MP Calls for referendums to scrap Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly

How Geordie vote on Assembly could be bad news for Wales
Nov 6 2004
Kirsty Buchanan, Western Mail

TONY BLAIR could back away from another referendum in Wales after the Government was given a bloody nose over its ambitions for regional devolution in England.
Conservative MPs said the comprehensive rejection of plans for a North-East Regional Assembly had left the idea dead in the water.

And they warned the Prime Minister would think twice before sanctioning a second referendum on full law-making powers on health and education for the assembly government.
A third-term Labour Government is committed to a Government of Wales (Amendment) Bill, outlining its plans to give the Assembly full law-making powers in devolved areas.

Conservative MPs and many Welsh Labour MPs want those powers to be devolved down only if backed by a public poll.

Ahead of the North-East referendum, which saw a 78% rejection of a regional assembly, the campaign looked like a sure bet.

But Conservative MP Nigel Evans, who sits on the Welsh Affairs Committee, said the embarrassing rejection of a North East Assembly made a referendum in Wales far less likely.
Mr Evans said, "I don't think the Government is going to be keen to go down that route but there needs to be a referendum on primary powers.
"The whole situation needs to be clarified - we have a crazy-paving settlement so no one knows who does what and no one knows who to blame when things go wrong.
"The whole thing is a real mess."

Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd said he did not think the wholesale rejection of a regional assembly in England would have an impact in Wales.
He added, "There is no read across in my view. This was not going to provide any extra powers or dynamism to the North East it was just taking powers away from local government and moving them upwards which is the last thing anyone wants."

Regional assemblies were championed by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott but are now likely to be permanently shelved.
In a postal ballot voters in the North East rejected an assembly by 696,519 votes to 197,310.
In an all-postal ballot 47.8% of the region's 1.9m voters took part. Mr Prescott conceded the region had "answered in an emphatic way"; and "no" campaigners claimed voters had rejected an empty but expensive gesture of devolution.

Some senior Conservatives said the project had failed because all regions in England lack a sense of identity and called instead for an English Parliament.
The so-called "West Lothian question," raised by Scottish MPs being able to vote on English matters, is likely to be revived if Wales receives primary law-making powers.
Conservative MP for Mid- Worcestershire Peter Luff said the dream of regional devolution lay in "dust and ashes".
He added, "What we now need to do is to give real powers back to local authorities, to end the drift of planning and economic powers to the unelected regional assembly and to ensure that Scottish MPs can't vote on laws that affect only England and Wales."

And Tory MP for Rochford and Southend East, Sir Teddy Taylor, went further by urging the Government to poll Scottish and Welsh people about scrapping their devolved administrations.
He said, "I hope the lesson which the Government will learn from this issue is that we should scrap future elected regional assemblies and hold referendums in Scotland and Wales to ask people if they want to retain the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.
"The clear message I gain from both countries is that they are fed up to the teeth with the elected assemblies and they should be given the chance to decide whether they wish to keep them or to scrap them."