WESTM NSTER HAUL
Page 7
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WHOSE eagle eye spotted the mistake has not been revealed. But it was seen, has now been put right, and when — or if — the Welsh Assembly is set up it will have lost some of the power it would otherwise have had.
It will not be able to arbitrate if the National Bus Company objects to a bus shelter erected by a Welsh local authority.
That power remains firmly based in London. Thus are constitutional crises avoided. by paying careful attention to embryonic legislation. Now it might be that there is a body of opinion which would not consider it a catastrophe if the Transport Minister were suddenly to find that he could not settle a row over a bus shelter in some small Welsh village. Indeed there are some MPs bold enough to believe that a Welsh Assembly would be competent to deal with such a dispute.
But the powers-that-be in London do not see it that way. As John Smith, Minister of State at the Privy Council Office explained last week, such a change would be contrary to Government policy.
To be fair, he was not implying that the Government was all het-up at the thought of relinquishing its power to decide who was right in a wrangle over Welsh bus shelters. The real point he was making was that the Wales Bill laid down that control of statutory undertakings should remain in Whitehall. And, as one MP pointed out, that meant a long list of things, from road transport and lighthouses, to electricity and hydraulic power. So, where a statutory undertaker was concerned, exceptions could not be made, even over such trival matters as bus shelters.
Which was why, in the full knowledge that there was a guillotine poised to cut short discussions on the Wales Bill, the Government thought it necessary to move a rectifying amendment, making this clear.
And move it Mr Smith did, in terms of such necessary complexity that Neil Kinnock, the Member for Bedwellty, was thoroughly flummoxed and wondered if it meant that the power to erect omnibus shelters would not be devolved.
There were some tongue-in-cheek remarks from an "utterly shocked and dismayed" Mr Kinnock, who can understand legislative niceties as well as anyone in the House. but other Welshmen were genuinely unhappy about the Government's attitude.
But let the last word rest with loan Evans, who represents Aberdare.
"The questions under discussion seems to concern undertakers. I believe that the Bill will be going to the undertakers when the matter is put to the people of Wales."