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Dr. Marek : There would be a run on the pound if we lost it.Mr. Jones : The hon. Gentleman is right. We must avoid a run on the pound. I am not advocating a panicky and incautious approach, but I want to speculate about the possibility of a narrowing of the differential between the interest rates that we charge and those in other countries. Have we a shortage of investment money in Britain? No. We have an overseas portfolio second only to that of Japan and we have money invested around the world. We still have a strong pool of investment money here for investment in Britain. We have a strong pool of investors. Let us consider the success of the water flotation and the way in which the man in the street gave his endorsement to the idea that the people can now own the water industries of Britain. Let us consider the enthusiastic way in which the offer was taken up, and the oversubscription and constant movement in the share price. That is one more indicator of the desire to invest in Britain. Welsh business men also have questions about the exchange rates between the pound and other currencies. I detect here that there is far more a note of approval, with the position of the pound being somewhat more favourable against the deutschmark and thus being a great aid for Welsh business men who are involved in exports. They are the business men, to whom my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred earlier, who are contemplating expansion and other opportunities in Germany. However, is there not scope for more movement in exchange rates? Is there scope for reducing the interest rate differential which would inevitably be counterbalanced by an appropriate movement in the exchange rate? If, as now seems inevitable, we are to join the European monetary system, might it not be better if we were locked into the EMS at a lower rate than we have now?
My last subject is the burden that many people in Wales are having to face because of the actions of their local councils in setting, in too many instances, ridiculously high community charges. That is very inflationary. The community charge is a far fairer system than the rating system it replaces. I have called some councils in Wales "crazy". I think that I may have been wrong to use that description because it implied that they were irresponsible and needed only to be certified to be found not guilty for their actions. They are certainly the guilty councils. The councils in Cardiff and South Glamorgan, for example, which are close to home, are being condemned by their peers. On 20 December 1989, the Council of Welsh District Councils produced its own summary of the figures that it felt would be appropriate for community charges. The council estimated that the figure for Cardiff, including the precept of South Glamorgan county council, should be £193. In fact, Cardiff council levied £253. Its guilt is proved just by that.
I appreciate that in the major change from rating to the community charge there will be some natural confusion in the minds of the ratepayers, now the community chargepayers. Inevitably, there will be an increase of about 7.7 per cent. as we are moving from one financial year to another. However, several councils in Wales, especially those in Cardiff and South Glamorgan, are taking rank political advantage of the confusion and are attempting to blame it on the Government.
In Cardiff, the budget process was proceeding quite normally until it was found that there was not enough
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expenditure to justify the intended community charge. There was desperation in trying to find ways of soaking up the extra money. Committees were circulated and asked to find extra spending. Other devices were used to try to boost expenditure up to the figure that had been announced nine months previously. I say as strongly as I can to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that Cardiff and South Glamorgan, in particular, and other councils in Wales, must be capped or there will be a ridiculous increase in spending.My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says that the county councils have to file their expenditure plans today--1 March--and the district councils will have to do the same in a few days' time. I hope that as soon as my right hon. Friend sees the spending assessments he will publish figures showing what the equivalent rate increase would have been. We should then be able to see on the old basis of comparison what changes have taken place. I am afraid that my own council--Cardiff--will still be the worst nigger in the woodpile, with an increase of at least 110 per cent. There is no justification for an increase of 110 per cent. It is ludicrous.
I ask my ministerial friends not just to cap but to take action so that councils that make illogial decisions in setting the community charge cannot then interfere with essential services. I see that as the obvious danger. We all know where the money has been hidden. Let me give the House one of the best examples of that. As a way of soaking up the money, South Glamorgan increased its contingency fund from £7 million to £15 million at the last minute. Without that, £20 could immediately have been taken off the community charge in South Glamorgan.
Fortunately, the political consequences lie with the Labour party. We have had this before in Cardiff. Last time the rates were increased by almost this much--by 94 per cent.--the people of Cardiff reacted by delivering the Left such a hefty blow that they brought the Conservative party in by a landslide. The Labour party has done us a great favour by placing the firmest footstep for Cardiff and South Glamorgan moving back into Conservative control. The people of Cardiff will not forget this savage attack.
