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6.46 pm
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. William Hague): This has been an interesting and varied debate. It was opened by the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing), who began by saying how pleased she was that it was well attended. Unfortunately, she was greeted by a sea of green, particularly on the Benches of the official Opposition. They continue to be a sea of green. It was an early example of what characterised the hon. Lady's speech--an expression of wishful thinking in the absence of factual support. However, she is the mover of the motion and she deserves special attention, which I shall give her later.
First, I pay tribute to what were probably the valedictory speeches of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro). Given that they have been Members of this House for almost as long as I have been alive, I must pay tribute to them with appropriate humility. The whole House will wish to pay tribute to their length of service and their consistency of view and, in the case of my right hon. Friend, to his contribution to the good government of the United Kingdom in general and of Scotland in particular.
Those of my hon. Friends who spoke in this wide-ranging debate drew attention to the huge economic progress being made in this United Kingdom, including Scotland and Wales, particularly in the creation of jobs.
Opposition Members called for vision, but were unable able to provide any; they called for more spending, but did not describe where they would find the money; and they called for a re-ordering of priorities, but did not say what the priorities should be.
Only two members of the official Opposition spoke. The hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) referred to the merger of the Pembrokeshire and Derwen trusts, which the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones), announced earlier today. I must stress that the merger came after proposals from the trusts themselves and after a long consultation period. That is different from issuing diktats, which is what the shadow Scottish Office team appears to be doing.
The real question about the health service, to which the motion refers, is that, given that the Government have guaranteed that in every year of the next Parliament we shall increase health spending over and above inflation, why do not the official Opposition give that guarantee? What are they trying to hide about their plans for the health service?
Mr. Hague:
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan), whom we welcome to the debate, and whose recent haircut we welcome even more, now wishes to intervene.
Mr. Morgan:
In spite of the Secretary of State's obvious jealousy at the proliferation of my hair, I put it to him that, far from being cast-iron, the guarantee about real terms increases in national health service expenditure in Wales has already been broken. The increase for next year is only 2.4 per cent. more than what is being spent this year, which is less than the Bank of England's projection for the rate of inflation.
Mr. Hague:
The hon. Gentleman's hair style is the only thing about him of which I am jealous. I am not jealous of his arithmetic. Our plans for the coming year compared with those for the corresponding period last year provide for a like-for-like increase in spending on the national health service in Wales of £94 million. That increase is above the rate of inflation, and the hon. Gentleman does not promise to match it in the next Parliament.
The other speech by a member of the official Opposition was made by the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson). He said that a national minimum wage would be a landmark reform and would transform the situation of many people. His speech was all the more remarkable because he could not answer the most elementary questions about it, such as at what level it would be set. If we had been able to ask him, I have no doubt that he would not have been able to tell us how many jobs would be lost. He said that such issues would be considered by a commission. The deputy leader of the Labour party once said that a minimum wage would lead to a shake. Evidently not every fool knows that.
The hon. Gentleman said that, with such a huge amount of public expenditure, there was bound to be room for a re-ordering of priorities. He said that there must be scope to re-order priorities, given that the Government spend
billions of pounds. Where is that argument when we discuss local government spending? How come Labour wants the Government to give more money because there is no scope whatever to re-order priorities in local government?
The hon. Gentleman called for a long-term view and left in a great hurry to get on with his role as shadow Minister for election planning.
Mr. Wilson:
On another aspect of the property debate, will the Secretary of State tell us whether any Cabinet Minister is holding out the prospect of a doubling of the rate of VAT on fuel to 17.5 per cent.? Is he going against the views of the Government and of the Conservative party? Yes or no.
Mr. Hague:
As far as I know, no Cabinet Ministers are making announcements about that matter.
We have achieved a revolution in the job prospects of the people of this country. That has gone widely unnoticed by Opposition Members during this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside (Mr. Walker) referred to the rise in living standards in recent years, and the performance of the United Kingdom economy in topping the league for inward investment. Do Opposition Members think that Hyundai would be coming to Scotland and LG to Wales if those companies thought that this country was the no hope wasteland that the Opposition often describe it as?
