A Peter Clark
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6th February 2003
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The Secretary
Richard Commission
Caradog House
1-6 St Andrews Place
Cardiff CF10 3BE.
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Dear Sir/Madam,
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I have read the paper about the Commission’s
aims and terms of reference and wish to make the following
submission.
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In what practical ways do the powers
of the Assembly, or the limits on its powers, impinge
on you…….and what are the best examples of
this from your point of view?
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Devolution being something of a novelty
in the U.K., it would be surprising if all the arrangements,
in every detail, were ‘right first time’.
The appointment of a Commission to review the arrangements
is therefore timely.
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One area in which I take an interest,
and where the limit on Assembly’s powers definitely
does have an impact, is on rail service development.
It is essential to consider rail as part of overall
transport arrangements, and not as a separate subject.
The Assembly, in conjunction with Welsh local authorities,
has powers over road transport, including many aspects
of bus services provision. By the same means it has
some control over rail infrastructure enhancements as
these can be, and are, sometimes funded by the transport
grant system through LTPs and UDPs.
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But the Assembly has no control and very
little influence over, actual rail service provision
in Wales, either in terms of service specification or
funding. These powers remain with the Strategic Rail
Authority (SRA) in London.
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The result of this division of power
is that infrastructure enhancements, including some
which have been sponsored by the SWIFT consortium for
example, do not realise their potential because the
SRA declines to fund the additional services which the
upgrades were designed to handle. In other words, the
actions (and spending) of one public body are being
thwarted by the actions of another.
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In addition, this means the Assembly
is unable to deliver a fully integrated transport system,
although this is one of its objectives.
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These problems were foreseen by many
at the time the Assembly was set up, but they have become
much more prominent in recent months. The SRA is concentrating
its development spending in areas of England, especially
the south-east, and has instructed the bidders for the
new Wales & Borders franchise to consider funding
cuts of up to 20% (which, if implemented, would involve
much more than 20% reduction in services, because so
much of the operator’s costs are fixed). It has
stated that there is little scope for reopening lines
or stations. This means that the Assembly is having
to use its own money – from the block grant –
to ensure that its declared policy of, inter alia, reopening
the railway to Ebbw Vale, as part of the regeneration
of areas affected by Corus closures, can go ahead. Whilst
a laudable action by the Assembly, this is contrary
to the devolution arrangements; the SRA ought to be
funding the scheme, there being no allowance for rail
spending (a non-devolved power) in calculating the block
grant.
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The SRA is obliged to consult the Assembly,
whereas in Scotland (for example) the Executive guides
and instructs the SRA – a vast difference in powers.
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I am aware that Scotland’s rail
system is more self-contained than that of Wales, but
I do not accept that this invalidates the arguments
in favour of greater powers for the Assembly. It simply
means that the English border counties would need to
be involved as partners, in whatever form of institution
the Assembly might set up to discharge its powers over
rail.
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There are two possible solutions to this,
depending on the extent, if any, to which the Assembly’s
powers are increased:
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| If Wales achieves parity with Scotland, to include primary
legislation and possibly (though not necessarily) tax-varying
powers, then it would be expected that rail powers would
also be devolved as they have been in Scotland. Anything
less would be unacceptable and would defy logic. |
| At the very least, and maybe as an interim measure,
rail funding for Wales needs to be ‘ring-fenced’,
by application of ‘Barnett formula’ principles,
whether based on population or other measures of need.
The application of that funding must be under the Assembly’s
control, though close liaison with the SRA would be necessary,
having regard to the many cross-border services. |
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It must be remembered that people resident
in Wales pay the same rates of taxes as those elsewhere
in the U.K., and therefore are entitled to comparable
and commensurate public services, including rail. I
submit that unless at least the second solution above
is adopted, this will not happen.
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So, for the reasons outlined above, my
answer to the second question (does the Government
of Wales Act provide the Assembly with the powers it
needs to operate effectively and meet the expectations
of the people of Wales?) is NO.
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Moving to a different subject, the Commission’s
terms of reference include consideration of the Assembly’s
electoral arrangements. Yet there are no questions about
this in the main body of the paper. Will there be a
separate consultation exercise on this aspect? In case
there won’t be, I take the opportunity of commenting
on the second and third bullet points on page 8 of the
paper (I do not consider myself qualified to comment
on the first bullet point).
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| Whether the means of electing the Assembly, including
the degree of proportionality, adequately and accurately
represents all significant interests in Wales: |
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Not entirely, but it is a major
improvement on ‘first-past-the-post’ (FPTP).
So far, it has deprived the dominant party of a majority
of seats on a minority of votes, and, very importantly,
it has given members of the public a choice of elected
representatives to contact on any particular matter
– a choice of individual and of party. FPTP gives
no such choice of course.
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One problem is that the proportion of
‘additional members’ is not high enough to
achieve true proportionality. The system involves two
ballot papers for the two different voting systems,
produces two different typos of AMs (constituency and
list), and gives rise to the notion (not shared by me)
that the ‘list’, or ‘additional’
members, are somehow inferior in status to the constituency
members.
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| Whether any changes which may be recommended to
the Assembly’s powers make either necessary or desirable
changes to the size of the Assembly or the means of electing
it: |
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There are two possible answers:
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| 1. If the ‘Additional
Member’ electoral system is retained, as noted above
the proportion of additional members needs to be increased.
This could be achieved by increasing the size of the Assembly,
or by enlarging the constituencies such that the balance
between constituency and list members is changed but the
total number of AMs remains as now. |
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I doubt whether increasing the size of
the Assembly would find much public support, outside
the political parties, unless it were accompanied by
significant extensions of the Assembly’s powers.
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2. A better electoral system is the Single
Transferable Vote (STV), which would remove the problems
already mentioned as occurring with the present system.
STV provides for multi-member constituencies, and voters
rank candidates in order of preference. It has a good
record of delivering proportionality, and its adoption
would not, per se, necessitate increasing the size of
the Assembly.
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Yours faithfully
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A P Clark
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