| LORD RICHARD: I think
we're starting with a precedent of being five minutes
late. I hope we'll observe Parliamentary style and start
when the hour is fixed and adjourn at the hour proposed.
Can I say two or three things at the outset. Some practical
things first. As much of our deliberations as is possible
we will clearly have in public. It's very important that
the people of Wales should be involved in these discussions
and we will take steps to ensure as best we can that they
are. Secondly, as far as witnesses giving evidence in
front of us are concerned there is a translation unit
here if people wish to speak Welsh there is no problem
about that whatsoever. As far as the Commission itself
is concerned I really think I'd like to make just three
points to start with. |
| First of all, this is a serious examination
of the relationship between Cardiff and Westminster. We
know what the background has been to the establishment
of that relationship. The Assembly has been in existence
now for some years. What I think we have to do, one of
our main tasks, is to examine that relationship in almost
a brutally practical way. We ask ourselves the question:
how is the Assembly working given the powers it has at
present got? |
| That then leads on to the second question
which is: looking at those powers, are they the right
ones or do they need amending, and if they need amending,
how do they need amending, and what is the likely result
of any particular set of amendments to those powers? |
| Thirdly I think we've got to look too at
the cost. I don't think one can look at great constitutional
events in the abstract. I think they have to be pretty
solidly founded. The finance and cost is one thing that
we are clearly going to have to examine. I fear that we're
going to have to look at the Barnett formula, I don't
see how we can avoid doing that much as I would like to.
It's perhaps a formula of almost Proustian complexity,
but there we are, if it has to be done clearly it will
have to be done. We will do it with thoroughness and determination.
I think it's also right to say that the members of the
Commission here today are quite determined that, to the
best of our ability, we will have a serious detailed,
not too academic, practical examination of these problems.
I hope in due course we'll come up with practical solutions
to it. |
| The first person who's going to give us
the benefit of his evidence is Professor Kevin Morgan.
I'd be grateful if he would, like Mastermind, sit in the
chair. I wonder whether for the sake of the record you
could identify yourself. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: My name is Kevin Morgan and
I work in the department of City and Regional Planning
at Cardiff University. |
| LORD RICHARD: Professor Morgan, before
I got your book Redesigning Democracy, a very good
read, which is not a thing one expects to find normally
in some of these erudite pieces of paper that land in
front of us. You trace the history of the debate particularly
within the Labour Party about devolution culminating in
what you describe as the minimalist option of devolution
set out in A Voice for Wales. I wonder if you could
enlarge a little upon that. How do you summarise the aims
of devolution? How do you think it fits in with the White
Paper concept? |
|
KEVIN MORGAN: Can I simply say before
I address that, I didn't originally apply to give evidence
to you because I don't feel I've devoted enough time
to monitoring the settlement but I was invited to give
evidence by your competent clerk because she said you
were having introductory sessions. I don't say that
for false modesty but because I genuinely don't feel
I've devoted enough time to looking at the evolution
of the settlement. As for the question I think that
begs another question as to whether the executive model
of devolution was a clearly thought out, rational model
with a clearly defined set of aims and objectives. Well
of course it was nothing of the sort. It's a minimalist
political compromise. The most feasible thing that the
powers that be could get away with. One has to say this
- that it really was the most basic thing that could
be acceptable. The most minimalist solution was not
to do anything of course but that was not politically
feasible. Something had to be done so it was in a sense
continuity with change, continuity in upper case as
students say today, change in lower case. So I don't
think I could begin to define a coherent set of aims
and objectives for evolution other than to say it was
to democratise a Welsh Office model of administrative
devolution.
|
| As you rightly say we have to be brutally
practical about these things. Some people will want more
powers for ideological reasons. My own position is pragmatic.
Does the Assembly have the tools to do the job? That's
the only question I'm interested in because I came into
devolution, first to try to overcome the democratic deficit.
Now I'm more concerned about redressing the delivery deficit.
That's my own position. |
| LORD RICHARD: Let’s take that question.
Does it have those two jobs - how do you define the job? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I think the White Paper did
address what the job was. The job was regenerating Wales
as a robust democracy on the one hand and secondly to
try to gain the tools to do the job of regenerating the
Welsh economy. Unlike the Scottish campaign we were much
more focused on getting the tools to do the job because
Wales quite clearly had to reinvent itself. For me the
most graphic example of that need was where Wales genuinely
did show some real innovation in the regional development
field. Almost single-handedly people in Wales, especially
the Welsh Development Agency and others too, put to the
European Commission a radical new form of regional policy
called the Regional Technology Plan. It was about
regional innovation. Having orchestrated this new model,
we then found ourselves almost losing it at the 11th hour
when John Redwood refused to endorse it. The Commission
put enormous pressure on the Welsh Office to try to get
John Redwood to sign the letter of approval to approve
a new generation of regional policy and at the 11th hour
we only got his signature when the Commission threatened
to give the new project to Scotland. In my own mind, although
there wasn't enormous resources attached to this, it was
a good illustration of Wales for once being genuinely
innovative at the leading edge of Europe. The Commission
conceded this and here, because of our governance arrangements,
the lack of accountability of the Welsh Office, we were
going to be scuppered at the 11th hour. Sorry to go round
the question, but the job as I understood it and still
understand it is twofold: first of all, to design and
deliver a robust democracy and secondly to get the tools
to do the job of regenerating the Welsh economy. |
| LORD RICHARD: But if I can pursue for the
moment the regional point you make. If one had had in
place at that time what you describe as the minimalist
result of the White Paper and all the rest, Wales could
still have pushed the point. The arrangements we now have
would have been sufficient to have covered the political,
regional point you make – we wouldn't have had Mr.
