My Lords, last Saturday, 13 January, was the second anniversary of the servicing of the new UK intergovernmental relationship regime, replacing the October 2013 arrangements that had been so overtaken by events. Today is therefore a good time for us to be here to debate this vital structural component of our union.
The past 25 years have seen huge changes in how we are governed, with the devolution of much power from Westminster in various stages. However, the job of creating the mechanics of how the UK’s resulting governmental bodies interact has struggled to keep step. This has contributed to the significant creaks and groans within the union that have been of such concern to so many here today, and certainly to me.
Before I make some remarks about this new regime, I think it worth briefly reviewing the history. In 1999, following the first round of devolution, the first of a succession of memoranda of understanding was agreed. It sought to promote and improve relations between the UK and the devolved Governments and was updated several times, including in 2012. That led to the draft MoU of October 2013, which, until January 2022, as a draft, was the documentary repository of the arrangements between the four Governments. The October 2013 MoU vested responsibility for the arrangements under it within the UK Government with the Deputy Prime Minister, a position vacant from May 2015 to September 2021: there was no captain of the ship.
The Scottish independence referendum was in September 2014. The resulting Smith commission agreement led to a substantial additional number of powers being devolved, as duly happened pursuant to the Scotland Act 2016 and the Wales Act 2017. These significant changes in the devolution settlements represented yet more things that the drafters of the October 2013 MoU had not sought to address at the time.
The Constitution Committee delivered an excellent report, The Union and Devolution, in May 2016. It concluded that the UK Government must
“devise and articulate a coherent vision for the shape and structure of the United Kingdom, without which there cannot be constitutional stability”.
The Brexit process kicked off in June 2016, just a month later, and exacerbated the situation. In the European Union Committee’s report of June 2017, Brexit: Devolution, we said:
“The devolved governments, and some of our witnesses, have also argued that fundamental reform is needed to give the devolved institutions a more formal role in UK decision-making post-Brexit, analogous to that of regions and states in federal systems”.
The start of 2018 was probably the low point, but in March 2018 a review of intergovernmental relations, the IGR review, was launched. This was, to quote GOV.UK, a
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for securing this debate and for his excellent introduction to the issues. Commuting as I do from Glasgow, I clearly have a Scottish focus on the issue of intergovernmental relations. I think that I will be in the minority today; the Welsh contributions will be more numerous. I note, once again, my disappointment at the lack of representation in this House from the party currently in government in Scotland. That is its choice, but one that I fear cuts off its nose to spite its face.
I declare my interests as laid out in the register. My work as a board member of Creative Scotland and as chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland brings me into regular contact with the Scottish Government and their officials, and I currently chair the Scottish Government’s National Advisory Committee for Neurological Conditions.
In preparation for today, I turned to the Scottish Parliament Information Centre’s most recent briefing on intergovernmental relations, which outlines, as the noble Earl touched on, how many different bodies have wrestled with this issue, including parliamentary committees, academics, independent commissions and the excellent Dunlop review. The majority of these criticised the previous Joint Ministerial Committee for a number of reasons, including ineffective dispute resolution, the role of the UK Government and a lack of transparency. The question, surely, is whether the three-tier system implemented by this Government since 2021 has fared any better. The noble Earl asked the Minister for very specific responses on some of these issues, and I look forward to her replies. I am afraid the sticking point is that, whatever this Government may do, as Michael Gove, the Minister responsible, points out in his foreword to the IGR annual report for 2022,
My Lords, it is a great pleasure, as always, to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie. I should reassure her that the Welsh are very rarely in a majority in this House. We should take advantage of that this afternoon. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for enabling us to have this debate and for the forensic way in which he introduced it. It is timely because there is much to welcome in the new IGR structure, especially the greater clarity in terms of process, accountabilities and dispute resolution. As he was saying, this is a work in progress and I entirely agree with him about the challenges of how it will be used. I look forward to the Minister’s response to his important questions.
I will focus on Wales, because what gives this debate extra edge today is that we have had the much-anticipated report of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, chaired by our very own Archbishop Rowan Williams, and by Professor Laura McAllister. It has concluded that
“The relationship between the UK government and the devolved governments has fallen far short of the co-operation that citizens expect and which is essential to the successful operation of the Union”.
It calls on the need to protect the Union from the risk of “gradual attrition” if steps are not taken to secure it, and sets out the options for Wales in terms of the future of its governance.
