The previous pieces in this series on local government have focused on what we would traditionally consider “local government”: county councils, community councils and all their variations.
Local government doesn’t necessarily end there. It can go further and deeper through things like devolution and federalism; Wales is itself an example of a partially self-governing territory within another nation-state.
So the next few pieces are going to examine what devolution or federalism would look like within Wales if we decided to do that after independence.
To start, here’s a look at the arguments for and against.
Unitary Nation-State vs Federal Nation-State
The terms “unitary state” and “federal state” are used to describe the basic power structure within a nation.
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Nearly all of the nations of the world are either unitary nation-states states or federal nation-states.
Unitary nation-states are more common – though they may grant different levels of autonomy to different regions through processes such as devolution (A Federal Wales Part II).
As noted in the graphic above, federal nation-states split powers between the national level of government and the regional/state level in their constitutions.
There are fewer federal nation-states globally. While it’s a power structure usually exclusive to physically large nations, it’s also a popular power structure in smaller multi-national and multi-ethnic nation-states with strong regional identities (Belgium and Switzerland, for example).
I guess the majority of people reading this who support independence (or even those who don’t but could at least imagine it) would assume an independent Wales would be a unitary state. That would be the default position, with at most some form of regional government (Part VI).
My view is that independence shouldn’t just be about the Senedd taking on all of the additional powers currently exercised by the UK and that being the end of it. There’s more than enough scope to move powers out of Cardiff Bay too.
Moving the political centre of gravity (and money) out of Cardiff
The Senedd has had a centralising tendency since its founding, possibly because there was a fear it wasn’t imposing itself given the weak devolution and needed to become a national symbol. To a limited extent, that’s what’s happened. Though there’s no doubt that the further you travel away from Cardiff, the more politically distant the Senedd may feel – just as much as London.
There’s a risk that Cardiff is on the road to replicating at a Welsh level what London’s socio-economic dominance has done at the UK level. After independence, it’s likely the new powers and features that would naturally follow on (i.e. embassies and high commissions) would end up being based in and around Cardiff.
It shouldn’t be assumed that as the Senedd takes on more powers and responsibilities following independence, there shouldn’t be an equal ceding of policy and law-making powers to bring government closer to different parts of Wales.
I’ll be going into this in far more detail later on (A Federal Wales: Part II, A Federal Wales: Part III), but for the sake of demonstrating it:
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If health – including law-making and regulation-making powers – was a responsibility of the devolved/federal regions, it would mean regional budgets would instantly be around £1billion a year if current local health board funding went to them instead1. And that’s before adding other responsibilities (Part VII).
The regional legislatures would end up being responsible for more day-to-day spending in their area than the Senedd. It’s important not to underestimate how big a change that would be when you consider how pervasive the complaint about “Cardiff getting everything” is outside of the southeast.
1. Welsh Government (9th February 2022). “Health board allocations 2022-2023”, Table A1. Available at: https://gov.wales/health-board-allocations-2022-2023-whc2021034
Embraces regional differences
Federalism is a natural fit when there are big differences – culturally and economically – between different parts of the nation-state.
Wales has fairly strong regional identities; some natural, others manufactured to a degree.
The valleys are different to Cardiff; the northwest is different to the northeast. There are similarities and uniting factors of course, but it doesn’t mean that “one size fits all” policies decided in Cardiff (or London in the case of the UK) will necessarily suit the whole of the country.
That leads nicely onto….
More responsive to local & regional needs
In principle, the Senedd (and presumably the forms of regional devolution being pursued in England) is supposed to enable politicians specially elected to oversee certain functions to act quickly in the interests of Wales.
That won’t always be the case. Parliaments and councils are often limited in what they can handle at any given time and the political leadership may not be able to respond as quickly as is required to issues that are confined to a particular geographical area.
Take the issue of second homes and holiday lets.
As an issue, in terms of geography it’s largely confined to the west and northwest. It’s barely a problem in the south; if anything empty homes are a bigger issue, particularly in the valleys.
Federal or devolved legislatures representing those areas – with appropriate powers over housing and property law; not just the kind of enforcement powers available to councils – would’ve been far better positioned to take action as soon the issue emerged.
Councils can’t do anything about it as they can’t change the law (or need powers to be granted to them), while within the Union it doesn’t even register with the UK Government.