Redwood there. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: The toolbox would indeed
have been sufficient in that case, but our country is
at the bottom of pretty much every league table one cares
to think about – I’m not just talking about
hard economic data, but we're at the bottom or on the
bottom, in terms of child poverty, 33 per cent of Welsh
children defined now as below the poverty line. When you
have such enormous problems to address, do you really
want a toolbox which is the most minimalist toolbox imaginable,
or do you want some proper tools to do the job? That's
my own way of thinking and framing the problem. Why do
we always have to think about minimalism in Wales when
our problems, I think, are maximalist. We have very, very
deep developmental problems in Wales. |
| LORD RICHARD: You’ve got to establish
now the link between doing something about the existing
arrangements and being able to deal with these different
problems. How do you see that? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Sorry to go back to the earlier
point. The John Redwood illustration serves in my own
mind and I think it's a telling, robust analogy, of the
relationship between governance and development. If you
look at any of the mainstream policy making documents
coming out of the World Bank, even the IMF today, you'll
see now the gung-ho, free market liberalist tone has been
tempered. They've been chastened by experience in Eastern
Europe, Latin America and other countries, because they
realise governance mechanisms are very, very important
for development. You have to design and develop systems
of property rights, institutional systems, honest administration,
civil servants with integrity, and above all a culture
whereby you can overcome what I believe was the greatest
single problem of the Welsh Office culture namely risk
aversion. There was no incentive to innovate, to do something
novel. Those are the things development is about today.
If you're going to create a knowledge economy we have
to invest in young men and women, encourage them to be
confident, encourage them to set up businesses or whatever.
These are the new developmental agendas around the world
today and they include governance arrangements, honest,
prudent innovative governance arrangements which is going
beyond minimalist development and try to encourage people
to be the best they can be. That's why I think governance
and development, democracy and development go hand in
hand. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Mr. Morgan, in your book
on page 217 and 18 you list the tasks that are essential
for economic regeneration. Do any of those tasks you describe
require either additional competencies for the Assembly
or new primary legislation or do they fall within existing
competencies of the Assembly as it stands? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Two examples. First of all,
if you accept that the game has completely changed now
in terms of development, that the old days of simply moving
low grade branch factories to Wales have gone and we really
need to reinvent ourselves and move upmarket. The only
one way to do that is by investing in knowledge economy
and knowledge based assets: people. That's the context
it seems to me. If you take then the Chairman's guidance
to us to be brutally pragmatic, it seems to me, and I
work in a university setting, I'm more familiar with HE
than other sectors, if you think of the Assembly's track
record in education which I believe is encouraging, there
are questions to be asked as to whether the powers that
it has at the moment are sufficient to constitute the
tools to do the job. It was completely fortuitous that
there was legislation going through Westminster on which
our HE reforms could piggyback. There were some problems
in terms of enacting what we really wanted to do with
education. You could even raise the same issue about health.
Health reforms were so radically different in Wales than
they were in England, with respect to Local Health Boards
for example; it raised the question whether we should
have had an NHS Wales bill. I know that departs from your
question. |
| TED ROWLANDS: On the set of tasks for economic
regeneration. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I would say in terms of education
there is a real issue. In terms of designing an education
policy that is really supportive of a knowledge based
economy I don't believe we've sufficient powers to do
that in Wales yet. |
| TED ROWLANDS: So of the seven you have
listed it's the education one you would primarily focus
on as being deficient in terms of power. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: That’s key. A second
example could be sustainability. There is no point any
longer in treating economic policy as though it was discrete
from sustainable development. The economy and environment
have converged so completely we have to think about sustainable
models of economic development. There are enormous issues. |
| HUW THOMAS: What I want to get from you
is identifying specific competencies that are required
to fulfil the tasks. In higher education ELWa, which is
a distinctive Welsh solution institution, different from
England in every sense of the word, has higher education
within its remit. What additional competencies do does
the Assembly need in higher education? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Let me give one example.
You remember coming out of the Assembly work on higher
education there was the proposal for the Higher Education
Funding Council for Wales to be awarded some powers initially
to maybe direct mergers. Very, very controversial subject.
Initial soundings from Whitehall were that that was impossible.
Don't look for legislative time if you're thinking of
proposing such a thing. I'm not talking about the merits
of the proposal. I give it as an example to your question. |
| Another example is the need to address
the deep problems we have in Welsh agriculture. There
is only one future for agriculture that is to move to
a more sustainable basis. Part of the answer, not all
of it, part of the answer to the agricultural crisis must
be to produce value added branded items which are traceable
and credible in the market because food today is a surrogate
for medicine and the organic strategy, although coming
from a very low base, is very important. That's not just
an issue of Cardiff and London - it involves Brussels
as well because of the reform of the CAP. The CAP is being
reformed and we'll see it reformed eventually, not necessarily
in the context of the mid-term review, but we will see
a greener more devolved CAP. That's the exciting prize
for Wales to aim for. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Again there is the question
- is that capable of being delivered by the political
will within existing competencies or do you identify a
need for additional competence? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: To go to the Chairman's point
about the toolbox, the toolbox isn't up to that challenge.
