House of Commons Hansard Debates for 27 Feb 1992

Mr. Jones : It should be encouraged, and I know that the Secretary of State agrees, as I see him nodding.

I am sure that he is aware that, in addition to the PRNI approval for £2.1 million to build the pavilion, the Friends of Llangollen have raised about £500,000, which is a tremendous feat at a time when many people are suffering from compassion fatigue from all kinds of worthy projects. In addition to the £500,000, there has been support from Glyndwr and the Wales tourist board. The total project cost has been taken to £3.1 million.

The project has also benefited from a grant from the European Community to the value of £1 million towards the cost. Until now, that was the maximum that could be spent on the development. However I have been told that, since 1 January, there are new rules. I hope that that means that we can obtain European development funding for the money that the Friends of Llangollen have raised. There is a slight problem and I hope that the Minister will be able to help.

Mr. David Hunt : I must tell the hon. Gentleman that Clwyd county council has not formally approached my Department, but our respective officials have discussed the matter and perceive no difficulties at all.

Mr. Jones : I am delighted, and I thank the Secretary of State for that response.

Mr. Win Griffiths : There is soon to be an election.

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Mr. Jones : I shall not endorse the churlish comments that my hon. Friend is making, no matter what I think.

I am delighted to hear that assurance from the Secretary of State and thank him whole-heartedly, but it has destroyed the rest of my speech. However, I shall carry on regardless, because it is worth explaining how such private funding can attract money from Europe. In itself, that is a good thing. I take it that the Secretary of State will agree to the possibility of transferring some capital allowance to cover the 12 months before we receive the money from Europe. Clwyd county council is supporting another project delayed under the PRNI rules. At St. Asaph business park, there has been financial slippage and, although the county council has not applied, I understand that the Secretary of State would consider that application favourably. That would be wonderful as it would allow the pavilion to be brought up to standard while the contractors are on site. It is a genuine project of regional, national, and probably international importance. It will serve the people of Wales and the world for a long time to come.

I look forward to July, when I hope to visit the site as, I fondly hope, the Member of Parliament for that constituency. I want to see the project come to fruition, with all the necessary seating, toilet facilities and groundworks, which have not been done until now. It will be a fitting setting for the Llangollen Eisteddfod and for the music and the international camaraderie that that engenders. The people of the world will see that Wales can put such a project together. It will be a setting for the Eisteddfod for the next 45 years and I hope to be able to go there on my birthday in 45 years' time. In fact, I may even make the centenary.

I thank the Secretary of State once again for destroying my speech and giving Clwyd county council the ability to complete a worthwhile project.

7.43 pm

Mr. Huw Edwards (Monmouth) : Given what the Secretary of State offered to my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones), if he is prepared to grant assisted area status to Monmouth immediately, I shall not continue my speech.

Mr. David Hunt indicated dissent.

Mr. Edwards : Clearly, the Secretary of State will not do that. Therefore, I shall continue with my speech.

It is a privilege to contribute to the debate on Wales, which traditionally takes place on or near St. David's day. I have attended and have read the Hansard reports of those debates for a number of years, and it is a privilege to take part this year.

I represent a constituency that, historically, was not alway a part of Wales and it is one of the most anglicised areas of Wales. I noted what the Secretary of State said about the introduction of a Welsh language Bill and I welcome that. I am sure that he will also welcome the proposal to introduce a Welsh medium school in Abergavenny, which I hope will be implemented in the next year or so. The Secretary of State has acknowledged that, in my constituency, there is some anxiety about Welsh appearing in the national curriculum. I wish to convey those anxieties.

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I hope that it is possible to attract, naturally, Welsh-speaking teachers to Gwent to involve them in the implementation of the language programme there.

Issues relating to the economy, the environment and public services are causing great concern in my constituency. I cannot deny that, traditionally, Monmouth has been one of the more affluent areas of Wales, but, in common with many other areas, it has been hit by the recession. I have had meetings with the Abergavenny chamber of trade and the Monmouth chamber of commerce and I have heard business people express their anxieties about the recession. It is a tremendous disappointment to come across people who thought they were enjoying an economic miracle two or three years ago who now face bankruptcy or have already gone bankrupt. Such bankruptcies also cause family problems and homelessness often goes with it.

