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5.15 pm
I did not suggest that my right hon. Friend was proposing the transfer of prisons. I was talking not only about the present Government, but about a future Government being given power through the Bill. My right hon. Friend continued:
My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli said that such a transfer was provided for in the Bill and the Secretary of State replied:
Let us look at the way in which the Welsh Office has evolved. I went through all the orders transferring functions to the Welsh Office over the past 34 years. It was interesting to study the sensible, pragmatic and progressive transfer of power to a developing Department. One of the reasons for the success of the Welsh Office is that is grew progressively, absorbing each function and making it work before collecting the next one. That procedure was followed between 1964 and 1978. After a transfer order in April 1978, there was not another one until 29 January 1991. That is a huge gap and I was curious to discover the reason for it. The answer--[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West takes a conspiratorial view.
Between 1978 and the solitary order on radioactive substances in 1991, the powers to be delegated to the Secretary of State for Wales were written into successive Acts. The Secretary of State collected responsibilities from other Departments over time. As new legislation was introduced, his responsibilities were written into it. I have not had an opportunity to look through the legislation from 1978 to 1991, but, during that time, the Secretary of State's responsibilities grew with each Act.
Until now, it has not been the wish of Parliamentor Government to delegate serious additional major functions to the Secretary of State for Wales from other
Departments. Therefore, if the assembly is to grow and if it is to be given responsibility for those functions, that must be done through primary legislation, not by order.
Mr. Wigley:
The hon. Gentleman is raising an important question and I am following his argument. Is it not the case that the Acts that came into force between 1978 and 1991 used the term, "the Secretary of State", which can be interpreted in different ways in different parts of the United Kingdom? During the debates on those Acts, virtually no time--if any time at all--was spent on discussing the question of which Secretary of State would undertake the various responsibilities.
Mr. Rowlands:
I am sure that in those debates, it would have been made very clear that any functions relating to Wales would be the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Wales. Of course, we all understand that "Secretary of State" is an all-embracing term.
As I was saying, after 1978, the Secretary of State's responsibilities were written into each and every Act. Surely that is what will happen with the assembly. When new legislation is introduced, the Government of the day will state whether the responsibilities are to be exercised by the Secretary of State or by the assembly. I am concerned about functions and powers that already exist in other Departments and may be transferred to the assembly. We identified two such Departments in our amendment. After 34 years, there must be some powerful reasons why the functions have not been transferred previously. I do not want to go too far into the argument as I am sure that the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) will want to develop it when he speaks to his amendments.
Let us take, as an example, the transfer of prison functions to the Welsh Office. Any hon. Member with constituents who, sadly, have gone to prison knows how important an integrated Prison Service across Britain is to the welfare of prisoners. To be honest, I would not want my constituents to go to Welsh prisons because the best prisons are outside Wales. There has been a common-sense view that the Home Office should have responsibility for prisons and that it should run an integrated service across boundaries.
There is a strong case for the Home Office maintaining and retaining various home affairs functions, especially the management and operation of the Prison Service. It should remain an integrated service and its functions should not be transferred to the assembly. If a future Government wished to transfer those functions, it would be a major change in policy and should not be dealt with through a simple one-and-a-half-hour, unamendable order which could not be scrutinised and debated with the seriousness it deserved.
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Mon):
I want to speak to amendments Nos. 162, 163 and 161. My right hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) will deal with the other Plaid Cymru amendments.
I want briefly to pick up the arguments made by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) about the Prison Service. My experience, both as a solicitor before I was elected to the House and as a Member of Parliament, is the opposite of the hon. Gentleman's. He suggested that his constituents would be
better off in prisons outside Wales. I have received many letters from constituents and others in prison expressing regret about the fact that there is no prison in north Wales. That has often led to arguments with prison officers and others about the use of Welsh language material within the Prison Service.
I profoundly disagree with the hon. Gentleman's analysis. I see no reason why the assembly should not have responsibility for the Prison Service, as referred to in amendment No. 161. The functions of the Prison Service have already been devolved to Scotland, so what is the problem with their being devolved to Wales? Indeed, other home affairs services have also been transferred to the Scottish Office and will become the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament. There is no reason why those services should not similarly be transferred to the assembly. The hon. Gentleman took the whole argument about social security, especially the social security budget, to an interesting level and we may need to discuss that. However, I see no reason why prison and fire services should not be transferred to the assembly.
I want to raise an issue about the magistrates courts service in Wales. I have always been mystified by the processes of the magistrates courts committee. It puts forward plans to rationalise--which means to close--local magistrates courts, but the county council or the unitary authority can ask for those plans to be referred to the Lord Chancellor's Department. The unitary authorities in Wales have some locus in these matters--in particular, they can lodge objections to the plans--but the Welsh Office has no responsibility at all. It would be logical--a word used by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies)--therefore for the Secretary of State and, ultimately, the assembly to determine such appeals. In the era of closures of magistrates courts, especially in rural areas where many responsibilities are covered by magistrates' clerks--where justice requires people to travel long distances to attend court either as witnesses or as defendants--the assembly should determine such issues. If the assembly has responsibility for those matters, the people of Wales will have the opportunity of deciding on the structure that we want for magistrates courts, for example, in Wales.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) mentioned the probation service. That service, too, should properly be transferred to the national assembly. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney hinted that transferring it to the assembly should be considered. Although I realise that we shall not be able to take him or other Labour Members with us all the way on all the
issues, he did say that the probation service might appropriately be dealt with by order rather than by primary legislation.
"a future Government might consider it. If so, I am sure that the Government of the day and Parliament would say, 'Hang on, you cannot do that by order: it is a substantial shift.'"
But hang on! The clause does allow a future Government to make such a transfer by order. It does not say that an Act of Parliament is required, and that is the fundamental point of my amendment. We are saying that some responsibilities and functions of two major Departments should be transferred only by an Act of Parliament.
"Of course it is, but legislation must be acted on in the light of political common sense."--[Official Report, 21 January 1998; Vol. 304, c. 1106-07.]
I would like to believe that, but such common sense does not always fully determine Government decisions. We are asking, "What does the legislation say and do we agree with it?" My fundamental point--I hope that I am not making a meal of it--is that some functions should be transferred by order while others should require Acts of Parliament. Major responsibilities relating to prisons and to social security should be transferred not by order, but by primary legislation.
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