I entirely dismiss what I read in the opinion polls. It is nothing more than an Ardennes offensive being feverishly directed from the bunker by the leader of the Labour party. We know that it is blighted, as the last Ardennes offensive was because you cannot fool all the people of Wales all the time, and that is what the Labour party has been expecting. I am confident that, come the next general election, we shall have fewer Sandinistas on the Opposition Benches than we have now.
7.52 pm
Mr. Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) : I shall not follow the argument of the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) because it is not worthy of being followed. I shall only give him a little advice. If he thinks that the political consequences of the poll tax will not be visited upon him and his Government, he has not learnt much in his few years in the House.
On St. David's day last year, I had the privilege to represent a constituency in which there were four working pits. Next door, there were Oakdale and Marine, which were about to be closed. Now, a year later, two of the four
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pits in my community and two neighbouring pits have been closed. Two other pits--including one in my constituency-- are now in jeopardy. It has become a curious feature of Welsh political and industrial life that anyone who speaks about the coal industry is regarded as a Neanderthal man who speaks for interests marginal to the Welsh economy. But in our communities those pits mattered economically and socially and because of the wages, powers and rights that they gave our communities. The fact that in the 12 months from one St. David's day to the next I have lost four of the pits in the immediate vicinity of my constituency, which lies in the heart of the south-east Wales coalfield, is not a matter for great rejoicing. Nor should it invite the observation, as I expect it will, that there are alternative jobs. It is a matter of profound regret, and we should say so.Traditionally, the Secretary of State reacts in pavlovian manner every time anyone mentions pit closures. He says, "But there were pit closures under a Labour Government." The Secretary of State is in danger of becoming unique. He could become the Secretary of State for Wales who presided not over pit closures in Wales but over the complete closure of the south Wales coalfield. There are only six pits left and two pits are in jeopardy-- Blaenant and Deep Navigation. We may have two more St. David's days to go before the next general election--it seems probable in the light of opinion polls. Perhaps the Secretary of State will set a new record, which he cannot claim for a previous Labour or Conservative Secretary of State. He may preside, as I said, over the closure altogether of the coalfield.
Let us make one plea. By all means, chase the Koreans and the Japanese. Obviously there is a lot of political sex appeal in going round the world encouraging inward investment. But please also pay attention to the industry that is already there--to the industry that is at home and to the jobs that are available. I think that the Secretary of State was genuinely taken by surprise by the actions of Mr. Wheatley--a person alien to our society--who was brought in with the specific job of butchering the south Wales industry to prepare British Coal for privatisation. The Secretary of State did not realise the speed or the vehemence with which he would pursue the pit closure programme, and nor did the Under-Secretary of State, who will remember our conversations last summer about the pit closures. The Welsh Office was taken by surprise. But, having seen Mr. Wheatley at work, Ministers must not be taken by surprise any more. Two more pits are in jeopardy and I want the Secretary of State and the Welsh office to spend some time thinking and worrying about the existing industry.
It is interesting that in every article--in the Western Mail and elsewhere- -that I have read recently, the Secretary of State and others have been quoted as saying that some marvellous transformation of the Welsh economy has taken place because we have only 6,000 miners but 60,000 bank employees. I do not know whether it is a matter of regret that we have only 6,000 miners left and, in the process, we have locked off millions and millions of tonnes of good reserves that we shall never get back.
