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Mr. Anderson: I am pleased to have that clarification from my right hon. Friend. The proof of the pudding will be in the working out of the proposals. [Interruption.] I do not know why the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) is waving a piece of paper.
Mr. Öpik: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the consultation process was going on before the general election and for some time before the publication of the Bill? It is more constructive to comment inclusively rather than to engage in the destructive criticism that tends to come from the official Opposition.
Mr. Anderson: I am convinced that Moses Ron did not bring the tablets of stone down from Plynlimon, send them to the House and then leave them. The process is inclusive and it is wholly consistent with the spirit of diversity in Wales. Thus Hiraeth is not longing for Wales but for one's own locality. People who go to parties in Wales are never asked, as they would be in England, "What do you do?" as if one's identity is in one's job. People are asked where they come from, because the essence of our identity is the local area from which we come. That is a far more human response.
It is not only in structures but in policies that we look for something different in the assembly. Who can doubt that, if the assembly had been in existence for some years, we would not now have a system of communications in Wales that makes it difficult to move from north to south? I am sure that members of the assembly when they meet in different locations will see at first hand the problems that are encountered in moving from one part of Wales to the other. Thus transport priorities will be different.
There is another policy that I hope that the assembly will change. I hope that its members will set their minds against the centralisation that was a feature of Conservative government in the 1980s and beyond and which allowed such a concentration of resources in Cardiff and the south-east. We were under the satrapy of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). At one time the Cardiff Bay development corporation received £52.5 million a year in grant aid but less than half that amount went to the Welsh Development Agency for the rest of its area.
There are enormous distortions of expenditure. For example, on 21 November in a written answer, my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Thomas) was informed that over the past three years there was £376.4 million publicly funded capital expenditure in Cardiff. That is a distortion, and it arose because decisions were taken by a Secretary of State who was not seriously accountable to Wales. Such distortion will not occur in future, because people from different parts of Wales will be in favour of a far greater balance of development.
Thirdly, the location of the assembly can also fulfil the same need for diversity in Wales. In setting up the assembly we do not want to substitute one form of centralisation for another. We must be wholly in tune with subsidiarity. For the Conservative party, European subsidiarity stopped at London. We shall ensure that it does not even stop at Cardiff but extends to other parts of Wales.
I make no comment on the reasons for Cardiff council deciding not to proceed with the offer of the city hall. Happily, as a Swansea boy, I have no responsibility for Cardiff city council. However, its decision opens the debate--hence the consultative document. Decentralisation would have enormous practical and symbolic importance. It is not necessary to have the assembly in the capital city. It is certainly no longer necessary because of technical advances. I naturally make the case for Swansea guildhall, which by some happy chance has 60 seats in its council chamber. That number was in the memorandum that I sent some months ago to the Welsh Labour party, although I did not think at that time that the assembly would not be in Cardiff.
Swansea guildhall, in conjunction with Mold, Aberystwyth and Cardiff, is by far the most cost-effective option. I look forward to the Secretary of State saying to the people of Wales, "Look, we said that the cost would be £17 million, but we have managed to save a great deal of money, and the savings from that cost-effective option will be used for education and health."
I remind my right hon. Friend of the letter from Swansea's chief executive to him on 2 December which effectively states that we in Swansea will not be beaten on cost. It states:
For Cardiff, it would not matter all that much if the assembly were to be sited in Swansea. For Swansea and the rest of the west Wales councils that have supported its location there, it would be earnest proof of the Welsh Office's intention to decentralise. I believe that the Secretary of State accepts that there has been an enormous distortion of investment in south-east Wales. To locate the assembly in Swansea would be a counter-magnet, something that, in terms of public investment and public symbolism, would move the focus a little further west--to the boundary of, dare I call it, Welsh Wales and English Wales and to the region that actually voted for the assembly.
Over the weekend, I gained some idea of the enthusiasm in Swansea for the project. On Friday, I was at the prize giving of the Swansea Institute of Higher Education at Swansea's guildhall. When the acting principal mentioned that the guildhall could be the site of the assembly, there was an enormous roar of approval. On Saturday afternoon, I was with young Labour in the streets of Swansea collecting signatures. Generally, there was an enormously warm response to the idea.
Mr. Richard Livsey (Brecon and Radnorshire):
I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. I gladly follow the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), who, with enthusiasm for his city, shows that there would be a warm welcome if the assembly were located there. They are welcoming people in Swansea, and I understand why he said what he did. Only time will tell whether his party will sort out the problems of the assembly's location. Cardiff has strong claims, but the argument cannot go on for ever.