Now, its conclusions consolidate much of what has been marked by intergovernmental relations of recent years. However banal this may sound, no matter how good our structures are, unless those trusted relationships can be retained and made resilient, Westminster and the devolved Administrations will always have an asymmetrical relationship.
That is certainly reflected in Wales’s relationship with Westminster. In July last year, the UK’s conduct towards Wales was described as
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. I thank the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers for initiating this debate and for dedicating his interest to issues of devolution, particularly since his election to his new position. Those of us who have highlighted the difficulties faced by our devolved parliaments in recent years welcome his support and his empathy.
In October last year, Mark Drakeford, the Welsh First Minister, appeared before the Welsh Affairs Committee in the other place and explained how in the first 20 years of the existence of the Welsh National Assembly, now the Welsh Senedd, relationships between Welsh officials and UK government officials were cordial and positive. That was confirmed for me in a conversation with my noble friend Lady Randerson, who was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Wales Office from 2012 to 2015, in the coalition years. She recalled how, through co-operation and sheer hard graft, legislation that might have breached the Sewel convention—the convention designed to ensure that the UK legislates in devolved areas only with the consent of the devolved legislatures—was worked upon late into the night. Legislation was sometimes held up until agreement was reached between the two Governments so that legislative consent could be granted.
All that changed in 2019, with the incoming Brexit Government and their focus on a unionism that has sometimes been described as hyper-unionism and a focus on legislation intended to “bind the Union together”, whether it broke Sewel or not. Now the Sewel convention is broken almost routinely—it has been broken at least seven times in recent years—and, when the Welsh Parliament refuses legislative consent to a Bill because it encroaches on its devolved responsibility, we see that UK Ministers just go ahead and enact the legislation anyway, leading to a breakdown of relationships.
I too thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and congratulate him on obtaining this debate. I also thank him for his excellent analysis of what has happened over the last 10 years. I would like to follow that up with a more rough-and-tumble view of my experience over the last six years. As Professor Linda Colley said in her masterly analysis, Acts of Union and Disunion, a “policy of drift” will not lead to strength. If we look at what has happened for the past six years, when I have seen it at first hand, we are in a policy of drift.
The first phase, it seems to me, was the phase that occupied our time until our exit from the European Union. The European Union Committee produced a most able report, which said that the European Union provided much of the glue that held the union together. Nothing happened; there was drift.
We then turned to a period when I do not think there was drift—certainly not drift of a benevolent kind. It was characterised by the internal market Act, which did so much to damage relations, and by a marked reluctance to co-operate by taking the view that London knows best. That was unfortunate.
Thirdly, more recently there was a much more positive view, and I pay an especial tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist, who did so much to try to change the mood. She did much to improve co-operation and to try to get the Welsh Government, who were prepared to co-operate, involved. For example, one way in which she did this was to get something sensible agreed about the mission statements in the levelling-up Bill, where those concerned seemed to have entirely forgotten, in drafting large areas of policy, that a significant number of those had been devolved. I very much hope, and this is my question for the Minister, that we will continue this. I hope that she is going to exercise the role that the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, occupied. If not, who is? There should be someone doing that in this House when there is a Welsh Government interested in co-operation, in contrast to what we have heard about the Scottish Government. Fortunately, it appears to be continuing, and we see that in some of the current clauses of the victims Bill about to begin its Committee stage.
My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, in his excellent speech, set out the history of the evolution of how the UK’s government bodies interact. He concluded with the observation, with which I agree, that it demonstrates a lack of focus on devolved matters over too many years and, even with a better structure, the challenge remains of how to use it to the advantage of our union.
Constitutions matter, but they need constant attention and occasional repair if their vitality and adaptability are to be sustained. The new intergovernmental relationship regime is a vital structural component of our union, but it will deliver only if it is accompanied by the right behaviours, culture and respect embedded within it.
The Constitution Committee observed in its 2022 report Respect and Co-operation that the shared governance of the United Kingdom requires more “respect and partnership” for the union to flourish, and that
“it must enjoy popular support in each nation, based on … common benefits accruing to all”.
The report also said:
“There has … been evidence at times of a unilateral approach to strengthening the Union, which has been insufficiently sensitive to its pluralism”
and:
“Prime Ministers have a critical role to play in making the new intergovernmental structures a success”.
Rather than simply asserting their reach, they should seek
“strong relationships between the four administrations”
and demonstrate a sensitivity to, and an understanding and consideration of, the interests of the people and their devolved Governments.
