Question Time

Based at Westminster, I tend to steer clear of the All Wales Convention and referendums on the Welsh Assembly's powers as they are so well covered elsewhere in the blogosphere.

Indeed, some of the posts I read on the convention's recent report were longer than the report itself.

But today the issue arrived in the House of Lords. Its Constitution Committee has been conducting an inquiry into referendums.

Daran Hill, lobbyist/political consultant/commentator from Postif Politics raised the issue of the question that would be put in any referendum on Welsh Assembly powers.

"In 1997 there was a substantial constitutional issue that could be easily expressed ...I'm rather nervous about how the question will be phrased. Essentially, what you will be asking is do you want to go from part 3 to part 4 of the Government of Wales Act - how might you ask that?

" I think that improving a referendum can be done by offering more context , rather than placing a simple question before the public. If, for example, in the 1997 experience there had been a paragraph that said 'if you vote yes it will mean this , it will not mean independence but it will mean establishing an Assembly'.

"I say this knowing that the form of words would need to negotiated, involving the Electoral Commission and maybe both sides of the campaign too.

"But, I think that an explanatory paragraph can add real value and I say this particularly from the context of the future Welsh referendum which is likely to happen in the next 18 months , where it is about moving from one part of Act to another and I think that just posing one question on its own without context that seeks to explain what powers are already held by the Assembly and what the net effect would undermine the asking of the question, I think".

Mr Hill didn't suggest a precise question, but he is right that the wording can influence the result. A ballot paper that asked voters: "Do you want laws for Wales made by patriotic Welshmen and women of goodwill in Cardiff or by a bunch of toffs in London, yes the same ones who rip you off through the Barnett formula?" would, I dare to suggest, be likely to produce only one answer.

On the other hand, "Do you want to give the political establishment a kicking without risking a change of government or great personal hardship" might secure another verdict.

Alternative suggestions welcome.

Referendums make you happy

Referendums make you happy. Yes, they really do. This point may not have appeared in last week's report by the All Wales Convention report but it comes from a very reputable source.

The economist Richard Layard reports in his brilliant book Happiness - Lessons from a New Science how citizens are more content where they have a regular say on policy decisions.

This is based on what he calls the "remarkable results" from a study of democracy in Switzerland. "In every Swiss canton (or region) policies are often decided by referendum," he reports. "But in some cantons citizens have more rights to demand referendums than others.

"It turns out that people are much happier where they have more rights to referendums. If we compare those cantons where these rights are the most extensive with those where they are the least extensive, the difference in happiness is as great as if they had double the income."

So what's it to be? Double your money or another referendum? Perhaps these conclusions could be tested by a controlled experiment giving more referendum opportunities in either North or South Wales, and offering cash to citizens in the rest of the country.

We could set up a new committee - call it the Half Wales Convention - to investigate who emerges the happier.

Celts across the sea

I wrote on Monday about the implications of the Irish referendum vote for Wales. As EU leaders meet to discuss the fall-out, my BBC colleague Betsan Powys has returned to the theme in more depth.

It is difficult for the political establishment to win votes on anything at the moment but a referendum on full law-making powers for the Welsh Assembly in or before 2011 is an integral part of the Labour/Plaid Cymru coalition in Cardiff Bay.

People vote in referendums on various issues, not all of them linked to the subject of the vote. A plebiscite on law-making powers could offer the chance to kick the political establishment in uncertain economic times.

Plaid MP Adam Price has said that "parties have to stand by their agreements or continuing with a Coalition becomes impossible".

You wouldn't bet your house on the coalition partners winning a vote between now and 2011 (although a Tory Government elected at Westminster in 2010 might help).

Lawyers don't ask questions to which they don't already know the answer: would politicians really ask the voters if they thought they might get an answer they don't like?