At a meeting in Plaid Cymru’s conference in Cardiff Holtham disarmingly pulled apart many of the assumptions of his hosts.  Every time Helen Mary Jones or Dafydd Wigley lit a flame of hope, Holtham gently placed his fingers on the wick and extinguished it.

A fair share for Wales?  You’ll be lucky.  Though Wales is £300m under-funded by his calculations the Treasury say that’s within the margin of error and would quickly disappear with a different set of assumptions.  But the real problem is that using the same calulation Scotland gets £4.2bn-a-year more than it would if every part of the UK was treated the same as an English region.  With the SNP running strong the Treasury won’t consider change: ”If you think they’re going to change that, forget it” (quotes courtesy of Tom Bodden).

A fairer income tax regime in Wales?  Not on your nelly. The high earners would flee across the border: ”You would get virtually no revenue from the upper rate of income tax and if you raise it too far you would probably lose it…If you want to maximise revenue you would cut the upper rate of income tax, [and] put a penny on basic rate…How you explain that to the Welsh electorate I don’t know.”

How about a tax on natural resources then?  Small change.  Even if you could overcome the barriers a tax on water exported from Wales would only raise about £30 Million a year – and the Treasury would probably deduct it from the Welsh block in any event.   Not worth the grief.

But Helen Mary Jones refused to be sidetracked, this simply confirms that Wales needs to flex our muscles more she said.  The Scots have shown that extra support for the SNP gives the country greater leverage (though Plaid’s affection for the SNP may not last long if there’s a hung Parliament.  Dafydd Wigley said they’d be working at cross purposes and should hold separate negotiations with the Tories).

Helen Mary went on to say that the Conservatives might not mind “annoying the voters of Scotland” because they have so few votes there.  But I don’t buy that.  My reading of the Conservatives is that they see the generous Barnett settlement for Scotland as a price worth paying for keeping the Union together.

But Gerald Holtham did give leave his audience with some cause for hope. The Calman Commission in Scotland suggested extending the tax-raising powers on the grounds of accountability.  Without a stake in revenue raising the Executive will have too easy an excuse to blame London for not providing sufficient funds.  The UK Treasury have accepted his argument.  “That’s boxed me in” Holtham explained.  ‘How can I not recommend tax raising powers now’ he mused…

A very thoughtful man, he was the one who effectivley made Rhodri Morgan’s Governments hang together  – ideologically and organisationally.  The Professor of social policy at Cardiff University gave a short lecture to the Labour Grassroots ginger group at the end of January which I have just come across on the web

It is an interesting read on a number of levels but the point that struck me particularly was his fear that without strong political leadership over how to deal with spending cuts the civil service will lead the way in crudely slashing schemes they were never keen on in the first place.  Or as Prof Drakeford put it “unless we are prepared with our own democratically driven way of dealing with reduced budgets, the machine will take it over”.  

He warns there will be:

 -       An assault on the entitlement agenda: much despised as low populism, rather than the production of strong social capital which we know it to be;

-       An assault on jobs: a firm belief that the public sector is bloated here in Wales, with lots of easy opportunities to slim back and make room for the private entrepreneurial spirits which we have held back for so long;

-       An assault on  public services: those creators of dependency and sullen apathy which save people from the consequences of their own behaviour and teach them that, no matter what havoc they wreak in their own lives, and those of others, the state will always be along to bale them out.

In particular he foresees a temptation to engage in displacement activity by going after local authorities: “there are voices, at the Assembly, who believe that the solution will be found in an attack on local government in Wales”, he warned.  I half agree with his advocacy of PR for Local Government allied with a new settlement centred on “binding agreement around a small number of key outcomes”.  But can’t help observe that this has been done in Scotland without much effect on the culture of Local Government.  Anyway, that’s an aside.

