EVIDENCE
OF: WELSH ASSEMBLY GOVERNMENT MINISTER FOR
RURAL DEVELOPMENT & WALES ABROAD
MICHAEL GERMAN
held at
National Museum & Gallery, Cardiff
on
8TH November
2002
|
|
LORD
RICHARD: Thank you very much for coming. I wonder whether
you would be kind enough to introduce yourselves formally,
and your colleagues, for the sake of the record.
|
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Thank you very much. On
my left is Huw Brodie, who is the Director of Agriculture
and Rural Affairs Department of the National Assembly.
Next to me on my right is Gwyn Griffiths, head of the
branch within the Office of the Counsel General responsible
for agriculture and rural matters in the Welsh language.
Next to him is Gary Davies, head of the European and External
Affairs Division, and on my far right is Huw Jones, head
of the plant, health and biotechnology branch. |
| LORD RICHARD: Your evidence falls into
two distinct categories and I think we would like to take
the foreign side first and then come on to the agricultural
side later. Can I just say one of the things to you again
really for the sake of the record, that you are giving
evidence here today in your capacity as a minister with
the portfolios you have. We have written to you - and
I am not sure if it has arrived yet and if it has not
we are writing to you - in your capacity as leader of
the Liberal Democrats in the Assembly asking you to come
and talk to us and give evidence before us as a party
leader, but today it is the portfolio matters that I think
we are most interested in, and I wonder whether you would
care to open up the session? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Thank you for that. What
I would like to do is make some opening remarks which
are broadly across the piece as well as reflect upon the
portfolios I have. You are quite right to say that today
I am obviously speaking in my ministerial role, and I
will be presenting my evidence before you from a party's
perspective when I appear before you some time in the
next few months. It is obviously understandably difficult
to make a complete division between those two roles but
I wish today to reflect on my experiences as a minister
within the Welsh Assembly Government so far as I can. |
| The ministerial role I play has four facets,
not just two. The current two portfolios I hold are Rural
Development and Wales' relationships and actions outside
of the United Kingdom. I also have my previous experience
as Minister for Economic Development which is obviously
one I am keen to talk to you about if you need to probe
back in time, and finally my role as Deputy First Minister,
which is one largely of policy co-ordination where government
intervention is concerned, and where the Deputy First
Minister's role is actually the strongest in concert with
the First Minister in ensuring that we work together,
the two parties, in partnership and coalition. |
| I have given a written submission on the
first two of these roles but I will be happy to take questions
on the others and can provide a view as to what has worked
well and what not so well perhaps in all those areas. |
| In general terms I want to start by saying
that my sense of the reality that we face is that the
powers of the National Assembly for Wales are largely
derived from the powers of former Secretaries of State
and that these were accumulated on an ad hoc basis. Secondly,
given that we have a new institution with new politicians,
new ministers and none of us - except perhaps Alun Michael
in the first instance - had any ministerial experience
before. It has obviously taken time as an institution
to bed down. |
| In the course of this period we have been
largely satisfied to use the powers that we have, with
the focus originally on making interventions through the
power of the purse but increasingly we are beginning to
take more ambitious steps in policy creation. The nature
of devolution is that Wales will increasingly have greater
policy and implementation differences from England, and
the more differences there are the more primary legislative
constraints will become apparent. |
|
In these early stages of Assembly life
we have often had to react to opportunities presented
in primary legislation, both through finding secondary
legislative routes and seeking opportunities within
United Kingdom government primary legislative proposals.
|
| As the policy interventions made by the
Welsh Assembly Government increase differences between
Wales and England, we will want to create our own hierarchy
of priorities which will in turn raise pressures on the
primary legislative process. |
| My remarks will, and do, cross all facets
of my ministerial role. I would like to introduce some
of these to you now and I hope you have found these memoranda
useful to you. |
| Agriculture is very much a special case
in terms of how it is run, given the very strong European
Union framework. The Common Agricultural Policy is divided
into two pillars, to use the Brussels terminology: Pillar
1 which covers market support including direct production
subsidies to farmers, and here there is scope for distinctive
Welsh or United Kingdom arrangements is very limited as
subsidies are governed by European Union wide regulations. |
|
The main scope for distinctive Welsh
policy making in agriculture is under Pillar 2 of the
Common Agricultural Policy, covered by the European
Union's rural development regulation.
|
| The way in which Pillar 1 arrangements
and the regulatory framework are agreed mainly at EU level,
and to a lesser degree at UK level, means that the main
focus of work in these areas is on influencing decision-making
in Brussels and agreeing United Kingdom wide implementation
where there is scope for that. |
| So the scope for distinctive policy making
in that first portfolio of rural development is mainly
within Pillar 2 - the rural development measures. |
| Unlike DEFRA's broad designation, ours
is limited to the implementation of specific plans and
programmes and will therefore require updating. In devolved
areas, our powers should at least match those of the corresponding
Whitehall departments. |
| On a separate point I would wish to highlight
a constraint in the United Kingdom legislation in Section
26 of the Development of Rural Wales Act 1976, and I will
provide a written note the Commission on this point, but
I would like to make a point about European directives
in general, which takes us into the European scenario:
the powers were transferred to the National Assembly piecemeal
instead of by field, and often domestic powers do not
enable the implementation of all obligations laid down
in a piece of European Union legislation. It is a lengthy
task identifying, provision by provision, whether the
powers are available to us to implement, and if these
powers are not available then we have to seek them from
the relevant Whitehall departments to designate the Assembly
under the 1972 European Communities Act, and this can
sometimes be lengthy, time consuming and frustrating. |
| On the proposals for legislation so far,
the results I think are either we have a Wales only Bill,
or Welsh clauses, or a separate section clearly identified
in an England and Wales Bill. It is important I believe
that primary legislation reflects the Assembly's interests
and respects its role, and within the current settlement,
therefore, we would welcome arrangements for greater pre
legislative scrutiny which are now in place because these
give the whole Assembly and other interested parties in
Wales a meaningful role in the process. This is a good
way of producing better legislation within the current
settlement. |
| However, we are in competition for Bills
to be included in the Queen's speech and much depends
on availability of parliamentary time and drafting resources.
Having our own powers to make primary legislation would
obviously overcome this problem and we have at the moment
a Secretary of State for Wales who bats for us in Whitehall
and in Westminster, often under-resourced to do that work,
and once in the Welsh legislative mill then Welsh MPs,
of course, have an important role to play and we often
use those resources through formal and informal links. |
| The bills we have got through so far have
been at or near the top of our list of priorities but
our annual bids considerably simply exceed the numbers
which have actually entered the Westminster parliamentary
programme. We sometimes seek Henry VIII powers in some
of the Bills that have been put forward by United Kingdom
Parliament, the use of which powers is often criticised
in parliamentary terms because of the roles they give
to United Kingdom ministers and the recent example of
the Asylum Bill alterations which are to be made to Henry
VIII powers is an example of that. |
| In terms of capacity we do have officials
in the Assembly Government with wide experience of Bill
work and parliamentary procedures. The intellectual capacity
and ability does exist in the National Assembly Government
to prepare primary legislation were those powers to become
available, but it would impact on current work programmes
if existing resources had to be moved to process legislation. |
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| LORD RICHARD: Thank you very much. That
is quite an opening, if I may say so, containing a large
number of issues which we will pursue. |
| Can we start off with the European side
of it? Obviously in Europe there can only be one national
delegation which is here in the United Kingdom, and when
the Bills were being considered that was one of the main
points that was made. To what extent do you feel you are
being properly represented by the United Kingdom delegation
when it comes to arguing in the Council of Ministers? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Obviously we sit on the
shoulder of the United Kingdom minister at Councils of
Ministers unless there is an opportunity for a very specific
Welsh interest to be represented, and there have been
one or two occasions where the Welsh minister has led
the delegation. |
| LORD RICHARD: He has actually spoken in
the House on behalf of the United Kingdom? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. He has led on behalf
of the UK. |
| LORD RICHARD: Can you remember what? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. Jane Hutt and Jane
Davidson have both done so. |
| LORD RICHARD: But do you remember the issues? |
| GARY DAVIES: I think Jane Davidson led
on a youth issue, but we could confirm that for you. |
| LORD RICHARD: And Jane Hutt? |
| GARY DAVIES: I do not know the exact issue |
| HUW BRODIE: It was a health matter. |
| LORD RICHARD: What is interesting to us
is there are two specific instances where a Welsh minister
actually led the United Kingdom in discussions with other
countries. Was that in the council? |
| GARY DAVIES: It was in the Council. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: We could drop you a note.
I think it was in the Council meeting. |
| LORD RICHARD: I think that might be quite
helpful. You say you have to do battle for the United
Kingdom government. Do you find the position comfortable? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: In practical terms what
happens is that first of all officials from Welsh Assembly
Government seek to agree a position within the United
Kingdom line which can come either through our representation
on UKReP in Brussels or through our relationship with
the various departments here in the United Kingdom, and
then that is followed up by a series of obviously ministerial
meetings to try and get a reposition. |
| In a sense probably in most of the cases
we are making a marginal influence upon the United Kingdom
line though there are occasions where specifically our
own interests are very high when clearly we will obviously
bat very hard indeed to get our own position but I think
it is the case, and there are examples, where we do not
share the United Kingdom Government position - GMO would
be one of them - and where we would be seeking to get
a different position from the United Kingdom Government,
or rather to adopt a position which was neutral in respect
of the Welsh position. |
| The consequence of the formalities, as
I am sure you are aware, of the Council of Ministers is
that by the time you get to the actual formality of the
Council of Ministers they are prepared statements but
the opportunity to influence decision off-stage, as it
were, is very important to us and one we would like to
extend, though I would not say that we have a general
pattern of the way in which we are able to influence,
though some European country Member States would very
much like to have the ability to have governments like
ours being able to take part in the Council of Ministers. |
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| LORD RICHARD: One of the complaints from
ministers at Westminster is that they spend too much time
in Brussels arguing with the Council of Ministers or with
the Commission. How much time do you think your ministers
here have to spend? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: It depends on circumstances.