If you think of what's happening with the reform of the
CAP, especially beyond 2006 when I think a more radical
model will begin to emerge, I think Wales needs more tools
for the job. It was quite clear in foot and mouth; we
emerged from foot and mouth almost by accident better
than some parts of England. It was a minor miracle the
Minister emerged with flying colours. I think he did that
partly because of his competence and because of his integrity
and reputation with farmers but I think he went on record
to say here was an example of a Minister with responsibility
but no power. |
| TED ROWLANDS: I understand from the evidence
he gave to the Select Committee of the House of Lords
that within the next 12 months competence is going to
be transferred. All I want to do is for you to identify
to us the specific competencies you think are essential
to the delivery of your 7 tasks. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I understand. I don't feel
I'm in the chair here to advocate greater powers. I'm
here welcoming the Commission. I feel the key issue is
to reflect on what was the minimalist political compromise,
with ill thought out powers transferred, and to scrutinise
it in a way that should have been done initially. That's
why I see the Commission as fulfilling a very valuable
role. I'm not here advocating greater powers, simply saying
I welcome the fact that in respect of economic development,
education, in health, agriculture maybe, you will be looking
at these issues. I don't want to be cast as some kind
of advocate of powers for the sake of some kind of macho
reason of having more powers. Tools for the job is my
position. |
| TOM JONES: Could I follow up on questions
about competencies. The idea that during the next 12 months
perhaps there can be transfer of responsibility from the
Assembly on rural matters, what we need to know is how
does that happen. Is it within a system of agreed protocol,
the Assembly asks for it to happen, or will it depend
on the strength of character of one Minister over and
above another Minister or on some political agreements
between Celtic Ministers to demand something. Are the
mechanisms in place now for which if demand is shown it
happens or - is there something in statute or is it a
political thing? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I think you need to get clean
away from talk about personal chemistry. One of the important
things that can come out of this Commission is the Assembly
can be put on a sustainable footing. Myself I'm a Labour
Party member but we have to think the unthinkable, maybe
a Tory regime. How are we going to deal with that? You
can't think about personal chemistry. It's well known
I'm a Labour Party member. I wrote a book about the Labour
Party. The question is can we rely on Celtic bonding,
on personal chemistry? No, I don't believe one can. I
think the situation now that's emerging in agriculture
and rural development is very instructive. We have really
four Ministers and no parity of esteem with Margaret Beckett
as Secretary of State of DEFRA. There is still a command
and control system. She is the lead minister and wears
two hats and they're very uneasy. She wears a hat as lead
Minister to Brussels on agriculture for the United Kingdom.
She also wears another hat, which is the English Minister
for Agriculture. These two roles are becoming – uncomfortable.
I put it no stronger than that. I think that issue arose
when for the first time the Welsh Assembly tried to do
something independently of Whitehall in this field, when
we tried to design the Welsh calf processing scheme. I
don't suppose many people remember it now but in the book
I argue it was the first time we tested subsidiarity in
the UK and subsidiarity in the European Union. To this
day I'm not sure where this scheme fell whether because
it was novel or illegal. |
| TOM JONES: I think the point is are these
transfers likely to happen in response to an event each
time, or are there mechanisms in place for them to develop
naturally. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: On an ad hoc basis - they'll
develop out of crisis and a process of learning by doing.
Foot and mouth leading to the devolution of animal welfare
competencies. Maybe in reforming CAP we will see something
else. Maybe on education the Rees report on grants was
a major step forward. We could have done that earlier
had we known we had the tool to do the job. Instead it
slowed everything down. I come back to the point that
we are a poor country at the bottom of most leagues. Is
this the way we want to reinvent ourselves? |
| EIRA DAVIES: The main question I suppose,
the word minimalist comes up several times and you've
also said you changed your mind over the years, more emphasis
on tools for the job. To what extent when the Labour Commission
was looking at devolution was there evidence of an interest
in Wales in primary powers and has that changed over the
years. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I’m going back now,
it's dredging back into the past. Hindsight is great but
at the time I didn't know anyone who was arguing for what
we've got. In the Labour Party at the time there were
two major factions, there were other factions as well
but two major factions were Welsh Labour, a faction in
the Labour Party, Ron Davies was the most articulate exponent
of it, that believed we needed some primary legislative
powers, the tools to do the job as it were. The other
faction didn't want devolution, not really. And therefore
it was the clash of pro-devolution and anti-devolutionists
that spawned this minimalist model that nobody wanted
and therefore we found ourselves defending it because
we felt this was the most we were going to get if we wanted
to get this through another generation. |
| LORD RICHARD: To what extent, how high
on the scale, is the need for primary powers in providing
the Assembly with tools for the job? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: It was always assumed by
devolutionists in the Labour Party we probably would get
primary powers to a limited degree for things like the
Welsh language, quangos, modernising Local Government,
maybe for health and education. I always assumed we’d
get something so when we got nothing I was surprised to
say the least. I understand the process that produced
this. London was absolutely centrally involved. We can't
understand any of this without understanding the relationship
between London Labour and let's call it Old Labour. Sorry
about these terms. They're not very useful but we always
thought we'd have primary powers. I think the case for
that in many people's minds has probably increased. Not
just in the Labour Party. I now know people I engage with
who say for goodness sake we've got the damn thing let's
make it work. This powerful metaphor of what we need -
tools to do the job. What the job is, is a very good question.
For me it's developing a robust and innovative economy. |
| LORD RICHARD: The other half of the thing
is what are the tools. You can define the job. You have
defined the job. Listening to what you're telling us seems
to me the tool you say is lacking is the absence of is
the powers of primary legislation. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I say that with some reservation
simply because as I said at the outset I haven't devoted
enough time to looking at the nitty-gritty relationship
between legislation in Westminster and in Cardiff. You've
got witnesses today, three witnesses today who would answer
far better than I ever could because they've devoted time
to looking at the issues. I'm saying I think it's fair
to pose the question. Does the Assembly have the tools
to do the job of regenerating the Welsh economy and overcoming
the delivery deficit as it were? I think probably the
answer is no, not yet. But I don't feel I've got the wherewithal
to give you chapter and verse. I mention areas from my
own area, education. I believe reform of CAP is another
example. But the key point is the context in which you
are sitting is changing so radically that the tools for
the job will be changing also. The job is changing therefore
the tools will change. Europe post 2006 will be a radically
different place in some respects from what it is now in
terms of resource flows. One of the things you need to
think about is how is this context changing, how does
it change the definition of the job and how does that
reflect on what tools we need to do it. |
| LAURA MCALLISTER: Kevin, going back historically
in the book you talk a lot about different elements of
rationale for devolution and various strands you touch
on some of them, representing Wales, and Welsh people,
democratising, making more accountable, expression to
Welsh identity, and of course the tools for the job argument,
control of key policy areas. Can you say which of those
were more powerful within the Labour Party at that time
and also maybe in the wider public arena? Maybe this question
takes on a new dimension given the findings of recent
polls which suggest a change in public opinion on what
a Welsh Assembly or maybe a Welsh Parliament might be
able to do? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: With respect to the Labour
Party I think there is no doubt that the issue which resonated
most for both the party officials and for members was
the issue of democratising the Welsh Office and holding
quangos to account. Nothing really compared with the forcefulness
of that issue. During that year I must have addressed
500 meetings. Nothing really resonated as much as that.