The matter of assisted area status for Monmouth has caused some controversy and I have been disappointed by some recent developments. A delegation, of which I was a member, was to meet the Secretary of State to put the strong case for assisted area status. However, Monmouth borough council received a letter from the private secretary to the Secretary of State to the effect that, as Monmouth was not going to get assisted area status, there was absolutely no point in the Secretary of State meeting that delegation. Subsequently, another announcement was made to the effect that the Secretary of State was prepared to meet a delegation that was to include the Conservative candidate for Monmouth. If this meeting produces assisted area status for Monmouth before the next election, I would be the first to congratulate the Secretary of State, but I doubt whether that will happen. The delegation, which is supposed to meet the Secretary of State on Monday, is disintegrating before it is even assembled. Gwent county council and Monmouth chamber of commerce have decided not to participate and I doubt whether Monmouth town council will participate. They realise that it is nothing but a political stunt. They are totally unimpressed because they can see it for what it is. My constituents are also anxious about threats to the local environment. My constituency covers 300 sq miles encompassing part of the south Wales coalfield right down to the Severn bridge. It is one of the most beautiful areas of Wales. There is also beauty in the bleakness--for example, up near Blaenavon and Pwll Du--but opencast developments pose a serious environmental threat to those areas. I have visited other opencast developments in south Wales at Nant Helen near Glynneath and I do not want such devastation to be visited upon Abergavenny. I hope that the Secretary of State will take note of the considerable objection to the Pwll Du development and listen to the people of Clydach and Llanelly Hill who are totally opposed to it. At the other end of my constituency is the Wye valley, which is one of the five designated areas of outstanding natural beauty in Wales. There is much concern about proposed developments in that area, which are contrary to not only the Gwent structure plan but the intention of Parliament, which was to give special protection to the area. It is a matter of great anxiety that a precedent could be set by insensitive developments in the Wye valley. Such developments could also then take place in the other areas

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of outstanding natural beauty, the Anglesey coast, Lly n, the Clwydian range and the Gower peninsula. There is considerable concern about any infringements in those areas.

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell) has announced that the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs is undertaking an inquiry into planning. There is widespread concern in my constituency about the whole planning process, much of which was revealed in an HTV documentary shortly before Christmas. The programme revealed the inconsistency, inequity and possible illegality in some of the planning applications and approvals that have been given and the way in which planning recommendations are overturned at a political whim. I am delighted that the Select Committee, of which I am a member, is undertaking that inquiry. Wales has had a high tradition of good quality public services. The public sector in my constituency, as in many others, is by far the biggest employer, yet much of the public sector has been undermined by Conservative policies in the past 13 years.

I have spoken in the House before about the controversies affecting Nevill Hall hospital, but I will restrict my comments on that issue today to the proposal to introduce car parking charges. That proposal has absolutely outraged the people of Abergavenny and all who travel from the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot)--many members of staff as well as patients come from his area to Nevill Hall--and elsewhere to the hospital.

The staff, patients, visitors and volunteers who give up their time to work in the hospital are outraged by the proposal. They say that the imposition of parking charges would infringe the principle of a free national health service. They see no support for the idea in the patients charter and they are bitterly opposed to it. They hope that such charges will not be implemented at Nevill Hall or any other hospital in Wales.

I have spoken before in the House about the housing crisis in Wales. I have said previously that £741 million has accrued from the sale of council houses in district authorities in Wales in the past 10 years and that it is a public scandal. I think I see the Under-Secretary shaking his head in dissent. Not only has that money not been devoted to the provision of housing, but even parliamentary answers have not explained what has happened to that money.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett : The sum of £741 million represents total receipts over the past 10 years. Most of that money has been spent by local authorities in credit approvals for local government expenditure on all sorts of capital projects. I have made it clear at Question Time in response to the hon. Gentleman that local authorities can use 25 per cent. for housing and the other 75 per cent. for capital redemption against credit approvals. If he does not understand that, he should not be in the House.

Mr. Edwards : Redeeming debt is not as high a priority as housing homeless people, and there is a growing crisis of homeless people in all our constituencies. If the Minister does not believe that, he should have been with me a few days ago when I went around the Rother estate in Abergavenny. The people in those council houses are appalled at the idea of there being no prospect of their

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children finding local authority housing. There is nothing that they can buy in the private market and very little for them to rent in the housing association sector.

My constituency comprises many people of moderate means. They appreciate what has happened in the past 12 years, which is why last May they elected a Labour Member. I am confident that I shall have the privilege of representing them after the next general election. 7.53 pm

Mr. Keith Raffan (Delyn) : The Welsh day debate is the highlight of the parliamentary year for the Principality. It is one of the far too few occasions when Welsh matters can be debated on the Floor of the House. That is yet a further strong argument why we need another debating forum for Welsh affairs. We need one not just as an all-Wales strategic tier on top of the unitary authorities, which I hope we will shortly have, but because there is such inadequate debate of Welsh matters in this House--far more inadequate than the debate of Scottish issues.