I would spend probably one meeting a month, maybe slightly
less than that on average, dealing with European issues
from my portfolio. I guess that it would be once every
couple of months for most ministers. |
| GARY DAVIES: I think that is probably the
average but I think there is more minister attendance
at meetings in Brussels in conferences and meetings of
the European networks that the Assembly government is
not part of. For example, Jane Davidson would be in Brussels
for meetings of a particular European network more often
than she would be attending a meeting of the Council of
Ministers. |
| LORD RICHARD: Yes. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: The proposals for a new
Welsh House in Brussels - we already have some in agricultural
and rural development already credited to UKReP - will
give us across the piste representation in our own Welsh
House, therefore the ability to influence UKReP giving
as well as the evidence that we have available to us. |
| LORD RICHARD: What about the structure
of funds? How intensely are you involved in negotiation
leading up to the Council of Ministers? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Clearly this is a very
crucial area for us in the future structure of funds.
Hew often describes this as a three-dimensional chess
we have to play between United Kingdom and Wales and Brussels,
and we would try to use obviously all our influence in
all those directions. |
| It is the case, and certainly I would guess
post 2006, that the interests of Wales would not necessarily
coincide with the interests of the United Kingdom as a
whole in the future structure of funds, given that the
intervention of Objective 1 funding has been able to lever
in substantial new investment in Wales, and if that were
to decline as part of the overall budget position of the
structural funds being reduced across the piste either
through enlargement or because the GDP level was lower
would make a difference I think to Wales, and we would
certainly want to argue very strongly for the retention
of that level of funding within Wales, or at least to
be able to bridge that level of funding to any new regime
which comes after it. |
| Those negotiations I think are very important
to us and they go on both Wales to United Kingdom to try
and influence the United Kingdom position, and of course
Wales with the Commission, because there are like-minded
regions in Europe who share that ambition as well. |
| LORD RICHARD: Do you feel yourself entitled
to go direct to the Commission on social fund application? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I have been part of a delegation
of the First Minister which has met with Michel Barnier
and with the previous Commission as well on regional policy,
and therefore I think it is perfectly open to us to either
pitch our case or in return to seek information from the
Commission, but clearly when it comes to formality at
the Council of Ministers it is the UK ... (inaudible)
... |
| LAURA McALLISTER: Have those interventions
been in line with what the United Kingdom government would
be lobbying for in terms of regional policy? The reason
I am asking is this: is that why it has been relatively
easy to access at that level? |
| Say you were to approach them from a quite
different angle in terms of regional policy priority and
structure of fund spending. Can you envisage a more problematic
access? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Given that our issues,
for example, on both GMOs and structural funds are different
from the United Kingdom position for the reason I have
just described on the structural funds level obviously
and on GMOs, is because we have a different policy in
Wales to that of the United Kingdom government and the
Scottish Parliament, but I do not think that has been
a constraint upon us to get in and talk to the Commission.
After all, it is much better to be open and transparent
and to know where you are coming from. It is not a question
of going round the houses, if you like, to get an influence.
This is about finding the positions that the Commission
are taking up and being able to influence those positions.
|
| We are obviously not going to be able to
influence as a regional viewer directly but we can influence
in partnership with other regions who have specific things,
either through one of the organisations which is official
in Europe or through one of the various partnership regional
organisations to which we belong, but I have not seen
to be a constraint upon the operation the fact that we
may have a different policy in place. |
| LAURA McALLISTER: How powerful are those
organisations? We know about some of them. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I think, if I get this
right, there is the Committee of the Regions of which
we have membership which is a formal one and obviously
that is a formal route into the European Commission; there
is the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions,
which is very large both within the EU and outside the
EU organisation which has now got something like 150 regions
in membership, and which has a very strong policy orientation
which is driving forward the direction of change in the
European context and has a good year from the Commission;
and then, thirdly, there is the Conference of Regions
with Legislative Power which is a fairly newish regional
conference in which we are members, and that in fact is
going do draw up a programme for the statement on influencing
the governance regulations which are coming out very shortly
on European governance, in which it seeks to obtain a
role for the European regions, and the First Minister
will be attending next week a meeting of the Presidents
of these European regions in Florence. |
|
So that, again, is an example I think
of a regional body where we share with like minds the
interests of others where we are seeking to influence
policy in the broader dimension.
|
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Do the formal
powers that the National Assembly has under the Government
of Wales Act make a difference in the process that you
have been describing? |
|
MICHAEL GERMAN: The clear statement
that we are part of a Member State obviously is a position
which we must seek to achieve in the end, but when it
was the difference between the powers and the influence,
the issue of powers which I referred to earlier was
the constraint is much more difficult for us with the
implementation of European directives, and I can give
specific examples of where that has been difficult for
us, but in terms of its broad influence of shaping policy
I think the present governance which is going on from
the European Union, where it is seeking to find a role
for both regions as well as for Member States, because
it has not --
|
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Are you making
an input into this convention? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: We are via the membership
of the networks to which we belong, and also an intervention
to the United Kingdom government position which we are
doing at the same time - in other words, we are trying
to influence in this three-dimensional chess the United
Kingdom government position and the Commission via regional
networks. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: And which do
you think is more likely to be effective? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Since we are still in the
process of negotiation the United Kingdom government line
has not yet been finalised, and we are in that government
negotiation as we speak, but the statement from the network
of regions of legislative responsibility is in draft and
available in the public domain certainly in ten days'
time. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Is it likely
to have very much impact on the people who are going to
decide? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: It is interesting, and
perhaps Gary might like to explain who the key personnel
are. Michel Barnier was one of the key speakers at this
Conference of Legislative Powers. |
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| GARY DAVIES: The Conference of Legislative
Powers next week is the third annual meeting of the regions.
The front runners are Bologna and Flanders, Belgium, Catalonia,
and more recently for this coming year Tuscany. They are
the front runners in terms of driving for this particular
event but they have formed a steering group to manage
the whole process of the conference, and Wales and Scotland
are part of that steering group of about fifteen regions. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: But at the end
of the day when the bargaining is said to be the end of
the Nice process it will be between ministers and heads
of state, and it will be a question of, "We give
you a bit on fish and you give us a bit on powers for
regions". At the end of the day it often comes down
to being as crude as that, and at that stage what the
CFPMR, or whatever it is called, thinks is not going to
matter very much. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I think it matters because
the influence they complain puts the process, if you like,
in the surrounding shadows of actual decision-making,
and I think that the Commission itself has set itself
some ambitions and Giscard d'Estaing's document last week
clearly sets a direction where there has to be some recognition
of what devolution means within Europe, principally because
the Commission of course itself thinks itself to be out
of touch and wants to get closer to the people in some
way or form. The whole notion of tripartite agreements
between Member States, regions and the Commission is one
which they are testing as we speak. So this is very much
I think still fluid water; I think we are still in the
negotiating ground. |
| It would be our ambition to secure a level
of recognition for the role of regions in that whole process,
but the precise format which we will eventually end up
with is largely dependent upon the doors being pushed
open, and the fact that some of these other regions like
Catalonia have a very particular influence and has done
for the last ten or fifteen years and may do so in the
future, and Tuscany also because each Commissioner has
lived in that region, is also helpful to the process of
that opening of doors, so I think this is a persuasive
element of the work as opposed to the very direct legalistic
route which is going to include UK and Spain. |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: How does one compare that
with the position of Scotland? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I can understand that there
is pressure upon the Scottish Executive to head up this
legislative regions conference, and clearly in terms of
the European role they also are guided by the same legislation
as we are to be part of the Member State but they have
not found it any constraint whatsoever to be vigorous,
and a member of regional networks. |
| In fact, one of the consequences is they
have been so vigorous that previous governments here in
the United Kingdom and in Wales have sought the Secretaries
of State to make a relationship with Catalonia which is
regarded as one of the key regions in Europe, and it was
slightly embarrassing to find, at a meeting at which our
First Minister was present, the Deputy First Minister
of Scotland alongside also trying to build a relationship
with Catalonia at the same time! |
So they are very strongly in the field
of developing European partnerships as a region of the
United Kingdom |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: But in terms of powers
or rights of audience the situation is identical, is it? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. |
| HUW VAUGHAN THOMAS: Could I move into the
issue of representation in order to play this three dimensional
chess? |
| Clearly, as you outlined, you are seeking
to influence the line that the United Kingdom Government
is taking. You have a role in UKReP. Can you take us through
the decisions and the rationale behind in a sense the
Welsh House, the restructuring, and why in a sense that
is being adopted as the route instead of increasing a
role through the United Kingdom Government? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I think that we in Wales
would benefit from being able to have a multi-faceted
approach, both through influence and through direct approaches,
and the purpose behind the reforms to the Welsh House
is in order to provide a strengthened opportunity for
all sight in Wales. |
| Inevitably, although it was in fact Welsh
local government which triggered the first moves in this
direction to alter the current arrangements in Brussels,
it had to come in my view because the Welsh Assembly Government
must speak for Wales because that is the elected role
we play. However, there are a variety of different approaches
which are necessary in order to get this strength in place,
and what we will end up with - and I am pretty confident
we are nearly at the last stages of this - is a Welsh
Assembly Government which has policy people in Brussels
in that House crossing all the specific areas of government
policy which will for the greater part be UKReP graded.
The Welsh Local Government Association will also have
its own staff in that House as will a reformed WEC although
we are not certain how far the boundaries of that are.
Then the final bit is how the Parliamentary side of the
National Assembly will seek its representation as well.
