I’ve looked at the Constitution in more detail previously, while some of the available options for introducing devolution or federalism within Wales were touched on in A Federal Wales II.
In this part, I’m going to look in a bit more detail at how powers can decentralised, the kind of powers that are usually decentralised (using international examples) and intergovernmental relations.
Â
In most cases, there are a common set of powers delegated down from the national level to federal subunits: health, education, housing, transport, planning/land use, environmental regulation, “culture” (though the definition of this can be broad), tourism and either all or some aspects of law enforcement and criminal justice system (Wales being a notable exception).
Most federal sub-divisions have taxation powers though the depth of these powers can vary.
US federal states have far more tax powers than the devolved nations of the UK, for example. More often than not, federal sub-divisions have partial control over income tax (even Wales does) and other local taxes not delegated to a lower tier of local government (i.e. property taxes or the equivalent of council tax).
The list of powers for the two models that use devolution (as opposed to federalism) – the UK and Spain – is more extensive as it’s easier to find out what they’re responsible for. There’s usually a detailed devolution settlement of some kind listing powers line-by-line.
With the federal nation-states, it’s a bit harder as the constitution often only lists what the federal/national government is responsible for rather than the states/provinces/regions. So the German Länder, for example, are probably responsible for far more policy areas than those suggested in the graphic above.
Different policy areas and responsibilities could be placed into separate categories – similarly to how devolution works in South Africa. This can either be included as a Schedule in a Devolution Act or in a Welsh Constitution.
Based partially on what’s listed in the Government of Wales Act 2006, it could look something like this:
Â
Some powers can probably be ruled out for decentralisation in Wales even if they’re devolved in other countries.
This includes broadcasting (we don’t have much of a national media as it is before splitting it up), certain regulatory powers that should be uniform across the country (i.e. medicines, business, employment law) and social security.
Other powers can be left deliberately ambigious. For example, all tiers of government would have the power to introduce new, or change existing, lower-level criminal penalties in policy areas under their control.
While tax administration (HMRC functions) could remain a reserved power for the Senedd – to ensure uniform rules, enforcement and processes across the whole country – all tiers of government would have some tax-setting and fee-setting powers (Part VII) so there’s little point including “tax” on the list of powers. Deciding which tier of government sets which taxes would be best left to a formal agreement.
It’s the same case with the environment. All tiers of government would have some level of responsibility when it comes to environmental regulation and climate change – recycling and waste delegated lower down and energy and regulatory powers delegated higher up, for example. So there is no single “environment” power that can be included on the list, only specifics.
Similarly, powers over the civil service could be specifically delegated – most likely to the Senedd and Welsh Government. However, there would be justification for each province to have its own civil service, much in the same way there’s been an argument for the civil service to be devolved to Wales within the UK.