Even though I have to say the issue of the quangos and
Welsh Office wasn't well understood by the Labour Party.
It's not understood well even now. Some have used the
phrase at some point, "the bonfire of the quangos". It
was a loose phrase. It never really meant a great deal
in my opinion. People like Llew Smith judge the Assembly
today by the fact we've not had a bonfire. I put it to
him do you want to dismember the WDA and Balkanise it
into 22 different local government bodies - I believe
there is nothing wrong with the quangos as we used to
call them so long as you've addressed the issue of appointments.
We used to worry about the appointments process to the
quangos which I argue became the back door to getting
Conservative people at the top of the Welsh political
system when they had been shut out through the ballot
box. Putting it crudely that's how many people perceived
it. There was an issue of the appointment process and
how quangos are controlled. That was the key issue it
seems to me. With respect to the public at large it's
always difficult. I wouldn't pretend to understand how
the public sees things. I was surprised to see the Aberystwyth
study. I feel the Assembly is earning its crust but the
biggest conundrum of all for the Assembly is that the
benefits it's achieved to date are not readily acknowledged
or understood by the electorate. That's a key conundrum.
The achievement in terms of process of government hasn't
been recognised by the public. I'm not really sure how
they responded to the issues. I think maybe at some point
when feeling more self-confident the Assembly may raise
a statue to John Redwood – |
| LORD RICHARD: Where would you put it? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I’m not sure Chair.
I've no doubt at all, joking apart, that he played an
enormously important role, albeit inadvertently, we would
not have turned people’s opinions without John Redwood,
partly because of the things I mentioned, when he scuppered
a new regional policy and sat on Joe Sibert’s report
on child health and death, and put savings from Welsh
Office back to London. All those reasons - |
| LAURA MCALLISTER: In that model you've
described -the process model - the Assembly seems to have
achieved public support for, would you say the issue now
is moving away from accountability of other existing bodies
towards direct control, is that a possible evolution of
that model? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I think there is something
to be said for that although the Llew Smiths wouldn't
agree with this at all, I believe the quango issue has
been resolved and you should let the professional men
and women get on with the job and we shouldn't interfere
on a daily basis. All of the best practice round the world
suggests you need this arm’s length relationship
to allow people to exercise their professional judgement
and you need to trust them rather than make them knee
deep in targets and political interference. I've travelled
round the world to development agencies. The ones that
work give those men and women arms length relationship
and trust. But as I say, in the Labour Party this issue
is not resolved. I believe the issue has passed from over
coming the democratic deficit, which I believe we've done
by and large, and the issue now and as I said earlier
is how we redress the delivery deficit. That's an issue
for every layer of government in the multi-layer system
we have. For Brussels, London, Cardiff Bay, for local
authorities. We all face this big issue of overcoming
the delivery deficit. |
| TED ROWLANDS: We can discuss the democratic
deficit - I don't share your thoughts we've abolished
the democratic deficit of Welsh quangos - that's another
matter. Let's go to the strengths of you as a witness,
your economic regional knowledge. You quote in your book
the first principles of government namely the power to
spend money must not be divorced from the power to raise
it. You quoted Vernon Bogdanor do you share that view? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I personally do, as an academic
you'd expect me to say this, Ted. I share it in principle
but I'm more schizophrenic about applying the principle
in Wales simply because we are a poor country. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Isn't regional taxation in
our situation regressive potentially, rather than progressive? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Yes, you could say and I
would say the fundamental issue in the European Union
today is how do you secure subsidiarity with solidarity.
Sorry for the jargon. How do you devolve to regions that
want devolution and how do you on the other hand create
taxation and spending systems which allow you to subsidise
across jurisdictions when these jurisdictions are devolved
thoroughly. This for me is one of the biggest problems
of Europe post enlargement. If West Germans are reluctant
to subsidise their East German counterparts. I know they've
done so but reluctantly. How can you expect them to subsidise
East European citizens. That's the big picture. Coming
back to your question, should Wales, the Assembly have
fiscal powers at this point in time, I'd have to say I
don't know, it's not something that exercises me, it's
not important. It was never on the agenda in the Labour
Party debate, unlike in Scotland. I think Scottish people
will tell you privately that the 3p varying power is very
much one for the gallery. It's about machismo rather than
real politics; they are probably not going to use it -
if they did, it wouldn't raise much. The key thing is
as the chair said earlier the report of the Barnet formula
in post-devolution Britain, that's one of the big issues
because it's not sustainable; Barnet is not sustainable. |
| TED ROWLANDS: I get the impression, don't
know if you've got figures to offer the Commission, if
there was a public sector borrowing requirement for Wales
it would have been growing rapidly in the last 12, 18
months; is that true? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I would have thought so,
but I'm not competent to answer that question because
I haven't done any work on it. Fiscal powers is not something
that exercises me personally. |
| LORD RICHARD: When you talk about fiscal
powers you refer to a tax varying rate? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Indeed. As I said, it didn't
exercise me or my colleagues in the pro-devolution Labour
Party, it was never an issue, unlike in Scotland, and
it doesn't exercise me now. |
| PAUL VALERIO: Moving on to a different
subject you report the rationale for including a proportional
element in the electoral arrangements in order to strengthen
the legitimacy of the Assembly in Wales. How effective
has the Additional Member System been? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: It certainly helped us counter
the No campaign’s second best argument, that this
was just jobs for the Labour boys, a powerful argument
which resonated the length and breadth of the country
and it was very difficult to argue against it. PR was
a very, very helpful device to allow us to say this is
something different. This is a more inclusive arrangement
and it's not going to be as dominated by the usual Labour
suspects as has been the case in the past. That was the
real value of PR for me then. I’m still in favour
of PR now. But I have to say being brutally honest that
those people who probably sit on the list probably don't
have the same relationship with their constituencies as
constituency members. I know for a fact AMs feel there
is a two-tier constituency. Constituency AMs have to work
a lot harder to massage their constituents. I'm in favour
of PR because I think it helps you get a better balance
between votes and seats. On the other hand I'm very, very
worried that it uncouples the member from her or his constituency. |
| LORD RICHARD: Do you think if the Assembly
were to be enlarged that the importance of the link between
member and constituency is paramount, that's where expansion
should take place rather than on the additional - |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Personally, yes. |
| LORD RICHARD: How do you do that? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Pass. |
| LORD RICHARD: Double it? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I haven't got the answer
to that. People who are following me I'm sure will have
views. |
| HUW THOMAS: Kevin, I'm struck by the words
you've been using in terms of tools for the job. In a
sense what's missing is the craft of using those tools
to do the job. You commented earlier about a risk aversion
culture ... to create the leadership the Assembly can
give Wales. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: It's a very good question
and I don't think I've got a very good answer. I'll try.
