Friday, September 23, 2005
Go Neil, go
My plan to discuss some of the more amusing moments from Wednesday's Plenary debate has had to be put on hold due to the fact that my Assembly computer is currently inaccessible and I cannot get at the notes I e-mailed myself from the chamber. Instead I have found more nonsense from arch-unionist Neil Kinnock.
In between telling us the rather obvious news that Tony Blair will not step down as Prime Minister until 2008, Lord Kinnock also reaffirmed his opposition to giving full law-making powers to Cardiff Bay:
'I would say that the proposal to change the nature of devolution by providing tax-raising powers and law making powers would require another referendum and I would need a lot of reassurance that such devolution would not work to the disadvantage of Wales.'
His instinct was to be 'strongly against' such a change, he said.
Given that the proposed White paper will transfer primary law making powers across to the Assembly piecemeal, neither Lord Kinnock nor Peter Hain are clear as to what happens when that process is all but complete and a referendum has not yet been triggered. Will they insist on a vote to decide whether the remaining few powers over say, transport, are transferred or will it be too late by then?
Not only does their position leave the Assembly in the position of going on bended knee to Westminster for the tools to do the job it was elected for, but it will actually deny the Welsh people a vote on whether it is appropriate for those powers to be transferred to us.
In between telling us the rather obvious news that Tony Blair will not step down as Prime Minister until 2008, Lord Kinnock also reaffirmed his opposition to giving full law-making powers to Cardiff Bay:
'I would say that the proposal to change the nature of devolution by providing tax-raising powers and law making powers would require another referendum and I would need a lot of reassurance that such devolution would not work to the disadvantage of Wales.'
His instinct was to be 'strongly against' such a change, he said.
Given that the proposed White paper will transfer primary law making powers across to the Assembly piecemeal, neither Lord Kinnock nor Peter Hain are clear as to what happens when that process is all but complete and a referendum has not yet been triggered. Will they insist on a vote to decide whether the remaining few powers over say, transport, are transferred or will it be too late by then?
Not only does their position leave the Assembly in the position of going on bended knee to Westminster for the tools to do the job it was elected for, but it will actually deny the Welsh people a vote on whether it is appropriate for those powers to be transferred to us.