Similarly, Whitehall’s continuing traditional centrist approach to government is further confirmed by the asymmetrical levels of engagement by departments in intergovernmental meetings, evidenced in the noble Earl’s speech. His perceptive observation of negative symbolism in the responsibility for intergovernmental relations resting with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but not captured in its title, adds to the risk of the department’s broader responsibilities undermining the sharpness this vital area deserves.
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for facilitating this debate and congratulate him on his impeccable timing. As we have heard, fortuitously, today the report by the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, co-chaired by Dr Rowan Williams and Professor Laura McAllister, was published. The headlines in today’s papers in Wales are:
“Independent Wales viable, says report”.
This has become a serious option because of the manifest failings of the current devolution settlement, and the abysmal intergovernmental relationships between Westminster and Cardiff Bay. I pay tribute to all those who have worked diligently over two years to produce the report.
Having served as a Welsh constituency MP for 27 years, prior to devolution, for four years in the first National Assembly and for 12 years in this Chamber, I hope that my perspective will help this debate. As MP, I felt the frustrations of representing a Welsh constituency for which many public policies were conceived and delivered by non-elected quangos, existing to serve the needs of the UK Government, not the priorities of the people of Wales.
In the first National Assembly I saw at first hand the inadequacy of the Barnett formula, which has been recognised by a committee of this House. I saw a Labour Government at Westminster refuse to put that right and even refuse to give the Assembly the cash it received from the European Union for regional development. Only the intervention of Michel Barnier, the EU regional commissioner, persuaded Gordon Brown to pass over to the Assembly the money to which it was entitled.
One of my first battles in this Chamber was to protest at the way in which the coalition Government clawed back £400 million which the Welsh Government, to their great credit, had saved through year-end prudence: a fund intended for capital spending on schools and hospitals. The devolution settlement for Wales has not been working, it still is not, and it has to be put right.
My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for securing this debate and for his wonderful opening speech. I will focus on some specific matters, rather than the overall architecture of intergovernmental relations, and in particular on the lowest tier of the interministerial groups that focus on specific policy areas.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, noted, we can easily get so focused on process that we do not notice that devolution has meant growing divergence. Devolution means that things have happened and I am not sure that we take enough note of this happening or build it into our relations between Governments.
No one will be surprised that an example I want to focus on is education, but I apologise for the fact that my examples will be English and Scottish, because those are the two systems that I know well. We have always had major differences in our school systems. That is not only entirely acceptable but, in theory, a source of strength, because we can look at what works in different systems and they are alike enough that one can draw some useful lessons. We do not always do that, but it is a real opportunity.
But we have to remember that the United Kingdom has a national economy. Different parts of it may have different strengths, but we have a mobile labour force and young people take it for granted that they will have the freedom to move easily around the entire UK. This starts to be relevant when we think about our professional, vocational and technical education systems. Sometimes you have to have differences—for example, legal education has to be different in Scotland—but there are areas in the older professions where we have either natural or government-mandated mechanisms to ensure adequate alignment. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges is the membership body for 24 medical royal colleges and faculties across not only the United Kingdom but Ireland, and the Nursing and Midwifery Council is UK-wide. But, once you go beyond the traditional professions, there is a surprising lack of join-up.
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“joint review of the existing Memorandum of Understanding on Devolution”.
In July 2019, the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, was asked to review the UK Government’s union capability, a task he very ably concluded in late November that year. Then, after a period of great silence, on 24 March 2021 the Dunlop review and an update on the IGR review were published. The Dunlop review is a seminal and well thought-through document, and it is a pity it had to wait in the wings for 16 months. It had a number of principal propositions, including the creation of a great new office of state in the Cabinet and the reorganisation of the devolved nation departments, with a single Permanent Secretary.
The 15-page update on the IGR review, by then three years in the making, appeared to be quite close to the finishing post and, as I said, the final document surfaced on 13 January 2022, about four years after the start of that review. What also appeared, on 24 March 2021, was the inaugural Intergovernmental Relations Quarterly Report, then a Cabinet Office document. This has now settled into a rhythm of quarterly reports, with a larger annual report into IGR activity. This transparency is as commendable as it is vital, and I will come back to it shortly. That, then, is the potted history. It demonstrates a woeful lack of focus on devolved matters over many years. Even if we have a better structure now, the challenge is how to use it to the advantage of us all and our union.
I turn therefore to the most recent intergovernmental relations quarterly report. As I said, the first iteration was a Cabinet Office document. Today, these responsibilities form only part of the portfolio of one of the busiest ministries, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Michael Gove is also the Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, but it seems that this vital task is not important enough to make it into the ministry name. The symbolism here is wrong, and we must do better.
