Is the Wales Office necessary? Policy inheritance and intergovernmentalism in the age of devolution.
The Wales Office was created in 1999 as a successor to the Welsh Office, created in 1964. Before devolution, the Welsh Office possessed vast powers. Its initial powers over housing, local government, and roads grew to include education, health, and the environment. As the economic historian Leon Gooberman has shown, it also developed economic development agencies, which allowed both Labour and Conservative Welsh Secretaries to intervene during the economic difficulties of the 1970s and 1980s. However, with the creation of a Senedd with the power to make laws and the move to a reserve powers model, is a full Whitehall government department focused on Wales necessary?
According to the UK Government, the Wales Office’s current mission is to:
‘Promote the Welsh economy and the economic interests of Wales; Ensure the devolution settlement continues to deliver a clear, fair and strong settlement for Wales; Represent Wales’s interests within the UK government, and to promote a wider understanding of UK government policies in Wales’.
Yet all of these are matched by the outlined priorities of the current Welsh Government. The extent to which the department, described as the ‘fifth wheel on the parliamentary coach’ by former Welsh Secretary John Morris, is still needed post-devolution requires serious consideration.
An inherited policy?
The continuation of the department can be considered an example of what political scientist Richard Rose described as ‘policy inheritance’. As Rose argues with a focus on legislation and policy, ‘[p]olicy makers are heirs before they are choosers’, laws already exist on their acceptance of office and removing them is more complicated than expending energy to remove them. By this process, the state grows as it passes more laws than it repeals.
The extent to which the current Wales and Scotland Offices are simply an inheritance of the historic Welsh and Scottish Offices that existed as large, territorially focused ministerial departments from the pre-devolution era, requires consideration. As Rose suggests, policymaking is often determined by ‘inheritance before choice’. We have to question, therefore, whether the Wales Office, as a new, Westminster-only iteration of the old Welsh Office, survived simply because it had long been there.
As Adam Evans has shown, as the 1997 election approached, it was clear that Labour’s intention was to transfer the powers, budget, and responsibility for various Quangos from the old Welsh Office to a Welsh Assembly with secondary law-making powers. Yet, this plan also meant that ‘the post of secretary of state for Wales would be retained’.
Evans has also argued that this process of transferring ministerial functions that the old Welsh Office had accrued over decades also caused problems, as they reflected the priorities of a Westminster department, rather than a putative devolved administration. This inherited nature meant that the devolved settlement had ‘jagged edges’. However, the extent to which the intergovernmental relationship between Westminster and the new devolved government was helped or hindered by the new Wales Office should be considered.
Intergovernmentalism
The relationship between the devolved Welsh Assembly, later Senedd, and the UK Government would make sense if it were managed by the new Wales Office after 1999, but this does not sit directly within its outlined responsibilities. Things changed in 2008, when the St Andrews Agreement re-established the Northern Ireland Assembly. Then Prime Minister Gordon Brown considered rolling the responsibilities of the Wales Office in with those of the Scotland and Northern Ireland Offices into a Department for Nations, Regions and Local Government. This proposal was not new. Robert Hazell at UCL’s Constitution Unit highlighted that the merger made sense as early as 2001, once Wales had lawmaking powers and the Northern Ireland Assembly had stabilised. However, there was still the case for some form of ‘constitutional supremo’, there was little clarity of what form this role would take.
Since 2022, a new set of arrangement came into place in the UK. After a Review of Intergovernmental Relations, a more consensual structure was created for intergovernmental relations, as at that time, each Government was led by a different party or coalition.
The new structure worked over three levels, a Top tier ‘Prime Minister and Heads of Devolved Governments Council’; Middle tier ‘The Interministerial Standing Committee (IMSC), Finance Interministerial Standing Committee (F:ISC) and additional ad hoc interministerial committees; and a lowest tier of interministerial groups (IMG) that discussed specific policy areas. These then ‘work on the basis of agreement by consensus’. There is also a Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, who ‘leads coordination with the devolved administrations on the Prime Minister’s behalf, working closely with the Territorial Offices’.
Yet we must consider whether this structure really requires the presence of those ‘Territorial Offices,’ such as the Secretary of State for Wales. Taking a ‘comparative politics’ approach, we might look to intergovernmental relations in a comparable Westminster system state, such as Canada.
Rather than relying on territorial ministries, Canada has a single Intergovernmental Affairs Secretariat, that advises the Prime Minister, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, and Cabinet on relations between federal, provincial, and territorial levels. Australia does not have a similar structure, though the Canadian infrastructure reflects the at-times problematic status of Quebec. Considering UK issues with Scottish independence and stop-start Northern Ireland devolution, this Canadian structure is perhaps the one that could influence the UK.
To further embed Provinces within the federal political structure, there is a convention that ‘federal Cabinet is expected to contain representatives of all 10 Canadian provinces’. The Canadian approach of ‘collaborative federalism’ has helped create a system where province-level governments play a role in the development of government policy. Though, sometimes, short-term passing of blame can undermine the effectiveness of the system.
A potential role model?
While no system is perfect, what stands out as unusual is the UK’s retention of territorial ministries, such as the Wales Office. In a mature, multi-level democracy, these offices appear inherited and peripheral to the management of intergovernmental relations. Despite a 2020 suggestion that the office retains some relevance, the current UK Labour Government’s difficult relationship with the devolution settlement, suggests an alternative approach should be considered.
When we look at comparable Westminster systems with multilevel constitutional structures, such as Canada and Australia, the lack of anything that resembles the Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland Offices is telling. This should perhaps encourage further analysis of whether territorial ministries hinder or help the devolved political settlement.
About the author
Dr Marc Collinson teaches contemporary history and politics. A political historian of twentieth century Britain, his research focuses on elections, place, and governance. His study of Smethwick and the 1964 General Election, Migration on the Ballot? has been published by Routledge (2026). Dr Collinson currently acts as Civic Mission Lead in the School of History, Law, and Social Sciences and is involved in the provision of short courses. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
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