It is a rather superficial notion that we can build our new Welsh economy on the service sector. Of course, the service sector has brought many good things to our communities--especially my own, where we have the business park at Pentrebach, the regional office of the
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Welsh Development Agency and the Heads of the Valley industrial estate at the top of Rhymney. That is great encouragement because infrastructure and investment matter for the future. The Secetary of State can claim credit for it ; my local authorities are perfectly entitled to claim credit for it and in a modest way even I might claim a piece of the credit for it. It does not matter who claims credit for it. All the developments are positive, but the notion that somehow the service sector, the service economy, the bank employees represent a good, firm basis for a new future for the local economies of our communities is a matter of doubt.I want to raise two other matters concerning the service economy--not in relation to the Cardiffs of this world but in relation to the Merthyrs and Rhymneys of this world. The service society and service industries and economies of the valleys communities are not about having sophisticated banking systems. We have had no influx of sophisticated banking systems. Nor have we seen any signs of the computer software industry that supposedly symbolises the service economy. Nor have we had highly skilled modern office employment--with one notable exception when Hoover's headquarters moved from Perivale to Rhymney. That was an adjunct to a manufacturing operation. For Merthyr and Rhymney, those great terms mean, not a sophisticated aspect of the service sector, but nothing more nor less --I say it in a completely neutral way--than creating retailing jobs. The two characteristics of all the new retailing jobs in out-of-town superstores and so on are that they are part time and poorly paid. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) and others challenged the Secretary of State for Wales at the beginning of the debate about the number of jobs and the quality and wages that went with them. They were right to do so. We have swapped well-paid skilled jobs in manufacturing for semi-skilled or unskilled, poorly paid jobs. That is not a fair swap, nor is it necessarily the basis on which to create a new, sound economy.
I am deeply worried about the predominance of the service economy. It is not and cannot be immune from the trends and movements of the wider economy. The thrust of mainstream Government policy of high interest rates is that we must cut consumption because the economy has got out of hand. If consumption is cut, what happens? Where does consumption take place? It takes place in the retail service sector, which is supposed to be our new salvation.
Mr. Rowlands : As my hon. Friend says, it will be next. Indeed, there are terrible tell-tale signs that it will be next. Is it not a matter of anxiety to anyone who believes that the service sector is the future that Mr. Ashcroft, the man who personified the Thatcherite revolution, and his company Coloroll are now in the deepest financial difficulties? Habitat, represented by Terence Conran, is also in difficulties.
Mr. Barry Jones : And Laura Ashley.
Mr. Rowlands : My hon. Friend mentions Laura Ashley. The service sector--the basis on which jobs were created--was utterly dependent on the consumption power of the local communities. If benefits are cut and wages reduced, if the Government say that wage inflation
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of 10 per cent. is wrong and must be cut to 4 or 5 per cent., and if mortgages go up by £30 a month, consumption is sucked out of the local community. The very money that is supposed to sustain the service sector, on which the new economy is based, is sucked out. When the Secretary of State, again in pavlovian fashion, responded to the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli, he cursed us for talking down our communities. None of us does that. We are proud of the communities that we serve and represent. We spend all our time preaching their virtues and potential. But we are entitled to warn that if our new local economies are built on the shifting sands of the service sector, it could lead to as many difficulties as the dependence on the old traditional, dirty industries of coal and steel.Another curious side effect of building an economy on the service sector is the impact on local society. One of the most striking aspects of representing a community such as Merthyr is that it has a highly developed local district centre. The Woolworths, B and Qs and Asdas have managers who have few roots. They are transient people. They do not belong to the local society. It may sound old-fashioned, but the collapse of local chambers of trade is a reflection of the decline and fall of people who run the local society and economic community. We are losing not only our traditional character, represented by our coal industry, but a sense of identity and roots in those who manage our so-called new local economy.
I look forward to an alternative economy for our communities in the 1990s, based not only on bank employees and the right and proper role of the service sector, but on something that we were good at and must become good at again--that is, making things. The community that I represent was built on making things, not on servicing things. It was built on developing skills of one kind or another. The tragedy of the past decade is the deskilling of our local communities.
Despite all the effort and considerable sums of money that were poured in through what was the Manpower Services Commission and various other systems, we ended the 1980s with not only fewer jobs but less-skilled, lower-quality and lower-paid jobs. One of the real worries from the 1980s is that, as a result of all the so-called investment and the hype of the Secretary of State, we have not prepared the community that I represent for the new challenges and opportunities of the 1990s.
