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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Gwilym Jones): Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Carlile: Of course I will give way to the Minister's brief on the Front Bench.
Mr. Jones: I feel I have been promoted, but I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. If he has an apparent prohibition on non-Welsh Members speaking in the debate, I am curious why he ducked last year's debate and sent the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) to substitute for him?
Mr. Carlile: The hon. Gentleman knows that, in these debates, time is at a premium and that it is extremely unhelpful if Back-Bench Members--
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. As time is at a premium, it would be more appropriate if the subject in hand were dealt with rather than the question of whether Members of Parliament should or should not put forward their names. Everyone knows that all are equally free to do so.
Mr. Carlile: Of course I will not pursue the matter, Madam Deputy Speaker, save to say that it is extremely important that Welsh Members should have the first opportunity to speak in these debates. Those of us who catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, are those who are called.
I should like to discuss the position in the Powys unitary authority in the next 12 months. I hope that the Secretary of State for Wales and the Minister replying to the debate will agree that that authority is not smitten by political prejudices of one sort or another. It is politically independent and is attempting to do an honest job and to provide as good a level of service to its inhabitants as possible.
Powys unitary authority is a victim of the use of what appears to be an outmoded formula in the complex circumstances of the reorganisation of local government in rural mid-Wales. In real terms, the real loss to the
authority for the forthcoming year is £4 million.That money must be cut from somewhere. It will be from services that affect people. Will the Minister tell the House and the people of Powys why the Government are not only forcing a substantial increase in council tax--although, in Powys, that will be limited to about20 per cent.--but accompanying that with a cut in services? What services will be cut?
The first thing that Powys county council has sought to cut is administration. It has succeeded in removing£2.5 million from its administrative budget. One's first reaction to that might be to say, "That is very good. We can do without a layer of administration. That is a real saving and it will not affect the services to people." But that is not true. A £2.5 million cut in administration costs in a rural county such as Powys means a significant reduction not only in jobs in local government, but, almost certainly, in the efficiency and response of services provided to local people.
It is one of the facts of political life that Welsh local authorities have little discretion. I do not applaud a position in which central Government give Welsh local government so high a proportion of its expenditure that they have local councils by the throat. I would much prefer a different local government financing mechanism.
We are faced, however, with the current mechanism. That means a reduction not just in jobs as a result of those administrative cuts, but in other services. In my constituency, there is a bridge that is used by school buses, agricultural vehicles and other traffic. Without notice, it was closed and, overnight, its weight limit was reduced. Now, neither lorries nor school buses can go over it. As a result, buses taking children to school must make a 21-mile detour twice a day. That has led to well publicised and not in the least surprising protests by parents of children who travel on those buses. Meanwhile, the highway authority says that it had to reduce the bridge weight limit to make it safe, but that it cannot give any idea of when the bridge will be repaired.
In the vicinity of Garthmyl, near Montgomery in my constituency, a metal Bailey-type bridge has stood forthe whole of the 16 years that I have lived in Montgomeryshire and, I believe, for about 20 years before that. There is no answer as to when that will be repaired. The highways budget, which is extremely important for people's mobility in a rural area such as mine, should not face such privation.
I will give two further examples of services that are bound to be cut. The trading standards authority, which is extremely important in rural Wales because of the animal health provisions that it has to enforce, faces severe financial restrictions. Obviously, animal welfare and health take priority for that authority. As a result, virtually no money will be left for the other trading standards functions.
In education, it is inevitable that, as elsewhere in Wales, the increase in teachers' salaries, which teachers merit--many of them do not have the professional status that they deserve compared with other professions and occupations--will mean that class sizes will increase. As a result, schools will not be as good. We are lucky: we have good schools in rural Wales, but why--because the Government do not give them funding--should there be a reduction in education standards and an increase in professional dissatisfaction among teachers?
I do not want to take up any more time. I have merely given some examples of the sort of cuts that will have to be made even in a county about which no Minister can make accusations of political prejudice, or have preconceptions on political lines.
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley):
I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this important debate, and also for what the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) said about my Welsh credentials. I do indeed feel fully qualified to make what I hope may be a useful contribution to the debate.
The most significant aspect of the speeches by Opposition Members was especially true of the speech by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies). It was, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy(Sir W. Roberts) pointed out, the fact that the hon. Gentleman signally failed to answer the simple question that the Secretary of State asked him--if the Labour party is unhappy with the settlement, how much more money would a future Labour Government provide?
That was a simple question, and although thehon. Gentleman did not allow me to intervene on him, I should be more than happy to allow him to intervene on me now, if he is prepared or able to tell a listening nation how much extra money Labour would give. Am I speaking slowly enough? Is the question simple enough? No.
The time that I spent listening to the hon. Gentleman's speech was one of the longest 18 minutes of my life, because in all that time he said so little. He carped a lot, but failed to answer the questions. I do not know whether he has ever been on "Question Time" on BBC television, but if he did appear on that programme it would be a dull affair, because members of the audience would ask the questions, but he would fail to answer them. He is not even prepared to come to the Dispatch Box now.
I was a county councillor in Wales for six years, and I also have a retail business in Swansea. I have lived34 years of my life in Wales. When I was on the county council, we had consultation periods for business men to come to the local authority and plead with us to keep the business rates as low as we could. When business rates shot through the roof, those businesses, many of them operating at the margins, found it difficult to find the money from their profits.
What a farce that consultation exercise was for many of the business men. After they had made their plea and explained to the leaders of the local authority the problems their businesses faced, and the difficulty that they would have in finding extra money to meet the bills, the local authority put the business rates up through the roof. That was a tremendous slap in the face for local businesses in difficult circumstances.
I am delighted that control has now been taken away from local authorities, to prevent those businesses, which were making such great efforts and providing jobs in
Wales--and throughout the rest of the country--from being penalised. They are, of course, the lifeblood of many small villages.
A lot is said about levels of council tax, and we have heard much carping from Opposition Members. However, council tax rates are much lower in Wales thanin England; they are certainly lower in Wales than in my constituency. It is also fair to say that, if areas were represented by Conservative-controlled local authorities, their council tax would be that much lower than if they were run by Labour authorities, as many now are. My advice to people in Wales is to reconsider what local authorities spend on their behalf, and at the local elections to choose Conservative councillors, who will spend their money efficiently.
I saw much wasteful expenditure when I was on West Glamorgan county council--
Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West):
Will thehon. Gentleman give way?
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