That is still under discussion but that is the last bit
of the chunk. I think by the end of the year, however,
we will have a clear view of where all these people fit
together in a seamless way, working together with Chinese
walls, if you like, between each part. That is the operational
side. |
| HUW BRODIE: Perhaps I can clarify that
the member of staff I have full time in Brussels is not
in UKReP; he works to Des Clifford. He is accredited and
there is a very good relationship with UKReP and they
see his work as complimentary to theirs. To give you a
specific example, we would not put him into, for instance,
the Sheep Management Committee to take a formal note -
that is done by UKReP. It is the level of informal networking
that is his part of the focus, and he has been there for
just over a year now and has been invaluable. |
| Obviously that is not a substitute for
us making our own official level visits to a whole range
of officials in the Commission and elsewhere, but it does
help make our official contacts from here much more focused,
better informed and targeted. |
| VAUGHAN THOMAS: Would that mean that the
UKReP position can be on one side but the Welsh House
may take a different view? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I am certain that, for
example, local government on some occasions collectively
might have a different view from Welsh Assembly Government,
and they might seek to influence in a way which was appropriate
to them through other local government organisations on
a European basis. That is the nature of the new and emerging
democracy and we would not want to stop that, but our
purpose would be to try and establish as Wales a common
position which suits us as a country to be able to tackle
the problems which are coming forward, and the purpose
behind the Chinese walls in the Wales House is to enable
that to take place and all of the discussions that I have
had so far with the various parties - and I have had discussions
with them all - indicate that everybody wishes to see
that happening. |
| There is a specific purpose, you see, to
having a non governmental part - the WEC part - because
there are things which government cannot do in terms of
partly finding searching undercover work or particularly
for bringing people together in a way which is suitable
to a specific agenda which is of particular interest with
the voluntary sector, for example. |
| LORD RICHARD: Can I follow this thought
through? If there is an issue where you know you are going
to differ from the United Kingdom government and you know
that the Commission are in the process of formulating
their views on this issue, do you feel free to go to the
Commission direct before they come to the institution
and put the Welsh case, knowing that that might upset
them, which is a different case from the United Kingdom
government? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: The gentle line on all
this must be that we cannot undermine the UK government's
case but we can seek to influence the position of the
Commission, either ourselves or more appropriately through
networks of regions as well, and I think we fully recognise
that one region of Europe on its own would not have sufficient
sway to do that sort of thing. |
| There are issues, for example, where the
Commission would take a view with which we agree and the
United Kingdom Government might disagree, and there we
would obviously seek to influence the United Kingdom position
to be more accommodating of the Commission's position.
But you can rightly see that in these three levels of
chess you are continually moving the pieces around to
accommodate what is essentially the best position for
Wales without undermining the United Kingdom position. |
| PAUL VALERIO: Are there other houses in
Ireland and Scotland? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes, indeed. |
| PAUL VALERIO: And are there plans for other
houses elsewhere outside the European Union? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. The National Assembly
Government - as previously the Secretaries of State had,
though it was not widely known - had operations outside
of the European Union in both inward and outward trade
commissions and tourism, and what we are seeking to do
is to bring those various offices together so that instead
of them being an outward investment house or office and
an inward investment office, WTA or WTB, they would actually
come together and the players would play all three roles
together. |
| PAUL VALERIO: Who would they be responsible
to? The WDA? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Technically, legally, the
responsibility is with the Minister for Economic Development
because that is trade and tourism, though the Cabinet
sub-committee which looks at Wales and the world will
take the broad policy direction on where the approaches
should go. In legal terms, through the delegations which
the First Minister has made, it is the Minister for Economic
Development. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Are they funded out of the
individual budgets of the Tourist Board and the WDA? Who
appoints them? Are they National Assembly appointments? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Currently the WTA receives
its budget from the National Assembly and its direction;
the WTI is in-house inside the National Assembly. So in
the case of the WTA it is a budget from the WDA at the
moment; the WTI is from the general in-house budget of
the economic development MEG inside the National Assembly.
WTB, the one office they have, is within the WTB's own
MEG. |
| Over time it will make more sense to work
those office budgets together so they can be seen more
transparently as one operation. |
| TED ROWLANDS: In the media they have been
represented as creating delusions of grandeur with Embassies
and the rest. Are they going to be more expensive than
some parts? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Clearly if you are going
to have a front door in the most important places they
would be but I do not see that in the rest of the world
- and there is shift in where we are going to place them.
I think if I remember rightly Welsh Trade International
have twenty something officers? |
| DAVIES: They hope to put people overseas
in over twelve locations. At the moment they have two.
The intention is to take advantage of the fact that the
Welsh Development Agency has overseas offices to attract
investment. WTI intends to put more people on the ground
overseas to help the export promotion of Wales. The idea
is that where those locations coincide, as they will in
New York for example, then we will co-locate the WDA and
WTI function and that will form the core business case
for all that Wales International Centre, and then depending
on the location, if that is a tourist market, then the
tourists will take advantage of that centre. |
| The centres we have announced so far are
New York, which we hope to open early next year, San Francisco,
Tokyo, Hong Kong and Brussels will be part of that, although
it will be slightly different because of the set-up that
the Minister has been referring to. |
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| TED ROWLANDS: May I turn to the observations
trailed at the beginning and also in your paper that,
first of all, there are these constraints of powers in
implementing European directives? |
| Can you illustrate that and explain what
those constraints are? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I can give you a broad
outline to start with. Basically, unlike Scotland where
they have the power to implement across a very specific
area of policy, we have to look at the European documents,
then see the directive, then look at whether we have the
competence to do that, then go back to London to pick
the powers up - but that is a non legal framework - not
an illegal one but a non legal one! |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: One example is in the area
of regional development, rural development in particular,
where Northern Ireland ministers, for example, have a
designation that enables them to use their designation
in Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act for the
purposes of rural development generally. |
| The designation that National Assembly
has is very specifically to implement specified programming
documents, so as over time those programming documents
are replaced we will have to go back to seek changes in
the designation. |
| Similarly, we had last year a situation
in relation to environmental impact assessments where
we discovered that, because of intervening changes, the
designation we had had been drawn so tightly that we were
not able to go ahead and implement the environmental impact
assessment directive in relation to un-cultivated land,
and again we had to go back to DEFRA and then to the Privy
Council to seek an amended designation to enable us to
do that. |
| On the other hand, we have a very broad
designation in relation to agriculture and the ease with
which we are able to use that to implement directives
shows very clearly the advantages of having broader designations. |
| TED ROWLANDS: So have you been to Whitehall
and said "Can we have a similar broad responsibility
for rural development?" |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes, that is what we did,
and negotiations eventually led to us having this rather
tightly defined designation because it was better than
nothing because at least it enabled us to go ahead and
implement-- |
| TED ROWLANDS: They conceded half the case,
did they? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I think the context of
this is the way in which the powers of the National Assembly
have come from the Secretary of State's ad hoc collection
of powers. |
| HUW BRODIE: The key point is that this
results in a certain amount of time-consuming frustrating
work. At the end of the day we did manage to take the
measures that are appropriate, and of course Northern
Ireland for instance are working within the same framework
of European measures in rural development as we are. But
it is a drag in the system I think. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Has Whitehall been grudging
in giving this broader consent, or approval? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: It is never easy. It is
always frustrating because the natural instinct is not
to change until such time as you can demonstrate there
is a need to change, and that is what takes the time and
energy. |
| TED ROWLANDS: I cannot see why Whitehall
wants to hang on to these residual responsibilities. What
is in it for DEFRA, for example? |
| HUW BRODIE: I cannot imagine there is any
real policy reason. It might just have been a certain
amount of innate caution at the start, and not I would
have thought taken at ministerial level. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Natural Civil Service caution! |
| LORD RICHARD: Is this a chance to status
quo (?), if I can put it that way, rather than change
the powers of the Assembly? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: It would be the powers
to carry out broader work -- |
| LORD RICHARD: Because you could designate? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: We would be designated
by the directive as the body to carry out these directives
but we do not have the operational means through the powers
we have in their entirety to carry them out. |
| LORD RICHARD: But the powers are not external
rather than internal. In other words, it is not saying,
"We have to change the powers of the Assembly in
relation to Whitehall"; it is saying, "Please
designate us to do so". |
| TED ROWLANDS: I think you are saying that
- that it is a question of powers. Would this require
an order in Council to transfer the powers so we can get
rid of this particular "anomaly"? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes. It would require the
Privy Council to make an order in Council with broader
design as they did in relation to agriculture. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: And in animal health transfers
we are on the third tranche of those orders in Council
moving in our direction, so the orders in Council route
is the one which tends to be used to try and straighten
this zig zag line, if you like. |
| TED ROWLANDS: So if you said, "Here
is a draft order; please will you give us these additional
powers" |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: That is not the way it
works. It is a lengthy process of negotiation and, because
of the nature of the documents, parliamentary counsel
has to see them and so we do not prepare the final documents
although we identify the powers that we wish to see included. |
| PAUL VALERIO: Have they ever said "No"? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: I have not been involved
in the process directly, so I cannot tell you. |
| PAUL VALERIO: Should they say "No",
how would you resolve it? What is the procedure? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: There is the code between
ourselves which we would have to invoke. My sense of this,
and I do not know how many directives since 1999 we have
had transposed to us to do, is that it is a grinding process
of getting the power back to Wales in order to be able
to do the things we would be directed that we have to
do in the first place, rather than a process of fierce
physical opposition by Whitehall. |
| LAURA McALLISTER: Is that more of a priority
then, the actual rationalising of the policy areas that
are devolved to Wales, rather than additional powers?
What I am asking is in your view, from your brief, is
that the imperative rather than additional powers? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Certainly, if you look
at in terms of agriculture the list of Bills, the Acts
which I am responsible for, I make this not as a lighthearted
comment but if I want to know what I can do I have to
ask a lawyer - usually two - because it is a very complex
arrangement because every single thing you do is constrained
by the derivative Acts from which they are taken, so you
have to look where you can derive the power to do the
work you do, rather than having the general competence
about the area of agricultural and rural development. |
| HUW BRODIE: At the moment, of course, in
the agricultural area the key issue is whether we can
get agreement to the transfer of the remaining animal
health powers. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Are you 80 per cent down
the road? Is there a hold-up? Are they saying no, or what?
Where do we stand? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I think we have a comfort
zone that this is proceeding properly and according to
plan, but as with all these things there is a very complex
set of operational aspects which go behind them. At the
moment I am accountable for problems of bovine TB, bruscellosis
and warble fly, which are three diseases which animals
can have. There are a lot more which I do not have but
I have no direct means of dealing with these - apart from
officials - I have no veterinary service to deliver those
changes or direct them so you do not have the mechanism
to go with it and probably the problem that Arwyn Jones
faced last year with foot and mouth disease is that he
was accountable to the Assembly for what was happening
but not responsible because he did not have the powers
to execute them, and those changes I think are progressing.