On looking at the dashboard for the meetings in Q3, and for the rolling 12 months to Q3, I am struck by the asymmetric level of engagement. DLUHC had 28 IGR meetings in the rolling 12 months. The Ministry of Defence had one. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology had none, albeit that it has been in existence for only six months. There is also a concern that IGR meetings are generally ad hoc, and not fully planned and diarised well ahead. Can the Minister describe to us how DLUHC tries to ensure full engagement by all Whitehall departments, and what constitutes an IGR meeting?
One of the reasons why the IGR mechanism took almost four years to surface was the negotiation of the dispute resolution mechanism among the parties. Two years in, can the Minister say how many disputes have been raised and how many have been resolved? On 20 December 2023, Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP spoke of the dispute over the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill in a formal Statement to the Scottish Parliament. She said:
“Before the Bill reached stage 3, we reached out to the UK Government, finally getting a meeting with the Equalities Minister the day before stage 3 started”.
Stage 3 is the final stage of the legislative process in Scotland. Minister Somerville and her team were clearly aware of the problem of the potential clash of the Scottish Bill with the UK’s equalities legislation, which is why they sought out the Whitehall Equalities Minister. However, I can find no mention of the IGR mechanism being engaged on the issue at all. Can the Minister confirm whether the IGR mechanism was engaged at any time over this debacle, whether a dispute was at any time raised and what lessons have been learned from this most difficult issue?
On 27 November last year, 20 months after the surfacing of the new IGR structure, DLUHC published a paper entitled the Intergovernmental Relations Secretariat. This was very helpful, if rather horribly late. Can the Minister tell us whether the secretariat is made up of full-time dedicated staff and includes staff members from all four Governments? In any event, the IGR mechanism is so important to our union that an annual and formal debate in both Houses on the state of intergovernmental relations is a necessity. Can she also comment on this?
In January 2020, I was in Canada at a conference of Commonwealth speakers representing the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. Our host had also invited the speakers of its many regional assemblies. Over the course of three days, I had the opportunity to speak to many of the Canadians. The consistent message was how much effort they put into their union, with a regular diet of meetings and gatherings and the consistent involvement of the Prime Minister. One especially experienced speaker told me that, after their Quebec tensions in the mid-1990s, “We not only had to talk the talk—we had to walk the walk”. The Canadian model includes its Ottawa Government, the 10 provinces and three territories. They have around 80 structured meetings a year. Its dedicated secretariat comes from the participants. It has its own informative website, albeit that the more sensitive meetings have no public documents. The secretariat is neutral and fully independent. Are the Government looking at the Canadian model for intergovernmental relations—or any other models—in what I hope is an unending search for the best?
In closing, I note that this House has spent a lot of the last year on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act. This foresees, among much else, English devolution. Will the Minister comment on whether English devolved Administrations would be an equivalent part of the devolved intergovernmental structures within the United Kingdom? In any event, I very much look forward to this debate and its strong field of speakers. I beg to move.
For over two-thirds of the Scottish Parliament’s 25 years, the SNP—which is, by definition, opposed to devolution—has been the party in government in Holyrood. The SNP’s raison d’être is independence, and everything it does and says is measured through that lens alone. As long as there is devolution, there is no independence. Humza Yousaf has already confirmed that independence will be “page one, line one” of the SNP manifesto at the next general election.
In the early years, day-to-day relationships could be managed through informal political channels by representatives from the same party, relying on good will. Any pretence that this Scottish Administration have to good will or co-operation between Holyrood and Westminster is long gone. Over the past 25 years, much has changed. We have devolved yet more powers to the Scottish Parliament—tax raising and social security, for example. We hoped they would contribute to Scotland taking more responsibility over its own affairs, but we did this without implementing any additional accountability or scrutiny.
So, the Scottish Government make their choices. Scotland is the highest-taxed and most complicated tax area of the United Kingdom. Its health service is close to breaking point; its education system has plummeted down the rankings; and business and enterprise are treated with contempt. Public spending in Scotland amounts to 50% of GDP. Making different choices, though, is the whole point of devolution.
What should this Government do about the state of intergovernmental relations with Scotland? I agree with Michael Gove, who said in an evidence session to the Constitution Committee that, from a Westminster perspective,
“on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis Ministers have very good relationships with their counterparts in the devolved Administrations”.