8.5 pm
Mr. Alan W. Williams (Carmarthen) : I am conscious of the fact that this is our annual St. David's day debate. I cast my mind back to this day last year when with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), I had the privilege to introduce to the House my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells). That by-election marked a turning point in British politics. I date it back to January of last year. I was heavily involved in the by-election and it was a privilege to be so. In January of that year, at the launch meeting of the by-election campaign at Treforest at the polytechnic, the deputy leader of the Labour party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), said that a pendulum swings over a period of time. The background to the by-election was that we were 10 points behind in the
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opinion polls. My right hon. Friend felt that the pendulum was about to move. Move it did and we had a superlative result in the Pontypridd election. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd has made a tremendous impact in the House since then. We have moved on from there and have not looked back since. We had another superlative result in Vale of Glamorgan, and the rest is history.In 12 months we have moved from being well behind in the opinion polls to being 10, 12, 15 or 17 points ahead. The gap is growing day by day. I am proud that on St. David's day we can look back to the recovery in the fortunes of the Labour party and see that it was based on and came about in Wales.
One old wag told my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) at a rugby match in Twickenham that if he could do for Welsh rugby what he had done for the Labour party he really would be a hero. If we get a Labour Government, perhaps those crowds and grand slams will start happening again in the 1990s. Meanwhile, we have 12 or 18 months during which we must put up with the present Government.
The main anxieties of my constituents are the Health Service and the poll tax. There is one major hospital in my constituency in Glagwill, in Carmarthen. It is going through a period of crisis as we reach the end of the financial year. The hospital has overspent its budget by £125,000. It has to face cuts of one kind or another. That is set against the background of a modernisation programme. I am pleased to say that the programme is going ahead. Over a period of five years all the main ward blocks will be renovated and modernised. Modern medical technology will be introduced. I very much welcome that, although it will mean a loss of 50 of the 500 beds. That modernisation is therefore at a considerable cost.
In the next two or three months that hospital will have to work on an insufficient budget. It is also understaffed in nurses. It should have an extra 28 nurses, but it cannot afford to employ them and we obviously have the people who want to work. Is it fair to the existing nursing staff, to the doctors, but most of all to the patients, that the hospital is short- staffed?
Because of our overspending or lack of finance, in December the health authority announced that patient throughput at the hospital would be reduced to the 1988-89 level, despite the increasing demand. People are moving in to my area of Dyfed. We have an influx of retired people because it is an attractive rural area in which we live. They put more demands on the Health Service at a time when the proportion of elderly people in the population is increasing, yet at this time of increasing demand patient throughput is to be reduced to the 1988-89 level. I have asked the hospital administrator exactly what that will mean. Frankly, it means increased waiting lists, cancelled or postponed operations, out-patient appointments taking longer and perhaps fewer tests being carried out on patients. Generally, it means a lower quality of care per capita than last year. That is what is actually happening in the Health Service, despite the boasts of the Secretary of State and his hon. Friends. In my area we are living with the fact that the Health Service is not safe in the Government's hands because the quality of that service is being cut.
My constituents' other major concern is the effects of the poll tax. We are all aware of the anomalies of the rating system whereby an elderly person living on his or her own in a large family house had to pay a rates bill that was out
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of proportion with that person's income. We accept the anomaly of that, but the community charge is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I am sure that it would have been perfectly possible to remedy that anomaly without introducing something as appallingly unjust as the poll tax. It is obvious to every citizen in Britain that the fundamental injustice of the poll tax is that it is not linked to the ability to pay. Apart from the few people who are caught by the rebate system, generally the further down the income level--or the poorer the person is--the greater the penalty and the harder that person will be hit when the bills arrive.I shall quote one paragraph of a letter that I received last year from a constituent. An elderly couple retired to my area to live in a small cottage in Clansawel near Llandeilo and the husband wrote : "My rate demand this year for this small cottage is £61. Next year, on Mr. Walker's assessment, my wife and I will be required to pay £175 each at least. Can you explain how this huge increase can be justified? After all, we are told this new imposition is more fair. What's fair about that? Will it result in improved services, or even of the resumption of services that have been withdrawn through government action during the past decade?"
That is the unfairness of the poll tax. I know that there is transitional relief, but ultimately the bill that will arrive in that household is twice £175 for an elderly couple who live in a cottage with a rate bill of £61. That means nearly £300 extra for people who cannot afford it. The poll tax system throws up such anomalies all the time.
When I was canvassing a few month ago, I came across a young girl of 19 and asked her about her work. She was a hairdresser. As we were canvassing specifically on the poll tax, I asked her about it and encountered 100 per cent. opposition. I then had the cheek to ask her about her take-home pay. It was £47 per week, yet that young girl will have a poll tax bill of nearly £200 in a few weeks. That is the unfairness of the poll tax.
