Wales is set to win greater powers to legislate if the Welsh people vote ‘yes’ in a forthcoming referendum, reports Ian Pickering
There is one key priority for the Wales Office over the coming year: devolution. A referendum on further Welsh devolution that would give more powers to the National Assembly for Wales forms part of the Cabinet Office’s structural reform plan on political reform, which maintains that the UK needs a less powerful central government and more power and accountability at local level. It is the role of the Wales Office – with the Welsh Assembly Government – to organise the referendum by the end of March 2011 and, subject to the result, to oversee the subsequent devolution.
There are currently 20 broad policy areas where, each time the Assembly wishes to pass a law, it must obtain what is known as a Legislative Competence Order (LCO) from the UK Parliament. The referendum will ask the people of Wales whether they want to give the Assembly full law-making powers in these areas: a ‘yes’ vote would result in all those potential powers being transferred, enabling the Assembly to pass laws in future without permission from Westminster.
In February, the Welsh Assembly voted unanimously in favour of a referendum. Secretary of State for Wales Cheryl Gillan now has to lay an order before both Houses of Parliament before the question can be put to the Welsh people. A positive response seems likely: a BBC Cymru poll published in March suggested the result would be a clear ‘yes’ vote, with 56 per cent in favour of the proposal.
The ministerial team
Born and bred in Wales – though she has represented the home counties constituency of Chesham and Amersham since 1992 – secretary of state Cheryl Gillan is a strong advocate of further devolution for the Welsh Assembly. A former marketing professional, working for Ernst & Young and Kidsons Impey, she has held the Wales brief since 2005. And she continues to spar with former Wales Office secretary of state Peter Hain, who retains his brief in opposition: Gillan has described Hain’s work towards a devolution referendum as “unfinished business”.
Gillan’s parliamentary under-secretary of state is David Jones: a Londoner by birth, but a Welshman by lineage and upbringing. A solicitor by profession, Jones stood for Parliament twice – in Conwy in 1997 and Chester in 2001 – before winning in Clwyd West in 2005. He was a member of the Welsh Assembly from 2002 to 2003, and has held a seat on the Welsh affairs select committee.