settlement that brought Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness into power—and they were real leaders. Whether we agree with their hinterland or their history, they were real leaders. We have a serious leadership vacuum in Northern Ireland’s politics now. It is a real crisis. I understand why the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, referred in his speech to positive employment indices and so forth, but that does not even begin to get to grips with what is a serious crisis in Northern Ireland.
I am not the only Member of this House to have pointed that out. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, with his powerful oratory, has emphasised and underlined that it is a serious crisis. We have a palpable lack of leadership, not just among the political parties in Northern Ireland, particularly the DUP and Sinn Féin, but in No. 10 on the part of the Prime Minister. She does not really grip Northern Ireland in the way that other Prime Ministers have done, including Tony Blair and John Major. She does not give it priority. It is no excuse to say that Brexit overwhelms her as it is overwhelming our whole government system. I hope that the noble Lords, Lord Bourne and Lord Duncan, for whom I have a great respect, will take this message back: Northern Ireland must always be on the Prime Minister’s mind. This is unfinished business and it is a really dangerous moment. The two major political parties are demonstrating a reckless political irresponsibility. It is no good them blaming each other. Quite honestly, both are to blame. Both leaderships are equally to blame. I say that to noble Lords from the DUP who are sitting in this Chamber as well. I get on very well with them as friends, but they have to sort it out. We need devolved government restored. Leadership needs to be restored in the Northern Ireland Office, in which I had the privilege to serve, and in No. 10 as well as in the major parties.
I wish the current talks well, but I urge the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Prime Minister, through the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, that it is crucial to bring innovative proposals to these talks. I keep being told by leaders of the parties there that no fresh proposals are being put on the table. There is no proper guidance in those talks. You get views from one side of the argument and then put them to the other party and you find the middle point. That is how you negotiate. That is how we negotiated the 2007 settlement. That is how the Good Friday settlement was negotiated as well.
I am sorry for raising the passion of the debate, but there is a dangerous political vacuum, as the Victims’ Commissioner has herself pointed out recently and as we saw in the tragic assassination of Lyra McKee. She was a brave investigative journalist—one of the finest in modern times in Northern Ireland—who was gunned down by IRA dissidents who have marginal and isolated support but are nevertheless very dangerous, as she tragically found out.
We have seen contradictory statements from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I say that with no joy at all. I see it as my duty as a former Secretary of State, especially, to support her. But one minute we hear a statement on historical abuse cases and in another we hear that she wants to do something for victims of the legacy of the Troubles. The Government are completely failing one particular group for whom they made promises. I raised this in the House and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has raised it with some passion and conviction as well. This is a group of nearly 500 of the severely injured. Everyone knows who they are. They are represented by that admirable pressure group, the WAVE trauma group. They are very severely injured. I have cited cases in your Lordships’ House in past debates, but I will give one example. There is a woman who lost both her legs in 1972 who still does not have any kind of recognition. She has no pension, for which she and her colleagues in the WAVE trauma group have been campaigning. They are not asking for a lot—about £150 a week. They have never been able to earn over the course of their lives the kind of occupational pensions that people who have been in work can enjoy, because they have not been able to work. She cannot work.
This continues despite promises. I credit the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, with total support to the group when he was kind enough to meet them at my request relatively recently. They came across in their wheelchairs to lobby Parliament. Do we have to see them lobbying Parliament month after month with all the stress that that puts on them in order to get this House, the House of Commons and the Government to act? There is universal support for them. When I moved an amendment with cross-party support to a Northern Ireland Bill recently, it would have carried—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, for nodding in assent. He persuaded me to withdraw the amendment because he did not want the Bill to go back to the Commons and be delayed, so I withdrew it on the promise that the Government would legislate for it by the end of the summer. Will he give that assurance here tonight as well?
I hope that the Northern Ireland Office will speak with one voice, because I have heard reports of different views being given in Belfast from in London. I see nods across the Floor of the Chamber underlining that. There must be a total commitment to legislate for the severely injured. If the local parties will not get into government and do the job themselves, we must do it here and demonstrate to the people of Northern Ireland that we are on their side at least, even if their own elected representatives are not.
I ask for an urgent meeting with the Secretary of State and with the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, because we must see closure on this. We cannot keep saying that we are going to do something and nor can the Government without doing it. The Bill will go through both Houses to establish a pension in record time. There is no excuse because there is no serious business before either House at the moment, apart from Brexit, when that turns up or not.
In closing, I have a few points on the general picture. I remain suspicious of the implications of tax devolution. I know that it is in the legislation, but we have a United Kingdom that is deeply unbalanced in terms of its wealth. If Wales, the north-east of England, Scotland or Northern Ireland are not able to benefit from the redistributive effects of the 40% of GDP that is raised in the south-east of England, the unity of the UK is under threat, on top of the other threats that we face. I am really worried about it, especially against the background of austerity and big cuts in the Welsh Government’s budget, for example, and in other budgets of devolved legislatures over the last nine years.
There is unfinished business of devolution in England outside London. That is not sustainable and the Government need to address it. I recommend the Bill introduced to this House by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and the case made for it by the Constitution Reform Group, for whom he has been spokesperson, as I have, and which was chaired by the Marquess of Salisbury.
Devolution is here to stay. That is a great tribute to all who made it possible. The fact that it is now part of the constitutional architecture of the United Kingdom for good is very positive indeed.
It is worth remembering some of the huge changes that Bill envisaged including the name change—perhaps the most contentious change, which took up hours of time in argument—from the RUC-GC to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the creation of a policing board and district policing partnerships, which would include some balance of political party membership for the first time as well as other local consultative arrangements. The Bill also dealt with the registration of interests of police officers and the code of ethics, which eventually became the blueprint for all police forces in England and Wales. It dealt with flags and emblems—I remember that we had huge arguments about cap badges—and also with the arrangements for co-operation with the Garda Síochána.
A reading of that debate will tell your Lordships all you need to know about how far we have travelled since the Good Friday agreement proposals. Indeed, it was to take a further 10 years for the parties to sort out their differences in the overall devolution package, which eventually brought the devolution of policing forward, but not without Stormont having been suspended and then restored on a number of occasions.
Two years without a functioning Government in Northern Ireland has cast a pall over devolution, but devolution of policing powers has undoubtedly had a positive effect. The operation of locally controlled policing, including local decision-making and local accountable bodies, has resulted in increased levels of public confidence in policing since 2010. This has been evidenced through the Northern Ireland Policing Board’s omnibus survey and the Department of Justice’s Northern Ireland crime survey. However, recent trends from both these surveys have given some cause for concern, with early indications of confidence levels declining, in particular in relation to local neighbourhood policing.
While policing has clearly benefited from devolution, two key issues have stalled the continuation of this positive progress. First—this has been touched on—it is worth noting that a Government-led programme of austerity has been in operation since the devolution of policing powers to Northern Ireland, and the PSNI budget has declined by 25% , which is more than £210 million, since 2010. Secondly, there remains the inability of local political agreements to deal with key issues, including those associated with Northern Ireland’s past and issues associated with identity. These alone, without dealing with the day-to-day dangerous work the police undertake, continue to place significant pressures on the organisation. Despite the excellent work undertaken by its soon-to-retire chief constable, George Hamilton, to whom I pay a very warm tribute, and who I am sure has the thanks of everyone in this House, there continues to be a huge challenge in the future of policing in Northern Ireland.
Devolution must be nurtured, watched over and cared for. Like the other constituent parts of our United Kingdom, we neglect this at our peril.