Earlier I asked the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) the same question that I asked the Secretary of State last Monday--what about the problems of low-paid people? Dyfed has the lowest average male earnings of any county in Britain. I am sorry about that, but set it out as a fact. In Carmarthen we have low unemployment, but we also have low pay because we have mainly service industries and low-paid public sector work. What about the low-paid people who live in ordinary houses and who will not be eligible for rebates? They will suffer huge losses when the poll tax bills arrive. I estimate that between 20,000 and 30,000 of my constituents will be in that position.
There is no question but that the poll tax is an evil tax. It is identified absolutely with the Government and the Prime Minister. It is very much the right hon. Lady's tax. It will become known as a Tory tax. It is one of the main reasons why the Government will be driven out of office when the next election comes, which we hope will be next year.
8.16 pm
Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) : I always follow the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) with pleasure because I was born there, but my pleasure is increased by the fact that his wife was born in my constituency, so that makes us all square. This is a day on which we can talk about local issues and about the national and international perspective. It is
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now the time of day when one's daffodil begins to wilt a little, so I shall not speak for too long. I see that some hon. Members have been seeking sustenance for their daffodils and that some hon. Members, including the Minister of State, have leeks which were never alive in any case--as far as I am aware, anyway. Perhaps it came back with him from Brussels yesterday when he was on one of his many missions--in which case it is a Brussel sprout. [Laughter]. Let us get on with the main substance of the debate. I want to talk about the way in which Wales is governed. Next month we shall celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Welsh Office--what a wonderful celebration. I put on record the fact that I am still waiting for my invitation, just in case any party has been missed off the invitation list. We remember with great affection the 10th anniversary party of the Welsh Office. I see several hon. Members in their places who were present at that party--Mr. Foot : We had better parties in those days.
Dr. Thomas : I am not going to be drawn into an argument about whether the parties of the late lamented Labour Government were better than those of the Conservative Government. We have heard enough from the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) about the record of the last Labour Government as compared with that of the Conservative Government.
I want to talk about the way in which Wales is governed as it would appear to an outside observer. For the purposes of discussion, let us imagine a European country--an ancient nation with a population of 3 million that is about the same size as one of the Baltic states. That nation is governed--
Mr. Morgan : I have heard this speech before.
Dr. Thomas : Well, it has not been in Hansard before. The hon. Gentleman might have read it in the Western Mail.
Mr. Morgan : It is a good speech--I like it more every time I hear it.
Dr. Thomas : I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman follows my speeches. It will do him no harm to listen to it again.
That nation of 3 million people is governed by a party with less than 20 per cent. support in the opinion polls in that state. It has three Ministers. They are not area Ministers. One of the Ministers crosses the border when he visits, but the other two Ministers are very much part of the culture of that country. That has always been the case with colonial systems. In addition to those three Ministers, there is a budget of £4 billion, which is spent by central Government. There are also 3,000 civil servants working in that system, who commute between the two capitals on a fast train--
Dr. Kim Howells : Not so fast some days.
Dr. Thomas : All right, not so fast some days. Perhaps Labour Members will stop interrupting me.
Civil servants also occasionally appear on a video screen so that they can speak to each other without having to travel up and down. Occasionally they make forays to the northern part of the territory. Indeed, one of them, who lives there, makes forays into the Ministries and Civil Service every week.
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That is how Wales is governed. If one were to look at that from outside, one would say, "Good heavens, this nation needs perestroika and glasnost. This place needs democracy. How is it that the people put up with this kind of government?" The answer is quite simply that Wales operates within the context of a unitary state of the United Kingdom which has been centralised, with most of its activity in the metropolitan centre. Except for the North of Ireland, where there was an elected assembly for a period, and Scotland, where there is a similar system to that in Wales, only the people of that unitary state have had to put up with the system of having the day-to-day affairs of all the nationalities, ethnic groups and regions within the state run from the centre.Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda) : The hon. Gentleman talked about the formal structure in the Welsh Office as governing Wales. Did he know that, within six months of taking office, the Secretary of State gave an answer to a question that I submitted, saying that he had made 300 appointments to public bodies in Wales in six months?