If I give you one very concrete example of work we're
doing now. We're doing work on local food and how local
food can help regenerate parts of Wales. It raises the
issue of what are the barriers to re-localising the food
chain from farm to fork. It's quite clear having looked
at some of the most successful regions in Europe, thinking
now about central Italy, regions like Brittany in France
which have done most to promote local food in local schools
for example, public procurement powers are vital. This
is the great Cinderella service of government. I can't
understand why because government has almost total control
here. If you're thinking about new powers to effect real
change it seems to me we can't do anything better in Wales
today than use public procurement powers to promote local
food for local schools. Why? Because school meals are
in a crisis. We've unearthed the figures for the first
time to my knowledge that what is the cost of a two-course
primary school meal. I think it shocks people to know
it's 36 pence. 36p is the cost. And when you talk to catering
managers and procurement officials about how they can
improve this situation they say they're immobilised by
two things. Immobilised by the lack of powers and immobilised
by regulatory conservatism. They're afraid to act because
innovation will draw them into a grey zone of potential
illegality with EU regulations on one hand and UK legislation
on the other, Best Value and things like that. This is
an example of where some powers, some clearer powers would
be useful for the Assembly, getting a tool to do a specific
job to raise the nutritional value of school meals. |
| TOM JONES: Are you saying that Brittany,
or regional government in Brittany has powers to devolve
from French government, it's an exemplar of how this should
be done, then are you saying to us Brittany has powers
that wouldn't be available to us? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: What I'm saying I and don't
want to get into trouble with my colleagues now ... because
our report has not been published yet …, what I'm
saying is the most successful regions in Europe have interpreted
EU regulations more creatively than any of us in the UK
and in the UK there is a conventional wisdom that our
hands are tied with EU regulations. Whereas in other parts
of Europe there is not that convention and they have used
certain devices, let me put it that way, to circumvent
regulations. |
| I would give an example of that: does the
Assembly's legal duty under section 121 to progress sustainable
development, does it override procurement regulations
that undermine sustainability? Let me put it as precisely
as I can. That seems to me to be a moot point because
we're talking about UK regulations as well as EC regulations.
I don't know a more important issue than public procurement
for the sake of sustainability framed broadly to include
childhood nutrition, 20 per cent of school kids as we
know in Wales qualify for school meals. The school dinner
is a key tool for regeneration, it seems to me. This is
why I say the tools for the job will be relative to how
you define the job. Chair, you posed the question in an
excellent way when you said what is the job. I'm saying
the job is changing. We haven't yet woken up to the fact
that all these powers could be there but at the moment
officials are immobilised from using them from fear of
acting illegally when their counterparts in Europe are
not subject to that risk–averse culture. Where does
that risk–averse culture come from? We go back to
the issue of Welsh confidence or lack of it. |
| LORD RICHARD: Powers - if you want to think
creatively you could do that under the existing system
just as well as if you had full legislative powers. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I believe there was a point
to the question which I agreed with which is beyond the
level of a formal realm of powers, how do you use those
powers? Do you say let's drive this system through with
some leadership and self-confidence like some of the Irish
colleagues I know did with Objective One. Sometimes they'll
say our motto here is "safety last". You'll never get
anyone suggesting "safety last" in a British Civil Service
environment. |
| LORD RICHARD: It's a British problem not
a Welsh problem. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Well ... it's a very important
issue the issue of the relationship between formal powers
and how you interpret them and whether you have the self-confidence
to interpret them creatively. These are big issues. I
don't pretend to have the answers. They're good questions. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Could we ask you going back
again to where your strength lies as a witness on the
regional side. Putting aside the funding issue, how do
you think the Assembly has handled the Objective One process
and ensuring institutionally that we're getting the maximum
out of this process because everybody says it's a vital
part of regeneration; if we don't do it by 2006 we will
have all sorts of problems - what's your assessment of
the Assembly's performance in handling the Objective One
processes? Putting aside matching funding issue. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: It's very hard to come down
with a black and white conclusion because the evaluation
and monitoring as you know for the mid-term review is
going on right now. Anecdotally and based on conferences
I've organised with colleagues in Aberystwyth where we've
brought stakeholders together there has been a lot of
disquiet right across the stake holding constituencies
from Local Government, voluntary sector, above all the
business sector, that we haven't got it right. Now, we
don't know what that means until we see evidence. There
is disquiet in the system. I also feel very sorry for
the people involved because Objective One came along at
the same time as the Assembly came along. Either one would
be a sufficiently steep learning curve, to have them both
together leads to what the Chinese call interesting times.