The government's response to the foot and mouth inquiries
which came out just a few days ago indicates that we are
making progress towards moving those powers to Wales,
but it is not just a simple matter of power - it is also
the operational aspects. |
| HUW BRODIE: If you wanted a perfect illustration
of the way in which the powers that the Secretary of State
had which were transferred to the Assembly being built
up on an ad hoc basis, you need look no further than animal
health and the way in which we were responsible for the
control of those three diseases but not others. It reflects
the ad hoc way in which the Secretary of State's powers
can be built up. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Over those three years of
experience you presumably have gathered a collection and
identified these ragged edges in the agricultural and
animal welfare field. Would it not be a good idea to say
to Whitehall, here is our collection of competencies which
it would make logical sense for us to transfer? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: The power of general competence
in specific areas is the process by which Scotland got
most of its powers. It seems to me that that does straighten
that zig zag line up considerably. The other issue I raised
at the beginning about it being a new and emerging institution,
finding its feet, as it were, and now wanting to take
more ambitious steps, brings us naturally into the area
of what powers we can operate and the way we can move
forward our own policy priorities, and it is a consequence
of devolution that there are going to be continuing differences
maybe if the Government's proposals go through between
regions of England as well. |
| TED ROWLANDS: One can make a clear distinction
between competencies that should have been handed over
and the question of new primary legislative power. They
are two separate issues in some ways. I am just identifying
for the purposes of our condition first of all this whole
area of competence, and you have now a list of potential
competencies that you have required in the field of agriculture
and animal health. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I think with my other hat
on I will address that issue when I come back if I may
because it is a very interesting area to discuss, but
in terms of our experience, if you like, it is not easy
when you have such a zig zag line between what you can
do and what you cannot. |
| LORD RICHARD: The message I seem to be
getting from listening to your evidence really is this:
that there is a great deal of scope and rationalisation
and common sense in the way in which specifically European
responsibilities are now which would give you the actual
responsibility, but the case for changing the powers of
the Assembly, the primary powers, really seems to be based
upon the argument, "Well, they are bound to diverge
in the future and perhaps we ought to get the powers now". |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I think if you go back
to the clue I gave right at the beginning, already we
have put forward a programme of proposals to Whitehall
and clearly we have not got all those through. |
| LORD RICHARD: Is that bids for legislation? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. Each year we make
a bid for legislation and that bid has never been satisfied.
In other words, there are Bills we would like to have
done which have the support of the Welsh Assembly Government
which have not gone forward. |
| LORD RICHARD: How do you satisfy those? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: There are some clear areas
we want to satisfy, particularly for example St David's
Day. There is an over-arching view from the Welsh Assembly
Government and all political parties in the National Assembly
that St David's Day should be treated as a bank holiday
in Wales, and we have been unable to get a Bill for all
sorts of reasons through the House of Commons. We do not
have the power to do it ourselves; Scotland does; and
there are some differences about how we treat St Andrew's
Day, and in Northern Ireland about bank holidays as well
- sectarian differences. But it is a view that we would
like and it has been put forward on several occasions
from the National Assembly and we have not been able to
implement it. There are examples and the list is available.
The process is that we submit the bids, we then have a
debate upon those bids, and then the Secretary of State
appears before the National Assembly and talks about the
Queen's speech. |
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| LORD RICHARD: Is there a list of unsatisfied
bids? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. |
| LORD RICHARD: Could we have that? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Certainly. I have just
been reminded that it is not related to this portfolio
but to my Deputy First Minister role. |
| LORD RICHARD: Yes. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: You have spoken
a lot about the powers and the practical side of the devolution
settlement, but you have not said anything so far, I believe,
about the work of the Assembly on European matters. I
believe there is provision for a European committee in
the Assembly. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: There is. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Being effective
on European matters, it is not just a matter of having
good lobbying techniques in Brussels, etc, but also understanding
what it is all about and they are very technical issues. |
| How much work is being done in the Assembly
on European instruments and promises, and is there any
provision to specialise in certain subjects on which you
might think that the Welsh would have a particular expertise
- hill farming, for example - as I believe to some extent
has been done in Scotland in the case of fisheries. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Indeed, and there is a
European International Committee which is a committee
which meets I think bi-monthly in the Assembly, chaired
by the First Minister but not for long because just this
week we passed a resolution which will convert it to being
like the other Assembly committees, and I will be the
minister responsible to that committee in giving it advice
and in the work it does. It is obviously an advisory committee
because it does not have powers but it does bring together
all of the standing members who are members of the European
Parliament along with other people like the Committee
of Regions. |
| The role which it plays in European directives
and scrutinising European legislation is interesting.
The problem has been the huge number of European directives
and the time that would take, given that we are 60 members
and everyone is on more than one committee and spending
a lot of time working on other matters as well. There
is a feeling that, of course, we should do a bit more
in the way of being able to select what we would like
and one of the areas where it has been done, of course,
is in the Rural Affairs Committee. It is very important
that Europe is seen as a cost-cutting theme through every
single committee's business, not just a single committee.
There has been a move in some committees, though the role
of committees has been very much emerging in the way they
play their part, but certainly in the Rural Affairs Committee
they have done this work with scrutinising European legislation. |
| HUW BRODIE: In relation to agriculture,
first of all, as officials over the last four years, we
have taken big steps in terms of increasing our attendance
at meetings in Brussels, being far more networked and
plugged-in in ways I have already described, of which
having a full time official there is only, if you like,
one particular aspect. As you say, being informed about
where particular negotiations have got to in Brussels
and knowing the views of the different Commission partners
in Brussels is absolutely crucial, and our work in that
area has developed enormously. The Agricultural and Rural
Affairs Committee in the Assembly equally, for instance,
has taken a great interest in a whole variety of developments,
so on the mid-term review of the CAP which is currently
in progress we discussed that with them in a meeting in
July; there was a discussion again a couple of weeks ago,
and that will be a regular item on that Committee's business
until it is through, and that is the way in which the
minister is reporting back really. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Would you be
able to give an example, or send later an example, of
a report by any committee of the National Assembly in
the last three years on a European issue which has been
carefully produced and well-reasoned, and then has led
to a debate in the Assembly with an attempt to influence
policy? |
| HUW BRODIE: I think GM is probably the
easiest one but I must check the assumptions you are making
in asking the question, because policy in the Assembly
can be generated from two sources - one is from the Committee
and the other is from the Welsh Assembly Government side,
so it is not purely from the committee. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Absolutely,
but it would be very nice to have one or two examples
in written form where there has been serious work done
- whether by the committee or by the officials or both. |
| HUW BRODIE: I can give you an example at
the moment. In terms of the mid-term review we are working
extremely closely with the Scots, Northern Ireland and
DEFRA to develop a model for how the de-coupling of agricultural
subsidies can proceed. The Commission are giving very
strong signals to us that they want us to feed them ideas
because it is a highly technical complex area |
| LORD RICHARD: That is to Wales? |
| HUW BRODIE: To the United Kingdom, and
the United Kingdom is one of the relatively few Member
States that is espousing this idea; it is an explicit
part of our Welsh strategy published in November last
year. With the Northern Irish in particular we are making
a big influence on the way in which the United Kingdom
government is developing its own thinking on de-coupling,
and we are making a big impact on the United Kingdom line.
This last Monday one of my heads of division was in a
meeting with the Commission with the Scots, northern Irish
and DEFRA, the senior Commission officials, discussing
all of this. We are now back in London again today to
agree the United Kingdom paper, and that will go forward
to the Commission and will be discussed further with them. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Presumably you
will do this in conjunction in some way with the NFU or
the Welsh NFU? |
| HUW BRODIE: As promised in our strategy
document we set up a working group with the industry and
environmentalists in January I think this year. That has
been meeting frequently and we have been discussing all
of these issues with them. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Would you say
you are as close to the NFU here as DEFRA is to the NFU
in London? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Can I answer that by saying
that what you would not do in Wales is only refer to the
NFU in Wales but also the Farmers' Union - well, we have
two farmers' unions. You have to be equidistant otherwise
you are in severe trouble. |
| I believe one of the strong advantages
of devolution is that we are able to make contact and
be in touch with the civic society in Wales in a much
more vigorous way than ever has happened before. It would
be a very strange week indeed were I not to meet either
one or other officials of one or other or both of those
unions, and you can rest assured they will lobby me on
every occasion. I will meet some this afternoon and I
will guarantee they will lobby me about one thing or another.
I think the relationship and it is part of the process
of devolution is that the civic society does say that
access to ministers is so much easier under this process
than ever before, and the growth of the pressure groups
and organisations and national bodies going around the
National Assembly building now in Cardiff Bay, setting
up offices and bringing in liaison officers, is a testament
to that. |
| The second view is that that was an officials'
route. This is not perhaps the way we dealt with the European
directive in both the Committee and the Assembly, and
it is currently under way on the initiative. |
| HUW JONES: The Deliberate Release Directive
on Genetic Modified Organisms was adopted by the Commission
in April last year. We have undertaken as the Assembly
two specific consultations, one last year looking at how
we should draft the regulations seeking views from the
Assembly committees plus interested parties within Wales.
Then we took a paper to the Agricultural and Rural Affairs
Committee saying how we were proposing to take the directive
forward in terms of draft regulation. We then went out
to consult both the Committee, the Assembly members and
the general public on the draft regulations. We then took
the paper back to the Committee the week before last when
we (a) gave a breakdown of the responses to the consultation
and (b) sought their views on whether they were generally
content with the way we transposed. |
| With the 2001/18 it is a very prescriptive
Directive because the Assembly Government line is that
Wales will take the most restrictive approach to GMs that
is consistent with the EU legislation. We wished to provide
the ARD with definite evidence that we had taken the most
restrictive approach in transposing the regulations that
we could within the confines of the Directive. The Directive
is very tight |
| TED ROWLANDS: Could I ask a simple question?