Here is a man who intimately knows the way the Assembly Government works, at both a political and official level.  His warning about the ‘machine’ taking over is a sober one.  There are undeniable failings of delivery right across the Government in Wales.  Ministers need to deal with that and not let their officials get away with sloppy work.  But capacity problems pose challenges and there is clearly a fear that when the spending cuts bite and the fog of war descends, the civil service will have the perfect cover to cut the big schemes they never wanted (free bus passes, free prescriptions) rather than deal with the inefficiencies and inadequacies throughout the system.

So we must rely on “our own democratically driven way” to ensure the response to the cuts is driven by political priorities and not administrative prejudices.  But Mark Drakeford doesn’t seem confident that this will happen…

I’m still not entirely convinced of the wisdom of this course, as previously discussed.  But if it going to happen then it needs to be won.  In my view perhaps one of the most misleading points made by True Wales is that voting No will have no negative consequences.  That somehow we’ll be able to carry on as before.

Irrespective whether you think a Yes vote will give the Assembly the tools it needs, it is certain that a No vote will be a damaging reverse in the devolution process.

We already know that Whitehall mandarins needs little excuse to sideline Welsh affairs.  If there is a no vote within the next 12 months the slow and complicated system of law making will get even worse.  Whitehall will feel emboldened and legitimised in frustrating the Assembly’s requests.

So the status quo is not an option.  Forward or back, that’s the option.  And lets not pretend otherwise.

This proposal should be enthusiastically supported by all – primarily because it will hardly make a jot of difference to the capacity of Government in Wales to make a difference to the lives we lead and the public services we get.

Governments have a range of tools to achieve their policy objectives. They make budgets: deciding which programmes of health, education, environmental management and transport will best meet our needs, deciding who gets what and how much. They employ people and issue contracts to implement those programmes. Government is a profoundly political process as it prioritises competing interests and tries to engage citizens in making its programmes more effective. Government is devilishly complex administrative process in which so many policies falter though inadequately designed implementation.

The tool that is rarely necessary for devolved Governments in Wales is the power to make new laws. Think back over the past decade and try to identify one significant policy that was not implemented because of a lack of legal powers. I can’t. As with all Governments, there may have been a lack of imagination, a lack of will, an inability to engage and convince citizens, a lack of resources, an inadequate administrative capacity – but so rarely has there been a lack of legislative powers to achieve an identified purpose

Significantly the Jones Parry Report assumes that legislative powers are important and references a lot of lawyers who say that is so; but no evidence is given. So why is the argument over the location of legislative powers, objectively irrelevant, so significant for some parts of our political elite?

Westminster parliamentarians have long been led into the belief that their role in making laws is important and that should it be lost then something significant has happened to the British Constitution. But look at the Bills in last week’s Queen’s speech – proposed laws which would require Governments to seek more equality, budget more prudently and provide better schools. These are things that Governments should just do; the proposed bills are entirely totemic and any enthusiasm for preventing the devolution of such law making powers is a mere fetish. If MPs made less law they might be better able to challenge the executive action of Governments in waging wars, regulating bankers, implementing fair taxes and benefits.

There are ‘devo enthusiasts’ for whom primary law making powers have acquired the same totemic status. For many such people the complex realities of actual government and politics are too messy to grapple with; far better to imagine, like a John Lennon song, a world in which legal competence somehow resolves every tension and achieves every purpose .

Let’s get on and devolve primary law making powers so that there is clarity of responsibility and no more lame excuses.  Hopefully once a Welsh Assembly has more complete legislative powers then a Welsh Assembly Government will decide to legislate less and achieve more.

I am concerned about the game of chicken that seems to be going on within the Cardiff Bay bubble, with enthusiasts for a referendum goading each other to race across the road confident of avoiding the juggernaught of public opinion.

Though there is merit in Geraint Talfarn Davies’ argument that “our politicians are going to have to make their own weather on this issue”, the consequeneces of losing the referendum are too great to rush into it.