Dr. Thomas : I am grateful for that intervention because I missed that part of my script. Not only do we have the Ministers and elected Members of this Chamber, but we have a sort of intermediate Government whereby the Secretary of State appoints public bodies. I think that there have been 600 direct appointments to quangos and 1, 200 advisory bodies in which the Welsh Office is consulted. I shall not read out the list or we shall be here all night, and all our daffodils will wilt.
We have had a unitary state in the United Kingdom, but that is becoming an increasingly outdated model. Throughout central and western Europe and in the Soviet Union, federalism is becoming the major issue in politics. For how long will the United Kingdom be the exception to that system? How long will Wales be the exception to a system that is generally spreading throughout Europe? I see the future in terms of increasing the lateral links, of which the Secretary of State spoke this afternoon. I see it in terms of economic and political relationships between regions and nations on a lateral basis throughout Europe.
The people of Wales, the business community and those in the trade union movement in Wales must look carefully to the way in which having an elected, political, small nation of regional governments is a major enterprising aspect in itself. One thing that the Secretary of State has discovered since he became the Prime Minister of Wales--having failed to become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom he has become a surrogate Prime Minister of Wales, and I am pleased that he is meeting the Prime Minister of Baden-Wurttemberg and whoever else he wishes to meet on state visits--is that within that system, having a political relationship laterally between regions and smaller nations is an important economic development. The way in which the Welsh Office is pursuing its policy, not just in western Europe within the Community, but in regions in Japan and the Soviet Union, such as the Ukraine, shows how Welsh Office economic and political thinking should progress.
The Welsh people are gaining a new self-confidence. The argument is not merely about whether we swap manufacturing for service jobs and whether we still have poverty. Whenever there is serious economic disfunction
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and disjunction, there is poverty. Wealth is created, but so is more poverty. Therefore, it should not surprise us that low pay still exists as a major problem alongside the high and intermediate technology that has come in. Economic disjunction takes place when there is further growth.We should look at the overall impression that Wales creates for itself and gives to others. I am not entirely influenced by the propaganda sheet of the Welsh Office, otherwise known as the Western Mail. However, that newspaper tends to print more good stories about what is happening. I do not blame the editor for doing that because he has editorial freedom to do so and we welcome good news.
Mr. Morgan : And he has a grant from the Welsh Office.
Dr. Thomas : Yes, he had a grant from the Welsh Office. We have all had grants from the Welsh Office at one time or another.
Welsh consciousness of itself, and the Welsh people's consciousness of themselves as an enterprising nation, has, ironically, changed in recent years. The growth of the media industry is one good example of that. That optimism is also catching on culturally, in terms of our English language culture, in our valley communities and in terms of the Welsh language culture.
This is my final point because I want to make sure that all my Labour colleagues speak because I am a kind and generous boy. After 16 years in this place, today I am still kind and generous. Having said that, I hope that I get a quango if Labour is ever in government.
Mr. Morgan : The Welsh String Bean and Leek Marketing Board?
Dr. Thomas : What would I like? I shall draw up a list for the hon. Gentleman.
The optimism, which is part of the enterprise culture, is also a cultural optimism with regard to the Welsh language community. I was pleased to see that Professor Harold Carter had got his figures right at last. He has been making a bit of an industry recently out of predicting when, and whether, the Welsh language would finally die. I am pleased to end by quoting from the greatest book of Welsh history ever written, which is published today. It is called "Hanes Cymru" and is by Dr. John Davies. In the penultimate paragraph he lists all the people throughout the history of Wales who predicted the end of the nation. I shall not go as far back as Tacitus in 100 AD because it would detain the House and would be tedious repetition. I can say that Rhygyfarch, who was reputed to be the author of the "Life of St. David", round about 1094, considered the early extinction of his people. In 1247 it was predicted that the whole of Wales had been drawn down. In 1282 it was predicted the whole of Wales had been struck down. The scholars of the renaissance period believed that the identity of the Welsh was on its way out. In 1682, William Richards said that the Welsh language was about to die. In 1688 Thomas Jones was afraid that the Welsh would be removed from history. The majority of Welsh leaders in the last century did not think that Welsh would continue much beyond that century. The "Welsh Outlook" in 1916 stated that the Welsh language would cease to be a living language by 1950. And yet, says Dr. John Davies :
"Eto, fe oroesodd y Cymry holl argyfyngau eu hanes, gan ailgreu eu cenedl drosodd a thro".
