Calman style

There was much talk at the Welsh Liberal Democrat conference and the Conservative Spring Forum at the weekend about the ‘Calman-style process’ that the UK coalition government promised would follow a Yes vote in the powers referendum.

Now that there’s been a Yes vote, leading Westminster politicians including Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Cheryl Gillan, lined up to say that promise would be kept.

There’s very little by way of detail, but I’ll tell you what I can.

The Calman commission was set up by MSPs to look at ways of ‘improving’ the Scottish parliament’s ‘financial accountability.’ It was seen by many as a way of wrong-footing the Scottish National Party government which didn’t support the commission.

It’s not clear whether or not what will happen for Wales will be a commission or some other form of review.

The First Minister Carwyn Jones told AMs he hoped it wouldn’t be a commission because he believed the Holtham commission on funding and finance for Wales, which published reports in 2009 and 2010, has already done most of the legwork on funding.

He said he’d ‘urge the UK Government to look at Holtham as THE commission.’

The Wales Office won’t commit itself one way or another, apart from noting that a lot of evidence has already been gathered and it doesn’t want to duplicate that evidence.

What about a figurehead like Calman or Holtham to lead whatever form of inquiry or review is carried out? Names have been discussed I’m told but no decision has been made.

What about terms of reference? Too early to say – no decision has been made.

On timing I can be a little more clear. I’m told the Wales Office won’t do anything until after the Assembly election on May 5th.

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