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Mr. Rowlands: What is the retirement age?
Dr. Marek: There is a retirement age in this place.
We want capable people to serve on the Assembly. If the conditions are right and there is a job worth doing--the White Paper shows that there will be--I am confident that we will attract people of quality and ability to the Welsh Assembly. They will run the internal affairs of Wales better than anyone in this place.
Why do we need an Assembly? It appears that there will be a Scottish Parliament, that London will have an elected mayor, and that there may be elected regional bodies throughout the United Kingdom. I agree with such moves. If the regions want their own elected bodies, I shall support those proposals.
A north-west development agency will be located in my area. With such an agency located six miles beyond my constituency boundary, it would be foolish for my constituents and the people of Wales to vote no in the referendum: they must have an equal ability to attract investment, jobs and prosperity to their side of the border. It is a question of equality. I believe that the Welsh people will recognise that, and will vote yes in the referendum.
The Assembly will mean more democracy for Wales. For the past 18 years--indeed, for most of this century--the Conservative party has ruled Wales. Although the Welsh people have never elected a majority of Conservative Members of Parliament--they elected no Conservative Members in the recent election, which is a pity, but is one result of the current electoral system--they have had their decisions and way of life determined by the Conservative party. That cannot be right, and the Welsh Assembly will change that state of affairs once and for all.
I conclude by referring to the remarks of the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson), whom I congratulate on winning his seat. He was my opponent in the last election. He said that the English pay the bills.
It is true that, under the Barnett formula, spending per capita in Scotland and Wales is a little more than in England. However, Wales suffers much higher unemployment, lower average wages and a lack of well-paid jobs. Well-paid jobs are found not in Wales, in Scotland or even in the regions of England--in Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds--but in the south-east: the Thames valley. Most Rolls-Royces are garaged within 25 or 30 miles of Whitehall. More importantly, well-paid research and development jobs, decision-making jobs and defence jobs are located in that area. The Welsh Assembly
will break up the central London and south-east class-dominated system of government and administration.
Mr. Grieve:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Marek:
I shall give way, as long as the hon. Gentleman takes no more than 15 seconds, because I must finish.
Mr. Grieve:
How does the hon. Gentleman explain the fact that the south-east of England has been the most prosperous part of these islands since the Roman period, long before Whitehall came into being?
Dr. Marek:
It has been the most prosperous area for the reasons that I have mentioned. Where has all the wealth been produced? It has been produced in the coal mines of south Wales and the industries of the midlands and the north, but those regions of the United Kingdom have not benefited. A Welsh Assembly will start to redress the balance.
The location of the decision-making structures has always ensured that the greater part of the benefits--an unfair distribution of the cake--goes to that area. I am confident that, when we have a Welsh Assembly, centred in Cardiff but representing the whole of Wales, and a Scottish Parliament, centred in Edinburgh but representing all of Scotland, the living standards of the Welsh and Scottish people will be improved.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West):
It appears from the White Paper that the Secretary of State is to become a messenger. It says on page 9:
The primary purpose of a Member of Parliament, as I understand it, is to provide a restraint on the Executive and to hold it to account. According to the White Paper, the Assembly will be part of the Executive by assuming the executive powers of the Secretary of State. However, Members of Parliament--this particularly affects Welsh Members--will be unable to hold that part of the Executive to account. What diminished role will they have? Will they accept a diminished status and diminished remuneration?
In the White Paper, the Government attempt to deal with areas in which disputes may arise between the Assembly and the Government. I continue from where my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) left off about the determination of such disputes. On page 21, the White Paper says:
The people of Wales--wrong, the residents of Wales--
Mr. Öpik:
I have one question for the hon. Gentleman. If his own party is so clear about its direction, how does it have such mutually contradictory positions on devolution for Wales and devolution for Northern Ireland?
Mr. Swayne:
My right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) has already answered that question. A very different situation obtains in Northern Ireland. The social circumstances for which that form of government is designed do not obtain--and, I hope, never will--in Wales. It is not a question of making a distinction in the way that the hon. Gentleman implies.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley):
I am glad to be able to correct the considerable imbalance in this morning's debate. First, there has been a gender imbalance and secondly, an imbalance in the number of people who have spoken in favour of the Welsh Assembly. From listening to the debate, one would not think that the majority of Welsh Members are in favour of a Welsh Assembly. One would not think that, now that we have more women from Wales in the House, they would have no voice at all.
One of the many attractions of the Assembly for people in Wales is that it will, we hope, correct the gender imbalance that exists here and which makes this a totally unrepresentative House of Commons. Women should form 50 per cent. of the membership here. I hope that, when we have the Assembly, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and other Labour members will do everything possible to ensure a better representation in it.
Many points have been made today to which I would like to respond, but there is not enough time and I want to give some of my hon. Friends an opportunity to speak
in the debate. I am sorry that 20 years ago, we did not get an Assembly. If we had, much of the havoc wreaked on Wales in the past 18 years would not have taken place.
"The Government expects that the Secretary of State will meet the Assembly's Executive Committee regularly to exchange views and information about Government policy."
My experience over the past couple of weeks is that it is better to read the newspapers before a Government announcement than to wait for anyone on the Treasury Bench to tell us about it. I hope that the experience of the Welsh Assembly will be different.
"If the Law Officers considered that the Assembly had used, or was proposing to use, its secondary legislation powers unlawfully, the matter could be put to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for a speedy decision."
25 Jul 1997 : Column 1184
Oh, so that is it. There will be a speedy resolution, and the Assembly men will go back to Wales, confident that they have overstepped the mark; and that will be an end of the matter. Do we really expect them to put their feet up and say, "Oh well, we tried it on, but it did not come off"?
We have already heard from Opposition Members--and on Tuesday we heard from Labour Members--who claimed that the proposals were not nearly enough, and would be merely a starting point on the evolutionary road to Welsh government. We heard from the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) about not a magical mystery tour, but a constitutional mystery tour. A tour implies that somebody knows where he is going, and that there will at least be a guide, or perhaps an interpretative centre as they are now called, masquerading as a motorway service station. There is at least some assumption that someone has a notion of the destination. That is not the case with the White Paper.
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