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The Welsh people managed to overcome all the crises of their history and recreated their nation over and over again.My prediction on this St. David's day is that in the 21st century the Welsh nation will be recreated as a building block of a federal Europe and I hope to see the Minister of State, Welsh Office still with us to celebrate that occasion.
8.27 pm
Mr. Robert Hayward (Kingswood) : It gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Dr. Thomas). He started by saying that one should stand back and look at Wales and see how it is evolving. When I first moved to Wales just under 20 years ago, I lived in Pembrokeshire. The economy was, to some extent, as it is today in terms of low wages. But it was also dominated by three industries : agriculture, steel and coal. Two of them have undergone substantial changes, but the Wales that I see now when I visit it reasonably regularly--because I represent a constituency just across the Severn--has also undergone substantial changes over that period.
The coal and steel industries have been dramatically slimmed down. The Secretary of State said that they had shed 58,000 jobs in the past few years. In the process of evolution, the Welsh economy is on a much broader base now. Previously it was accepted that unemployment in Wales would be about one third above the United Kingdom national average.
Mr. Rogers : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am wondering who makes the selection of speakers. I submitted my name to speak. I represent the constituency of Rhondda, and considering that I have the largest majority in Wales and in the United Kingdom, I should have thought that I should be called to speak in a Welsh debate. Yet the hon. Gentleman--
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : Order. The hon. Member will be aware that this is the United Kingdom Parliament. Any person democratically elected to it has a perfect right to speak in any debate.
Mr. Hayward : When I moved to Wales, the economy was dominated by three major industries. The economic base has since been broadened dramatically. At that time unemployment was about one third higher than the United Kingdom national average. Because the Welsh economy now extends to a wide range of industries, unemployment is about 17 per cent. above the national average. I hope that it will come down to, and possibly be lower than, that average. I believe that that is achievable because we have on either side of the River Severn economies that are evolving together. Indeed, we are to a large extent becoming mutually dependent.
Mr. Hayward : If the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) will listen to me, he will recognise that there is a mutual development of the two economies. I have no desire, as the two sides of the Severn grow together, to see the diminution of the Welsh nation. It is important that the Welsh identity should remain. At the same time, local authorities and agencies in Wales should look across the River Severn and recognise that there is a mutual interest.
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That interest is growing, not only in the broadening base of the economy on both sides but in other matters, for example, the development of a second Severn bridge. Although some may not regard it as a happy event, there is increased house purchasing and commuting with people obtaining jobs in Cardiff and moving to Bristol, and vice-versa.It is important for organisations responsible for Avon and Gloucestershire on one side and for the Welsh economy on the other not to look at one area in isolation. To do so would be to the detriment of the area. For the sake of everybody, we must look at both sides. A good example of that is the issue that the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) raised when she first entered the House, that of Rhoose airport and its possible expansion. At present we have two airports which almost consider that they are competing against each other, although to a large extent they supply a common population. We should try to attain a sense of community so that both sides of the economy can grow together.
I have spoken briefly because I am anxious that other hon. Members should take part in the debate. It is important to recognise the potential for growth on both sides. There is a mutuality of interests and it is in the long-term interest of both sides that we should recognise that.
8.33 pm
Mr. Martyn Jones (Clywd, South-West) : I add my sympathy to that expressed by other hon. Members for the people who have been affected by the flooding in Towyn. It has been a dreadful occurrence. As one who represents part of Colwyn, I hope that the after-effects of the flooding will not manifest themselves in increased poll tax for the residents of Colwyn who are unaffected by it.
As many of my hon. Friends said, the poll tax is not fair. Even the Duke of Westminster, the richest man in Britain, acknowledges that. For the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) to trot out the old chestnut about the old lady living in a house by herself paying enormous rates to a council that is overspending is an utter fabrication produced by Conservative Central Office, and even there the story is getting low priority now.
