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Mr. Rogers: Does my hon. Friend accept that what is proposed in the White Paper is not what exists in Spain and Catalonia? The autonomous committees in Spain have political and financial autonomy, and legislative powers.
Mr. Anderson: There is no exact precedent, but each of our European partners has a degree of regionalism that we do not have. For example, in Spain there is devolution a la carte. Catalonia has a degree of autonomy that Valencia has not, because there is greater demand for it. In Germany, Saxony and other lander may push for greater control under the constitution. There are other examples. My hon. Friend cannot dispute that there is greater healthy and vital regionalism in all our partner countries. Yet Catalonia is still an essential part of Spain.
The second element is the maximisation of Welsh impact at Brussels level. Time presses, so I shall simply commend to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the report recently published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs, which suggested various means by which we in Wales could seek to maximise our impact. Many of those suggestions are covered in the White Paper.
The third element is the threats to and the importance of Welsh identity. The Welsh culture should be encouraged, not eliminated. The White Paper provides for that by its inclusive theme. The electoral system of proportional representation will ensure a greater coming together within Wales. I hear what the Opposition say about the Assembly being based on the Euro-constituencies, which may be abolished, but that is a quibble. The essence of the Euro-constituencies is that they are an agglomeration of Westminster seats, and remain so whatever the pattern of future European elections. I am pleased about that, and also about the regional committees within the Assembly's proposed structure.
Increasingly, an imbalance has developed within the Welsh economic and social structure in which the south-east in relation to the rest of Wales occupies a position not unlike that of the south-east of England in relation to the rest of England. The Welsh regional committees within the Assembly structure could help to counter that imbalance. The effect of the Tories' attachment to the status quo is to separate them decisively from the prevailing mood in Wales.
I shall end on two general and fundamental points.I could make many detailed criticisms of the proposals, in the same way as I criticised proposals in the 1970s.I could raise bogeys such as the Welsh language and north against the south. The right hon. Member for Devizes(Mr. Ancram) demeaned himself by seeking to do that.I have more faith in the good sense of the Welsh people.
The essence of the Tory claim is that the proposals could lead to the fragmentation of the United Kingdom. Who can forget the Tory platform at the general election? They were little Englanders abroad and the English national party at home. It is clear that our European partner countries practise a regionalism that has not led to their fragmentation. It is wholly patronising to tell the Welsh people that we do not have the political sophistication that allows the people of Germany, France and Spain vital regional assemblies that do not lead to the dissolution of the sovereignty of those countries.
In the United Kingdom, alas, we do not plan our constitutional changes. We drift, or we walk crablike, along the path of constitutional change. The proposals for Wales can only be an interim constitutional settlement. The English problem--that is to say, the size of England in terms of a possible federation--will remain.
Mr. Grieve:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Anderson:
No, I must press on.
Eventually, we shall have to recast the United Kingdom as a whole, and perhaps move to a quasi-federal state, but that is not a matter for today's debate. The proposals are welcome, but only as a first step. In Tuesday's exchanges on the White Paper, my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) spoke about a mystery tour. Any new constitutional advance can be a sort of mystery tour. When we joined the European Union, no one could say with certainty what lay at the end of the road, but to use such an argument is to speak against change in itself.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent):
I have been asked to be brief, and I shall therefore confine myself to one topic and shall not go into the details of the proposal.
I congratulate the Secretary of State for Wales and the Government on their tactical skill. They have taken advantage of the notorious lack of public interest in the details of government and have used their huge temporary majority to impose a dangerous deception on the people of England. How can the Government claim that their current proposals are of interest only to the 15 per cent. or so of the electorate to be found within the boundaries of Scotland and Wales?
The Prime Minister's preface to the White Paper makes the Government's strategy entirely clear: there is to be a Welsh Assembly, a Scottish Parliament, an elected mayor and new strategic authority for London, more accountability in the regions of England, and a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. The key point from all this is that the people of England are directly affected by the Welsh and Scottish proposals, and the people of England should be part of the referendum.
Mr. Grieve:
Has my hon. Friend noted how, in the Scottish White Paper on devolution, the word "England" does not feature? The future of this country is apparently a new entity called Wales, Scotland and the regions.
Mr. Rowe:
That is part of my concern.
Because the proposals directly affect the way in which the United Kingdom Parliament works, it is an obscenity that we in England should have no part in the referendums. The proposals affect the powers and the position of a UK Cabinet Minister--in fact, in relation to
Scotland, they affect the position of more than one. They affect the accountability and scrutiny powers of the UK Parliament.
It seems probable, if the Welsh vote for the proposal, that the proposals will, for example, affect the size of the social security bill. If the Assembly is given powers to alter the uniform business rate, it may adopt policies that will lead to some companies leaving Wales, thus putting up the social security bill--which will, of course, be met from the UK Parliament.
The proposals change the electoral system in the UK, with the clear intention of ultimately changing it throughout the nation, yet the English are to have no say in the proposals. The Government cannot take the first effectively irreversible steps along a road that will for ever change the way in which the UK Parliament works and base their claim to public support on a referendum from which some 85 per cent. of the electorate are excluded.
It is clever, all right, in a tactical, short-term, anything-for-a-Labour victory way, which is the hallmark of the Government, but it is potentially lethal. It will create a slow-burn, long-term anger and division, which could tear the United Kingdom apart.
I confess that I do not know yet exactly where I stand on all the ramifications of the proposals--but nor, of course, do the Government. The White Paper is shot through with concordats to be published later, reviews on local taxation and capping powers, and compacts with the voluntary sector, for example. As one of the Secretary of State's colleagues, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), so eloquently put it, we are being asked to join "a mystery tour" whose destination remains unknown, even to its promoters.
In election after election, almost all UK parties have campaigned on the belief that most people, faced with a choice between peace and prosperity, and the impoverishment that follows blind support for atavistic prejudice, will choose the former. In one part of the UK, as the new Government are learning daily, that is already not the case.
I confess to being somewhat frightened now about the rest of the United Kingdom. In its mad rush to reshape this nation root and branch, will new Labour unleash nationalistic forces that the Union has traditionally kept under control for centuries, to the benefit of us all, and find itself eventually unable to control them? The strategists of new Labour may be offering my party a poisoned chalice. They are creating the conditions in which a Conservative party, already in some danger of an exaggerated fear of the European Union, could seek populist advantage in fuelling English nationalism.
I pray that we shall resist any such temptation--for we can see in one part of the United Kingdom how hard it is to set such emotions at rest once they have been aroused. I believe that the Labour Government are setting the scene for a similar scenario by refusing the English any say in these momentous decisions.
New Labour's insouciant willingness to accept that it does not know how its revolution will eventually develop chills my blood. If London has an elected mayor, will Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and York be prepared to do without? What are the implications for
English local authorities? If the Welsh Assembly or the Scottish Parliament--which are unaccountable to the United Kingdom Parliament in any serious way--take decisions that result in higher costs, will England and Northern Ireland be willing to pay for them?
If the Government think that they will be allowed to rely in future on Scottish or Welsh Members of Parliament to shape the education service in Kent, they will ignite an anger that will eventually impoverish us all.
I do not claim that there should be no change in our electoral or government arrangements. A world in which the economy is global, competition is fierce and universal, capital free to move where it will, and massive trading blocks dominate, demands that we change our arrangements. However, I object to the arrogance and the speed with which the Government have moved, and to their extraordinary assumption that the English and the Northern Irish should have nothing to say in the fundamental referendums to be held in six weeks.
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