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Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Clarke: No way. I sat here for hours listening. Had the hon. Gentleman done the same, I would have let him intervene.
A Scottish Parliament is most desirable. I support the proposed constitutional reforms. I have also always been in favour of a change in the system of voting. I should like to see new procedures, timetables and ways of conducting business in Edinburgh. I welcome the exciting prospect of creating a new forum in Edinburgh and having it run in a reasonable way, and, with all due respect to this place, without its archaic and backward procedures. I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West about that.
I remember a story, which is rather funny but contains a lesson. Back in 1974, the Monktonhall branch of the NUM held a meeting to analyse what had happened in the strike. A lot of criticism was expressed until the delegate said, "Stop! I have had enough. Yes, we made mistakes in the strike, but they were correct mistakes."
Hon. Members should not think that the House has not, through the democratic process, made some howlers and real clangers in the past. We, the Scottish people and the Welsh people, will make the mistakes--but they will be correct mistakes. I think that hon. Members know what I mean. We will not have colonial officers telling us that decisions will hurt us, they know better than us and eventually we will benefit. Those who said that they knew better than we did are getting their P45s--the lot of them. The people of Scotland know better; they are very bright and intelligent people who are not blinkered.
I say to the rest of the people in the United Kingdom, "Come and join us. You do not have to have the formula for Scotland, Wales or anywhere else. Devolve, so that democracy goes to the people and the people are involved." The people responsible will have more time and be more accountable. Those who make the decisions will not be cloistered in some room down in London, part of some big Department; they will be up front in an accessible Parliament where they can report to the people. That is what we are looking for in Scotland and that is what we will get.
Mr. Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire):
I should first congratulate all those who have made their maiden speeches before me in this debate and say how honoured I am to make mine.
As some hon. Members may have noticed, my name is not Welsh. In fact, it is not even British; it is Estonian. Both my parents left Estonia at about the time of the
second world war because of the oppression that threatened their lives. Naturally enough, they met and moved to Northern Ireland, as Estonians seem to do. I was born in Northern Ireland and that is why I sound Northern Irish rather than Estonian.
While discussing the campaign in Montgomeryshire, my agent wistfully suggested that I should change my name to Alex Carlile so that we would not have to reprint the posters. I turned down his suggestion, but over the past months I have discovered that, on the west side of my constituency, they have started calling me Llembit ap Opik. So, slowly, I am becoming Welsh.
By a remarkable coincidence, my name turns out to be an anagram of, "I like to b MP." I can only congratulate my parents on realising my future career 32 years ago. I shall be wearing my Palace of Westminster pass for another few weeks to give hon. Members an even chance of getting my name right in the Strangers Bar.
Among the political giants I follow are names such as David Davies, Clement Davies, Emlyn Hooson and, of course, my immediate predecessor, the famous and great Alex Carlile. The debt that I owe Alex Carlile cannot be put into words. It was a source of sadness to the constituency that his personal circumstances caused him to stand down, although I am sure that putting his family first was the right decision. He leaves a tremendous legacy. I hope that people across not only Montgomeryshire but the House, Britain and Northern Ireland recognise the tremendous contribution to Parliament that he has made over the past 14 years.
The same old Alex made one last appearance on Sky Television on election night. My result came in and the commentator turned to Alex and said, "So, Mr. Carlile, the Liberal Democrats hold your seat with an increased majority." He wasted no time in responding, "Yes, but the total vote has gone down!" Good old Alex. I thank him sincerely for all the help that he has given me and the Liberal Democrats over the years.
I support and applaud the proposal to have a referendum. While we may haggle about the details, no democrat--whether Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru, Labour or Conservative--can oppose the common sense of giving a nation the right to decide its future. The Labour proposals could be described as timid, but they are a start and it would be churlish for a political party to oppose them simply because they do not go far enough. I shall campaign for a yes vote in the referendum, along with other Liberal Democrats.
