Lord Justice Thomas, originally from Ystradgynlais, and one of Britain’s most senior judges told an audience gathered by the Wales Governance Centre yesterday that Wales currently has the most complicated system of government of any part of the UK. He urged that a simplified system of governance should be based on clear principles.
Speaking in Cardiff Bay’s Pierhead building, which was reopened yesterday following months of restoration, he said: “I do not advocate and cannot advocate what powers the Assembly should have – whether it should have greater powers or not. That is not a matter for me.
“But it does seem to me that when one stands back and looks at what has happened we really do need to simplify our structure of devolved powers.”
The judge’s comments follow last year’s All Wales Convention which found the devolution system was “not well understood at all”.
Stressing the importance of clarity, he said: “We must therefore have something that is simple and something which I hope all the people of Wales will more easily understand.”
Meanwhile, a new study by the Institute for Public Policy Research has found that significant numbers of MPs think England has lost out because of devolution, whilst a majority of MPs in all parties thought the Barnett formula on UK funding was unfair:
But the researchers found little evidence on an English backlash against devolution, despite modest increases in MPs favouring some form of English parliament.
The survey, which sought the views of a fifth of MPs across all parties, found:
40% of MPs thought England had lost out because of devolution, with 39% disagreeing. Among Conservative MPs, 72% felt England had lost out, compared with only 23% of Labour MPs;
62% felt the Barnett formula was unfair;
42% felt Scotland and Wales should have enough tax-raising powers to pay for their own public services, although 40% disagreed. Support for this idea was highest among Conservative and Lib Dem MPs;
the Barnett formula is widely seen as giving Scotland an unfair advantage in public spending, while Wales misses out – to the tune of about £300m according to the Assembly Government-commissioned Holtham Commission.
The report says the findings “give further weight to the growing pressure to reform the system for funding the devolved administrations –a view increasingly shared by the public.
“Importantly, there is a clear cross-party consensus supporting reform in this area.”
All useful stuff in the run-up to a referendum on increasing the legislative competence of the Welsh Assembly.
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