I also welcome the devolving of civil servants away from London and across the UK, including to Scotland. However, Mr Gove recognised in that same evidence session that
“Ministers in the Scottish Government have a different constitutional vision, so there is an incentive for them, when a political platform is provided, to try to amplify what they perceive to be weaknesses … and to downplay the day-to-day effectiveness of our arrangements”.
This was clearly in evidence during Covid, with competing daily press conferences, and continues today with the opening of Scottish government offices and ministerial meetings abroad.
The hypocrisy of the SNP, on the one hand barely tolerating our monarchical structure in Scotland while Angus Robertson was quick to offer to host the new King and Queen of Denmark due to her “strong Scottish connections”, is breath-taking but unsurprising. It is just another way to find every opportunity to push the limits of the Scotland Act.
We will not have any real opportunity for change until the next Scottish Parliament elections in May 2026. Until then, I urge this Government and any future Westminster Administration not to fall into any of the SNP’s traps. Whether it is regarding equalities and gender recognition, recycling or foreign affairs, all are painted to the Scottish public as examples of the “democratic deficit”. They are staging posts on the “journey” to independence. If the SNP loses those elections then, as its MP Tommy Sheppard put it,
“the debate on independence stops”.
Hooray, I say.
Perhaps then we can focus on what we should change. Perhaps we could agree on what thresholds need to be reached before any future constitutional referendum is contemplated. Perhaps we need to revisit the Scotland Act to impose some much-needed scrutiny on the woefully incompetent legislation emerging out of Holyrood. Perhaps that is why the SNP disapproves of your Lordships’ House so much—it fears the scrutiny of a second Chamber.
“attempts to undermine the devolution settlement and … continued disrespect for the Welsh Government and the Senedd”,
which has damaged intergovernmental working. When he was asked during the Covid inquiry how the new intergovernmental structures were working, the First Minister said they would work only where there were existing good relationships in place, but that
“the new machinery has not succeeded in sparking those arrangements”
or “new forms of interaction”, and that too often relationships just reflected the whim or will of the individual Minister. Indeed, we saw the failure of that will during the Covid pandemic itself, when, despite what we were told in this House, the relationship between Wales and Westminster was one of incommunicado some of the time. Now, that was a basic failure of courtesy, let alone co-ordinated policy.
This House has seen at first hand how the Government have introduced legislation that has overridden the basic precepts of devolution—consultation and consent—and this is documented in the commission’s report. But in this House, I am delighted to say that noble Lords have played a key role in protecting the devolution settlement from the worst effects of provocative legislation, presented to the DAs without care or consultation.
The Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee, which I had the privilege of chairing for two and a half years, had a ringside seat—sometimes we were actually in the ring itself—for intergovernmental relationships. It was not so much a case of benign indifference but more a question of “prod and provoke”. It was our conviction that common frameworks could help to mend those relationships and build a stronger Union. But the prevailing political mood was in effect to make common frameworks a victim rather than an agent of positive policy, as seen particularly in relation to the internal market Act and the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act. These brand-new mechanisms, these common frameworks that were invented post-Brexit for managing divergence within the internal market, were intended originally to be positive instruments for taking collaborative policy across the UK, whether that was on agriculture or health, and in so doing to draw the Union closer. That opportunity has been lost so far because they have become focused on compatible processes rather than policy. Insofar as they are successful, it is because the officials working across the four countries have made them so.
What has been lacking is political leadership, and in our final letter to Mr Gove—I completely agree with everything the noble Lord has said about the way the Cabinet Office is marginalised here—we said that the failure to provide drive and focused leadership, which would have galvanised the contribution common frameworks could make to the Union, explains why we described in our reports that common frameworks have been an unfulfilled opportunity. Indeed, we had a whole cohort of Ministers trooped in front of us—some with a better grasp than others—but they all displayed a rather cavalier attitude towards the frameworks and no real grip on what they could actually achieve. Mr Gove has disputed our arguments, of course, but he does say that he thinks the IGR reforms have created “a better overall context”. The obvious question is how; I hope the Minister can answer that.
Recently, the Interparliamentary Forum drew attention to the difficulties caused by the United Kingdom Internal Market Act—a Bill that was fought in this House, where we were able to protect the dispute resolutions of the current frameworks against being subordinated to UK legislation, which was very important—and the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act, which virtually dismissed any concerns on the part of either Wales or Scotland as to how their regulatory frameworks would be impacted.