I wish to look beyond the dying embers of this Parliament to the issues that will dominate the next Parliament. As I shall not be a Member of it, I thought that I would have my say now. Two related issues are likely to dominate that Parliament. The first is the ever closer union of Europe, political and economic, and the second is constitutional change in the United Kingdom. Both are inevitable. Foolish men may try to resist the tide of history, but ultimately it will overwhelm them.

I am a committed, indeed passionate, European who is strongly in favour of further European integration. Those opposed to European unity tend to use the one word "sovereignty" as their ammunition. They seldom define what they mean by it. In the dictionary or thesaurus sense, sovereignty as

"supreme and independent power, free from external control", no longer exists.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), by taking us into the EEC in 1973, conceded sovereignty. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher)--perhaps she would not care to remember it now as one of the most illustrious achievements of her distinguished career--agreed to the single market in 1985, she did the same and ceded further sovereignty. The present Prime Minister, in his former incarnation as Chancellor of the Exchequer, by joining the exchange rate mechanism in 1991, merged our sovereignty with that of our European partners by tying sterling more closely to their currencies.

Sovereignty is not a symbol to be worshipped from afar, an indissoluble whole which can only be preserved intact. It is a commodity to be bartered, ceded, pooled and shared in the interests of the people, for their economic benefit and well-being. There is no realism in speaking of sovereignty as sacrosanct when our interest rates are directly affected--some might even say dictated--by the Bundesbank, and when our economic affairs are so strongly influenced by German wage claims and the cost of German unification. I believe that sovereignty will come back to us with a single currency. At least we shall have a seat on the board of a European central bank. No wonder the Bundesbank--my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley too casually ignores this--is so guarded about monetary union. It foresees a loss of power and sovereignty.

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I contend that there is no fear among the Welsh people at a loss of sovereignty in the cause of European union. Indeed, long ago the people of Wales largely lost sovereignty to Whitehall and Westminster, and I tend to agree with them that it might be better to lose it even further afield--further afield geographically--but to a place that is more sensitive to their needs and aspirations.

We in Wales see ever-closer union with Europe not as a threat but as an opportunity. It will give us a chance to come out of the shadow of our larger neighbour and vigorously to reassert our own identity within a Europe of the regions. Wales within Europe, just like Scotland within Europe--those concepts have an understandable appeal. The Government must recognise that appeal and respond to it. On the European issue, my party is still resisting the tide of history, though less fiercely than it did before. It is also still out of tune, though less than previously under my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley, with the mood of the moment. We say that our place is at the heart of Europe, yet we have not learnt the lesson of our delayed entry. We should be in the vanguard, but we are still in the rear. We are still dragging our feet.

It is a matter of great sadness to many of our European partners--I was speaking yesterday to some distinguished representatives of Spain--that we are not in the vanguard. They want us to be fully committed to, enthusiastic and wholehearted about, the

Community--right at the heart of it--not just saying we are there but effectively acting there to counterbalance the increasing power of a resurgent Germany.

The European and constitutional issues are closely related. There is a delicious irony in the fact that the British Government, in the European context, is fiercely fighting against the centralisation of power in Brussels, while in the United Kingdom context they are determined to retain power in the centre, here in Whitehall and at Westminster. Britain is the largest unitary state in the world, apart from Japan. It is extremely centralised, even more so than France in practice. But we have already modified the supremacy of Parliament to accommodate the upward flow of power to Brussels. Why can we not also modify it in the opposite direction, by devolving power downwards? Indeed, devolution could offer the opportunity of an effective counterbalance to centralised decision-making in Brussels. The principle of subsidiarity, to which we are committed at the European level, is equally valid within the United Kingdom. In a lecture to the Conservative party conference entitled "Conservatism in the 1990s", my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who is perhaps one of the Cabinet's more adventurous thinkers, said :

"In a more and more complex world, devolving decisions to the lowest level strikes me as a sensible precept. That is the approach that we have been pursuing at home, in health, in education and in housing. It makes good sense for Europe as well."

If it makes good sense in health, education, housing, and Europe, why not also for United Kingdom government?

The dispersal of power has been a central concern of political philosophers since Aristotle. Devolution as a concept is a particular British contribution to politics. It first appeared in a speech in the House in 1774 by Mr. Edmund Burke on the subject of American taxation. Burke is not normally thought of as an extreme, radical

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thinker out of sympathy with Conservatism. He attempted to show that it was possible to reconcile American demands for local autonomy with imperial power centred in Britain. American legislators would have the freedom to decide domestic policies while being subordinate to the imperial Parliament.