The benefits of a devolved Assembly are legion. It would see an end to the quango culture that threatens so much of what used to be under democratic control only 10 to 15 years ago. For example, the very survival of the hospitals in the Dyfed Powys area may depend on the speedy completion of the referendum; there is a sense that the quangos can no longer make crucial decisions about the future of people's health, without understanding what the people of Wales want.
A devolved Assembly will assist the future economic regeneration of Wales. The Development Board for Rural Wales has done sterling work, especially in mid-Wales, to regenerate the economy. A devolved Assembly or Sennedd could make a tremendous contribution to revitalising Wales through such agencies. It could make a start on operating more sensibly parts of the health service, such as the ambulance service. I shall not go into
details tonight, but the ambulance service has been appallingly mismanaged recently. One classic example is the famous one-person ambulance team, which prompts the obvious question, "Who carries the other end of the stretcher?" The Shropshire Star has run a petition to save the ailing ambulance service in the Powys area, and in two weeks it has amassed 6,500 signatures.
Devolution would bring something else that cannot be measured in numbers--a sense of responsibility. That must be worth fighting for. As everyone who has been to Wales knows, the people have a tremendous warmth and Montgomeryshire is at the heart of that feeling. Many lament the political demise of Montgomeryshire and its merger into Powys, but the spirit remains. From Llanidloes to Llanfyllin, from Welshpool and Newtown to Machynlleth, a character pervades the landscape. It is in the rocks. The County Times, the local paper, is more of a commentary on daily life: it is part of the community. The schools do not teach only knowledge: they teach an outlook. We nurture the River Severn to the point at which it is foolish enough to flow into England. The wages may be low but people work hard, on the land, in the shops and in the factories.
The Welsh language, despite all the efforts of previous Governments to squeeze it out of existence, is coming back. One in four people in my constituency speak it. I am learning it slowly, because I believe that if we are serious about a national identity, we have to lead from the front and prove that we mean it. I hope that in the months and years ahead, my Welsh will improve in its fluency.
The spirit of adventure in my constituency is embodied by Operation Dragonfire, about which the House will hear much more in the months to come. It is a project to build the first amateur rocket to be sent into space. The idea was hatched in the Sarn inn with the landlord, Bertie, on one especially spirited evening. Whether or not it works, we are having some tremendous evenings planning the project.
We have had problems in Montgomeryshire, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the crushing drop in beef and lamb prices because of the strength of the pound, low incomes, and the huge decline in public transport. The Welsh people, however, also have a self-belief. They believe that they have the right to make decisions about how they are governed, and the freedom to enjoy all the things that epitomise so distinctively life in rural Wales. There is a phrase used in mid-Wales that sums all that up: "mwynder Maldwyn," or "the gentleness of Maldwyn"--that is, of Montgomeryshire.
Our job is not simply to worship the constituencies that we represent. Our loyalty must lie not only with the people who elected us, but with the sense of justice that built the institution in which we stand today. We have a chance to honour that well, and to do so differently from the way in which things have been done in recent times.
The past of the Commons is chequered with great alliances and with appalling discord. I believe that we are now emerging from one of those periods of discord--a period marked by an extraordinary sense of self-doubt, which caused an unnatural aggressiveness on the part of the recently departed Government. When the Conservative leadership election is over, and muscle flexing is replaced by the exercise of the mind, perhaps there will even be grounds to hope for a softening of the Tory line.
We could replace the politics of confrontation with the politics of reform, through consensus and constructive opposition. The political environment that Wales, and Britain as a whole, so desperately need, is within our grasp. Our actions can restore public faith--the faith of the public in the Strangers Gallery and of those who view us at home--simply by starting to work on the merits of the issues, rather than always opposing simply because that is what we have done in the past.
It seems to me that there are some who feel more comfortable with the theatre of political war than in the assembly of co-operation--but that does not include me. My family fled tyranny in Estonia. They came to the United Kingdom for sanctuary, because it had a democratic system--a system that literally saved their lives. I am here because this democratic institution, faults and all, is truly great among the democracies of the world. The greatest reform needs to happen to this institution. The Bill will be able to change not only the details in Wales but the way in which we take part in politics in general.
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