It's a phenomenally difficult learning curve. No one has
handled Objective One well. Perhaps the Irish have done
best. Often it's been misinterpreted. The growth in the
Irish economy made a success of Objective One. That's
the way we should understand that. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Objective One didn't create
the growth. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Absolutely. |
| TED ROWLANDS: We expect Objective One to
create growth. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I know. |
| TED ROWLANDS: The Irish model is not applicable
then. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I don't believe it is applicable
personally. |
| LAURA MCALLISTER: Can I push you a bit
on that issue of Objective One because I know more about
the Merseyside angle but one of the problems with Merseyside's
first round of Objective One funding is they didn't have
institutional mechanisms to operate it effectively. They
look enviously at Wales with their national framework
and institutions and potential policy framework. Concentrating
on that do you think there were things that could have
been done better institutionally in the system with handling
Objective One because it has advantages over Merseyside
and South Yorkshire. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: When I work in English regions
I encounter this view you're lucky in Wales you know your
region. And you've got the WDA and all that learning behind
you from using objective 2 - it's incredibly naive and
largely wrong. There was very little transference of knowledge
and skills from objective 2. Very little transference
in my experience. Objective One we almost had to learn
from scratch. I remember when we were well advised by
the top official from Brussels, Graham Meadows, who I
know very well when he told us the dos and don'ts. He
told the whole Europe community in Wales what to do. We
didn't do it. There are issues there as to why we didn't
do it. We didn't have the skills, tools, knowledge to
hit the road running when Objective One came on stream.
We had to learn it. It's been a very painful experience.
I say that as someone tangentially involved in it. I was
involved in the Task and Finish Group which looked at
the problems. Some things created more problems. But at
the heart of the problem of Objective One is the lack
of trust between the local and the regional, between Local
Government and the quangos. There is a phenomenal lack
of trust there. Development is about working with each
other, trusting each other and exchanging knowledge. That's
really what development is about. Whether it's there or
not today is a moot point. It's been a very painful learning
process. I don't know if we've got it right yet, but we
will hear something from the mid-term review and how that
compares with other mid-term reviews. |
| TED ROWLANDS: On the debate about how to
deliver Objective One, could I say I sit on one of the
Objective One board in Merthyr Tydfil. The philosophy,
and this was Assembly philosophy, that ownership of the
whole process should be put down to the locals, you could
rebuild the economy by a sense of ownership from below.
That's the question that's fundamentally the one that
has to be answered, whether that was the right thing to
do or whether the Irish riding from the top wasn't a better
bet. I put it crudely. That would be essentially an Assembly
decision. We can't say Whitehall is to blame for that
one. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Not at all. This goes to
the heart of how we use the powers we've already got.
I'm very sympathetic to people who say let's forget about
more powers, we haven't learned to acquit ourselves well
yet on the powers we have got. That's a very good illustration
of it. One doesn't know how far to go into these things.
That's an excellent illustration of some of the problems
it seems to me. |
| LORD RICHARD: Can I ask if you if we might
lose any of the advantages in the current division model
by going for greater separation models. Picking up the
point we haven't learnt to use what we've got now. Is
there anything you think might be a serious risk if we
were to change. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I'm conscious of the difference
between the models of devolution – that Executive
devolution is not as many people think it is a variant
of legislative devolution, it's a totally different model.
The difference between transfer and division. Our model
locks us, I don't mean locks in a perjorative sense, binds
us much more closely into the Westminster process than
the Scottish model. Therefore how legislation is drafted
in Westminster is of more concern to us than the Scots.
The looser it's drafted the more scope and vice versa.
I'm conscious of those things. I can't think off the top
of my head what we would lose by having a few formal powers
in these limited areas. I can't think what we would loose
because I'm conscious of the profound limits of personal
chemistry. |
| LORD RICHARD: Let me take you back to what
you said earlier about why you assumed there were going
to be primary powers in the settlement and there weren't.
What has changed to make that now possible and what damage
could be done by pursuing that? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I was reflecting the conventional
wisdom of us all. Often conventional wisdom is not reflected
upon. It's assumed, it's group-think as it were. We assumed
we'd have powers to deal with Welsh language, Local Government,
quangos because we felt these were distinctively Welsh
problems. To be frank we didn't examine those assumptions
very well. Now the beauty of this Commission is you can
scrutinise. To go back, sorry, what is the job, and do
we have the tools to do it. Be absolutely brutal about
it. That's almost the remit of the Commission. The only
point I'm tying to make is the job is changing therefore
the tools will need changing. |
| PAUL VALERIO: You've highlighted that the
Assembly is constrained by a lack of power but you've
also explained by you're unable to define the specific
deficiencies. Can I take you along a different tack. Like
Lord Richard I also enjoyed reading your very interesting
book, I found it very good for a lay person like myself.