Instead, communities affected negatively by it have to wait on the Senedd and Welsh Government. Both are dominated by representatives from one party whose members, in all likelihood, won’t have their inboxes filled with complaints about second homes and, therefore, are less likely to prioritise it.
Likewise, a regional legislature representing Cardiff or the south may have been able to move faster on issues like fire-resistant cladding, “fleeceholds” and rough-sleeping instead of waiting for a window to table the necessary law changes to open at the Senedd or for the Welsh Government to produce a white paper or alike.
There are, of course, issues that can only be dealt with at a national or international level because they’re not regionally restricted: climate change, the energy crisis, inflation, drugs laws etc. But federalism and devolution ought to, on paper, speed up decision-making on issues confined to particular regions to prevent them from becoming bigger problems later on.
Overcomes topography & long overland travel times
Wales may be geographically small by global standards, but it’s certainly not easy to get about.
It’s often said that if Wales was rolled out flat, it would be larger than England; I don’t know whether that’s true or not but if you’re going up and down all the time it’s going to take you longer to get anywhere than if you were travelling along flat ground.
Before you come out with the stuff about rail lines going eastwards and building north-south motorways and alike – even if there was a north-south rail line travelling up the western coast from Carmarthen to Bangor, it would still take you 4-5 hours to complete a Cardiff-Bangor journey because it would be a torturous, bendy route with low speed limits.
This problem isn’t unique to Wales by any means and it’s not an argument against independence or against investing in intra-Wales transport links. It does, however, strengthen arguments for greater regional autonomy.
The widespread adoption of virtual meetings during the Covid-19 pandemic has certainly made distant attendance more practical. However, if there’s an issue of great importance and you can’t physically get to the seat of national power in a reasonable time, it’ll put physical and psychological distance between you and the power centre. In those circumstances, it makes sense to allow regions to decide certain things themselves and not be so reliant on a power centre that they may have an affinity for, but feel quite distant from.
Switzerland makes Wales look flat and, resultingly, it’s perhaps one of the reasons why Swiss cantons are amongst the most powerful federal states anywhere in the world.
Distance from the centre of national power doesn’t support a federal system by itself, of course. Germany is highly decentralised with multiple centres of importance despite a very efficient transport network (especially when compared to the UK).
Belgium is much flatter and not much bigger than Wales but has a very weak central government and very powerful constituent regions. Similarly, France and Spain have serious national high-speed rail networks yet remain unitary states.
Pluralism & Social Capital
Dividing responsibilities between national and regional/state governments can help local groups who would otherwise not have any real means to affect change access local political structures and decision-makers more easily.
We’ve seen this happen in Wales to an extent since devolution with the effective lobbying organisation in Cardiff Bay – particularly by the third sector. However, it’s very much centred on Cardiff itself. There may be limited opportunities for a smaller local campaign group in – for argument’s sake – the north to have as much influence as a well-funded charity with full-time lobbyists in or near the Senedd.
Create a federal or devolved legislature in the north though, and it would be much easier for local groups to lobby and campaign effectively on issues that matter to them, with politicians based closer to them, without – as mentioned earlier – waiting for their MS to bring it up.
Stronger local activists and political networks mean a stronger civil society and ought to lead to more buy-in to elections at all levels. Also, it may improve the calibre of politicians if they have experience of law-making and committee scrutiny in regional legislatures – or running departments in regional governments – before putting their names forward for Senedd elections.
Policy Innovation
Providing a meatier form of decentralisation – devolution or federalism with full law-making and some tax-setting powers from the start – could lead to the regional governments becoming incubators for new policies that may end up being adopted at a national level.
It’s often much easier to trial “radical” policies on a smaller scale than trying to introduce them nationally in one go.
In some cases, this is what devolution in the UK is designed to do. Many policies introduced in Wales and Scotland – for example: charging for single-use plastic bags, opt-out organ donation and bans on indoor smoking – have since been taken up in or proposed for England (often after being derided beforehand, it has to be said).
If an independent Wales was a federal state or had some sort of internal devolution then it opens the door to greater policy innovation.
If in the present time there was a regional legislature run by Plaid Cymru, for example, they might beat the Senedd to offering universal free school meals in secondary schools and increasing procurement from Welsh companies.
A Conservative-run regional legislature could trial previous Senedd election manifesto policies like reintroducing right-to-buy, introducing blue belts to prevent building on flood plains or free leisure facility entry for the under-25s.