I read the Minister's contribution to paragraphs on GMO
and I still was unclear, is it possible for the Assembly
to say no to any GMO trials? |
| HUW JONES: Fortunately GMO trials have
not finished |
| TED ROWLANDS: What about twelve months
ago when they were not finished? Is it within the power,
for future trials, of the Assembly to say no to trials
in Wales? |
| HUW JONES: If the particular genetically
modified crop that was being considered for growing had
a Part C authorisation which allowed it to be grown unrestrictedly
|
| TED ROWLANDS: I am lost already. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: That is the sort of answer,
if I may say so, that we get all the time because of the
complexity of the issues. |
| LORD RICHARD: You would get the same answer
whatever powers you had over it. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: In Directive terms, yes. |
| HUW JONES: In the terms of the Directive,
if the crop has an unrestricted use application then no,
the Assembly cannot prevent its growing unless we can
demonstrate that there is scientific or other evidence
that there is potential for harm to human health or the
environment. In the action we took last year in terms
of the GM trials, the Assembly took the view that there
was a potential for harm to the purity of organic crops
if there was an unrestricted planting of GM maize. We
consequently took action under the Environmental Protection
Act to place enforceable separation distances between
the crop and a compatible crop and that was the action
that the Assembly took which then triggered the debate
within the Europe if you want on co-existence between
GM and non GM crops. |
| LORD RICHARD: But your argument was with
Brussels? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. |
| TED ROWLANDS: So it is the case that it
is not a question of your present competencies or powers
at the moment, but a question of whether the European
law overrides the wish of the National Assembly? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes, and it is around that
triangle again. If it is a directive we have not got the
powers to implement it and we have to collect that provenance
from the United Kingdom government. |
| LAURA McALLISTER: Would Scotland be in
the same boat then in that respect? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Was the calf processing aid
scheme a similar story? |
| HUW BRODIE: The treaty contains the provision
in relation to agriculture to ensure that there is equality
of treatment between producers, and the calf processing
aid scheme was an optional scheme that could be run by
Member States so the Commission determined that it was
not possible for it to be run only in part of a Member
State. |
| Perhaps the key point to underline there
is that primary legislative powers would make no difference
to that position. We would have had the same answer if
Scotland had asked for it. |
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| TED ROWLANDS: So again it is a European
issue? |
| HUW BRODIE: Yes |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. |
| LORD RICHARD: But Europe runs agriculture? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Pillar 1. |
| HUW BRODIE: Yes, except in relation to
areas where the European Union will allow certain discretion
to Member States, and then there has to be agreement within
the Member State which in one sense gives the devolved
administrations a significant degree of negotiating power. |
| LAURA McALLISTER: What about the broader
rural development agenda? Would that benefit from primary
legislative powers? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: This is the issue I raised
at the very beginning about Section 26 of the Act which
was restrictive and made life very difficult indeed |
| TED ROWLANDS: Of which Act? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: The Development of Rural
Wales Act 1976. Section 26 was virtually the only section
of the DRW Act that was not repealed by the Government
of Wales Act, and it provides financial assistance to
social bodies in Wales which will contribute to the social
development of Wales. |
| Under the Government of Wales Act it was
amended so that industrial undertaking was substituted
by a word called "business", and therefore business
and social undertaking do not coincide, so it was difficult
then to act under powers of promoting rural generation
for social and voluntary sector purposes, and we had to
use another section under the Agriculture Act which allowed
us to make provision for the supply to any person of any
services or goods relating to any other enterprise or
benefit to the rural economy through any organisation.
In other words, there was a constraint upon the primary
legislation which had to find another route, and it is
part of this process of "chase me" which we
engage in quite often, looking through the list, finding
a route which we can use which does not conflict. It was
an avenue which was closed off to us and we had to look
for another avenue in order to undertake activity for
social and voluntary purposes within the rural areas of
Wales. |
| I will give you a note on that. |
| PETER PRICE: One gets the picture of a
whole series of toing and froing between the Welsh Assembly
Government and Whitehall over this issue of powers, and
you have described it as a zig zag line. To what extent
is there scope within the existence element to greatly
simplify the zig zag lines? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: First of all, can I say
that the toing and froing is not a constant hot water
tap turned on all the time. Sometimes it is very vigorous
indeed and sometimes less rigorous, which provides great
problems for the Wales Office which is under-resourced
in terms of capacity to be able to handle the sort of
difficulties that we may have with other government ministers. |
| I am told there are only one and a half
lawyers in the Wales Office, and you need a bit more influence
than that. |
| LORD RICHARD: Is that all the Welsh Office
have? |
| PAUL VALERIO: In London or altogether? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Altogether, and the settlement
would lead you to believe that in order to get the legislative
changes that you want you have to be at all those pre
legislative processes inside the ministries within the
Whitehall machinery. Clearly that is not possible because
of the small level of resource that they have. They often
ask us, "Can you lend us a lawyer?", and we
often say, "There are not enough of our lawyers to
go round - sorry, Guv!". |
| LORD RICHARD: A very proper attitude! |
| PAUL VALERIO: Pursuing that, you were saying
you have not been successful for all the bids of primary
legislation. If you had been successful for every one
of the bids you had made, how would you cope with the
new existing structure? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: We would have been able
then, because we would have had the primary legislative
framework, to drive forward the regulatory framework through
the subsequent regulations and orders and whatever else,
to carry through the objectives laid out in those primary
bids. For example, we would be given the power to create
St David's Day as a public holiday and we would have the
capacity in our machinery to implement that but once again,
going back to thinking about these Henry VIII clauses,
what we are effectively looking for is a way in that case
of just saying that the National Assembly for Wales would
have the power to create bank holidays in Wales, full
stop, or create one bank holiday or whatever and then
leave all the work to us to undertake. |
| Now, there is a conflict between that and
whether Henry VIII powers should be used in primary legislation
processes anyway, and there is a debate about whether
the doctrine made some changes to the way that is being
processed, so I think in that respect we would have done
the donkey work on the back of a very simple Bill. |
| On Peter's point about whether there is
an easy way of rationalising this toing and froing, I
am trying not to stray too much because logic would tell
you that if you are managing to look after your own affairs
a bit more then you would have to go up and down on the
train to London so often and be talking frequently to
government officials in other departments and often trying
to convince them there is an argument that you have to
have these things and almost having an initial diagnosis
for the different civil servant each time. |
| I suppose one of the ways would be to have
areas of general competence which might be a move forward.
I would say, and I am trying not to stray because this
is where the dividing line is so fragile, that that would
not necessarily provide you with an argument which had
a buffer against a reason for doing primary legislation
but I will come back to that. That argument would certainly
I think clarify that area. |
| HUW BRODIE: May I say that, while the CAP
exists in the European Union, we are bound to have to
work extraordinarily closely with the other parts of the
UK and, through the United Kingdom, obviously working
into the Commission to maximise our influence on the system.
That is not anything to do with any lack of clarity over
whose term is whose - that is just making the system work. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: One of the things we have
not said so far is the way in which the devolved administrations,
sadly lacking in Northern Ireland, at the moment have
been able to work in concert to try and find the ways
in which we can approach this together, and we may want
to use that as a way of influencing United Kingdom government
policy. |
| LORD RICHARD: You mean the three devolved
administrations working together? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. |
| PETER PRICE: In fact, how far is the joint
ministerial conference a framework for such influence
in discussions? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Well the JMC - and can
I refer to the European version of that, first of all,
because it is interesting - the JMC(E) looking at European
activity, of which I am a member and the First Minister
is a member, and the mini corps, which is a ministerial
European committee which is ministers from all of the
ministries in Whitehall plus the devolved administrations,
is another mechanism by which we can discuss and debate
European issues. |
| There are two routes. The formal route
of the JMC(E) is one where there are other ministries
present but they are largely on an issue-by-issue basis,
and one of the issues on the table at the moment is the
governance issue in the European Union, and to try and
achieve a common United Kingdom position, and I have said
that that discussion is going on. I think that it is an
effective mechanism for making your voice heard but underpinning
it will have to be a whole series of other discussions
as well at a variety of different levels. |
| The mini corps, which has a much more political
framework to it looking at the direction we want to take,
will address perhaps broader issues: it is looking in
the broader thrust of where the United Kingdom sees itself
and places itself in the European agenda, and that usually
has a keynote address of about ten minutes or so from
either an official or somebody from outside government,
or even a politician from within government, and then
we discuss a range of issues relating to defence, common
defence policy, across the piste so we are engaged in
that sort of discussion, though it is not a place where
you would take a vote, whereas the JMC(E) naturally seeks
a consensus across the ministries. |
| The broader JMC, which is the one the Prime
Minister chairs, takes a thematic approach. So we have
an Agricultural Rural Affairs JMC that I am involved with,
a JMC(E) that I am involved, and a JMC I am involved with.
They all have different functions and I play a part in
all of them. JMC Agricultural Rural Affairs is the one
which involves the minister of rural affairs and agriculture
together. It is not really technically a JMC but it meets
with that purpose in mind. |
| PETER PRICE: We are now in the theme of
influence on policy rather than the legislative point
and, on this theme about influencing policy and generally
the relations with Whitehall, to what extent, given your
experience in dealing with different Whitehall departments,
because you have obviously had the experience of dealing
with different ones, is there consistency across the piste
or to what extent is this very dependent either on the
culture of different Whitehall departments or on the personal
relationships which particular individuals are seeking
to strike with other particular individuals? |
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| MICHAEL GERMAN: I would like to say yes
to all of those because I think it does not come as any
surprise to anybody who has been in politics that a ministry
develops a culture of its own, part of which is flavoured
by the minister of the day but part of which is inherent
in the way they approach it. I will not say anything about
the Exchequer in these matters because you can always
find a minister with a great deal to note about the Treasury,
and that is par for the course on governments throughout
the world. |
| I do believe, therefore, there are differences,
and they are manifest, about the way in which they understand
or have on their mindset devolution as an issue. They
may not see it as at the top of their lists, so when it
comes to defining something it is not necessarily the
first view that they should take above the views of Scotland,
Northern Ireland and Wales. |
| Then, of course, there are conflicting
interests between ministers. Obviously United Kingdom
Government ministers may have a position they want to
take in a United Kingdom context in which the devolved
administration's role may be helpful or not depending
on an issue-by-issue basis. So I would say the main answer
to your question is that we not expect to achieve consistency
across the piste because of the cultures we are taking.