Your book deals with the debate within the Labour Party
and places the 1995- 97 debate in the long history of
the devolution debate within the Party. Are you able to
make any comparisons with the way the debate developed
within the other political parties in Wales. |
|
KEVIN MORGAN: No. Sorry. I'm unable,
at this time. I have friends in most other parties,
but I think they all would have agreed, I think, most
of them at the time, that the big debate, all the debates
were important but the most important debate was within
the Labour Party because if we lost that debate we lost
the whole thing. I might add it wasn't a party political
issue - it’s still not for me but I know it is
for others.
|
| VIV SUGAR: Following on from that, bring
ourselves to the present day then, we've heard a lot about
it being an inclusive government. How inclusive do you
think it is and how should it develop? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: All these questions are very
good questions and I feel I haven't been up to them. Inclusive
relative to what? Inclusive relative to what was, I would
say the answer is a resounding yes. Going back to my earlier
point the real value added of the Assembly to date for
me has been in the processes of government compared to
the Welsh Office and sadly these are not appreciated by
the general public because they don't interact with the
Assembly |
| LORD RICHARD: What do you mean by that
process? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Policy, the way in which
government goes about doing its business, consulting,
in fact people from trade unions, Local Government, business,
all the stakeholders I know complain now about democratic
overload. We've gone from a democratic deficit to the
burden of democracy. These organisations are not tooled
up to carry the burden of democracy which is consultation,
responding to a new document. You get it today you're
asked to respond tomorrow. None of us are tooled up for
that. This is democracy and it's hard and I think the
professional people, especially in the voluntary sector
and Local Government, did invest in this new process,
got engaged and got benefit. Business was completely routed.
Completely dumbfounded by devolution. |
| EIRA DAVIES: How do you think the regional
Committees are fulfilling their remits? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: They were very, very important
to us when we argued for them. The North Wales Committee
was very important to us because we felt this was, we'd
be perceived as jobs for the boys in Cardiff. I'm from
Aberdare. There is a very, very strong feeling in the
Valleys that everything in Wales is Cardiff centric. Goodness
knows what people feel in Bala and places like this. The
regional Committees are very important in terms of architecture.
I don't believe they've endeared themselves to the Welsh
public at all. But I would defend the fact that I believe
the Assembly has really earned its spurs in terms of being
a new mode of governance doing things inclusively as it
can democratically and is a major step over what we had
before. Most people even the CBI would say that even though
I suspect they prefer the old model because it was easier
to have whatever Ron gave them when he was Secretary of
State, tea and scones, to talk to Ron, as opposed to trying
to get their heads round a Committee system which they
simply didn't understand and they lost out. They tangibly
lost out particularly on ETAG and skills. They did a deal
with their First Minister but the First Minister couldn't
deliver. The Committee did a U-turn, and the CBI was beached,
like the proverbial beached whale. It has been inclusive
but you had to be tooled up to be included, if that's
not a contradiction in terms. |
| PETER PRICE: Can I ask you about the leadership
capacity of the Assembly. A number of things you've been
saying suggested some disappointment about the leadership
that the Assembly has been able to give in various areas.
To what extent do you think the composition and the way
it works affects that. I'm distinguishing leadership capacity
within its existing powers as compared with the need for
new process. If we tag to that the perception of the public
as seen in the opinion poll conducted by Aberystwyth published
on Monday, to what do you attribute the strong development
of a sense that there ought to be more influence from
Cardiff rather than London or elsewhere? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Can I say whatever disquiet
I have about leadership is secondary to the fact there
has been much greater local leadership in Wales compared
to what we had before. I think it's important to preface
things like this because it's better compared to what
we had- and there is no doubt we've seen real leadership.
It's not often I feel genuinely proud of what we do in
Wales because I've become, unfairly I think, stereotyped
as an unhelpful critic, but academics have to do these
things it seems to me, it's an occupational obligation.
But when we think of what we've done in the Assembly,
section 21 stands out. Whenever I go round Europe people
know of this. The sustainable development scheme, the
Learning to Live Differently document, it seems
to me hits all the right notes. It's one of the finest
aspirational documents I know anywhere in Europe. I'm
deeply proud I live in Wales that I'm Welsh and we've
done this. A lot of people didn't want it. People in the
WDA said that will be the kiss of death for us if you
encumber us with sustainability things on top of our inward
investment. Instead we've helped people to punch above
their weight. We've seen real leadership there and I have
to say a colleague of mine, Sue Essex, is a Minister and
I think she can take some credit along with many others
as well so we have seen leadership on this. The Assembly
I think is overworked and under resourced, but in that
context we can understand some of the structural limits
on leadership. |
| PETER PRICE: What about the composition
or the way the Assembly works? What do you think is shackling
it or reducing its effectiveness in providing that kind
of leadership? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I'm acutely conscious I haven't
answered the key question I've been asked which is to
give examples of what powers we are lacking to do the
job. I'm going to defer that to the witnesses who come
after me. I'm raising the issue as one which is legitimate
for you to address. It seems to me had we had the powers
we could have addressed the great educational deficit
in Wales and the need to widen access, promote education
learning grants. There should have been no need for the
Rees report, although it is excellent. All that could
have been done much earlier if we go back to Huw's point
about the confidence which comes of having more formal
powers so you know how to act, you're not feeling how
on earth are we going to get this through, can we get
legislative time in Westminster, do we have to spend time
on personal chemistry whatever that means? We've got an
enormous educational deficit in Wales. Our figures for
illiteracy, innumeracy, would be shocking in Eastern Europe.
Here we are propping up the table on literacy and numeracy.
Here we are talking about do we have enough minimal powers
to do the job. It beggars belief that we frame the issue
like that. Minimal tools to do the job. We should go for
a robust toolbox. whatever that means |
| PETER PRICE: The public opinion polls now
show a remarkable growth in support for the view that
the powers, at least in respect of what goes on in Wales,
should be primarily in Cardiff and also support for specifically
the Scottish type model of devolution. It's remarkable
how that has grown. Would you like to speculate from your
experience as to what you think is the reason why that
has happened? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Two things. I was shocked
by the finding because they don't sit well with my own
anecdotal experience which is that the Assembly remains
a profoundly unloved institution. That may be because
I travel to the Valleys a lot, I have family and friends
there. Some self-referential metropolitan devolutionists
might pretend the institution is deeply loved. I personally
don't believe it is. I would like it to be: I think it's
worth it, its shown itself to be an investment and not
just a cost it seems to me. I was shocked to see the Aberystwyth
findings but I was delighted to see them, particularly
the increase in those who wanted parity with the Scots.
