Doing a deal with Labour

On the Politics Show yesterday, Owen Smith suggested that it was up to other parties to come to Labour if they wanted to do a deal. Although I can't speak on behalf of Plaid, this is what I think we should say.

Plaid Cymru's goals are long term: to develop and enhance the constitutional position of Wales so that decision-making power in more and more areas is devolved to Wales. Put more simply, our principle is that we in Wales are better able to make decisions about Wales than people who are not in Wales.

For this reason, our "red-line" issues should not be the day-to-day policy decisions in areas which are already devolved, such as health or education. In 2007, the one big thing we wanted was Labour's commitment to a referendum on primary lawmaking powers for Wales. Without that, the One Wales Agreement would never have got off the ground. All the other things in the One Wales Agreement, even though good in and of themselves, were of secondary importance.

So this time round we must similarly concentrate on the big issues rather than the small ones. In my opinion there are three:

     •  Devolution of the police, justice system, prisons and probation
     •  Devolution of some taxation powers, as recommended by Holtham
     •  A fair voting system for the Assembly

That's not to say there aren't other constitutional matters that could be considered such as reform of the civil service or broadcasting, but these are the three areas that I think matter most. If we can reach agreement with Labour on these, then there is nothing to stop us adding more; but without these three things I don't think there would be any point in doing a deal at all.
 

Devolution of the police, justice system, prisons and probation

On this subject, I want to start by saying that it is absolutely inevitable that a Wales will become a distinct legal jurisdiction. It is therefore pointless to negotiate a deal on something that is going to happen anyway.

We need the complete package to be devolved to Wales.

Our position should be simple, if this area is devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland it is only right for it to be devolved to Wales as well. It also solves the tricky problem of dealing with the ConDem coalition's proposals for elected Police and Crime Commissioners. At one level, Westminster can currently impose whatever it wants on Wales. But it is impossible to impose a system where we get a very powerful individual, but do not also get a mechanism for scrutiny of that individual. For that scrutiny to be democratic, it must consist of elected representatives at local level, and local government is devolved.

It would also enable us to go ahead with building a much needed prison in north Wales, but of a size that suits the needs of north Wales (500 or so at the very most) as opposed to Labour in Westminster's previous plan for a prison to house some 1,500 ... most of whom would have come from England. We would also be able to build much smaller facilities for the very low numbers of women and youth offenders who need to be in custody. These units might house as few as 15 to 25 people. They could of course be built through the BuildforWales model.

Devolving prisons and probation also makes sense because of their natural interdependence with areas that are already devolved to Wales such as education, health and social services. We will be able to develop a joined up approach to reduce the numbers that re-offend.
 

Devolution of some taxation powers, as recommended by Holtham

A simple, but fair, summary of Labour's position with regard to Holtham is that they want what is in the first part of the report, but don't want what is in the second.

We can all now agree (even though it took Labour some time to realize it) that the way Wales is funded is unfair. But it is utterly naïve for Labour to think that Wales can get a fair funding formula without also having to accept a degree of responsibility for how the money the Welsh Government spends is raised. You can't cherry pick. Both parts of the Holtham Report are equally important.
 

A fair voting system for the Assembly

Although Labour don't like it, they have lost the battle over the number of MPs in Wales. The question for us now is how to adapt the Assembly voting system to suit. Now of course we could simply have two different sets of constituencies for the Assembly and Westminster, but I think that would be confusing.

There are two possibilities: one is to keep the current voting system but base it on the same 30 constituencies as will be used for Westminster, but to increase the number of regional AMs from 20 to 30; the second is to adopt STV.

A second factor is that is the overall number of AMs. I strongly believe we should not increase the number of AMs unless further areas of responsibility are devolved to Wales. But if we get police and the justice system devolved to Wales, that would justify an increase to 75 or 80 AMs.

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These three are tricky areas in that the decision about whether nor not we get them rests with Westminster; they are not deliverable by the Assembly on its own. But the name of the game will be to present a united front to Westminster with the aim of persuading them to devolve these powers to us. For as long as Labour press for these things to be devolved, it should be possible for us to work with Labour. But if no progress is made, Plaid's support will be withdrawn.