When preparing his first home rule Bill, Gladstone--and I am sorry to have to tell this to the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells)--did not resort to the tomes of distinguished Liberal political thinkers but went straight to the speeches of Edmund Burke, studied them closely, and remarked that they were "a mine of gold for the political wisdom with which they are charged."

Gladstone was also influenced by his political mentor, Sir Robert Peel-- founder of the modern Conservative party--and his conviction that our institutions could be successfully adapted to the needs of a particular time.

Devolution is not therefore alien to Conservatism but an innate part of it. Gladstone concluded :

"the concession of local self-government is not the way to sap or impair, but the way to strengthen and consolidate unity. Such a policy is eminently a Conservative policy."

That is why I find it so surprising that members of my own Front Bench do not acknowledge that devolution as a concept and policy has distinguished Conservative antecedents, indeed originated with Conservative political thinkers.

If in the view of Ministers the case for constitutional change is unproven, they should explain in detail why they think it is. It is not enough for them to dismiss the question with tabloid slogans or historical quotations, for that will only diminish their reputations. They must heed the mood for change and respond to it. They cannot ignore or dismiss it.

No party which is so lamentably weak as ours is in representation in Scotland and in the Principality and which has gone--I nearly used the word "run", but I respect my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State too much-- to England for its last two Secretaries of State can afford to do other than to take the issue seriously and debate it fully.

There must be an end to the current intellectual inertia on this side of the House on the issue of constitutional change. If there is not, I fear for the future of the Conservative party in Wales after the next general election. Our moral authority to govern Wales with a handful of Members of Parliament will be gravely, if not fatally, undermined and we will find ourselves facing a constitutional crisis--a crisis of our own making.

8.3 pm

Mr. Win Griffiths (Bridgend) : Although I recognise that the Welsh environment is improving in many respects, it would be a dereliction of duty not to point to a number of serious problems that have yet to be overcome. I refer first to water quality. Ministers trumpet readily enough that the privatisation of the water industry has resulted in the availability of more investment than the Government themselves were prepared to make. However, throughout the 1980s, the Government gave a low priority to the quality of drinking water and of our waterways, which affected our coastline. Despite the belated efforts to tackle pollution in Wales, serious problems remain.

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The Government are also bold to declaim the powers and effectiveness of the National Rivers Authority, yet it is not given the money that it considers necessary to do its job. In the 1980s, for the first time in 50 years, river water quality in Wales deteriorated. Even more worrying is the increase in pollution incidents throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. In 1990, there were 2,707, and that is not good enough.

Worse still, such incidents result in few prosecutions--and when they are successfully brought, only pitiful fines are imposed. In the two years that Welsh Water has been in existence, it has been fined for 17 pollution incidents a sum of only just over £18,000. In the first year of its existence, it made profits of £120 million ; and in the first six months of its second year in operation, the company made profits of more than £60 million. The fines imposed on Welsh Water, therefore, represent no kind of penalty. In fact, it is cheaper for a company to pollute the aquatic environment than to meet the cost of 100 per cent. pollution prevention.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett : When Labour was last in power, it cut investment in the water industry by 50 per cent. It is hypocritical of the hon. Gentleman to criticise this Government, who established the National Rivers Authority, which has a budget of £431 million for Wales this year. This Government also increased water pollution fines tenfold in the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Welsh Water has already done tremendous work, and the National Rivers Authority is working hard--and this year the quality of water in Welsh rivers actually improved.

Mr. Griffiths : The Minister's panegyrics on the quality of Welsh water and the work of the NRA run counter to certain facts. It is indisputable that Welsh Water was fined only £18,000 for 17 pollution incidents and that the quality of Welsh river water has deteriorated over the past decade. It is also indisputable that NRA funding is less than the minimum that it considers necessary to do its job properly.

Let me remind the Minister that, in October 1991, the Government announced a 12 per cent. cut in funding for the National Rivers Authority ; and that, in November, it was announced that, in the 1992-93 financial year, the NRA would receive £15 million less than--in the NRA's view--it needed to do even the minimum to improve water quality.

I emphasise that point because, very often, a single incident of pollution can utterly destroy life in a river. It is important to enter into the minds and the culture of those on Welsh Water, and other companies whose industrial emissions end up in our rivers. In any one year, a single incident of pollution is one too many ; and the record of the first two years of the 1990s does not bode well for the rest of the decade.