There is a wavy line both at official level and between
ministers - that is not a surprise to anybody but it is
my experience - and clearly like all processes you have
to understand the agendas and positions in order to achieve
what you think the right position is to take. |
| HUW VAUGHAN THOMAS: Could I take you back
to DEFRA and the zig zag lines you have experienced? To
what extent do they say, "Well actually this tidies
it up; we therefore have a similar position as regards
Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales". Is that part
of their thinking, or do you find you are having to argue
the position for Wales, talking to Scotland and Northern
Ireland in the wings but not actually around the table,
agreeing, saying "Look, it makes sense for us all
to be in a similar position"? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: All of that takes place.
There is discussion and obviously we meet as devolved
administrations with the DEFRA ministers approximately
once a month, and that is probably because in this legislative
part of the process there is far more jointly and severally
administrations that need to go work, for example, the
current 20-day rule which is vexing people in Wales. I
have to lay regulations for Wales but I cannot do that
out of step with those which DEFRA lays for England, so
there is influence which we bring to bear in that discussion
around the table, and clearly officials meet beforehand
as well as the ministers meeting sometimes separately,
sometimes together, but always together at the end to
try and establish common positions. It is a fluid arrangement. |
| HUW BRODIE: First of all, as I have said,
the fact that the Scots have got primary legislative powers
does not make it a substantial difference to how their
core agriculture brief works. In relations to our links
at DEFRA, we tend not to have close ones on rural development
because the EU rural development regulation allows us
more or less to do our own thing, so there is no real
requirement for us to work closely with DEFRA on that. |
| The links with DEFRA that all parts of
the United Kingdom have are primarily focusing on those
things where we have to get agreement on what the United
Kingdom is going to do, either what it is going to argue
in Brussels or the way in which the United Kingdom is
going to implement, and that is the area where the existence
of primary legislative powers in Scotland does not make
a difference, so there is no real incentive for DEFRA
to treat us differently from the Scots in relation to
that. |
| Equally, my impression is that it is rather
complicated for civil servants in London to understand
the complexities of the differences of the devolution
settlement between Wales and Scotland, and there is I
think a natural tendency for them to put us in the same
category. The main exception to that in relation to agriculture
is in relation to the animal health powers, where the
discussions are going along satisfactorily to put us more
or less on the same footing as the Scots. The only difference
would be that they have primary legislative powers in
that field and we have not. |
| For instance, there are constitutional
differences between the position of the state veterinary
service in Scotland and Wales at the moment. Sometimes
we have to be the ones to remind DEFRA that that is the
case because they tend to forget, so the flow very much
from London is seeing Wales and Scotland and Northern
Ireland as being three parallel and equivalent settlements. |
| HUW VAUGHAN THOMAS: That answer seems a
bit more positive than your colleague's in terms of describing
how, when we go and seek powers to tidy up, there is a
certain argument that takes place and the Civil Service
being naturally cautious. That sounds a much more positive
approach by DEFRA saying, "We want to tidy things
up". |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I suppose lawyers are eternal
pessimists! |
| HUW BRODIE: There is a caution I think
in lawyers. |
| LAURA McALLISTER: The Minister talks as
well in the paper that you have submitted about the particular
form of devolution for Wales having advantages over the
Scottish settlement in a couple of instances. I think
you give us the example of the seeds varieties as a regulation
where that has happened. Can you tell us a bit more about
that? Are there other examples whereby the Welsh settlement
is advantageous over Scotland? It is paragraph 19. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I will ask Gwyn to deal
with that, as the lawyer. |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: I am afraid I am not the
lawyer that deals with GM regulations so I will have to
take a moment to study this. |
| LAURA McALLISTER: I think what we are after
really is an understanding of what you mean where you
are talking about bilateral relations with Westminster,
rather than a Scottish situation. |
| TED ROWLANDS: In the meantime, can I ask
one factual question? You mention 81 orders have been
made under your site for 2001. What percentage of that
81 were meaningfully or significantly different to that
which would have been an England and Wales order? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Very little because most
are in respect of European directives and had to be implemented.
In animal health terms for foot and mouth disease I am
required to lay legislation which is no different from
that in England structurally. Even if we wanted to make
a change it would not be possible. |
| BRODIE: What we are doing now is we are
providing the committees with a complete list of all the
forthcoming statutory instruments and agreeing with them
which are the ones they would like to focus on, some examples
being the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulation and
also the Laying Hens Directive. |
| TED ROWLANDS: The Laying Hens Directive? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. It is very important.
It is the size of the boxes in which laying hens are placed. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Do we have to conform to
England |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: It was a European directive
and there was pressure from the United Kingdom government
to advance the directive earlier than the directive said
and it meant severe job losses in Wales - we have a large
industry in Wales particularly in Monmouthshire along
the coast and along the River Wye - so we had pressure
from the industry to go with the European directive, and
I think the pressure from United Kingdom government and
from the industry fell away, but the Directive itself
was a European one about increasing the size of the space
in which laying hens would have to exist. |
| HUW BRODIE: We had to conform to the European
directive but it was a question of whether the Assembly
wanted the scope to go further. |
| LORD RICHARD: What happened? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: We went with the European
directive. |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: Are you ready to come back
on paragraph 19? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes. The possible advantage
in having a joint function is that we are able to influence
what happens in DEFRA and therefore the legislation made
for England and Wales, whereas the Scots, because they
make their own, do not have to be consulted by DEFRA and
do not have to be involved in the making of the joint
legislation, which is joint legislation in this case for
Great Britain, and it has the complication of a Sewell
motion in the Scottish Parliament to enable them to agree
to legislation for Scotland being made without them strictly
being party to it. |
| The advantage is that in relation to GM
seeds, for example, authorisation in different parts of
the United Kingdom can affect authorisation more generally,
but because we are involved in making legislation of this
sort jointly with DEFRA, we are able to influence the
content of the legislation more effectively than if we
just made our own but they went ahead to authorise things |
| LAURA McALLISTER: Are there sufficient
other examples to suggest that that is a more advantageous
position than having a Scottish |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I can provide a view from
the opposite side where it is not advantageous, but you
could make an argument I think that in some cases there
are advantages to jointly and severally making regulation,
but equally well there would be argument on the other
side of the coin, where Scotland has gone a different
route from England and Wales - not substantially but enough
to carry the confidence of the farming community in Scotland
with it. |
| HUW BRODIE: One other thought: one of the
points made in the evidence was that in relation to the
introduction of modulation of agricultural subsidies,
the fact that the United Kingdom government needed legally
to get consistent equal treatment across the United Kingdom
to conform to the principles of the European Treaty, gave
us, the Scots and the Northern Irish a bargaining power
which reinforced MAFF's arguments with the Treasury that
modulation should only be introduced if full matching
funding was provided by the Treasury, so that is an example
where the need for legal consistency throughout the Member
States can almost paradoxically give the Assembly greater
leverage. |
| DEFRA are now extremely interested in the
possibility of persuading the Commission to amend the
appropriate regulation to permit regional variances of
the rates of modulation, but that is something that will
have advantages in one sense for all parts of the United
Kingdom because we will no longer have the need to find
a common position - we can go at our own rates and speed
- but on the other hand it will have a potential downside. |
| PETER PRICE: On paragraph 19, I did not
quite understand how there was any advantage compared
with Scotland if a Sewell resolution was required and
with the GB-wide regulation, because that means, although
the form of the regulation is signed off by the Assembly
and DEFRA, nevertheless before the Sewell resolution Scotland
would have negotiated exactly in the same way as the Assembly
would negotiate before joining in its actual signing-off. |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes, I take the point.
I think it is a perceived strengthening of the position
that we actually have to sign it off. Because I was not
directly involved myself I cannot give you chapter and
verse on how it would influence but perhaps we could come
back to you with a note on that. |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: Could we move away from
your present portfolio because you reminded us at the
beginning of your previous experience as the Minister
for Economic Development and your current role |
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| TED ROWLANDS: Before you do that can I
just ask one question? |
| We have been collecting evidence, and today
we have been collecting more than at other times, on these
areas of competencies and the jagged edges question. I
understand that to smooth these edges you would have orders
in Council transferred in the competence under existing
legislation from Whitehall to the National Assembly -
that is the process by which hopefully it will happen
in animal welfare. Is that right? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: That is part of the process.
The other part is by drafting primary legislation in such
a way that it gives greater flexibility. |
| TED ROWLANDS: Yes, but going back over
the old existing legislation it will be by order in Council
transferring function A from Whitehall to the Assembly. |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes. Having said that,
in agriculture there are not a great many more pieces
of legislation to be transferred. |
| TED ROWLANDS: What about biotechnology? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: That is largely a European
issue rather than a domestic one, but there are a small
number. |
| TED ROWLANDS: There is a collection here
and there is a collection perhaps in health and education.
Would it be possible to draft an order in Council listing
all these - health, education and agriculture - in one
order in Council saying, "Here are the competencies
which we have identified as three or four years' worth
of experience of running this settlement and we transfer
them in a block, as it were, in one order in Council".
Is that possible? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: It could be done but because
it is only in relation to a small bit of legislation the
position is obviously changing every time new legislation
goes through Parliament, which is why we have had a series
of transfer of function orders over the years, but certainly
it would be possible to repeat the initial exercise and
have a broader approach. Longer term the only way of doing
it is by having Bills that provide a broader framework
for Wales. |
| TED ROWLANDS: That is future legislation.