Mr. Salmond:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hague:
I shall not give way any more: I am dealing with the points raised in the debate, as the Minister who winds up is meant to do.
We have the highest proportion of people in work of any major European economy. In Wales, we have more people in manufacturing employment than it was 10 years ago. Total employment is almost 100,000 higher than 10 years ago. None of those points was acknowledged by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). He spoke about the financial position of local authorities. Local government in Wales receives 88 per cent. of the money it needs from the Welsh Office. It gets a higher level of assistance than local government elsewhere in the United Kingdom. It has had an increase in line with inflation, which adds up to £64 million for the coming year. Local authorities should explain to their electors how they are spending the money.
The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy complained that the link between pensions and wages had been broken. If that link were to be restored, it would, at a stroke, cost the taxpayer more than £8 billion a year. How would Plaid Cymru finance that in an independent Wales? It is all very well to behave like a pressure group, writing cheques that it knows will never be cashed, but some of us have to deal with the practical realities of government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) referred to our success in attracting inward investment, and pointed out the dangers of the social chapter. Opposition Members have not grasped the fact that the
Government are addressing those issues by extending opportunity for people. The new generation in Britain today has a greater opportunity to go on to higher and further education than any previous generation, and a wider choice of career than any comparable generation in Europe, because new jobs and investment are going to Britain. When young people start a career, they have the freedom to join or not to join a trade union, which was not previously possible. In the past few years, it has been easier and cheaper for them to buy a first home than at any time for 35 years. When they have their own children, they will be able to choose how they will be educated. Opposition Members do not believe in giving people that choice.
This is a curious motion to put before the House: some hon. Members have actually read it. It bears all the hallmarks of having been written by a committee. It mentions almost any subject that anyone could think of, and throws in a variety of terms that are not defined, and which were not defined in the debate. It ends up with a mixture of pious hopes and vague wishes, rather like a composite motion at a Labour party conference, which probably explains why most Labour Members have not been present.
The hon. Members who introduced the motion have not said where they would get the money from to meet their pious hopes. I said that I would comment on the opening speech of the hon. Member for Moray. The most memorable moment in her speech was the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster(Dame E. Kellett-Bowman), who said that people have to take responsibility for themselves and their families, and that they want to do so. My hon. Friend said that individuals, as well as the Government, should ask what they can do about social justice.
The hon. Member for Moray said that people no longer talk about visions and values. Conservatives talk about visions, which is why we have launched a new vision of the pension system. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who has just come into the Chamber, should welcome that. The Government have a vision of rising living standards and increased personal freedom. We value freedom of choice in education rather than the hypocrisy of denouncing choice and then exercising it oneself, as practised by some Opposition Members.
The hon. Lady said that we must have vision, and then gave a list of issues on which we must have vision. She asked, "Where does the European Union go?" Imagine John F. Kennedy standing up to announce his vision and saying, "Where do we go?" She said, "Is the United Nations as respected as it should be?" Imagine Martin Luther King saying, "This is my vision: is the United Nations as respected as it should be?" She said that we should be involved in a plethora of international organisations. She may not have noticed that we are involved in a plethora of international organisations. She said that we should reach out and show that the political body still has a vision. If the debate is anything to go by, the political bodies sitting on the Plaid Cymru and Scottish National party Benches have no vision.
The hon. Lady complained that people were cynical about politicians. People become cynical about politicians when they raise expectations that cannot be fulfilled and present misleading information. What is the real vision of nationalist parties? Insular Governments in declining countries with bankrupt economies. That is what they
offer to the people of this country. They have come to the House with unsubstantiated assertions, out-of-date statistics and futile wishful thinking. They have called for justice and equality without defining it, for spending without saying how they would finance it and for jobs while pursuing policies that would destroy them.
The Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru have reminded us that the distinction of being wrong about every major issue of the late 20th century does not belong to the Leader of the Opposition on his own. They share that distinction. Being wrong about every issue that they have raised in the debate, and, most important of all, being wrong about their wish to destroy the United Kingdom, means that their motion deserves to be emphatically rejected by the House.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:--
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