It is not only the aquatic environment that is threatened. Although considerable improvements were made in the 1960s and 1970s, our air quality is now in danger. The Government are not committed to the European Community standard, which requires the stabilising of carbon dioxide emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. They appear to be prepared to countenance air pollution simply because other countries are not willing to take action. They have put it on record that they do not intend to meet the stabilisation target unless other countries do the same. If we do not give a lead, however, how can we expect others to commit themselves?

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I believe that the quality of the Welsh environment is too important to be left to the decision-making powers of an American President. We need to take a lead for ourselves, and, if necessary, to show the Americans the way. I am sure that, once they had perceived the significant advantages to be gained from commitment to the lowering of pollution levels, they would follow suit. The sooner such madcap schemes as the burning of orimulsion down in Pembroke are jettisoned, the better. It would be welcome to hear from the Minister that, unless full anti-pollution measures are adopted, that scheme will not get off the ground. Without such measures, I believe that it should be shelved.

8.13 pm

Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon) : A Welsh day debate is a bit of a stock-taking exercise. It is difficult, in the space of 10 minutes, to deliver a full audit on developments in Wales and the effect of Government policies there.

The future is mixed : there is good news and bad news. There have been welcome developments over the past year, and even over the past few months. We should welcome wholeheartedly developments involving factories and other aspects of industry, whose significance far exceeds their scale. The hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) is trying to introduce a measure to allow the Wales tourist board to export work overseas to bring people to Wales. That measure has all-party support, and is long overdue. Last week, the Welsh Development Agency and Welsh local authorities jointly opened an office in Brussels. Many of us have canvassed for such an office for a long time, and it will have an important role to play.

Nevertheless, some aspects of the present position cause considerable worry. An obvious example is unemployment, which has increased by 30 per cent. over the past 12 months. There are unemployment blackspots throughout Wales. Let us take the south Pembrokeshire figures, which should be close to the heart of the Under-Secretary of State. Not only are they high now ; they are projected to reach even higher levels--disastrously high, following the closures at Trecwn and Brawdy. In the valleys--in the Cynon valley, for instance--unemployment is unacceptably high, as it is in rural Wales. In south Cardiganshire, in my constituency, and in Holyhead, something needs to be done about the level of unemployment. Indeed, that applies in every part of Wales--north, south, east and west. The other major problem facing ordinary people in Wales, especially those who cannot get a job, is their inability to obtain housing. Someone who cannot afford to buy will have precious little hope of being able to rent in the present circumstances. Council housing stock has declined ; much of it has been sold off. I understand the policy involved, and I understand people's wish to buy their houses, but the stock has not been replaced. There is a waiting list of 60, 000 in Wales, and nearly 10,000 people are homeless.

In a civilised society, that is unacceptable. If people cannot obtain jobs or houses, what are we doing to our country? The Government should admit that the problems are serious and must be tackled.

There are also problems in the health sector. I was pleased to hear from the Secretary of State that, during the coming year, the provision of a hospital to serve east Dwyfor and north Meirionnydd will go ahead. I hope that

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the other community hospitals that are needed in Gwynedd and elsewhere will also receive the resources that they need : without Government money, such projects cannot proceed.

Challenges exist in health care, education, the environment--we heard about that a moment ago--employment and housing. I now wish, however, to address two of the themes that the Secretary of State introduced. It appears that, at long last, a new Welsh language Bill is to be introduced. I accept that the Secretary of State has been in possession of the draft of the Welsh Language Board's most recent version for only a little over 12 months ; however, the subject has been under Welsh Office scrutiny for the best part of six years. I remember attending a meeting in October 1986, with Lord Prys-Davies, the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) and Mr. Nicholas Edwards, then Secretary of State. Work has been in progress ever since, and it is time that we saw some action.

The question is : what sort of action will we see? What will the Bill contain? It is not enough to legislate for the sake of legislating ; we must get things done. The Welsh language faces challenges that must be dealt with.

In an earlier intervention, I cited the position of a defendant in a court case who wanted to speak Welsh. In years gone by, how many people who were not very good at expressing themselves in English--if, indeed, they could speak it at all--have appeared before the courts, and have not been able to testify in their own language? How many innocent people have gone to prison, or even lost their lives, for that reason? I do not pretend that that happens now, but the fact remains that the defendant in a case is the person on whom the maximum pressure is exerted. If defendants wish their cases to be heard in Welsh, they should be able to do so. It is a question of linguistic rights.

