Previous SectionIndexHome Page


6.18 pm

Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon): I want not only to support the points that have been made by the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) but to add some of my own. The procedure for tabling the motion, the details of which we will discuss later, is unsatisfactory.

For those of us who were able only on Friday to submit amendments, the workings of the Table Office again turned out to be unsatisfactory because, for reasons thatI do not understand but perhaps you can look into,Mr. Deputy Speaker, it refused to accept amendments that had been tabled and signed by hon. Members because they were not present in person. I understand that that is the drill to which we work on oral questions, but early-day motions and amendments to them and amendments to legislation are put down in writing. To have them refused on this occasion means that it is impossible for us to have on the Order Paper the amendments that we wanted to debate. That is because the motion appeared late on Thursday, amendments had to be tabled by Friday and the Table Office was unwilling to act.

I should like to lodge a protest on behalf of my staff about the way in which people on my staff were treated by the Table Office when they tried to negotiate on the matter. The attitude was far from satisfactory and the lack of courtesy was matched only by the lack of courtesy in not giving us proper notification of what was to come to the House.

This should be an important debate, but the opportunity for it to be constructive rather than a polarised party debate has been thrown out by the Secretary of State because, within half an hour of meeting the Welsh parliamentary party, the group containing all Welsh Members, he announced to the press that he intended to carry on regardless with the motion. He did not follow the representations that were properly and reasonably discussed by Members at the all-party meeting with the Secretary of State in the Norman Shaw building. The meeting seemed promising because it showed the way forward. It showed that we could discuss issues and move to a constructive way of handling such matters.

We spent an hour discussing the matter in detail and making constructive proposals about the orders, but the door was quickly shut on the overwhelming majority view of Welsh Members. That has inevitably led to polarisation and the issue will be fought line by line in the House.I regret not only that our amendments cannot be debated but that more have not been selected, because there is room to debate many of the amendments on the Order Paper. Presumably, the House does not have time for that.

If the Welsh Grand Committee is to be meaningful, Welsh Members from all parties will have to support the changes; but the Government's attitude has shown that

11 Mar 1996 : Column 688

that is highly unlikely and that we will enter a period of entrenched warfare over the Committee rather than proceed on a basis of co-operation between parties. Weak as it is, that is the way in which the Committee should discuss Welsh matters. I am unhappy with the business motion and I hope that the House will divide on it.

6.22 pm

Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery): Although I confess that I cannot and do not intend to cultivate anger on this issue, it is regrettable that the debate, which of course it is procedurally right should take place on these matters, is not taking place after a debate in the Welsh Grand Committee. Much trouble would have been avoided if the Welsh Grand Committee had had the opportunity to discuss the amendments and make recommendations, even if only on an advisory basis. That might have resulted in less contention.

The issue that will concern many hon. Members is whether there will be any significant improvement in the government of Wales as a consequence of the business motion. I do not think that there will be. However, I think that there will be some, albeit limited, improvements in the way in which the Welsh Grand Committee will operate.

I ask the Government, even at this late hour, to consider whether it would be wise to postpone the debate on Welsh business and allow the Welsh Grand Committee, in clear support of the opinions expressed to the Secretary of State at the meeting of the Welsh parliamentary party, to have its say so that we may have a seemly rather than an unseemly debate in the House.

6.23 pm

Mr. Peter Hain (Neath): There would have been no need for the debate to take this form had the Secretary of State effectively continued in the spirit of the Welsh parliamentary party and submitted the whole issue to the Welsh Grand Committee. If that had been done, all Welsh Members would have been able to get to grips with the detail and express their views. Having used the Welsh Grand Committee as an effective sounding board, the Secretary of State could then have formulated his proposals on a basis of consensus.

The Government have contrived to have a debate that could run for nearly four hours. Does that mean that they have virtually run out of business for the remainder of the Session and need to fill it with a debate under entirely unsatisfactory circumstances and against a background of deep opposition by virtually all Welsh Members, who feel that the Government are railroading these proposals through without proper consent?

Instead of allowing Welsh Members to discuss the matter properly, the Government simply want a long drawn-out skirmish in the House rather than having to table other business, because they do not have much other business. The Secretary of State had an opportunity to arrive at a consensus, initially through the Welsh parliamentary party and then through the Welsh Grand Committee. That would have concertinaed the process and would have led to a much shorter, crisper debate and could, perhaps, have resolved any outstanding issues. Instead, as will become evident when the matters are discussed, the Secretary of State has unilaterally proceeded against the wishes of the vast majority of

11 Mar 1996 : Column 689

Welsh Opposition Members--if not all--who comprise by far the greatest number of Welsh Members. He is proceeding against our wishes in a way that challenges the democratic relationship between the House and the people of Wales.

Mr. Jon Owen Jones (Cardiff, Central): As my hon. Friend says, the Secretary of State is proceeding against our wishes. Perversely, when the Secretary of State met the members of the parliamentary group, he showed that he had much sympathy with the vast majority of our proposals. Is it not even more surprising that he should choose to ignore that opportunity to reach a consensus and instead proceed in a dictatorial fashion?

Mr. Hain: My hon. Friend makes a valid point and it will be interesting to hear the Secretary of State's answer, or that of the Leader of the House if he intends to reply. The Secretary of State approached that meeting in a conciliatory and informal fashion and listened to all the views expressed at it. There was understanding and a fair consensus, and we thought that on that basis we could get the new arrangements up and running; but the Secretary of State has almost entirely ignored the spirit of the meeting and, using his majority in the Chamber, he seeks to impose these arrangements on us.

If the Secretary of State had chosen the Welsh Grand Committee route, not only would it have shortened the proceedings--that would be an advantage to everyone except perhaps the Government business managers, because it would have made a hole in their day--but it would have allowed us to establish arrangements for the Welsh Grand Committee that would have stood the test of time because they would have been based on consensus.

The suspicion must be that the Secretary of State is imposing these arrangements on us because he wants to dodge not just the will of the Welsh Grand Committee and Welsh Members but the will of the people of Wales. Welsh people do not want a half-baked, jazzed-up Welsh Grand Committee: they want a Welsh Assembly. They want to have the ability to express their views through an elected assembly so that their voices can be heard in a way that the Government have consistently denied them for the past 17 years. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West(Mr. Richards), shakes his head, but he more than any other Conservative Member consistently flouts the wishes of the Welsh people in his behaviour as a Minister and in the way in which he conducts himself in the Chamber in proceeding with the business for which he is responsible.

The Government's action will leave a sour taste in the mouths not only of Welsh Members, other than the one or two Welsh Conservative Back Benchers who are not even in the Chamber--where are they?--but of the people of Wales as a whole. Once again, the Government, who take no interest in their wishes, are flouting those wishes and riding roughshod over them by imposing arrangements that do not have the support of Welsh Members of Parliament.

6.28 pm

Dr. John Marek (Wrexham): I should like to follow and take up the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain). We should ask ourselves whether

11 Mar 1996 : Column 690

the proposed changes--if and when we debate them--will improve the standard of decision making in the Principality. I believe that they will not. More paper will be used, more words will be printed and more words will be spoken, but the proposed changes will not make one iota of difference to the quality of decisions. The final arbiter of that will remain the English Tory party in the House of Commons.

My hon. Friend the Member for Neath was right. Just six Government Members are present, of whom just one represents a Welsh constituency. The Conservative party has other Welsh Members--


Next Section

IndexHome Page