Hain must explain limits of Assembly's new powers

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 20th Jun 2005

Peter Hain will face tough questions on just what his white paper on enhancing Assembly powers will allow the Assembly to do, when he comes to Cardiff Bay tomorrow.

The paper, which was published last week, proposed that the Assembly would be able to draft its own laws, but only with the approval of Westminster.

Mike German, Assembly leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, said: "The breadth of the orders in council is the key issue following the publication of the white paper. For example, today the Education Minister is saying she cannot introduce a very sensible policy of requiring seat belts on school transport. Would she have this power under the new arrangements?

"The White Paper is very ambiguous about how broadly the Assembly will be able to define its enhanced powers. I will be pressing Peter Hain for clarity on this issue tomorrow. At present, it is hard to see how the new system would work.

"If Labour are intent on putting off a referendum, and see this as a semi-permanent solution, then these are the sort of questions they will have to face. Westminster politicians will continually ask why they should devolve power to an institution that will use those powers to do something which the MPs do not support.

"The greater the freedom for the Assembly to do its own thing, the greater the temptation will be for future Secretaries of State to use their veto."

Mr German drew attention to a handful of areas over which the Assembly may wish to legislate, where it is not clear how the new arrangements would work.

"The Welsh Liberal Democrats have our own policies which would need greater powers. For example, would we be able to introduce fair voting for local government elections? Would we be given the power over local government finance, if it meant we would be able to scrap council tax and replace it with a local income tax?

"These are the questions that Peter Hain needs to answer if his proposals are to gain support beyond the Labour Party they were designed to appease."