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Mr. Denzil Davies: The hon. Gentleman says that Wales would easily qualify for cohesion funds, but that would be true only if Wales was a member of the Council of Ministers. Is that the proposition he is advancing?
Mr. Jones: Of course, the hon. Gentleman is correct. Under the current rules, only member states can qualify for cohesion funds--but why were cohesion funds established in the first place? They were established because the European Union decided that it was important to have social and economic cohesion in the run-up to economic and monetary union.
Mr. Richards: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jones: No, I listened to the hon. Gentleman, and he must now listen to me.
My point is that the Maastricht treaty contained a specific commitment to social and economic cohesion; accompanying that was a recognition that there would be parts of the European Union that would need assistance to qualify under the strict convergence criteria, which were extremely monetarist in tone. What emerged from negotiations by the Commission and from European Union guidelines was that structural funds were doubled over a period, so as to assist those poorer and peripheral regions. The money was devoted to helping countries such as Wales to qualify, yet Wales gets not a single penny piece more under the regional funds from 1994-99 than we received under the previous regime.
Mr. Denzil Davies:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jones:
No, I have given way once; I will not give way again. I must finish my point.
The reason why structural funds were increased so substantially was to help countries such as Wales and Scotland and the poorer regions of England.
Mr. Davies:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jones:
No, I have made it perfectly clear that I will not give way. The right hon. Gentleman has already had the opportunity to develop his arguments.
Mr. Jones:
I did give way to the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Jones:
Once is enough in the present circumstances.
The structural funds that were devoted to regions such as Wales should have come to Wales. It is a bogus argument to say that Wales would not qualify when it patently does.
There is one other difficulty in relation to regional funding, which is that the way in which Wales is divided for regional fund purposes means that we would not have qualified under the old rules. In other words, the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics II areas
divided Wales into two regions, not four. The problem with that is that, as north-west Wales and north-east Wales are joined, and there is a similar pattern in south Wales, the western seaboard of Wales or the valleys of south Wales could not qualify. The Welsh Office has recognised that difficulty, and the Commission is to consider redrawing the map of Wales for European Union funding purposes. Let us hope that this time the Welsh Office gets it right; it will receive Opposition Members' support to ensure that that happens.
There is a clear case for designating the western seaboard of Wales a special region, because it already has Interreg funding. Nonsensically, under the Interreg initiative, the western seaboard of Wales will collect about £10 million over five years, whereas the eastern seaboard of Ireland will receive £70 million. The difference in population accounts for part of the difference, but the main difference is that that part of Ireland has objective 1 status, whereas we have objective 5b status. That is grossly unfair, and even under the current system it is possible for us to ensure that objective 1 status applies to the western seaboard of Wales.
We know that the Commissioner for Regional Policy in Brussels is considering ways of changing the operation of regional funding; she is saying that regional funding will be far more concentrated in years to come. She wants smaller areas to benefit; funding will be more focused. Wales, as it is currently organised and constituted for funding, would lose even more under that system. To ensure that the parts of Wales that should benefit are taken into account, we must bear those factors in mind during renegotiation of regional policy--which will be necessary as we seek expansion into eastern Europe.
Mr. Jonathan Evans:
In relation to the next reclassification, which the hon. Gentleman knows is currently a matter to be considered, the area he mentioned covers Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwynedd and Powys. Is he saying that Clwyd and Powys should be separated from Dyfed and Gwynedd, and therefore should not have the best opportunity of participating in bids for European funding? Is that his argument?
Mr. Jones:
I did not say that; what I said was clear. The western seaboard of Wales already secures Interreg funding. That area, taken together, would qualify for objective 1 status. The Minister knows well that parts of Clwyd and Powys would qualify, as they currently do, under objective 5b. He also knows well that neither Clwyd nor Powys would qualify for objective 1. I am asking the Welsh Office to argue the case to maximise the benefit for Wales--objective 1 in parts of Wales and objective 5b in other parts of Wales. That is what he should argue for.
Under the scheme that I have proposed, no part of Wales would lose, but more areas would benefit.
I conclude by addressing an important fact that is close to the Minister's heart, and that I hope he comments on when he winds up tonight--the need for us to get cracking with setting up an agri-environmental scheme for the whole of Wales. He knows that it has been said that the Tir Cymen scheme is wonderful. The environmentally sensitive areas that we are developing--the best bits of Tir Cymen--are being taken on board. We also have several other small agri-environmental schemes.
I was very surprised to hear the Secretary of State talk about the review of Tir Cymen. I should have thought that we have now had a good deal of experience of that scheme, which is very beneficial and is welcomed by farmers. Five years ago, farmers probably would not have embraced Tir Cymen as they have, and we would not have witnessed the developments in the environmentally sensitive area schemes.
Mr. Alan W. Williams (Carmarthen):
In today's debate there has been an end-of-term feeling, with three Members--the right hon. Member for Conwy(Sir W. Roberts), the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell)--probably making their final contribution to our annual Welsh day debate. I add to the tributes that hon. Members have paid to their invaluable contributions to our debates over the years, and wish them well in their future careers, be they in the other place or elsewhere.
I want to discuss devolution. To emphasise the end-of-term feeling, this will be the last speech, as it were, by a Member representing the Carmarthen constituency. It is an historic constituency, which has produced many surprises at general elections, but at the next general election it splits. There will be two Members--both Labour, we hope--one for Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South, and myself as the candidate for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr.
Were it not for the Carmarthen constituency, the subject of devolution might not have been debated as vigorously as it has been in the past few months--or as vigorously as it will be in the next few months. In a by-election in 1966, Carmarthen returned the first nationalist Member of Parliament, Gwynfor Evans. That was a sea change in Celtic politics because, within a year, at a by-election in Scotland, the first Scottish nationalist Member was returned, and between 1970 and 1974 the nationalist parties peaked at a total of 12 or 14 Members of Parliament.
At about that time, the Conservative and Labour parties thought much about the constitution, and whether it should take account of the call for greater say in our government in Wales and in Scotland. I have been very much affected by such arguments. My regular contestants are the Conservative and Welsh national parties; I take an interest in what they say, and must rebut their arguments.
My commitment to devolution predates the 1966 by-election in Carmarthen. As a young student at Oxford, I attended a Liberal club meeting on decentralisation. I cannot remember whether Jo Grimond or Jeremy
Thorpe spoke, but I do remember being very impressed generally by the arguments made that evening--that Britain has a uniquely centralist form of government, that in every country in Europe and most countries worldwide, there is much stronger local or regional government, and that it would be sensible if, in our structures, more power was devolved to the regions.
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