Given that the union is now more troubled, less robust and less certain about boundaries and functions, the publication of the report today, which calls on the Westminster Parliament to secure through legislation
“a duty of co-operation and parity of esteem between the governments of the UK”
is vital. I hope the Government will listen and learn from that because parity of esteem between the different cultures and conditions of the countries of the UK must be at the heart of reviving the relationships if they are not to become even more frayed.
Wales carries the burden of inherited poverty and ill health. It is an exceptional legacy. Underfunding for years means that the Welsh Government simply cannot meet the needs of Wales. The reason why that is so, and its repercussions in the context of the union, is part of the conversation that the commission has started across Wales by making recommendations about the strengthening of the union and raising options for its future. I hope the Government will listen intently to that.
Calls for a return to more co-operative working and for regular meetings between officials of the UK and those of the devolved Governments led to the publication of the Review of Intergovernmental Relations in January 2022. I pay tribute to the work of officials of all four nations for their efforts in producing the new agreement. It was a time-consuming endeavour, and I hope it grows to be more successful over time and that there is scope to strengthen its weaknesses.
This agreement between the four nations has three tiers and appears to be working quite well at some levels. The biggest disappointment is that the Council of Ministers has met only once, when the new Prime Minister took office. Unfortunately, there was no Northern Ireland Executive to take part in that meeting to represent the voice of the people of Northern Ireland. I am sure we all hope that this issue is resolved soon. I believe that the Council of Ministers has not met since then.
The Welsh First Minister was both realistic and frank when he said he has
“an impression of a Government that knows that it is coming towards the end of the current parliamentary term and whose energy to invest in reviving intergovernmental relations is at a relatively low ebb”.
Certainly, it is becoming clear that the present system cannot be successful if the UK Government, as the major player, are not fully committed to leadership and partnership working.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, I welcome the publication today of the report by the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, which concluded that the way in which Wales is ruled is unsustainable and cannot continue because it does not provide stability or prosperity. The commission hopes that the report will act as an impetus for change for the people of Wales and, it stresses, that the conversation will continue. It presents the people of Wales with three options: enhanced devolution, a federal UK or independence. Enhanced devolution, it argues, runs the
“risk of continued relatively poor economic performance, low incomes and poverty”.
A federal UK is more complicated and would depend on greater devolution to the regions of England, which is not presently there. Independence would mean
“hard choices in the short to medium term”,
but the commission notes that
“it took Ireland … 50 years and EU membership to grow its economy to match the UK’s”.
It also calls, of course, for the Sewel convention to be legally binding.
Perhaps it is time to accept that all the work on intergovernmental relations in the UK is merely a sticking plaster unless the UK Government are completely committed to its success, and that the future lies in one of the commission’s three options. The commission does not support any one option but provides information to enable the people of Wales to come to their own conclusion. My hope is that another Government of another colour at Westminster will, in the near future, enable the change that Wales needs.
Although I regard it as essential that we get the mood music right, there is a much deeper question. It is a great coincidence—I was going to put it down to masterly strategy, but I do not think you can achieve that in timing debates in this House—that this debate coincided with the delivery of the report of Dr Rowan Williams, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, and Professor Laura McAllister today, because I think they raise a much more important question. I want to look at it not through their lens but through a different lens, which is the lens of the union. I think we have forgotten how to make clear the purpose of the union and how we strengthen it.
It is quite obvious, when we look at powers, that there are some powers that are almost exclusively for the London Government, if I may call it that: defence and foreign policy. Even on those, there is a tiny interaction with devolved government. There are other areas. For example, one can take macroeconomic policy and right down through economic policy development, where there is an absolute need for co-operation. I think that what we lack is not merely a proper, coherent structure but a proper understanding of what our union is for, who takes the lead and how we get co-ordinated policies. One example of where this went wrong a little earlier this year was dealing with the legislation to do with standards during strikes. Had anyone properly analysed whether we wanted a situation in which the London Government took over and decided minimum standards for hospitals in Wales? Fortunately, they came to their senses and did not do this in respect of ambulances, because the statutory instrument was limited to England and did not cover Wales, but we need a more coherent view of what the union is for, analytically set out, and how the powers interrelate, instead of what we get at the moment: “It says that industrial relations are reserved; therefore, forget it”. It is a completely nonsensical policy.
What we need is not only the analysis that the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, provided about the structure of the intergovernmental relations but what is behind that—an analysis of the powers of the constitution. How this is to be done, I am not sure. Maybe the Constitution Committee of this House can do it, but it is a formidable task. Maybe we could persuade the Government, or an incoming Government, to do something, or maybe one of the think tanks will take it on, but a really good starting point would be the Act of Union Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, introduced in October 2018. It set out a very simple analysis of the powers of the union. We need to build on that and build our structure on intergovernmental relationships through an analysis of the powers. But we also need good will, and I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us on this.