I am trying to deal with historic products and you could
do that with one further transfer of functions order which
would not be outside the terms of the Government of Wales
Act to transfer the competence which we have identified
today as being a sensible and logical smoothing of the
edges? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes. It is not a huge list,
as happened with the first and second transfer of functions
orders, of very specific ones. |
| LORD RICHARD: You would still have jagged
edges with that approach. There may not be a balance,
may there? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes. |
| PETER PRICE: Just to be absolutely clear,
one could not transfer a whole functional area as such;
it would have to be by way of scheduling all the various
statutory provisions involved because of the nature of
the Government of Wales Act, is that right? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes, because it is not
a transfer of primary powers and therefore secondary legislation
has to be tied into the primary legislation. |
| PETER PRICE: Has the statutory provision
changed later each time that would need to be taken care
of? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. |
| LORD RICHARD: It is the difference between
the presumption of competence in Scotland. That is the
fundamental point. |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Absolutely. |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: You did volunteer earlier
on to give us the benefit of reflections on your period
as the Minister for Economic Development and also perhaps
more widely, as Deputy First Minister, how you see the
whole thing working or whether there are other jagged
edges that may not be about specific powers necessarily
but would be within the competence of this Commission
to take evidence. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I reflected on my previous
post as Minister for Economic Development and there were
three areas where I felt at the time we were having some
difficulties over what we could do and what we might like
to do, two of which would require primary legislation,
and one of which would require a joint action against
the rest of the United Kingdom government by the Chancellor
of the Exchequer and the Welsh Assembly Government, which
I will come to later. |
| The first two were about the setting up
of urban regeneration corporations in Wales. Clearly a
framework for ideas had been laid down by United Kingdom
government but, as a result of the Corus issue looking
at how you might restructure and support new economic
development in the area most affected by the Corus redundancies
was one where it did require some United Kingdom action
in order to allow us to provide the framework for an urban
regeneration corporation still going ahead towards Newport,
and whether that could have been provided also for Ebbw
Vale if they wanted it, and round that area as well as
part of the process, and there was a difficulty there
in that we did not have the competence to do that, but
in part it has been satisfied. |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: Can you explain how? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Because if we wanted to
do so now for, let's say, Ebbw Vale we have to go back
again and seek the position from DTI to allow us to undertake
another urban regeneration corporation. |
| Beyond that there is what you might do
with an urban regeneration corporation which brings me
partially to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. One of the
things about urban regeneration corporations is that they
should provide an opportunity for differential taxation
measures, whether they be support for employment or for
individuals or R&D. |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer has a very
strong view and has made it clear in speeches that he
is in favour of R&D tax credits in the poorest areas
of Britain, and it seemed to me that one of the things
we might have been able to have done at the time would
be to create a urban regeneration corporation and given
these R&D tax credits some other support to the knowledge
economy within those areas. In other words, rather than
just replacing jobs at a simple semi-skilled level, we
would have been able to drive up the economy by bringing
knowledge economy jobs, and that is an issue where I think
the R&D tax credits may well be outside the competence
of any shifts that we would have been able to provide
in the powers of Wales but it was certainly an ambition
which we shared with the Chancellor of the Exchequer at
the time, in that we wanted to promote that idea within
the most disadvantaged areas of Wales because it would
provide a certain step change to the economy of Wales. |
| The third area is one of tourism. There
is a very strange notion, of course, that the Wales Tourist
Board now has the power to market overseas but we have
also a British Tourist Authority, and the guidance that
we can give to the British Tourist Authority to act on
behalf of Wales is not always clear, and the lead DCMS
Minister drives that forward when, in fact, it would have
been better to have had a much more joint arrangement
for driving forward, and that has been in my view not
helped either by the fact that the DCMS has now decided
to close down the English Tourism Council and to use the
BTA for driving forward England, so now we have a BTA
responsible for tourism in England and overseas tourism
for all of us - for Wales and Scotland as well. I think
that is probably a division which is not clear and one
which may not be to our advantage, and we were not able
to influence that because we are not able to influence
the BTA - that is the point I was making. |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: On economic development,
are you saying that the Minister for Economic Development
in the Assembly should have the power to make the decision
about things like R&D credits? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I think there is a way
in which the Treasury - I think this is taxation power,
where eventually some form of relationship would make
it possible for the National Assembly to be able to make
these limited interventions. I am trying to be careful
not to stray too far here but it was a policy intervention
that we wished to make: it was one where we had the support
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer but there was not the
route for us to make it, and I think in more general terms
it was something which might accrue to Wales in the eventuality
of being able to make these limited interventions in financial
terms inside urban regeneration corporations. |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: We asked Andrew Davies
yesterday about the tools for the job; what was the range
of power he felt he needed as the new Economic Development
Minister, and he was quite clear that he felt that tax
credits, though an interesting idea and so on, were strictly
the province of the Chancellor. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: There we are. I share the
view of the Chancellor, and perhaps it would be helpful
to allow him to develop these proposals even further,
but that is a United Kingdom government responsibility.
As I said, this was something we shared with him, but
I do not think he has yet been able to convince the rest
of United Kingdom government on how it might be operated.
It would be a useful tool to be able to develop for the
time. |
| More broadly, some of the issues which
have come out of work we have done in the Assembly which
will require some more substantive change in the future,
of course, would be from the Rees Commission which we
put in place to look at student hardship, and this was
a position which the First Minister re-stated to the Assembly
in his questions this week about the ability to be able
to remove upfront tuition fees. In terms of our long-term
capability to handle the long-term care of the elderly,
we have a position now where we provide six weeks of care
but cannot go beyond that because of our competence, and
it has been a position once again expressed by the government
that we would like to do that. |
| Finally, of course, there is the on-going
issue of the Sunderland Commission which currently has
reported and makes a very dramatic proposal for changing
the voting structure for local government, but if that
were to be the view of Welsh Assembly Government after
a consultation process we do not have the competence to
be able to drive it forward, so in a sense there were
three areas: one of emerging policy which has not yet
been agreed by the government but has come out of a commission
set up to look at it with that purpose, and two others
which are agreed where we have not got the competence
to carry out our own work, which is clearly work we would
like to see done in Wales, and they are all, of course,
being done in Scotland. |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: What about Assembly process
issues? We have had some evidence that perhaps members
of committees do not feel that they are as engaged as
they would like to be in a true scrutiny role. Before
you were a member of the government obviously you could
see things from both sides on that. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: On the corporate body issue,
which I think is the heart of your question, I believe
that the National Assembly for Wales could establish a
hybrid which is new to the structure of government in
Britain. I think it was a stroke of some brilliance to
allow the committees to have a duality of role between
policy formation and also scrutiny, and I would personally
not like to see that lost - and I know that is shared
by a lot of colleagues both in government and across the
Assembly as a whole. |
| The precise nature in which the committees
express that policy formation role is still, like any
new institution, under formation. Sometimes it is by taking
expert witnesses and producing reports and then requiring
the minister to respond to those export reports, which
is not done in a scrutiny mode but basically in an evidential
gathering mode, and a looking-and-seeing mode, which is
slightly different from a scrutiny mode which of course
is looking at a decision which has already been taken. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Can you give
one or two examples of that? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. The recent work on
renewable energy which the Economic Development Committee
has done to look at setting targets for Wales and what
form of renewable energy we would like in Wales; looking
at the relative value between on-shore development and
offshore wind; the differences between biomass and biomass
developments; looking at carbon production; we took evidence
from the man who is on the World Commission |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: You mentioned
him to us. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. I have forgotten his
name for which I apologise but the Committee took evidence
from a large number of people and went out to see a number
of institutions and organisations and bodies and companies
and so forth, and in the end produced a report on renewable
energy for Wales which the Minister then took away and
responded to, accepting most of the recommendations, and
that is a direct way in which the Committee had an influence
on something which became government policy and then the
plenary session debate had a vote on the response from
the government as well. |
| So you have an opportunity there where
the Committee put together its report, it was debated
by the full Assembly, the Minister took it away and then
reported back on what he was going to do about it. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Was there a
vote? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes, a vote all the way
through. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: In the Assembly? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. There was a vote and
it supported the principal recommendations. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: All the parties? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. It was, if you like,
when you put the knobs on the end - they were finessing
it round the edges - but the principal thrust of that
debate on discussion document and the policy document
that came forward was nothing new |
| TED ROWLANDS: Did the Minister as a member
of the Committee stay away from that process until it
was reported? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: No. He sat in and took
part as well. |
| TED ROWLANDS: He had his own report reported
to him? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. |
| LORD RICHARD: I want to ask your views
on this concept of a corporate body in governments. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. At the moment I have
sat in and questioned the evidence given to a similar
report on organic food which has come to the Agricultural
and Rural Affairs Committee and I will receive a report
and make a judgement on it again. I will answer the point
how you can be the judge and jury in the same case. I
would expect, in a new regime which clarified the role
of the executive and the Parliamentary role, that the
Minister would no longer engage in that discussion. He
could sit in on it and could supply officials to provide
advice and ask questions but would not contribute to it
at that point. |
| LORD RICHARD: Would you agree that the
inevitable way in which it is moving now is from a corporate
body status to a parliamentary status with an executive,
the Civil Service being responsible to the executive rather
than to the whole of the Assembly, and then the Assembly
doing a legislative and a scrutiny and an accountability
role? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. The only difference
is the role of the committees and that is why I agree
entirely with that process but - and I said this during
the review of the Assembly process as well, and there
is pretty general support for the fact that they are ahead
of the game as well as being behind it, as it were - I
would not want to lose that. |
| I would expect as part of that process,
however, that the Minister would withdraw from the committee
work in that way. I think it is perfectly possible to
divide the committee work up and say, "You are in
scrutiny mode here and policy-making here". |
| LORD RICHARD: Is the Assembly big enough
to do that? Big enough to run Parliament? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: You are asking me a legal
question but I would say not. I will respond to that in
my other role but there is a general point about the way
in which people are pressured. |
| I have had the advantage of having working
for me, and still have, people who have worked in the
House of Commons and also worked here in the National
Assembly. To a person - and you might say it is because
I am paying them slightly more than they got in the House
of Commons - they are finding it an advantage but they
have said the work load upon members is far greater in
the National Assembly than in the House of Commons. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Do they mean
Welsh MPs? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: No, MPs in general, because
these people have come from working with MPs who were
all English MPs. |
| LORD RICHARD: This is despite the fact
that there is no direct constituency load? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I would dispute that as
well. Most of my colleagues who have a constituency load
will tell you, when you think about an MP's post bags,
apart from benefits and social security and issues of
foreign policy and immigration and all those issues which
are substantial, a lot of the post bag would be about
health, education, traffic, highways - everything under
the sun - and they would be lobbied and pressured by everyone. |
| There has been a settlement period because
clearly, at the beginning, the general public did not
know who to turn to and I go back to my history of when
you had two councils - a county council and a district
council. Nobody knew that the pavements went one way and
the road maintenance to another. To the general public
it is government or the body who are managing. |
| As people are becoming more aware of the
role of the National Assembly, the workload in constituency
terms is certainly picking up, and if you think about
one third, or two thirds, of the population living within
one hour of Cardiff, there is an expectation also that
Assembly members in their majority will be available in
their constituencies in the evenings to do functions and
attend events as well. |
| TED ROWLANDS: How would you fit into this?
