Following the news of the formation of True Wales last week, which is being seen as an embryonic No campaign, today Welsh Liberal Democrats Leader Mike German told a press conference at the National Assembly that it was now time to push forward with the formation of a Yes campaign.

Mr Geman called again on Rhodri Morgan and Ieuan Wyn Jones to clarify their intentions on the formation of such a campaign, and claimed that neither had replied to correspondence from Mr German on the issue. While he said he could understand the fact that internal divisions within the Labour Party on further devolution had precluded a response from the First Minister, claimed the ‘thundering silence’ from Plaid Cymru was much more puzzling.

With a No campaign already having been formed and putting its arguments forward, Mr German stressed the fact that time was of the essence if a Yes campaign is to succeed, and that waiting for the All-Wales Convention to finish its work before commencing a Yes campaign would be a potentially fatal mistake.

Three weeks after David Davies MP announced his intention to campaign for a No vote in any referenduum on giving the Assembly primary law-making powers, a group of like-minded people have now formed around him calling themselves ‘Ture Wales’.

However, even a No campaign must also be campaigning ‘for’ something - in 1997, it was for keeping things as they were - and it is difficult to discern at this point what the new group, or indeed any future No campaign will be ’for’? According to the Western Mail, True Wales spokesperson David Rees says the group is for:

those who support Wales’ presence in the United Kingdom [who] have been for too long unfairly categorised as ‘anti- Welsh’. True Wales aims to represent the true feelings of the huge majority of people in Wales who wish to remain in the UK.

if there is a general belief out there that the proposed referendum will be about taking Wales out of the UK, then clearly the All-Wales Convention has a lot of work to do in educating people! But that is unlikely to be the case. The referendum will be about giving the National Assembly primary law-making powers that will allow it to make a real difference to the lives of the poeple of Wales without having to go through the cumbersome LCO process every time. And with Labour, the Liberal Democrats and a number of Conservatives being behing such a move, any Yes campaign too will be led by people who want Wales to remain forever part of the UK.

So since ‘keeping Wales in the UK’ cannot be their defining principle, it may be that True Wales’ aim is to keep things as they are - whcih would be the inevitable consequence of a No vote in a referendum. If so, they believe that the current system of giving the Assembly law-making powers bit by bit, with a huge amount of time and resources being wasted in getting the OK from Westminster., is the best constitutional settlement for Wales in the long term. It is very difficult to see how anyone could come to this conclusion, still thes how they would hope to convince a majority of Welsh voters of its merits.

Or, they may be for something else. Maybe for going back to the pre-1997 days of direct rule from London with no devolved Welsh institutions at all? Not for keeping Wales in the UK, but keeping it, to all intents and purposes, in England. If that is their true standpoint, its is one that is supported by only 15% of the Welsh population, and pro-devolutionists have nothing to fear from the new group.

The results of the survey of public attitudes towards devolution published today confirm the trend of recent years of a collapse in support for a return to direct rule from Whitehall and the consolidation of support for a proper Welsh Parliament.

The survey, commissioned by the National Assembly for Wales and conducted by the Institute of Welsh Politics and GfKNOB, shows that 39% of voters want to see a Welsh parliament will full law-making and taxation powers, making it the most popular of all constitutional options. 31% want to retain the current settlement, 15% want a return to no devolution at all, while 10% want independence.

While pessimists will point to the fact that just less than half support an option that provides for more powers than we currently have, it is significant that the 39% who expressed a preference for a proper Parliament actually supported a move which goes further than that being currently proposed by the One Wales government, which will leave Wales some way short of full law-making powers and with still no powers at all over taxation.

It is also heartening, from a pro-devolution point of view, that support for further devolution is so high at a time when no-one has been publicly putting forward the arguments for such a move, with the government parties preferring instead to wait until the All-Wales Convention has concluded its work before starting to campaign on the issue.

We believe that once the arguments for further powers are put before the public, and the unsustainability of the current settlement becomes clear, that we will see a further shift in public attitudes in favour of further devolution. Lets hope our politicians start making those arguments soon.

The Assembly’s Subordinate Legislation Committee is undertaking an inquiry into the scrutiny of subordinate legislation and delegated powers with a view to enhancing the scrutiny of subordinate legislation and other legislation within its remit.

Tomorrow’s Wales was invited to provide written evidence to this inquiry and you can read our submission here. The submission was prepared by constitutional expert Alan Trench.

One of the main points we make in our submission is that the Subordinate Legislation Committee currently has a very broad role, encompassing a range of work that is actually carried out by seven seperate committees at Westminster. We suggest that a new Committee should be established to scrutinise  Westminster legislation affecting devolved functions as well as relations between the devolved institutions and Westminster/Whitehall more generally. The Subordinate Legislation Committee could then concentrate on technical issues arising from subordinate legislation and the scrutiny of provisions in Assembly Measures.

We acknowlege however that the the limited number of AMs and the demands on their time mean that creating another committee may not be practicable, so we have also made suggestions about how the Committee could reform its procedures to make greater use of Committee staff and sub-committees.

Tomorrow’s Wales will be giving oral evidence to the Committee in October.