Since the introduction of devolution in the late 1990s, politics in the UK has become significantly more pluralistic and less consensual. It is unfortunate that greater progress on reforming intergovernmental structures was not achieved before the challenges of Brexit and Covid-19 demonstrated their inherent weaknesses and contributed so much to the decline in trust. Even the best governance structures may not resolve fundamental differences between Administrations, but challenges have been building up over decades, leading to a discernible atmosphere of distrust and uncertainty in popular debate. I noted the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, about the Government’s disagreements with the SNP, but that does not exempt the Government from their responsibility to the citizens of Scotland and Wales in the union.
The success of the new intergovernmental arrangements will depend on how the Government and devolved Administrations operate them, and whether they are committed to achieving shared objectives, rather than simply managing—or choosing to accentuate—their differences. Take, for example, the UK Internal Market Act, passed without the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd. The agreement reached, however, between the UK Government and devolved Administrations in response—to disapply the market access principles where the four Administrations agreed that divergence between the different parts of the UK was acceptable—was welcome. But then, sadly, we hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, that the opportunity that the common frameworks presented was never fully seized.
The Sewel convention is a fundamental part of the UK’s devolution arrangements. It provides that the UK Parliament does not normally legislate on devolved matters without the consent of the devolved legislatures. While the legislative consent procedure generally worked well from 1999, implementing Brexit placed it under great strain. At least nine Acts arising out of Brexit and impacting on devolved matters passed without consent.
We have seen the increasing use of secondary legislation by the Government to pursue policy, a concern captured in the excellent report, Democracy Denied?, by the Delegated Powers Committee. The convention does not apply to secondary legislation impacting devolved matters.
For the Sewel convention to operate well, good faith is required between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. It is undermined if the Government refuse to seek—or choose to act without taking—all reasonable steps to ensure consent. I agree that it is also undermined if devolved Administrations recommend the refusal of consent to their legislatures for purely political purposes. I ask the Minister: what steps are being taken by the Government to demonstrate their commitment to the convention, recognising the loss of trust flowing from the exceptional circumstances of the last few years?
Finally, the question asked by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, as to whether English devolved administrations will be an equivalent part of the devolved structures within the United Kingdom, is so important. The place of the governance of England in the union should not be overlooked. Greater decentralisation could address concerns about the governance of England, which is highly centralised, with greater regional economic inequalities compared with almost all other western European countries.
A new process of English devolution began in 2014, involving bespoke deals with local authorities; 10 areas have mayoral devolution, and every part of England could have a devolution deal if it wanted one. However, what is not clear is the extent to which the current processes will actually deliver improved governance and, more importantly, improve intergovernmental relations. It is, as the noble Earl put it, an “oh so important question”.
As people increasingly see the shortcomings of the devolution settlement, more and more realise that Wales must take greater responsibility for governing itself. In 1979 there was huge uncertainty about devolution and the proposed Assembly was rejected in a referendum. By 1997, after 18 years of Tory rule, Wales voted yes by a whisker for a relatively powerless Assembly. By the 2011 referendum, there was a two-to-one majority for giving the Assembly legislative competence. Today, up to 40% of voters are sympathetic to independence: “indy-curious” is the term which has been adopted. It is not a majority, but it is a significant number.
Much of that political shift has arisen because of the way in which people in Wales perceive the UK Government as being out of sympathy with my nation’s needs. As we have heard, at the time of Brexit promises were made that the EU’s economic support would be fully replaced by Westminster—that has just not happened. There were also threadbare promises of intergovernmental co-operation.
At times, there has been little less than a disparaging attitude towards the Government elected by the people of Wales, particularly towards First Minister Mark Drakeford. That was most clearly seen at the time of the Covid lockdown. It was personalised in the behaviour of the First Minister and the Prime Minister. At the height of Covid vulnerability, Mark Drakeford camped out in his garden to minimise the danger that he would transmit Covid; at that very time, Boris Johnson was partying in Downing Street. People here fail to understand the respect this brought to our First Minister in comparison with Britain’s Prime Minister.
The stark difference we see between attitudes and values in Wales and Westminster is the most fundamental driver of the wish to go our own way. The fundamental question for this House is whether we can create a new partnership between the nations of these islands, based on maximum self-determination and mutual respect.
