Clear and decisive

This is what Emyr Jones Parry had to say on the Politics Show today:

     

I was very pleasantly surprised, not least because of what he said at the end, when he made it clear that the referendum would not give the Assembly "full" lawmaking powers.

This had been one of the things that particularly concerned me about the the way the All Wales Convention chose to present the options. As I wrote in this post back in April:

... another point that I would take issue with is the AWC's reference to "full" law making powers. Even their most basic statement of the choice involved says:

Options for devolution

The options are either to retain the current powers or to move towards full law making powers, which would require a referendum.

AWC Website

To use the term "full" implies that voting "Yes" in the referendum would give the Assembly the ability to legislate on any matter it chooses, but that is very far from being the case. In the first instance it would only give the Assembly the power to legislate in the twenty areas for which it already has devolved administrative responsibility, but (and more importantly) even within those twenty areas there is a huge raft of exceptions and exclusions set out in Schedule 7 of the GoWA 2006.

In my opinion it would be better to use the more accurate term "primary" law making powers (within limits already agreed with Westminster) rather than "full" law making powers.

So although Cymru Yfory has rightly pointed to the AWC using language to imply that the status quo is delivering more than it actually does, it also seems to be using language to imply that what we will get if we vote "Yes" in the referendum is more far reaching than it actually is.

I'm delighted that the AWC has now taken this on board (although I've just checked their website, and the reference to "full" lawmaking powers is still there). However I did think it was a bit rich for Sir Emyr to pick Felicity Evans up for using the term, since most journalists and other commentators would naturally use the same terminology the AWC had itself used up until now.

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As to the substance of the report, I'm now very optimistic about it. Sir Emyr said we would be surprised by the extent of the recommendations and decisiveness of what it has to say. I don't think I will be. To me it was always obvious that any group of people who took time to research the issues in detail was only ever likely to come to one conclusion. After all, they are largely going over the same ground that was covered by the Richard Commission before them. In terms of good governance, it is beyond any reasonable argument that the National Assembly should be able to legislate in those areas for which it already has executive responsibility.

The only questions were whether the people of Wales understood the issues clearly enough to make a decision on it, and whether the politicians were willing to let us vote on it.

     • On the first, Sir Emyr has confirmed that the research into public
     opinion shows a "very clear trend", which can only mean that the
     margin in favour is continuing to increase.

     • On the second, the only way its recommendations can be "decisive"
     is by saying that we need to set up the referendum now, rather than
     leave it until later.

So I have no doubt what the report's recommendations will be ... but it will be up to the politicians (and particularly Labour politicians) to decide whether they accept them or not. They will have six months to get the referendum through the Assembly and both Houses of Parliament. They can't afford to take any risks by leaving it until after the general election. At present things are entirely in Labour's own hands, they would be prize fools to leave any part of the process for the Tories to vote through.

Once a date has been set—any time in Autumn 2010 or Spring 2011 will be perfect—it would be almost impossible for an incoming Tory government to stop the referendum taking place.