If ever a report deserved careful consideration rather than an immediate response, it’s the Silk Commission’s Part 2 report.  The product of more than 15 months’ evidence-taking and deliberation, it is a carefully framed, principles-based blueprint for the next step for Welsh devolution.  The full report is available here, and the executive summary (which I must admit to having relied on for this post) is here.  There’s BBC News coverage here, here and here, and from Wales Online here.

The key recommendations are:

1. devolution of policing to the National Assembly
2. devolution of responsibility for youth justice, but not the courts or the legal system generally
3. devolution of planning powers to approve energy projects of up to 350 megawatts, of powers relating to sewerage and the regulation of some aspects of water supply within Wales, and for there to be a Welsh Crown Estate Commissioner.
4. some further devolution of powers in relation to rail franchising, bus and taxi regulation, and speed limits and drink-driving
5. appointment of a Welsh member of the BBC Trust (something already in place for Scotland), and control for the Assembly over public funding for S4C
6. an increase in the size of the National Assembly, noting many calls for 80 members but leaving the issue for further consideration
7. an enhanced approach to the conduct of intergovernmental relations and the machinery for that. The Secretary of State for Wales would also lose his seat in the National Assembly, his right to receive its papers and obligation to present the UK Government’s legislative programme each Parliamentary session.
8. perhaps most importantly, a move to a ‘reserved powers’ model for the National Assembly’s legislative powers, away from the current ‘conferred powers’ one, along with a removal of the current and problematic protection of pre-devolution powers of UK ministers.

There are also calls for further study of a number of matters – not just the size of the Assembly and the number of AMs, but also the possible devolution of prisons and the court system.  It sees no need for a further referendum on any of these proposals.

What is notable about this is how cautious it is.  The recommendations eschew a number of more radical calls – for the establishment of a separate legal jurisdiction, or for devolution of the civil or criminal courts, the civil or criminal law, or of welfare.  I argued in my own submission that it would be very hard to establish a ‘reserved powers’ model without establishing a separate legal jurisdiction, and that this could be done without losing many of the advantages of the current shared arrangement.  (See also THIS EARLIER POST on the relationship between a legal jurisdiction and legislative powers.)   I suggested as well that the Welsh Government’s proposals for a reserved powers model would imply a devolved power to legislate for areas like land or contract law (these are omitted from the Welsh Government’s proposed list of reserved matters).  This would achieve the substantive outcome of a separate legal jurisdiction without formally calling it such –which may be the worst of all worlds.

The Silk proposals are, in essence, an attempt to make sure the division of powers between Welsh and UK institution catches up with reality.  They’re not actually very radical; they don’t take account, for example, of the impact of the September referendum on Scottish independence (whether there’s a Yes vote leading to Scottish independence and a restructuring of the remainder of the United Kingdom, or a No vote resulting in further devolution for Scotland).  Rather like Holtham before it, this is an exercise in bringing Welsh devolution up to date not making far-reaching plans for the future.

However, the proposals do represent a clear consensus across the Welsh political parties about what should happen next.  I’ll shortly be putting up a post about the problems arising from the way the UK Government approached Silk Part 1, and its profound misreading of the political and economic situation in Wales compared with Scotland.  The gravest mistake the UK Government could make would be to cherry-pick these proposals.  The second gravest would be to take a year to decide what to do, especially given that it has a legislative slot in the next Parliamentary session and not using that would mean a significant wait for any action – even though, from his initial reaction (saying a response would be for the next UK Parliament not the current one), that’s just what the Secretary of State seems to intend.

UPDATE, 4 March: Carwyn Jones’s response to the Silk Part 2 report, here, is interesting.  Although Jones calls for a substantial expansion of the powers of the National Assembly and Welsh Government, he appears unwilling to accept the logical implication that greater self-government means no longer being in a privileged position when it comes to UK-wide institutions.  He seeks to maintain the office of the Secretary of State (despite his well-publicised difficulties with both Conservative holders of that post), and the present number of Welsh MPs.  Both cases are poor. For a discussion of the Secretary of State, see HERE.  The latter case is if anything weaker.  Wales is presently over-represented at Westminster; if MPs were allocated to Wales on a similar basis to England, it would have around 32, not its present 40.  Scotland was similarly over-represented in the Commons before devolution, and the creation of the Scottish Parliament saw the number of Scottish MPs reduced to the English ‘quota’.  That meant a reduction from 72 to 59.  This was provided for in the Scotland Act 1998, and (to avoid  a reduction in the size of the Scottish Parliament as well) required further legislation to ‘decouple’ the number of MSPs from the number of MPs.  (Decoupling has already happened for Wales, as part of the abortive plans to reduce the size of the Commons.)

Wales cannot expect to maintain a privileged position at UK level if devolved powers are to be extended.  Carwyn Jones is trying to have his cake and east it.

This post also appears on Alan’s blog, Devolution Matters, here.