You approve or welcome the hybrid concept of the subject
committees. How would you then further insert the tiring,
hard work of scrutinising primary legislation into that
whole process? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I was asked the question
whether there are sufficient members to do it and I think
I answered that somewhat obliquely, but I think you would
require more resource to be able to do it, more people,
because there is a job to be done. Obviously the committees
would have to meet more frequently or there would have
to be more of them, so either the timing would increase
or there would have to be more of them, and that requires
more resource because clearly, with the numbers we have,
and the standing committees and increasing workload as
well, in the context of having the membership of the Scottish
Parliament relative to its population in order to be able
to deal with that scrutiny mode, it is pretty obvious
to me: you have to have more members in order to be able
to do more of the work. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: In the Australian
Senate there are approximately 74 for something like twenty
million in the whole federal body,, and that is very few. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: But it is a two-stage House. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: It is the second
House but it is elected by PR and has a very important
role, and the way it gets round the small membership is
by having more support. |
| LAURA McALLISTER: How would the administration
relate to the subject committees if your scenario happened
if either minister sat outside, because obviously your
team of officials report to you and provide you with information
- not exclusively but within the current system as a priority.
How would that work if you sat outside the subject committee?
How would they service the committee there? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: First of all, I think in
the ultimate what it would mean is divided work for the
committees. Whether they are separate or one with a divided
agenda is debatable but, on the one side, you would have
the scrutiny mode in which the officials would be there,
and then the policy-making route which the minister would
sit out from because he would be taking on board the judge
and jury in the same camp. |
| I do not see anything wrong necessarily
with permitting Welsh Assembly Government officials to
be there to question and to ask questions as well, to
raise points rather than being questioned themselves on
the evidence provided if they were matters of clarity,
but I would not go to the stake on that. |
| Much more important is to guard, in my
view, the role of the committees to be able to prevent
and provide policy issues of their own. That would require
the same sort of proportionality of the committee being
represented on both halves of the committee in order that
it would reflect the wider Assembly as a whole, so you
would have to ensure that you could not lose a vote on
one side of the gain if on the other side of the gain
there was a majority. |
| TED ROWLANDS: However much you believe
in openness, do you not think the consequence of this
would be a gradual closing of the show as you become more
and more of a Cabinet and the Assembly becomes the scrutinising
Parliament? You lose some of the openness that is claimed
to be the hallmark of the new politics. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: There are two issues there.
Crucially, putting the code of the openness which you
must have about papers that are available to one side
- and I believe we are the most open legislature anywhere
in Europe; Cabinet papers are available within weeks and
all the background papers are available within weeks -
I think the important part of this is the ability for
the Assembly as a whole to have a role in what I would
call longer-term, broader-brush policy making. |
| The issue that I referred to on renewable
energy is going to be around for some considerable time
where developmental work needs to take place, but to be
able to take the broad picture beyond the four or three
year cycle of a Parliament is one which we should encourage
to allow people to think beyond the boundaries of their
own timescale, and you are under pressure as a minister
to deliver a programme within a fixed timeframe. I think
there are great merits in having and retaining that process. |
| There has to be a dividing line in the
end between the two sides and there has to be proportionality
on either side of the House in order that the majority
view in Parliament is reflected in voting terms on either
side of the line. |
| TED ROWLANDS: There is a telltale sign
in that recently a leaked minute from a senior official
about the cost of health re-organisation smacked very
much of good, old-fashioned Westminster to me! Should
that evidence about the potential costs and the implementation
of this local government not have been available to the
subject committee that was supposed to be taking part? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I do not want to engage
in a conversation about the robustness of the Welsh media
or even the way in which these matters are portrayed,
but the so-called "leaked memo" was available
on the internet and intranet to all members - not only
with that month's report but the month before as well.
It was part of a monthly sequence of reporting and it
has much more to do with finding something left on a table
which looks interesting than something which has been
there and is available for all to see anyway. It was blown
out of all proportion because it was not a leaked memo. |
| TED ROWLANDS: The information was available? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Absolutely and I can give
you the e-mail address now, if you like. |
| LORD RICHARD: I do not want to leave this
basic point which is that you are making a great plea
for Assembly consensus in all sorts of areas which does
not exist in Westminster, but the party system here it
seems to me is bound to grow, is it not? As the Assembly
gets older, more competent, gets more powers and does
more things, the party divide is going to deepen, not
disappear, and how can you run a consensus Parliament
on the basis of that sort of party? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: The model I am suggesting
is that there would be an executive made up of a majority
which would direct and have a policy programme, but there
are areas - and this is where the emerging discussion
I think within committees is beginning to see its role
- of policy which are much longer term than simply the
four year framework that you come to within an agreed
parliamentary timetable. |
| I think there is advantage to us in opening
up that dimension to the Parliament as a whole to be able
to look at it and reflect upon it, and try to derive agendas
for the longer term. After all, the political structure
will react to those as it is going through but what was
interesting about the example I gave was that there was
no disagreement across any party about the fact that global
warming was going to hit us all, and it mattered wherever
you were in Wales, and there were consequences of action
that needed to be taken. |
| Now, when it comes to the actions that
need to be taken within the next three or four years then
there will be disagreement, whether you create more offshore
wind farms or take sand from the Usk Valley or dig up
the seabeds of Carmarthenshire and Swansea or the Gower.
All those are pragmatic issues but the over-arching ambition
was not lost on people, and it forced political parties
to be more responsive to the broader issues which will
affect us all over the lifespan of ourselves and of our
children. So, in fact, it is a releasing agent. |
| They would not be able to make policy;
what they would be doing is making, in a sense, a direction
which the government would then either pick up or reject. |
| VIVIENNE SUGAR: Can I ask how you reconcile
what you have just said with the principle that you propose
in local government of complete separation between the
executive and scrutiny? In fact, members in local government
are not allowed to scrutinise any decision that they might
have had a hand in helping to make, and that includes
policy development. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: Yes. You said that was
my proposal: it certainly was not my proposal and was
not our proposal. As you know, in Wales there was a fourth
option which certainly in the Welsh Assembly Government
we wanted local government to take up, and two local authorities
have taken that up, but we were not able to influence
primary legislation which was, of course, a matter for
Westminster. |
| I do not know whether you would take a
view that perhaps in Wales we would have done a different
job if we had done it ourselves - maybe. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Two short factual
points. You referred to voting in the inter ministerial
committee. How does that work? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: No, sorry. "Subject
to agreement" I think would be the wording - not
putting hands up and voting. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: There is never
voting? |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I have never had a vote
in my life. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Secondly, lawyers.
Surprise was expressed at the Wales Office only having
one and a half, but in the Role of the Secretary of State
for Wales Devolution Guidance Note 4 it says in terms,
"The Secretary of State is not in a position to draft
instructions to Counsel. That is for the Legal Department
Bill team after consulting the Assembly position with
lawyers". |
| If it is not actually drawing up instructions
for primary legislation, it is quite difficult to see
why it should need more than one and a half lawyers, and
in fact where the lawyers are needed are presumably in
the Assembly Government and perhaps, to a lesser extent,
under the Presiding Officer. |
| How many lawyers do those two have? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: In OCG we are somewhere
between forty and fifty. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Forty? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Lawyers? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: Yes. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: In the National Assembly. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: So you provide
the engine and the Wales Office is just |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I will answer that. How
many does the Presiding Office have? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: The Presiding Office has
two, but the forty or fifty lawyers are spread across
entire subjects. For example, there are four of us who
deal with forestry, agriculture, fisheries and Welsh language
compared with forty or fifty in DEFRA in the corresponding
subject area. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Before devolution,
how many lawyers were there in the then Welsh Office? |
| GWYN GRIFFITHS: That was before my time
but I think of the order of ten/fifteen/twenty. |
| SIR MICHAEL WHEELER-BOOTH: Perhaps it is
unfair to ask you. We will ask the Counsel when they come
here. |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: We can get that information,
but the issue of the role of the Wales Office is fascinating
because in the route march, when a United Kingdom government
announces its primary legislative programme, there will
have been a previous history to all of that which will
have been dealt with internally - in other words, when
the ministers have been told "You can do it"
or "You cannot do it" because it is not practical,
possible, costs too much or whatever. In that process,
the forensic examination of what is proposed, both before
it is announced in the Queen's speech and also during
the process of the Bill, there is a large element of work
to be done to make sure it is not just "And us Wales,
please" at the bottom, but that the Welsh interest
is represented in the legislation being drafted and proposed.
|
| So there is work with each of the departments
and there is work with Parliamentary counsel at the point
at which Parliamentary counsel ends in which you have
to have that legal background to be able to influence
the way it is going forward. |
| LORD RICHARD: Minister, you have given
us over two hours of your time and we are very grateful.
We have had a very good session. We could go on but |
| MICHAEL GERMAN: I will be back, of course. |
| LORD RICHARD: Yes. Can I thank you and
your colleagues very much indeed. It has been a good session
and you have been very helpful. |
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