Equally, if a defendant's evidence is to be heard and understood by the jury, it must not be heard in translation. The nuances, the emotion and the uncertainties must be heard and felt first hand. I understand that, in some parts of Wales, the shortage of Welsh speakers would make random jury selection impossible. In other parts, however, that is patently possible. Cases should be heard in Welsh in areas in which Welsh is spoken. There are centres within travelling distance where that can be done : Cardiff, for example, can serve a catchment area in Glamorgan and Gwent.

Today, 800 people have demonstrated in Swansea because of the inability to provide Welsh language education in that city and the area surrounding it. That should be a basic education right for people who want their children to be educated using the Welsh language. The people of Swansea have lost the opportunity for generations to be educated by means of the Welsh language because provision for it has not been made.

Will the Bill address that question? Will it ensure that equal validity is a meaningful concept? Will it ensure that an individual filling in a form can choose to fill it in either in Welsh or in English? It is official bilingualism that makes equal validity meaningful to the consumer, to whom the Secretary of State referred in his speech.

If people working in Welsh factories who speak Welsh find that somebody tells them that they cannot speak in their own language to their fellow workers on the factory floor, will the Bill stop that discrimination? Will it make that discrimination, which has happened year after year in

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Wales, illegal? When the Government introduce the Bill--if they have the opportunity to do so after the election--that is one of the issues that we shall consider.

I was under the impression that there was to be a debate in the Welsh Grand Committee, sitting in the capital city of Cardiff, on the government of Wales. I understand, though, that there is some doubt about that. It appears that all that the Government have to do is to lay an order. Those who do not want a debate to take place on the important question of the government of Wales should speak up and be identified. I do not know which party is creating difficulties. Certainly it is not my party. If those who do not want

self-government for Wales fail to turn up in Cardiff, having been challenged to do so, so be it. Those who are concerned about the future government of Wales should be allowed to put forward their ideas so that they can be thrashed out before the general election. Then there will be an opportunity for a real debate during the election campaign.

Opinion polls published this week show that there is a majority of two to one in favour of an elected, all-Wales body and that that majority increases to 70 : 30 if a similar proposal for Scotland--some form of Scottish parliament--were put forward. That 70 : 30 figure shows a majority in favour of the proposition in north, mid and south Wales among the elderly, the middle aged and young people and that majority includes people from every political party, including Conservative voters in Wales. It is time that the message got home if a proper balance is to be secured within the European structure to which the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) referred.

We have to think of Wales, Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom as part of a united Europe, if there is to be a meaningful relationship between Wales and the committee for the regions. The Secretary of State has not said whether there will be Welsh representatives on that committee and how many seats Wales will have. These are important questions. Without an all-Wales level of government, Welsh voices will have no legitimacy in Europe and there will be no democracy in Wales.

The unpalatable truth for the Secretary of State and for the others who sit on the Treasury Bench is that never since 1868 have the Conservatives had a majority of seats in Wales. They do not have a legitimate right to govern Wales. The time has come to allow the people of Wales to have a voice in the government of their own affairs and to decide on the social and economic priorities for Wales. Wales needs a Chamber that can devote all the time that is necessary to the problems that face our country and that can devise policies which meet the aspirations of our people. That is the challenge that faces the Conservative Government and every party in the House. They must come clean and be open about what is being offered to the people of Wales. They must move towards that goal. 8.23 pm

Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West) : The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and many others referred to the clean-up of government in Wales. A corrupt system of quangos now governs Wales. The members of those quangos are mates of the Secretary of State for Wales. He staffs all the quangos of Wales with his mates. The hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) said that he

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envisaged devolution as single-tier authorities, roughly similar to the present districts. He says that that is the sort of devolution that Wales wants, but he forgets that Wales already has a great deal of devolution. The problem is that it is not democratic devolution. We have devolution by quango, by nomination and by patronage. Such devolution permits the Secretary of State to put Tory rejects--people rejected by the Welsh electorate--or Tory trainees--people who are going to be rejected by the Welsh electorate at the next election--on quangos so that they can develop a little administrative or governmental experience and earn a few bob, moonlighting as it were, by means of this non- democratic form of devolution.