I can only think part of that increase is this pragmatic
group of people who say to hell with it we've got the
damn thing, let's get the tools to do the bloody job,
that bloody mindedness. There will be those who want it
for ideological reasons. I think this pragmatic group
is growing right across the parties which says look we've
got it let's make it work for us. I'm personally delighted
with that because that's my own position as well. |
| LAURA MCALLISTER: On page 220 in your book
Kevin you said it's difficult to see anything other than
federal devolution solving the constitutional conundrum.
That begs a lot of questions. You've said it and it's
a forceful statement. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I think I would say that
more strongly today, for two reasons. First of all, all
the systems which are short of that clear system, thinking
of the ones I know best, Italy, Spain, they are all evolving
even with Berlusconi's reforms, and there is not much
to them. They're all moving in this direction. Second,
England, as Robert Hazell said, is the gaping hole in
the devolution settlement and I commend the latest issue
of Regional Studies which is about devolution addressed
to the English question - the implications of post devolution
question for England and what's happening in England,
how it might react back on us in Wales. One can't look
for statements from the Prime Minister as to what's going
to happen because the Prime Minister from day one has
been a totally committed minimalist right across the board.
He was in relation to our system. He is in England. The
Prime Minister wanted the English system to stop with
regional development agencies. Instead look where we are
today. A White Paper. Possible Assemblies in each of the
English regions. England is changing fast. I believe it's
making the Barnet formula unsustainable because it's not
a fair system of allocating public expenditure. It's least
of all in favour of the poorest regions. The biggest problem
is the North-East. The North-East group of Labour MPs
will never rest until they've blown the lid off Barnet
yet the Scottish group don't want the lid off at all,
they say let sleeping dogs lie and we understand because
they get a better deal than the North East. I'm in favour
of reforming Barnet because it's not a fair system, not
because Wales might get more money out of it. I think
we will by the way but that's not the real reason. Ultimately
a federal United Kingdom will be in the interests of everyone.
It will be clear and sustainable. |
| VIV SUGAR: You talked about a delivery
deficit earlier on and anecdotal evidence you have of
the Assembly not being much loved. How much is that to
do with the amount of the financial settlement that we
have, regardless of Barnet and how it's worked out, but
is it about a lack of investment in the things ordinary
people can see need to be done rather than the constitutional
point. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I'm not sure I understand
the question. |
| VIV SUGAR: Is the dissatisfaction you hear
about in relation to the Assembly’s ability to deliver,
about the fact that the Assembly doesn't have enough money
to do what people want rather than it doesn't have the
powers. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I think both but I think
the level of understanding of the Assembly in Wales if
we're honest is appallingly low and that devolution is
still a minority sport. The attitude to the Assembly from
the public at large depends on where you live. I've never
known Cardiff to be loathed so much across all parts of
Wales because of the sense that the Assembly has made
Wales even more Cardiff-centric than it was in the past.
It's felt all over Wales particularly in the Valleys even
though Cardiff and the Valleys are effectively one economic
entity given travel to work patterns. |
| LORD RICHARD: That was a matter of Assembly
decision, not a result of the settlement. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I'm saying perception has
changed over time, although I'm surprised but pleased
to see the Aberystwyth findings because they didn't gel
with my own findings which is people are critical of the
Assembly not being able to use the powers it has already.
I would be loathe to admit that but it's what I see and
hear. I'm lucky enough to travel round the country and
talk to people. |
| LORD RICHARD: You're not suggesting the
Aberystwyth findings are flawed? |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Not at all. They were conducted
by one of our very best political scientists in Wales.
I was surprised simply because of my own anecdotal experience
but given my own position I was delighted to see them.
Sorry if that's schizophrenic, I know. |
| LORD RICHARD: Not at all. I understand
your position. No doubt there will be other polls at some
stage. |
| HUW THOMAS: Could I pursue the point Viv
raised with you about the delivery deficit. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: I think for most people -
certainly for a lot of people in the Labour Party - this
is it: this is as far as devolution goes. Yet for people
out there, devolution has many tiers to go beyond Cardiff
Bay. If I could give one example of work we're doing now,
we're involved in exploring the possibility of creating
a community regeneration trust in Rhondda Cynon Taff.
This would devolve real decision making power to communities,
like Penrhys, one of the poorest communities as we all
know in Wales. The Penrhys residents are quite keen on
having the new responsibilities providing they have a
budget and access to some skills and training to manage
those powers. The big problem’s always been devolving
responsibility without devolving power. This is what Local
Government people are saying now. In my own view I would
say devolution has a long way to go yet and in 100 years’
time people will look back and say why did they not push
it further because ultimately I don't believe you can
solve the delivery deficit of delivering health service,
education, Social Services, joining those things up in
an integrated manner unless you involve the people themselves
in self provision. Then those people will understand some
of the management problems of delivering services, but
while they're treated as subjects you deliver services
for them rather than with them, we'll never solve the
delivery deficit. To go back to the Chairman's original
question about the relationship between devolution and
development, I think these have to march hand in hand.
You have to devolve power and resources as well and you
involve people in their own regeneration. That's what
we're hoping to do in some the Valley communities. There
the Assembly can play an important role because in the
book we argue the most important thing about the Assembly
is not so much what it does but what it enables other
people to do for themselves. In developing a community
mutual model the Assembly has enabled more community forms.
Civic devolution you might call it, moving into the realm
of civic society and you involve people. I would say its
an excellent question again, I think devolution has a
long way to go, we're simply on the foot hills, but most
politicians wouldn't agree with that I know. |
| LORD RICHARD: Professor Morgan, can I thank
you for coming this morning and exposing yourself to imprecise
questions from time to time. You've established that the
tools need refitting but you haven't given us the tools
to be properly fitted, but that's over to us to work out
over the next eighteen months, so thank you very much
again. |
| KEVIN MORGAN: Thank you. |
