Sharpening Up

I was particularly interested in something Betsan Powys' wrote in her blog today on the official launch of the Yes for Wales campaign.

It was about freeing politicians up to focus on delivery, said Mr Lewis. It was also about not conflating the Assembly Government's performance so far with the powers that would be given to the Assembly as an institution and any future government that will be at the helm.

Another difficulty. If it is not about political decisions taken already by this government, why does the campaign leaflet say that "it's good to know that our National Assembly is protecting schools, skills and hospitals" – the mantra of Labour and Plaid ministers? Where's the 'clarity' in that?

It won't be easy, was the gist of the response. Future leaflets would be "sharpened up." This is, after all, a cross party campaign, one having to explain what powers have been used for so far, what a 'yes' vote would mean and how more powers could be used in future. "That's the tightrope we're having to walk". In other words, we concede now that there'll be an occasional wobble.

Yes = No Excuses, 4 January 2011

I picked up on the "it's good to know that our National Assembly is protecting schools, skills and hospitals" line when the leaflet first came out, saying in this post that it had stretched things too far in a party political direction and wondering how comfortable Yes supporters from the LibDems and Tories could be with it. It wasn't a good start. Yes for Wales is meant to be a cross party campaign, and for that reason it has to be very careful about making statements that have the potential to alienate potential supporters.

So it is welcome and reassuring to hear that the campaign has taken notice of this and that future leaflets will be "sharpened up". It's a positive sign.

     

But it is a tightrope, and so it's perhaps inevitable that the campaign will sometimes stray from the issue of primary lawmaking powers and nothing but primary lawmaking powers, simply because others are trying to make out that it is to do with issues like independence, tax varying powers or the performance of particular parties that have formed the Welsh Government, at least up to now. So, as with any cross-political/cross-society group, we need to be careful not to take what someone might say if they do start talking about wider issues as necessarily representing the views of all the shades of opinion in the group. It is only reasonable to expect to Yes for Wales to deal with the issue it was set up to campaign for.

A good example of the danger is on this page of the Yes for Wales website on the subject of taxation. This first statement is perfectly correct:

The Assembly has no powers to increase or reduce taxes, whatever the outcome of this referendum.

But it is immediately followed by:

Any changes to taxes would require a further referendum.

Now that is a perfectly valid political opinion, but Yes for Wales is not in a position to determine whether a referendum will be required or not. Nor is any politician or political party. In constitutional terms, Westminster remains sovereign and can do whatever it likes. If Westminster decides to make the Welsh Government responsible for raising some of the money it spends, rather than simply giving a fixed block grant which we must either spend in its entirety or lose, it will be able to do so irrespective of whether we in Wales agree or not.

When his Commission's report was published, Gerry Holtham made the point that the issue of how Wales was funded was a matter of basic political accountability. In one interview he said that principle of accountability would apply even irrespective of the areas of responsibility that are devolved to Wales ... that it would apply if things stayed as they were, if more subject areas were devolved, or if half the currently devolved areas were re-centralized to Westminster.

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Now I can understand why someone like Carwyn Jones would go out of his way to say that applying for tax varying powers was not on his political agenda. As he said a few times when he faced the Assembly Scrutiny Committee on 7 December 2010 (15:10 and 25:40 of this recording on Democracy Live) he thought that reform of Barnett was a greater priority. And I agree with that entirely, because without properly defining the principle of a fair baseline, there is nothing to set any tax variation against. It would just be horse-trading. But, that said, I have to note that the ConDem government seems determined to press ahead with that in Scotland without considering any replacement or reform of Barnett ... which is asking for trouble, as an ad hoc solution made now will only muddle things in the longer term.

In the second section, he did appear to be particular concerned that tax varying powers would be portrayed by some less scrupulous "mischief" makers (I'm sure we can all think of a name) as being linked in some way with the referendum on primary lawmaking powers. But I think he is being over-cautious in this respect. The two are not linked in any way, and even in the very unlikely event that this referendum were to be lost, the pressure for the Welsh Government to be accountable for raising at least some of the money it spends will still be there.