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Mr. Morgan: The Secretary of State seems to be shaking his head. Let me read from a note that I received from one of the Clerks of the House. He states:
- "What is unusual about the WDA Bill, and, as far as we can discover, unprecedented, is not to impose any ceiling at all on the amount to which a limit may be raised by order. I say that cautiously because it is never easy to prove a negative."
Mr. Morgan: The Secretary of State seems not to understand that a power has never been given by statutory instrument before, with no capping limit on it. That has never been done before. That is the view of a senior Clerk of the House. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has a different view. We know that he was something of a wunderkind 20 years ago, and had hardly sprung from the womb when he made his famous speech in the very year that the WDA was founded. We all remember that. Perhaps the Secretary of State still thinks that he is a wunderkind and knows more about such matters than the Clerks of the House. There will be others who do not agree with him about that, but we shall have to see who is right. There is no precedent for extending the secondary legislative power in this way--the Secretary of State may be proud of that and he may think that he is Henry VIII. I am not sure, but the Clerks of the House clearly believe that the procedure is unprecedented.
It is odd that the power, as it related to the Scottish Development Agency, was passed through secondary legislation in 1990, but the next measure extending the financial limits of that agency's successor body will have to go through primary legislation because it has exhausted its secondary legislative powers. That reveals the confusion at the heart of the Government's attitude towards the Scottish Development Agency and its successor bodies and the Welsh Development Agency.
Mr. Rowlands:
From the gist of what my hon. Friend is saying, am I to understand that he will support our amendment to remove that provision?
Mr. Morgan:
I have not seen any such amendment. Has an amendment been tabled? The issue will no doubt be raised in Committee and we can see whether the Government are right. Given our proposals for a Welsh Assembly, what the Government have done is highly convenient. It would allow the democratic control, which the Government now seem anxious to take away from the Floor of the House. If there were a Welsh Assembly, I would support the Government's move. It represents an important development if the Government are trying to give us favours in terms of our future proposals for a Welsh Assembly. The Secretary of State for Health was also helpful on that front today when he introduced more confusion.
Sir Wyn Roberts:
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that if the power were to be transferred to the proposed Welsh Assembly, there would be no limit on the assembly's power to increase the amount, as specified in the Bill?
Mr. Morgan:
It does not cause additional expenditure; it permits it--as the Secretary of State's briefing note rightly said. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Conwy, as a former Minister, would agree with that. It is a question of the loss of parliamentary control. We keep hearing about the West Lothian question, but the Government are happy to get their Members to vote for a loss of parliamentary control--I think that that was the point being made by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. There is not the same degree of parliamentary control simply because the measure cannot be amended. That is at the crux of the matter--that is why measures are being transferred to secondary legislation.
The Secretary of State is asking the House to approve the removal of the right to amend a measure by passing it over to secondary legislation, with no ultimate capping limit--that is unprecedented. The Secretary of State should have explained why he was doing that. His only explanation is that he did not realise that he was doing it. Obviously, he has not received the same briefing as I did from the Clerks of the House.
The issues involving the WDA concern all of us who represent Welsh constituencies. How do we get the balance right between east and west, between inward investors and indigenous firms? How do we ensure that when, for the first time in 20 years, the WDA hits a big inward investor such as LG, that does not absorb all its finances so that it is unable to capitalise on firms that could become suppliers? Those firms could be indigenous or they could have moved into the area. They may be on a smaller scale and it may be appropriate for them to set
up in places that do not attract large numbers of commuters such as we have in south-east Wales and the Swansea area. Getting the balance right between east and west, between large and small, and between inward investors and indigenous investors is what lies at the heart of the topics raised by hon. Members today.
We have heard many comments from those who are concerned that, because the Government cannot give a sustainable commitment to fund the WDA for a two, three or four-year period and keep failing in their primary duty to provide a framework for the agency's financing, the agency does not know where it is. If the LG development proceeds in Wales, will it exhaust the agency's financial capabilities to sustain supplier industries that might be able to feed off LG, and thereby prevent building up a much stronger indigenous sector?
