Why has it arisen?
What are the implications?
What we have is a diminution of the powers we once had and it is a
Devaluation of Devolution.
In July 2014 the
Supreme Court, presided over by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd,
was required to decide upon the crucial issue of exactly where the boundary lay
between Westminster and Cardiff in relation to devolution.
The matter
before the court was the desire of the Welsh Assembly to pass its own
legislation in relation to agricultural workers wages in Wales.
The case for the Westminster government, presented by the then Attorney General, was essentially that a decision as to wages belonged classically to the field of employment.
The Supreme
Court found differently and said that whenever there was in any one of the
twenty fields of devolved authority an intention to transfer substantial powers
to Wales, then unless there was a specific exemption to that effect, all
other powers belonged to the Welsh Assembly.
This is what the
Supreme Court called the ‘silent transfer’.
The consequence
of the ruling was mindboggling in that :
- It was clear that huge areas
(hitherto ‘silent’) had in fact been unwittingly transferred to the Welsh
Assembly;
-
That in many other areas there
could have been no certainty that matters had not in fact been
transferred.
The current
Wales Bill settlement proposal and controversy therefore emanates directly from
that uncertainty and that the devolution that will be enjoyed by Wales when and
if the Bill receives the Royal Assent will be much less than that day the
Supreme Court judgement was given.
Whether that
diminution of devolution authority will be of the order 10% to 30% is highly
debatable but on any view it will be substantial.
So what we have
therefore is a diminution of the powers we once had and it is a devaluation of
devolution.