The people of Wales object to that. Why should a Tory Government, who are rejected by the people of Wales, run Wales through nominated bodies that the Secretary of State can use as a form of re-start scheme for semi- employed Tories who have no chance of winning elections in Wales? They obtain power that they cannot win by democratic means--through the ballot box--by means of the Secretary of State's patronage. That is a fundamentally corrupt system. Even as late as last month, with an election in the offing, the Government decided to set up yet more quangos. A higher education funding council for Wales is to be set up. Who do they put upon it? They put on it Sir Idrys Pearce--no doubt a very distinguished figure, but it is not insignificant that he was the Tory candidate for Neath in 1959. I see the Minister of State looking quizzically over his spectacles at me as though I am wrong about the identity of the gentleman concerned. I should like to think that I am wrong, so perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will get up and tell me that I am wrong. That is yet another person on a long list of people who have lost their deposit or who have lost out on being elected in Wales but have been rewarded for their loyalty to the Tory party by being made chairs or vice chairs of various bodies.

There was a day when the big five who were seen as very important to the life of Wales were the Welsh rugby selectors. People went in awe of them. That no longer applies. The big five now are those who are chairs or vice chairs of more than one quango in Wales at the same time. Those five people are John Elfed Jones, the chairman of Welsh Water which was a quango at the time although it has now been transformed into a private company ; he is also on the Welsh Language Board ; Dr. Gwyn Jones of the Welsh Development Agency and the BBC broadcasting council for Wales ; Sir Donald Walters, the vice chair of the Welsh Development Agency and chairman of the council of University college, Cardiff ; Geoffrey Inkin, chair of the Land Authority for Wales and of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation ; and Mr. John Allen, chairman of Tai Cymru, or Housing for Wales, and vice chairman, under Geoffrey Inkin, of the Land Authority for Wales. The Tories do not have all that many people to put on those quangos, so they put them on to two quangos at a time. The reason is that the Tories do not trust many people in Wales, because not many people in Wales trust the Tories. Apart from those five people, they cannot find anyone else whom they regard as trustworthy enough and safe enough to serve on quangos.

At a time when the Tory Government are so unpopular, they realise that these chaps go to the same dinner parties and therefore they form part of a little freemasonry which runs Wales, with the Secretary of State's assistance. That arrangement is about as ethical as the day Caligula

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appointed his horse a pro-consul in the outer reaches of the Roman empire. At the election, the people of Wales will reject what the Tories have done.

Quangos are devolution without democracy. It is high time that democracy was put into devolution. Under this extremely corrupt system, in which all those people are mates of the Secretary of State, they all throw their weight about to a completely unacceptable extent. Only last week at a meeting of the court of University college, Cardiff, complaints were made that Cardiff Bay Development Corporation was blocking a development in south Cardiff. The college is extremely keen about opening up a third campus. It wants to spend £69 million, which would create hundreds of construction jobs and hundreds of places for students in University college, Cardiff. Of course, the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation is throwing its weight around saying, "We don't really like this." It does not have to submit that view to any open and democratic test. If it does not feel like it, it blocks it. It means that the ideal financial year has already been lost. The window during the recession would have meant that the land could be bought cheaply, cheap building contracts could be obtained, and the momentum would have got going. That would assist in the creation of those thousands of jobs in Cardiff bay to which the hon. Member for Cardiff, North referred. The reality is that the quangos are blocking those new jobs. It is the opposite of the picture that the hon. Member for Cardiff, North tried to paint. South Glamorgan health authority is another quango run by a rejected Conservative politician, Mr. Alun Jones. He is close to the Secretary of State and is attempting to hide from the people of Cardiff, West and the rest of south Glamorgan the hidden agenda for closing Rookwood hospital--a rehabilitation hospital--the Prince of Wales Orthopaedic hospital in my constituency, and Cardiff Royal Infirmary in the constituency of the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist).

Mr. Grist : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Morgan : I am sorry, but it is impossible under the 10-minutes rule.

Since Mr. Jones is a mate of the Secretary of State, the right hon. Gentleman will not let him down and announce just before the election that those hospitals are to be closed. They are major hospitals and none of them has fewer than 150 beds. We find out about the proposed closure only when a document is leaked to the local press. The Welsh Development Agency is in an interesting state at the moment. The Public Accounts Committee is investigating how the chairman elect came to have a grant of £17,500. The following year the WDA made it clear that the old corn mill in Porthmadoc, for which the grant was made available under the rural conversion grant scheme, did not qualify. Two and a half years later, the chairman has started to pay back that grant. The money is being paid back only after probing by myself and investigating journalists and with the prospect of an investigation by the Public Accounts Committee. That gap of two and a half years between notification and the money being paid back would not be a privilege applying to any small private business man, but it occurs when one is a mate of the Secretary of State and attends the same dinners. There is the temptation not to obey the same rules as ordinary small business men. That is what is so appallingly corrupt. There will always be the temptation to make up the rules

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because the Secretary of State will offer protection. I have been told that the shredder at the Welsh Development Agency is likely to need a new motor by the end of this week. I appreciate that that was said in humour, but it is an interesting and worrying comment. I hope that it is not true, as the WDA has to produce a note for the Public Accounts Committee about what happened in the dealings between the chairman and the WDA.

