There seems to be an assumption on the part of Alun Davies and others that somehow they would make better legislators than members of the UK Parliament. If that is the case, then they have to set out the issues that have not been addressed by Welsh MPs. They also have to set out the consequences of more lawmaking powers which will probably include the need for more AMs and less MPs.

If we have more AMs then I would argue that we also need a better more democratic electoral system for the Assembly to replace the dog’s breakfast introduced in 1999. The only people who elected Alun Davies are the small number of Labour Party members who decided to place him top of the regional list. If Labour had won the first past the post seats he would not now be an AM. You also cannot have a legislature with full lawmaking powers without giving that legislature some form of revenue powers.

There really shouldn’t be representation without taxation. It is absurd that my community council has tax raising powers but an Assembly with full lawmaking powers wouldn’t. Alun Davies should also realise as Carwyn Jones quite correctly points out today that there has never been a debate within the Labour Party regarding the timing of any referendum.

If Alun Davies and others want to hold a referendum in the autumn of 2010 then there needs at a minimum to be a special conference of the Labour Party to decide the issue in the spring of next year. Who would want to do that, however, when the Party should be concentrating on trying to win the next UK election and hold on to the marginal seats in Wales which recent opinion polls suggest might be lost to the Tories.

No wonder David Cameron is relaxed about a referendum. He can just sit back as his opponents get diverted into a constitutional cul de sac which doesn’t interest most voters .I’m afraid that there are far more important issues to be debating at the moment than whether or not to hold a referendum in October 2010. I’m more interested to see how the Assembly is going to cope with the reductions that are expected in its budget over the next few years whoever wins next year’s UK election.

Thinking how much time and money that the civil service, both in the Bay and at Westminster (in addition to to politicians time and dreaded expenses), that has been spent steering one LCO, surely that this system is over bureaucratic and unworkable. This is before mentioning the actual problems of the LCO system itself.

On my part, it was interesting how my evidence was twisted by the WASC.

In addition, it is doubtful that my organisation will be able to scrutinise the LCO process as we have done to date, considering the time and money that we have spent giving evidence already on the Welsh Language LCO. On top of this there will be additional expense, in terms of time and money, when it is time to consult on an actual measure. It worries me that the future law making of the Assembly will be unscrutinised and contradicts the Assembly’s founding principles of openness and engagement. This is no fault of its own, but of a flawed LCO system.

I agree with your above comments

This post was mentioned on Twitter by blogwatchwales: To LCO and back http://bit.ly/IAYLP
– waleshome blog…