New plans were brought forward by Harold Wilson's government in 1975 and 1976 which confined devolution to Scotland and Wales. The Scotland and Wales Bill had a difficult passage through Parliament and the government, lacking a majority to pass the plan, withdrew the legislation and introduced separate Bills for Scotland and Wales. Hostile Labour MPs from the north of England, Wales and Scotland combined to insist that Assemblies could only be passed if directly endorsed by voters in a post-legislative referendum. Had the Wales Act 1978 entered force, it would have created a Welsh Assembly without primary legislative or tax raising powers. The proposed assembly would have had 72 members elected by the first past the post system with each Westminster constituency returning either two or three assembly members. It would have met at the Coal Exchange in Cardiff. It was planned that assembly would have operated under the committee system where subject committees would be formed with representation of all groups in the assembly. An Executive Committee would have been formed composed of the chairs of the various subject committees and other members selected by the assembly. A Chairman of the Executive Committee would have been selected who would also serve as Leader of the Assembly. The assembly would have had the ability to pass secondary legislation with responsibility for primary legislation remaining with the UK Parliament at Westminster. It would have taken over the powers and functions of the Secretary of State for Wales. The proposed assembly would have had responsibility for:  The referendums in Scotland and Wales coincided with a period of unpopularity for the Government in the wake of the so-called winter of discontent. Proposals for a more powerful Assembly in Scotland attracted the support of a majority of those who voted (1,230,937 for, 1,153,502 against) (see 1979 Scottish devolution referendum), but it amounted to just 32.5% of the total electorate, lower than the 40% threshold required. The results sealed the fate of the minority Labour government, and as a direct result of the defeat of the referendums in Wales and Scotland the Scottish National Party (SNP) withdrew its support for the government. In the House of Commons on 28 March 1979, the Labour government was defeated on a motion of no confidence by one vote, only the second time in the 20th century that a government was brought down in this way. Labour's defeat in the 1979 General Election to Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party precipitated a civil war within its own ranks, and the party was to be out of office for eighteen years.