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Light dawns on Big Ben, but have alternative ways for devolution dawned on Westminster?

THE brief history of devolution is still generally regarded by Conservative MPs as a time of failure. Pembrokeshire MP Stephen Crabb, one of the most talented and articulate exponents of devo-scepticism, put it deftly in an article for a Conservative web site when he wrote:

“Although other colleagues in the party have reversed their previous opposition to devolution, I maintain that the devolution experience so far has proved rather than disproved my original concerns… [it] has created a politics which is based overwhelmingly around calls for greater public expenditure and freebies for various sections of the population.”

Instinctively, it’s easy to have some sympathy with the argument that the Assembly is a waste of money, or what the Yanks call a ’boondoggle’. We’ve been awash with European Union funds and generous transfers of cash from Westminster. Yet, in terms of economic performance, the expansion of the public and civil service has swamped the private sector and curbed the growth of new markets. If economic history teaches anything, it is that huge inflows of aid corrupts labour markets and rots the economy.

But money is seldom a reason for separatism. It is about local names and faces, about the quality of schools and hospitals. The transfer of power from Westminster to the Assembly allows local politicians to address local concerns. It also means letting them make their own mistakes. Those who condemn occasional misjudgments on the part of AMs would do well to recall that the biggest political blunder made in Wales in recent decades – the flooding of the Tryweryn Valley – was made in England.

Many people will be surprised to hear it, but the devolution of power over the public sector is far more rooted in Tory thinking than critics inside the party would ever acknowledge. It embodies the Conservative principle of local diversity and choice. It makes services accountable at the point of delivery, to local users and voters. It is rooted in a tradition of personal and communal responsibility that can be traced back to the origins of the Conservative party in the late 18th century, and can be seen from Edmund Burke through Disraeli to Michael Oakeshott.

The irony of course is that it has taken root within a Conservative Party that has since become fiercely hostile to it. Recent examples include the Minister for Education Jane Hutt and her failure to improve literacy among disadvantaged children; Edwina Hart’s mismanagement of NHS reforms; the liquidation of the Welsh Development Agency; the Wales Millennium Centre; the collapse of the Welsh Tourist Board as a functional organisation in 2006; the shambles over Objective One funding; the failure to prepare schools for the implementation of the Foundation Phase; and the handling of the 2006 Bluetongue crisis.

None of this, of course, has any bearing on the case for devolution. The failings of the Assembly is an argument for more, not less, local accountability and fiscal autonomy. By bringing government much closer to the people through instruments like locally accountable schools, taxation policies and lawmaking parliaments, incompetent officials would face greater scrutiny, and there would be fewer barriers to new talent and new ideas coming forward.

No one made this point more convincingly and thoughtfully than Daniel Hannan, a Conservative MEP for the South East, and Douglas Carswell, MP for Harwich since 2005. Their Manifesto – The Plan: Twelve Months To Renew Britain – convincingly shows there is no power exercised by the Holyrood legislature under the 1998 Scotland Act that could not be devolved to a lower level in England, or to the National Assembly in Wales.

Enunciated in the most mellifluous of tones, their miniature manifesto provides a convincing answer to the West Lothian question by offering similar powers to cities and councils. Instead of the hardline ‘English votes for English laws’, you would have local councils acting as de facto parliaments, reassuming responsibility for health, education and the relief of poverty. Scottish and Welsh electorates would then embark on a parallel localist agenda, devolving power to Holyrood and Crickhowell House. In domestic terms, a Welsh administration would be entirely self-governing and have complete command over economic policy. (Ideally, some of this power would go to local government.)

Opponents of The Plan have been very successful in creating a number of myths. The first is that it would lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. Surveys consistently show that few Scots (40-50%) and even fewer Welsh (15%) want an end to the Union. What they want is an end to Union public administration. The bugbears of independence – separate currencies, immigration controls, customs duties and a collapse in jobs like those in the Passport and Statistics Office – would prove costly to the Welsh people, and, if the experience of Slovakia is a guide, the transition to ‘small is beautiful’ nationhood may be painful.

Of course, there will always be arguments about where precisely the boundaries of separation lie. Ireland and Britain have had a common travel area and shared citizenship since the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. Czechs and Slovaks parted company in 1993 but formed an economic union, with free population movement. Catalonia and the Basque country enjoy extensive autonomy without it leading to the Balkanisation of Spain. Contrary to what the nationalists say, independence is never an appropriate term. A fuzzy line of sovereignty runs from localities through counties and provinces to national governments.

It is not easy for Plaid to admit this – or at any rate to emphasise it – but Celtic nationalism may be unnecessary and, eventually, unwanted. There is little appetite among the voters for a separate constitution, and there is no evidence that the people of Wales want to run their own defence policy, recruit an army, or mint their own currency. Support for retaining the status quo remains fairly constant and, some will find, surprisingly high – 76% of Wales favour monarchy over a republic, compared to 64% in Scotland.

The second myth suggests that Wales would lose its standing within the union if it had its own parliament. Not so. Each parliament would be responsible for policy and public spending within its own territory. Wales would be no more subservient than it is at present. Defence, foreign affairs and immigration would still be dealt with by Welsh MPs in the House of Commons. Domestic questions – health, education, economic development and the environment – would be decided more closely to the people. All Westminster MPs would then find themselves on an equal footing.

Critics also suggest that a Welsh Parliament would create yet another tier of bureaucracy and would be an unnecessary expense. On the contrary, a Welsh Parliament would save hundreds of millions of pounds, because the current arrangement is messier than a Byzantine bureaucracy. AMs can seek permission for more power, but it has to be done on a piecemeal basis. These formal requests – known as Legislative Competence Orders or LCOs – must find their way through a labyrinth of checks and balances, including the Secretary of State for Wales and both chambers of Parliament. These bit-by-bit transfers are appallingly time-wasting and, because of the waste of human resources, an enormous waste of money. The establishment of a lawmaking Parliament would put an end to this obstructive and grossly inefficient way of doing things.

The Conservatives would be very unwise to be outflanked on this by the Lib Dems. The localist gene has been latent in all Europe’s subsidiary regions. Spain’s mayors rule what are effectively city states. France’s communes maintain their primary schools. Germany’s Länder control education and transport. Denmark’s counties run hospitals to far higher standards than Britain’s NHS.

Contrary to what devo-sceptics believe, nationalism is not a superfluous sentiment that can be bought off with subsides or threats of poverty if withdrawn. It is about shared identity, activated when central government imposes its will in a dictatorial fashion, as London has regularly done in Wales with requests for primary law-making powers. Once this self-evident point has been appreciated, it becomes a matter of making a virtue of necessity. If the Union is to survive, it should be based not on colonial supervision but on respectful equality.