When such an old lady lived in a large house by herself, under the old system, she could, if she was poor, claim rate rebate. In any event, she had a choice, which is not available to poll tax payers. Under the poll tax system, even those on the lowest incomes must pay 20 per cent., and they have no choice but to pay or to go to court. Nor will poll tax make local government more accountable, despite what the hon. Member for Pembroke claimed. If the hon. Gentleman is anxious to ensure that Dyfed's poll tax is the lowest, he cannot at the same time claim that Dyfed county council is overspending and will be accountable to the local electorate. If that were the case, the electors would think, rightly, that they should continue voting for those in power to achieve a low poll tax. The two factors are mutually exclusive.
We must consider the effect of that bit of the rates which has not disappeared and to which reference has not been made. I refer to the uniform business rate. That system is still based on the old unfair system of rates, and it is 2p higher in Wales than in England. That has led my local chambers of trade to complain bitterly to me about the effect that that will have on small businesses in Wales.
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Add to that the VAT on electricity and the phenomenally high interest rates, which are likely to rise even further, and we have a disaster on our hands in towns such as Llangollen in my constituency, which relies on small businesses.People are also worried about job losses. We have heard much about the way in which the number of jobs in Wales is increasing. That does not seem to be happening in rural areas. On several occasions I have tabled written questions asking the Secretary of State to provide figures of unemployment in rural Wales. Not only has he not provided them, but it seems that he is not even thinking about ways to obtain them. The Rural Development Commission in England is able to provide such figures. If we had them for Wales, they would show up what is happening in our rural areas.
Mr. Livsey : Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one cannot obtain statistics about wage levels in rural Wales? I have been unable to obtain from the Welsh Office such statistics for Powys. That has concerned me for some time. The hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) said that wages in Dyfed were the lowest, but I suspect that they may be even lower in Powys. Unfortunately, we cannot obtain the information.
Mr. Jones : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, which demonstrates that without adequate statistics it is difficult to get a complete picture. It seems that certain statistics are unavailable or that no one is anxious to gather them. Jobs in rural areas are a problem and I welcome the proposals of the Welsh Development Agency to examine the situation in Denbigh and Corwen in my constituency. They are black spots and I welcome the WDA's efforts. There is a particular problem in Denbigh, where the factory of James Seddon is likely to close with 125 job losses. That closure is due to problems in the clothing industry, mainly because of high interest rates on the investment that has been made in that industry.
Such jobs as exist are poorly paid, as the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) pointed out. I agree with him that the figures are not available, but some figures have just become available for Clwyd. They are based on the decency threshold figures issued by the Council of Europe, and for my area the decency threshold wage is £160 a week.
In Clwyd, East, the part of Clwyd about which Conservative Members brag in relation to numbers of jobs and development investment, 29 per cent. of people in full-time employment earn less than the Council of Europe's decency threshold. In Clwyd, West, the rural area that has been neglected, 38.5 per cent. earn less than that threshold.
Agriculture is also going through the problems of high interest rates and VAT on electricity--problems that will affect it as much as they will small businesses. We also have the problem of the Welsh Office Agriculture Department--I know that other hon. Members are concerned about it--which provides a service not only for Clwyd but for the eastern parts of Gwynedd and the northern parts of Montgomery. The Department is being shrunk by 35 members of staff and will give a much worse service.
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Then there is the problem of roads. We were told in the Welsh Grand Committee that the A55 would be the answer to all the problems of north Wales, which is nonsense. There are no connections from the A55 to my area, and even if there were they would not be used without proper investment and some sort of development area status for the rural areas.Furthermore, we have no more deregulated buses and very few post offices. Even magistrates courts are closing in my area of Llangollen. I submit that the toxic waste dumps that seem to proliferate in my patch and in others are no substitute for the jobs that we need.
Hon. Members will have noted the host of golden daffodils being worn by Opposition Members today--we have rather more Welsh Members than do the Conservatives. Even if all the Conservative Welsh Members wore their golden daffodils they would not amount to a host, and they certainly will not after the next election.
8.42 pm
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