The assembly is an historic milestone. The referendum vote was historic, and I congratulate the Secretary of State for Wales, his team and the "Yes for Wales" team on delivering that vote. We all contributed to it in a spirit of co-operation, and we are pleased about that.
The Conservatives would like a re-run of the referendum. They want to turn the clock back, but even in the town of Presteigne in my constituency, which is
just 500 yd from the Herefordshire border, when an enterprising person put up on his shop window a list for people to sign saying, "We wish to see a re-run of the referendum," only 12 people did so. If only 12 people signed a list in Presteigne, what hope have the Conservatives in the rest of Wales?
Conservative Members have said various things about the validity of the referendum, but only 43 per cent. of the electorate turned out to elect the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) in the by-election the other day, and only just over 50 per cent. of the Conservative party's membership elected its present leader--the first time that the party's membership has been involved in a party leader election. I remind Conservative Members of a person who used to sit on the Liberal Benches--a certain Winston Churchill--who returned to Conservative ranks and said that one vote was enough. That is what history tells us.
Dr. Julian Lewis:
I shall try for the third time to make the point that hon. Members in other parties are avoiding: there is a difference between an ordinary vote and a vote on a major constitutional issue. We keep hearing this fudge that concessions are being made to acknowledge the smallness of the majority, but no one has made any concession acknowledging that point.
Mr. Livsey:
I did not notice the hon. Gentleman making determined efforts to put a clause into the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill to create a threshold, so ensuring that the principle that he is advancing now was part of the referendum. As he failed to do that, his argument falls flat on its face.
Like many Welshmen, I have worked outside my country. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I worked in Scotland. A pamphlet was produced at that time, which said in the introduction:
I remember that well, because I was the Liberal party candidate in Scotland contesting the Perth seat. Views have changed over the years--the Conservative party's constitutional spokesman now opposes the creation of a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly. During the referendum campaign, the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) told the Scots that the Scottish Parliament had too much power, but when he was in Wales, he told us that the Welsh Assembly needed more. There was a counterpoint to that argument.
In discussing the Bill and in debating it in Committee, we have a great opportunity to get it right for Wales. I make no apologies for making remarks that may be slightly critical of certain aspects, but they are made in the spirit of co-operation and to achieve an assembly that is fair, democratic, just, free and united. I am sure that the forebears in my party, including Lloyd George and Gladstone, and Tom Ellis, leader of Cymru Fydd, whom the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) mentioned, were all in favour of a Welsh Parliament.
During this century, we have seen the creation of the Welsh Office, the appointment of a Secretary of State for Wales and the gradual strengthening of government in Wales. Now is the time to give Wales true democracy. We want to unite English and Welsh speakers, rural and urban Wales, and poor and middle-income families in Wales--there are not many really rich people in Wales. We want to unite women, craftspeople, educators, farmers, miners, entrepreneurs, teenagers and all other sections of society.
Over the years, it has been the Conservatives' tactic to divide and rule. That has been their stock in trade, but references to fear--and they are contained in the reasoned amendment--do not work any more on the people of Wales because, at the referendum, diversity was proved to be our strength. During the referendum campaign, the people of Wales came of age, because they co-operated with each other and did not listen to the campaign of fear that was directed at them.
"At the present time the advice of our respective Estate advisers is that the leaseback to the Council would be £60,000 p. a. resulting in a net rental cost for the Assembly of £340,000 p. a."
8 Dec 1997 : Column 715
The chief executive repeats the key point when she states:
The letter goes on to say that they
"we would be happy to negotiate other arrangements, either freehold or leasehold, for the Assembly's tenure of the Guildhall."
"have set out to match the vision of their forefathers who, amongst many other achievements, bequeathed us the magnificent Guildhall building . . . Having tested such a wide range of local opinion, we have come to the view that in financial terms we should seek no more from you than the net rental figure set out above. In other words, the broader economic and democratic benefits of locating the National Assembly in Swansea would be full justification for absorption of any consequential costs to the Council".
I will not set out the importance administrative, historical, cultural and economic case for Swansea.
"Our standpoint is certainly Tory.
It went on to say other things that basically favoured devolution. At the end, the pamphlet stated that one of its authors was a certain "Michael Ancram".
We are convinced that a measure of devolution to Scotland of power over her domestic affairs is essential. In every meaningful sense except the exercise of control over her internal affairs, Scotland is a country: to apply the current jargon of 'region' is inaccurate."
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