The final measure of whether the WDA is a success and of whether Welsh Office Ministers have looked after the WDA--although their predecessors opposed its creation--is the state of the Welsh economy. People have said that the Welsh economy is a brilliant success, because one or two big names have moved in. LG is the first mega-development for 20 years, but--for the purposes of those of us representing Welsh constituencies--the state of the Welsh economy is not explained by listing the big names and saying that LG is a great success or that JCB's expansion in north Wales is a great success. There are other great successes--such as Ocean Technical Glass moving to Cardiff, Newport Waferfad, and Halla moving into Merthyr--but the bottom line is the state of the Welsh economy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Gwilym Jones):
It has been very good to have such a good-natured debate on the Bill--until the speech of the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan). However, I readily agree with his conjecture that one can always find a couple of figures to try to support the argument that one is inventing, because he proceeded to do precisely that in his 15 minutes. I offer him my sympathy because, judging by Opposition Members' interventions, I suspect that he will have trouble from Labour Back Benchers in Committee.
Mr. Morgan:
What was I inventing? Will the Minister quote it, chapter and verse, or withdraw his comment?
Mr. Jones:
I think that Hansard will demonstrate that very clearly tomorrow morning. I invite the hon. Gentleman to read it, to see whether he can repeat the statements a second time. However, he does not need to worry, because I have great confidence that he will not have to worry about the Welsh affairs portfolio for much longer.
This was a good-natured debate, and why not? It was about the success story of the way in which we have nurtured and developed the Welsh Development Agency.
It was good to hear speeches from the more senior Labour Members--if I may so call them--as they are those rare commodities on Opposition Benches: hon. Members with ministerial experience. It was good to hear from the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) and from the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) and for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones).
It was especially good to hear from the two "originators"--those who took part in the original debate on setting up the WDA, my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) and the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris). My right hon. Friend very effectively nailed the claims made by Opposition Members about the way in which he and successive Secretaries of State have maintained the WDA.
I am a little surprised at the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon. Initially we knew what he wanted to say, but I always thought that he never made a more pertinent observation than, "You cannot ignore an elephant when you find it on your doorstep," which was a reference to the result of the 1979 referendum on a Welsh Assembly. He attempted to recreate the first fumbling footsteps of the child who has now been honed into the superb contributor to team Wales, which he so ably captains. I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has very knowing warnings about his party going back to the old, failed policies of the past. It is very likely that the phrase in his mind will be, "It will all end in tears"--which harks back to 1979.
This debate is about a success story--about how we have used the WDA as a key part of team Wales. We are determined to make the agency even more successful in the next Parliament. I feel that that objective is very much in line with the detailed analysis presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards). He was absolutely right to stress the necessity of confidence in the Welsh economy. I was glad to have his welcome and that of the hon. Members for Pembroke (Mr. Ainger) and for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's announcement earlier tonight, on what we want the WDA to do, in being even more ambitious outside the eastern corridors of the A55 in north Wales and the M4 in the south.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) welcomed the same announcement, although he spoilt his welcome by claiming that nothing was being done and that we did not understand the necessity of doing something. He did not listen to what my right hon. Friend said. Immediately before making that point, he reminded the House that the WDA already had a target of creating 20 per cent. of its jobs outside those two corridors. Already this year, the agency has done better than that and reached a target of 32 per cent. If we do not have any understanding of the desirability of doing even more in that area, why are we setting targets to improve and extend the existing aims? Of course, the criticism comes from the hon. Gentleman who would give us lessons in civility.
The right hon. Member for Llanelli and the hon. Member for Swansea, East were understandably concerned about what the agency had already done to the west of the corridor in the south. I remind them that, since 1983, the agency has been involved in 111 inward
investment projects in west Wales, which have created or safeguarded more than 12,000 jobs. It has entered into numerous joint venture agreements with local authorities and the private sector to achieve significant regeneration in the west.
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