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Mr. Davies: Let me give the hon. Gentleman an example. It was this Parliament that decided that provision would be made for the nursery voucher scheme. English, Scottish and Welsh Members participated in those debates and passed the primary legislation. The nursery voucher scheme was then implemented in Wales, in the teeth of the opposition of 34 out of 38 Welsh Members of Parliament. Not one Welsh local authority favoured the scheme. The Welsh Office received some 4,000 letters of opposition and many petitions against it. The system was entirely inappropriate to Wales. It was bureaucratic, divisive and wasteful. The Welsh Office received one letter of support.
The system was implemented in Wales by secondary legislation. The primary legislation was the responsibility of the House. That procedure will remain exactly the same. This House will decide the framework of primary legislation. However, instead of having a Secretary of State for Wales who is not answerable to the people and who implements policy in direct contradiction to the
express wishes of the people, it will be the wishes of the people that prevail. That is democracy, and that is what I want to see.
Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East):
Will my right hon. Friend have the courage to take our campaign into the very heart of the camp of the noes--that is, to the island of Jersey--during the August holidays? Is it not incredible that the Conservative party believes that our constitutional structure is so perfect that it cannot be improved?
Mr. Davies:
I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments. I understand that there is an organisation in Wales called the "Say No to Wales" campaign. It is a front organisation, behind which the Conservative party, which is frightened to campaign for a no vote, hides. It is bankrolled by a 92-year-old recluse living in tax exile in Jersey. [Interruption.] If it is a question of open debate, I would rather that the democratically elected representatives of the people of Wales put the case honestly and openly to their constituents. [Interruption.]
Madam Speaker:
Order. I understand that the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) hopes to question the Secretary of State at the end. If so, he might keep calm and hold his fire until then. Many hon. Members wish to ask questions. I hope that the Secretary of State will be brisk in his responses.
Mr. Davies:
In which case, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield):
I note that the White Paper states that, when the Assembly is set up
At present, we can call the Secretary of State to account. Under the proposed system, however, we will not be able to do so. If that is the case, why should any Welsh Member of Parliament have the right to participate in any debate on matters concerning other parts of the United Kingdom?
Mr. Davies:
The purpose of the exercise--which the hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood--is to devolve power. If we devolve power, we have to accept that people may choose to exercise that power in a way we do not like. It is not my desire to devolve power to the Welsh Assembly and then have the opportunity to second-guess it at each and every opportunity. If we devolve, we have to let go, and that is what we propose to do.
Each and every act of devolution, and every decision to pass powers to a Welsh Assembly will be taken by this House. Acting together, English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh Members of Parliament will decide the nature and the extent of the powers to be devolved to the Assembly.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley):
As someone who campaigned for a yes vote and who voted yes in the last
I would have liked to see a Parliament for Wales, as that would have been an important step forward for democracy in Wales. I hope very much that we will have a Parliament, as the Scots will have.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State particularly mentioned the importance of having more women in public life in Wales. I believe that it has been the fault of the "selectorates" rather than the electorate that we have had so few women in the past. How precisely does he intend to assist that process?
Mr. Davies:
I very much appreciate the consistency of my hon. Friend, who puts me to shame by drawing it to the attention of the House. I am grateful for her support, and I know that she will campaign vigorously for the Assembly, in line with the principles she has always advocated. I made it clear in my opening remarks--it is also in the White Paper--that I believe that the Assembly will be better served if it is more representative of all aspects of Welsh life. That means that we have to bring more women into political life in Wales.
However, that is a matter for my hon. Friend and for me as party politicians--it is not a matter for me as Secretary of State. I can assure her that, in the debates that we will have within the Labour party, she will find me a staunch ally.
Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire):
There appears to be a contradiction here. The Secretary of State has just told us that this Parliament is sovereign. In future, it may come to pass that a policy laid down by this Parliament is in conflict with a policy decided by the Assembly. If this Parliament can overrule the Assembly, does not that render the Assembly nothing more than an expensive talking shop?
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock):
He is talking through a hole in his hat, and he knows it.
Mr. Davies:
I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friend, but there is another argument that I would rather use.
The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) must accept, as we do, that this Parliament is sovereign and can override the decisions of a Welsh Assembly at any time if it wishes to do so. But we should not view politics as an all-or-nothing game, in which all power rests at the centre and the wishes of the centre must prevail under all circumstances. I want to see devolved and pluralistic government, and we are proposing to devolve powers to Wales.
If, in five or 10 years' time, the Conservative party wishes to override the people of Wales by exercising the sovereign powers of this Parliament, it can do so. I happen to think that, once the Assembly is created, no Conservative Government who threatened to ride roughshod over the wishes of the people of Wales--or, for that matter, the people of Scotland or the English regions--would be elected.
Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda):
I thank the Secretary of State for his kind remarks, and I am glad that he found my paper helpful. His proposals do not relieve me of my fears, but that is a subject for future discussion.
Although I accept that there is a democratic deficit in Wales--created mainly by the Conservative party and its shameless behaviour in the past 18 years--what disappoints me is that the White Paper is a nationalistic, rather than a parliamentary, response. Does he believe that the 60 members of the future Welsh Assembly will be able to control the quangos, which will not be scrapped? The powerful ones may be merged, but appointments to them will not be scrapped. Does he believe that those 60 members will be better able to control those quangos than him, his Ministers, the Welsh Office and the 40 elected Members of Parliament?
Are we not democratically accountable? Are my right hon. Friend and his Ministers incapable of, or incompetent at, policing what will be left of the quango state? If the Secretary of State can demonstrate, once the Bill is drawn up, that we will get rid of the quango state, I should be only too happy to support his proposals.
Mr. Davies:
I am grateful for my hon. Friend's qualified support. The proposals spell the end of the quango state in Wales. In the past 15 years, that state has been characterised by the surreptitious and corrupt appointment of, by and large, Conservative placemen by previous Conservative Secretaries of State. Those quangos have followed a Conservative party agenda. They met in secret, and were not accountable either to the House or to Welsh public opinion. That will come to an end, because there will be a substantial reduction in the number of quangos.
"The Secretary of State . . . will not . . . be accountable for the activities of the Welsh Assembly".
That is the central point over which the right hon. Gentleman skated in answering the question raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram). If the Secretary of State is no longer accountable to the Welsh Assembly, how do we, as the elected representatives of the United Kingdom Parliament, maintain scrutiny over secondary legislation passed by the Assembly?
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