Topsy turvy world of Welsh politics

Sometimes Welsh politics seem like a topsy turvy world. No so long ago the Conservatives were extremely hostile to the Welsh Assembly set up by Labour in Cardiff Bay. Today, however, it is they rather than Labour who are advocating more powers for the Assembly. Last week the Secretary of State for Wales, Preseli’s Conservative MP Stephen Crabb, said the Assembly should become a Parliament and take on responsibility for raising a significant proportion of the money it spends. “There is no parliament in any other part of the world that doesn’t have responsibility for raising money as well as spending it,” he said.

Stephen Crabb has come full circle on devolution. Writing in 2007 he declared, “Over the last ten years my opposition to devolution in Scotland and Wales has been driven by a belief that, far from satisfying the nationalist tendencies in these countries, devolution would foster and feed an increasingly separatist and socialist discourse in which sensible Conservative policies that could promote national cohesion, economic liberalism and smaller government would find little oxygen for survival.”

So what changed Mr Crabbe’s mind? The crucial factor was witnessing the debates in Scotland’s independence referendum, shortly after he became Secretary of State in July. This is how he explained it in a lecture to the Institute of Welsh Affairs, in Cardiff last November: “During the summer I visited Scotland three times to campaign alongside Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat activists to defend the Union. But I was reminded again on those visits just how far away Westminster is from the lives of most Scots. I stood inside the empty Parliament at Holyrood one afternoon with Ruth Davidson [the Scottish Conservative leader] and it struck me that this is no mere shadow of the Westminster Parliament; this is a full legislature in its own right; it is where Scots increasingly look for answers on so many of the issues they care about; and this Parliament is here to stay. And this growth in legitimacy and competence and authority is now unquestionably the path of our own Assembly – because the people of Wales have destined it to be so. I came away from Scotland on that Wednesday night before the Referendum absolutely certain that whatever the outcome the following night, nothing would ever be the same again in terms of our constitution.”

But the change Mr Crabb wants Wales to embrace is being fiercely resisted. The Welsh Labour Government is fearful that making Wales responsible for raising its own money will undermine the amount of the block grant it receives from London. This sum, it argues, is already inadequate and will be reduced even further by George Osborne’s spending cuts. Welsh Labour is also worried about going into a future election with the Welsh Conservatives promising tax cuts. In future these will be the dividing lines in Welsh politics. But don’t expect them to appear very soon. Before the Welsh Government can raise (or lower) taxation it has to get approval in a referendum.