My own view is that the All Wales Convention has not properly addressed the long-term issues and has locked itself into the sterile trajectory of Peter Hain’s Government of Wales Act

As I’ve argued repeatedly in recent days, the offer on the table is not so much extra powers but a different way of aquiring them.  The Assembly would still be the poor relation of the Scottish Parliament, both in scope and shape. 

Public opinon is volatile and the narrative of a yes campaign not yet clear.  I’m less concerned about the sub-text of Huw Irranca Davies’ argument (that Labour need time to unite before a referendum is triggered), than I am about the need to get this right.

I would rather time to build a consensus around revisiting the settlement and fighting a referendum on a stable model of devolution that would last more than 10 years, rather than risk defeat for another flawed outcome.

I’ve set out my own views on the All Wales Convention Convention, and on the points they’ve been considering. More important is the question of what will flow from the report.

The worst kept secret in Cardiff Bay seems to be that the Convention will encourage AMs to trigger a referendum.  I’m sure it will flesh out what the latest YouGov poll showed, that the referendum is winnable but not yet won. But might Sir Emz go further? 

The former UN Ambassador teased us with his comment that people will be surprised by the “extent of its recommendations”.  What’s he got up his sleeve?  I wonder if he’ll suggest that the devolution settlement go beyond the 2006 Government of Wales Act? 

The One Wales agreement commits Labour and Plaid to “proceed to a successful outcome of a referendum for full law-making powers under Part IV as soon as practicable, at or before the end of the Assembly term”.

A Yes vote based on the powers in the Government of Wales Act would improve the devolution settlement, but it would still be messy.  By moving from Part III to Part IV the Assembly would have the power to pass laws without recourse to Westminster in areas devolved to Wales.  But there would still be ‘jagged edges’ (to use the words of the Richard Commission). There would still be gaps and some ambiguity over what AMs can and cannot do. 

A far more sustainable model would be to replicate the Scottish model where the areas reserved to Westminster are clearly set out and the rest is for Holyrood.  But that does not seem to be an area where the Convention can examine – if it sticks to its terms and conditions.  But if I am correctly interpreting Sir Emyr’s hint, it may be something that they have decided to do anyway.

And why stop there?  Even the practiced fence sitter Glyn Davies suggests that the range of devolved powers should be extended.

If we are going to have a referendum it should settle the question for a generation.  Much as Peter Hain tried to claim that his clever fix did that, I suspect it was said more in hope than expectation.

I fully expect Sir Emyr’s report to be nuanced, but that doesn’t preclude a measure of boldness…

What could that mean?  

I understand he was given the option of the All Wales Convention report being delayed until his successor was in place, but insisted on it landing on his desk.

Those with long memories wil  recall that Rhodri Morgan initially greeted the publication of the Richard Commission report in 2004 as a “red letter day” for Wales, only to recoil from its main recommendations days later in the face of  a backlash from Welsh MPs. 

Perhaps this time, as a last hurrah, Rhodri will want to leave  ”a more optimistic” legacy?

Everyone has a story to tell about how A.N. Other widget ltd would not have relocated had it not been for a few quid to support job creation, but overall the evidence for any real impact of grants on overall economic prosperity is weak.  It seems that the money will be spent instead on R&D instead.  

As well as this, a significant chunk of the money saved also needs to go into good quality, long term skills training and on regenerating disadvantaged areas.  Otherwise, money will simply reinforce the advantages of the already well off parts of Wales.

He’s staying on because the budget negotiations are expected to be tricky, and the coalition could be destabilised if he went before they were complete.

But for a whole week Rhodri Morgan will be First Minister in name only and we’ll enter into a period of ‘cohabitation’.  Authority is bound to flow away from the incumbent, and no deal can be reached without the consent of the First Minister in waiting.  This is hardly a recipe for stability.

If I were Ieuan Wyn Jones I’d be looking to make the most of this potenital window of opportunity.  And as my old friend Gareth Hughes has noted, there are already trouble makers looking to exploit the handover.