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Mr. Richard Livsey (Brecon and Radnorshire): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Davies: I want to make progress, because many hon. Members want to contribute to the debate, but I shall give way when I know that a hon. Member has a particular concern. However, I am not anxious to encourage interventions.
Mr. Livsey: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is a simple point. As I understand it, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales is responsible for the higher education sector, whereas the further education sector will be the responsibility of the Assembly. Why have the two sectors been split? There is some concern about that in further education in Wales.
Mr. Davies: They have not been split: there are two separate funding councils. For the reasons that I explained to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), we want to ensure academic freedom and the independence of the university sector. We decided that it would not be appropriate to give the Assembly these specified powers to restructure the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales.
However, as the recent report of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs shows, there is a considerable diversity of provision in further education. There is competition among schools, independent colleges and others that are funded by the Further Education Funding Council for Wales.
We felt that there was a strong case for the Assembly to be specifically empowered to get rid of the Further Education Funding Council for Wales if it so wished, so that it could better plan the delivery of post-16 education. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), is working with a task group to consider how best to ensure the proper integration of post-16 education. That responsibility will pass to the Assembly, so it should be properly empowered. If it wants to achieve a better integration of post-16 education, it will be empowered to do so. That is the principle that we have followed.
What we are doing, we are doing. The reform of the quangos will be done in the first wave of reform. The important point is that we shall then empower the Assembly to carry forward the process later to reflect its own views and priorities. That, of course, is the purpose of all our changes--to pass power from here in Westminster to Cardiff, where the elected representatives of Welsh people can make their own decisions to reflect their electorate's wishes.
I realise--to turn to another point which I know is of concern to the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire--that some concern has been expressed about the consequences for mid Wales of our plans for
the new economic development agency. The development board, like the Welsh Development Agency, has a long history of success in bringing greater prosperity to the communities it serves, some of which are now among the most prosperous in the United Kingdom.
The board has provided the land and the premises needed for business growth. It has attracted welcome job-creating investment to the area and it has been instrumental in developing a range of quality services for small businesses. It has a good track record, too, as an innovator and force for change in tackling the problems of rural Wales.
None of the skills and organisation that has earned that success will be lost under my proposals. On the contrary, an important new benefit from the merger with the WDA will be to allow preparation of a single development strategy for the whole of rural Wales, which embraces the best of the policies and practices of the two bodies.
The creation of the Assembly offers new prospects and opportunities for key public services, as well as promoting economic development. Nothing is more important for the transformation of the Welsh economy than that we should have a world-beating education and training system in Wales. I have already mentioned our intention to empower the Assembly to deal with post-16 education. At present, decisions are taken at a distance from the hard-earned, practical experience of the classroom and the workplace. Instead, the Assembly will be accessible, responsive, and determined to do what is best for Wales as a whole.
Education and training can help to transform society in Wales. Both are central to realising my goals of a world-beating, job-creating economy and a better quality of life for everyone. A radical improvement in the skills and educational attainments of all is needed if Wales is to survive and succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy, and if everyone is to reap the rewards of a demanding future.
I fully expect that the Assembly will want to press on to secure still greater improvements in school performance, to ensure that all our young people reach satisfactory standards by the end of compulsory education. The Assembly will also want to ensure that education and training deliver the skills needed by the Welsh economy.
The Assembly will use the potential of new information and communications technology to expand access to education and training of the highest quality. For the first time, Wales will have an open and vigorous democratic institution concerned to achieve excellent results from all of the partners with an interest in education and training, across the country as a whole.
As well as promoting economic prosperity, the Assembly will want to improve our quality of life. At the outset, the Welsh Office's health staff, the Health Promotion Authority, and some elements of the Welsh Health Common Services Authority will be brought together, enabling the Assembly to play a decisive role in the national health service in Wales, developing its own strategic priorities and deciding on the allocation of resources to address them.
The Assembly will also be able to consider the evolving role of health authorities and to decide whether it wishes to take over particular responsibilities from them or to allocate them to other bodies. It will have all the tools it needs in its hands to bring about those changes.
The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) has already announced our decision to re-configure NHS trusts by 1 April 1999. This will release much-needed resources for direct patient care. However, this is not an exercise in centralisation. The development of primary care is vital, and we are committed to locality commissioning of services, which will empower GPs and nurses to say what their patients need.
The health service will still be part of the national health service, with all that that implies for clinical standards, research, the professions, and the handling of pay, terms and conditions of service. The Assembly's staff will participate in national discussions, and it will have the same role in making appointments that I now have.
The Assembly will also work with local government. Here, the uniqueness of what we are proposing comes into focus. Compared to anything that we have seen before, the Assembly itself will be uniquely placed to develop an holistic approach, not simply to illness but to health, and to the determinants of health. In forming its policies, it will be able to look at the health impacts of employment, housing and education. In implementing its programmes, it will be able to draw together the work of the NHS, especially new developments in primary care and public health, with the work of its partners in local government.
There is another unique element. We now have in Wales a new structure of unitary local authorities that can each pursue coherent programmes across the full range of their responsibilities, working towards tangible achievement of health and social gain for their people. I am thinking not only of social services and environmental health functions--although those are extremely important--but of all their many powers that bear directly or indirectly on people's health and well-being. I know that local government in Wales, no longer undermined by creeping centralisation or the insidious growth of the quango state, is committed to examining the formidable contribution to health that local government services, taken as a whole, can now make.
Thus, we shall have a fully equipped, inclusive Assembly, working locally with newly empowered doctors and nurses, and with unitary local authorities that are taking on an increasingly holistic approach to the full range of local government services. That has to be an unprecedented and winning combination for improving the quality of life for people in Wales.
Mr. Rogers:
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Davies:
I will certainly give way to my hon. Friend. I want to deal with the point about local government. Before I give way to him, perhaps I could again acknowledge the report that he has prepared, which gives his clear views on the relationship between the Assembly and local government.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord):
Before the Secretary of State gives way, I remind the House that an awful lot of hon. Members want to speak today, and that repeated interventions and long speeches simply mean that others will not get a chance to make any contribution.
Mr. Rogers:
I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I find extremely cheerful and helpful the point that my right
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