The commission’s report, published today, considered four main issues. The first was the challenge to democracy that we experience in Wales, as do other countries. The commission suggested that Wales has the potential to create a robustly more democratic culture. Secondly—this is particularly relevant to this debate—the commission commented that:
“The relationship between the UK Government and the devolved governments has fallen far short of the cooperation that citizens expect”.
It goes on to consider the state of intergovernmental relations and the boundaries of the Welsh devolution settlement. Thirdly, the commission identified areas in which new devolved powers are essential to protect the current settlement. All parties in this House that want to make devolution work should consider that constructively.
The commission believes that the present devolution settlement has an inherent incompatibility and vulnerability. As has been mentioned, it suggests three alternative ways forward: first, entrenching devolved powers in law and devolving the justice system, welfare, employment, broadcasting and railways; secondly, a federal system for the UK, including a written constitution; and, thirdly, the option of independence, which the commission concluded was a viable option.
The report makes 10 detailed recommendations. Of those directly relevant to this House, I will draw attention to four. Recommendation 4 states that
“Parliament should legislate for intergovernmental mechanisms so as to secure a duty of co-operation and parity of esteem between the governments of the UK”.
Recommendation 5 states that the UK Government should legislate
“to specify that the consent of the devolved institutions is required for any change to the devolved powers”.
This was the subject of my Private Member’s Bill that was passed by this House last year.
Recommendation 6 states:
“The UK Government should remove constraints on Welsh Government budget management”—
that resonates with the clawback of devolved funds that I mentioned. Finally, Recommendation 9 says:
“The UK Government should agree to the legislative and executive devolution of responsibility for justice and policing to the Senedd and Welsh Government”.
That was proposed by the Silk commission, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, has addressed.
I hope that the UK Government will consider these issues positively and that the Labour Party will realise that tinkering at the margins is just not good enough. We need vision, empathy and a spirit of co-operation that is bold and confident enough to contemplate a new partnership between our four nations. I hope that people of goodwill, in all groupings in this Chamber, will open their minds to such possibilities.
Ours is a world with a growing number of licences to practise. In England, we are trying very hard to revitalise apprenticeships and we have the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. But there is no formal provision for IfATE or the Scottish Qualifications Authority to take note of each other’s standards. IfATE certainly has no resources explicitly to work with the SQA on aligning training expectations. Equally, the English Government are trying to develop a range of higher technical qualifications, but I do not know of any explicit attempts to take account of the much stronger provision in Scotland of higher national diplomas, over a wide range and with a lot of experience. There might be some informal discussions but there is nothing formal. This is something we should worry about.
The other example I will use briefly is higher education, where I must declare an interest as a professor at King’s College London. Here too we have a national system that we are not taking enough note of as things diverge. We have a national system of application to university in UCAS and a national body for student loans in the Student Loans Company. Again, the systems are diverging. That might be perfectly all right, but there is an assumption among all young people in all four of our countries that they can apply to national institutions—I think UCAS is an institution—and that they will be able to move around.
There is also the research economy, which is very relevant to our economic future because, if we do not maintain real research strength in this country, our future is genuinely grim. The UK Government recognise this by funding a large research budget, and specifically by running the research excellence framework: a four-country, UK-wide exercise that provides a periodic intensive review of the quality of research provision. It has certainly been a spur to action in universities and a major source of our international reputation as a very strong provider of higher education. It is run jointly by Research England, the Scottish Funding Council, the new Commission for Tertiary Education and Research in Wales, and the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland. England uses it as a way to target money into high-achieving universities to ensure that a certain number have the strength to maintain an international research reputation. In England we have to target because we now have 416 registered providers of higher education compared with the, in my view, more reasonable numbers of 18 in Scotland and 11 in Wales.
Devolved Governments do not have to spend any of that money on research; it comes under the Barnett consequentials. Again, that is fine, but it is also true that divergence is increasing, which has—in quite a short term, let alone the long term—some real knock-on effects for movements of staff between universities within the United Kingdom and for the future of a joined-up national UK-wide university system.
My point is not that the London Government should take back control, but that we are not discussing those growing divergencies in any systematic way. I was therefore extremely concerned to learn that the UK Education Ministers Council met only once in 2023.
In conclusion, I echo the comments of my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, and ask the Minister if we can please have some more information on how those meetings are organised, and whether there is any systematic effort to make sure that the four Governments take note of and address divergencies that may be very fruitful, but which, when they impact on the economy of a single nation—the United Kingdom—need to be addressed consistently and in depth by all four Governments.