Despite the blithe confidence shown by the Secretary of State in the future of the Welsh economy, a wave of bankruptcies is passing across Wales. The companies involved include Hailey Park Motors, Cladcolor Profiling, Precision Circuits in Cwmbran, Baverstock's Hotel, EC Computers in Cardiff and the Three Salmons Hotel Group. The greatest bankruptcy of all is the bankruptcy of the Government's economic policy.

8.33 pm

Mr. Ray Powell (Ogmore) : I was tempted not to participate in this debate, because I know that many of my colleagues wish to speak and because most of my day has been spent launching the proposals for the new building in Parliament street. I should like to put on record the fact that, in the Committee dealing with phase 2 of the accommodation, we have total co- operation from Government Members. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for matters concerning Wales.

When the Secretary of State was a member of the usual channels, I always thought that he had a pleasant disposition and was above all sorts of intrigues. When he was appointed Secretary of State, I congratulated him as I had congratulated his predecessor. I congratulated his predecessor because he represents Worcester, which is where my parents were born.

Many figures for unemployment levels are bandied about. It is worth putting on record the facts since 1979. Part of the area that I represented then is now represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths). The Boundary Commission decided to carve up the constituency in the hope of creating a Tory seat. For the first three or four years, that was successful, but we have changed that now, as on 9 April we intend to change many more Tory seats. In 1979, my constituency of Ogmore had a working population of 100, 000. Without all the distorted record keeping that has been imposed on us by the Tory Government, there was 3.7 per cent. unemployment. A total of 2 per cent. of that 3.7 per cent. were unemployable, as they were ex-miners suffering from silicosis or pneumoconiosis. In 1979, there were seven pits in the Ogmore constituency, employing 7,800 miners. There were many others employed in the industry, in transport and so on and in the many other industries connected with mining. From 1979 to 1982-83, every pit in that constituency was closed. In addition, the de-manning of the steelworks at Margam, introduced by the Tory Government, led to 12,000 redundant steelworkers, most of whom were constituents of Ogmore. Within three years, 20,000 of my constituents were put out of work. Ministers continue to tell us that unemployment is low in Ogmore. Hon. Members who represent constituencies in Wales and hold surgeries there know the facts. I know that the Secretary of

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State cannot hold any surgeries in Wales in order to know what the people of Wales are thinking, because he does not represent a Welsh constituency.

People do not seem to recognise that Wales is represented by 26 Labour Members, six Conservative Members, three Plaid Cymru Members and three Liberal Democrats. Whenever there are negotiations on any issue, the majority party--the Labour party--should be consulted first. Instead of that, the tail is wagging the dog and occasionally shaking the dog about. The six Tory Members dominate negotiations because we have a Tory Government.

We have had a disaster in Ogmore since 1979. I have given the facts and figures, but on the broader issues we look to the experts to give us the details. The expert on housing is Shelter. No one can suggest that it is dominated solely by the Labour party or trades union movement. I am sure that the Secretary of State has received a copy of Shelter's document. It refers to the housing crisis that now affects all parts of Wales. It

"estimates that 65,000 people will have experienced homelessness in one form or another in Wales in 1991"--

65,000 people homeless in Wales, not in London.

Some of us have worked as volunteers on the soup kitchens, going down to Victoria embankment at midnight to give the homeless cups of soup, chocolate or tea. I wonder whether any Minister is compassionate enough to do that. If he is, perhaps he will think about the 65,000 homeless people in Wales and the thousands of unemployed construction workers who are crying out for a job. They could easily be employed if the Government were to be more compassionate in allocating funds to enable local authorities to build council houses and to house those 65,000 homeless people. Shelter states :

"almost one hundred thousand homes in Wales were considered unfit or lacking basic facilities in the last government survey of house conditions.

Shelter Cymru's case and enquiry statistics are one of the most complete records of housing problems in Wales. The most recent figures show : increasing young homelessness, increasing mortgage arrears and repossessions, increasing illegal evictions, increasing debt and eviction. The housing crisis can affect anyone at anytime, as just some of the enquiries on a typical day at a Shelter Cymru Housing Rights Centre show."

Mr. Edwards : Those statistics show the housing crisis in Wales. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State should show how each district authority in Wales is spending 25 per cent. of its capital receipts on housing ? If that is what the Government claim, can they prove it?

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