Lywydd, dros y misoedd diwethaf, rydw i, ynghyd â phobl o bleidiau eraill, yn cynnwys Dafydd Elis-Thomas, yn cynnwys Dafydd Wigley, Aelodau o’r Lib Dems, pobl o grwpiau gwahanol, trawsbleidiol hefyd, wedi bod yn gwneud beth allwn ni i gywiro Bil Cymru wrth iddo fynd trwy Dŷ’r Arglwyddi. Hoffwn i dalu teyrnged yn gyntaf i chi, Lywydd, am eich gwaith chi ar y Bil yma, i’r pwyllgor cyfansoddiadol a oedd wedi ein helpu ni gymaint gyda rhai o’r ‘arguments’ yr oedd angen inni eu gwneud yn y tŷ. Hefyd, rwyf yn meddwl bod hyn wedi ein helpu ni i lwyddo i ddarbwyllo’r Llywodraeth Brydeinig i gyfaddawdu mewn cymaint o ardaloedd, ac i dderbyn ein safiad ni eu bod nhw wedi mynd yn rhy bell o ran ceisio cadw pwerau yn Llundain. Ond, wrth gwrs, mae nifer o faterion yn y Bil yma sy’n dal i beri gofid inni. A gaf i fod yn glir: mae Bil Cymru yn gymhleth, mae’n aneglur, a gallwn ni fod yn sicr na fydd e’n setlo’r cwestiwn o berthynas Cymru gyda’r Deyrnas Unedig am genhedlaeth, yn unol â’r bwriad? Nid yw’r Bil wedi’i seilio ar unrhyw egwyddorion cyfansoddiadol. Nid oes eglurdeb yn y Ddeddf, sy’n golygu na ellir gwarantu na fydd unrhyw gyfeiriad i’r Uchel Lys yn y dyfodol i benderfynu ymhle y mae pŵer deddfwriaethol yn gorwedd.

Mae Aelodau Tŷ’r Arglwyddi ac, i fod yn deg, y Llywodraeth Dorïaidd wedi ei gwneud yn hollol glir na fydd y tŷ yn hapus i basio’r Ddeddf heb ganiatâd a chefnogaeth y mwyafrif o Aelodau’r Cynulliad. Y cwestiwn felly yw: a ddylem ni basio’r Ddeddf?

I believe that the question of whether we should pass the LCM is finally balanced. I think the Bill remains deeply flawed and complex. Nevertheless, I believe we should pass this LCM, and I’d like to make clear my reasons for this. First of all, I think that this is the only deal we are likely to see in the foreseeable future. This is the fourth Wales Bill since the Welsh public supported the establishment of the Assembly in 1997. Theresa May has demonstrated absolutely no interest whatsoever in Wales, and the UK Government is likely to be almost exclusively focused on Brexit for the foreseeable future. That Brexit decision, with the announcement by the Prime Minister today to go for a hard Brexit, means that we really need to batten down the hatches constitutionally before we’re battered around in the political flux that is about to engulf us. We need to ensure that there’s no attempt on behalf of the UK Government to repatriate powers from the EU, and to keep what are legitimately areas of Welsh Government competence in London.

This new Bill confirms the Sewel convention. That convention says that the UK Parliament will normally not legislate on devolved matters without the consent of the Assembly. It’s written in statute. The current Bill: it is not there. This is a safety mechanism that we need. Unless we’re on the same constitutional page, and under the same reserved-model system as Scotland and Northern Ireland, we are much more vulnerable to being picked off when the repatriation of powers happens under Brexit. This is also true of the promised great repeal Bill, where the opportunity for the UK Government to grab what are legitimately our Welsh Assembly powers is all too evident. I, for one, am not prepared to take that risk.

Now, the fiscal framework and the Barnett formula, as we’ve heard, provide us with guarantees that we won’t be worse off, relative to England, if public expenditure rises when a percentage of income tax powers to Wales is devolved. The deal also means we’ve got that additional £500 million that we can borrow in order to invest. I think this is going to become crucially important as austerity continues to bite, as we see a contraction in the economy and a withdrawal of EU structural funds.

I’m disappointed that the Bill remains complex, inaccessible and unclear. There’s been a failure to incorporate any fundamental or firm principles within the Bill, like clarity, stability, legitimacy and subsidiarity. As the First Minister stated, the Welsh Government drafted their own Bill, which was presented last year. That would have provided a much firmer platform for the constitutional settlement, but we are not in the driving seat in Westminster. Let’s recall: this is a Tory Bill.

In the Lords, we convinced the UK Government that they’d overstepped the mark by attempting to claw back powers that the Assembly already enjoys in areas such as adoption, railway planning and providing council tax relief. One of the expert witnesses to the constitution committee suggested that, under the current conferred model of government, everything was reserved except the kitchen sink, but that in the move to the reserved model, even the kitchen sink was now reserved. Through pushing back in the Lords, we have now regained control over most building regulations, including the kitchen sink. We’ve also convinced the Government to expand the areas where we previously did not have power, including over teachers’ pay, fixed-odds betting terminals, compulsory purchase orders and the community infrastructure levy, to name just a few. And we were obviously deeply disappointed that a tied vote on industrial relations in the public sector meant that the UK Government is heading for a constitutional punch-up, even before this Bill has been accepted.