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7.26 pm
Ms Julie Morgan (Cardiff, North): This is an historic occasion, as it is extremely rare for politicians to be in on the making of a new political institution, and Labour Members are enthusiastic and excited about it. It is good to have the chance to get on with the job of bringing democracy to Wales, bringing power closer to people in Wales, and trying to bring prosperity to people who have been excluded for far too long. I propose to touch on three matters relating to the Bill: the committee structure; equal opportunities; and the location of the assembly.
The committee structure will be considered in detail by the advisory committee and then by the Standing Orders Commission, but I want to make some general points at this stage. Schedule 2 lists 18 wide-ranging fields of responsibility for the assembly, including agriculture, health, social services, education and the Welsh language.
It would be unwise if those subject fields were translated into individual committees, plus any other committees that the assembly may choose to set up.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards), I believe that the assembly should have integrated strategies that cross all the fields of responsibility. One of the big difficulties with local government, central Government and the Welsh Office stems from the division between their various departments, which makes it hard to implement strategies that cover them all.
That is especially problematic in a field such as child care, responsibility for which is shared by education, health and social services, and which is also important to economic development. In the Welsh Office, the division is between two Ministers. In every layer of government, the division causes difficulties, and it is essential that we have strategies in the Welsh Assembly to draw together all the different threads.
It was thought that a great advantage of the new unitary authorities would be the bringing together of, for example, health and social services. However, we do not bring things together by putting them in separate committees in one body. The key to success for the assembly is to have integrated strategies for the environment, sustainable economic development, and social and economic regeneration.
We should be thinking of working in the assembly in those sorts of ways, which will tackle the particular problems of Wales. We need an imaginative, innovative structure. We need to learn from the problems that we have experienced in central and local government and in the Welsh Office in implementing such strategies.
We should consider setting up mechanisms to consider groups such as children--a children's committee. Compared with the rest of Great Britain, Wales has special problems. We have the lowest gross domestic product per head and the highest poverty rate. We have major transport problems and fewer child care places. Low pay is an issue. We have more lone parents who are not working than the rest of Britain. We need policies to which the whole assembly subscribes, and fewer, more powerful, committees that can meet the objectives of the assembly.
It is essential to establish good working structures with Government Departments. The success of the welfare- to-work policy, for instance, depends on the Employment Service and the Department of Social Security working with the assembly, which will provide the child care strategy that is essential for that policy to succeed.
I am pleased that two clauses, clauses 47 and 113, refer to equal opportunities. Clause 47 states that the assembly's business must be
One of the most important ways of ensuring equal opportunity for all people is to have members who represent the range of people in Wales. That means that women should be there in equal numbers. I believe that
I am the first woman to speak in this debate, which is well into its second day. We do not want to mirror that in a Welsh Assembly.
Mr. Rhodri Morgan:
My hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams) spoke yesterday.
Ms Morgan:
I am sorry--one female Member spoke yesterday.
The women of Wales appreciate the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Sir R. Powell), who strongly backed the principle of equal representation in his speech yesterday. The Bill leaves the means of getting equal representation to the political parties.
I welcome the element of proportionality in the Bill. If the Conservatives get 20 per cent. of the vote in Wales, it is right that they should be represented in the Welsh Assembly. That makes for a better assembly and better government. Now that an 80-member assembly, with one man and one woman for each seat, is no longer an option, it may be difficult to achieve equal representation. Is it possible to put something in the Bill to allow political parties to take positive action to ensure that women are present in equal numbers?
The Labour party has had a drive to find how many women would be prepared to stand for the assembly. We now have more than 200 women who are interested in standing. No one will ever be able to say that women do not want to put themselves forward, as has been often said in the past. It would be tragic if the enthusiasm of those women was not translated into reality. The weight of history is against us, against women being represented in political institutions. In Wales, we have only four women out of 40 Members. The process would be helped if we could include in the Bill a mechanism for positive action to get women into the assembly.
Ensuring that the assembly's business is conducted in a way that is conducive to equal opportunities, both for members and for the public, means that the needs of men and women with children and dependents should be taken into account. All evidence shows that black people tend to be excluded from political and other activities. The last census in Cardiff showed that Afro-Caribbean people were more likely to be unemployed, to live in sub-standard housing, and not to own a car than the general population, as well as suffering from racism.
We must make specific efforts to ensure that black people have access to the assembly. As we are starting afresh, we can try to do such things. Wales is a multicultural, cosmopolitan country, especially in the towns and cities of the south. It has been strongly argued already that the assembly is for everyone in Wales, for people with every accent, whose first language may be Welsh, Urdu, Bengali or English.
The Bill is an opportunity for more open government, which we hope will involve many more people than in the past. Meetings should be as accessible to the public as possible. The assembly should able to co-opt people on to committees. It should be able to co-opt people who have experience of being disabled or of being black in a mainly white country. I respect the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) about trying to attract people from business, industry and academia, but, equally, we want to attract people who have had day-to-day experience of living in the particular circumstances of Wales.
The public should be able to put items on the agendas of committees. I strongly welcome the commitment to work with community groups and the voluntary sector, which is a huge constituency in Wales, ranging from big national organisations to the small community groups that make life in Wales function. Engaging with the voluntary sector, not only as a grant-giving and monitoring body but in consultations and as partners, is important and will enhance the assembly.
It is important to engage with young people. I support a youth assembly. There should be mechanisms, such as a children's committee, for feeding in the views of children. Many schools have schools councils. We should encourage them to look at what is going on in the assembly.
There should be no question of locating the assembly anywhere but in the capital of Wales. To start it anywhere else would cause confusion and weaken it. We need dispersed, devolved methods of communicating with people, but that is a back-up, not a substitute.
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy):
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Ms Morgan), who made a thoughtful speech, full of good, common sense and some important points. It was very much in contrast with the speech by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who opened the debate on behalf of the official Opposition.
Mr. Llwyd:
Yes, I shall have a go. It is time that someone had a go from this Bench, lest someone lump us in with your lot.
The hon. Member for Ribble Valley spent a lot of time pouring out vitriol about this, that and the other. He said that the Bill had more holes than a Swiss cheese, yet he spent 10 seconds talking about them. Perhaps the Swiss cheese available in Ribble Valley is different from that which is available elsewhere in Europe. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) was right to describe the hon. Gentleman's bluster as badly lacking in humility. So it was.
That there is a lack of scrutiny of Welsh issues in this Parliament goes without saying. The Committees that consider Welsh Bills such as the Welsh Language Bill and the Local Government (Wales) Bill are packed with people from outside Wales who have no interest in what is going on in Wales, and often are there only to vote against any useful amendments. That cannot be the
essence of good government. We have half an hour of Welsh questions every five weeks or so, and one day a year there is a one-day debate on Wales. That does not make for satisfactory governance in Wales.
The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) referred with high passion to the break-up of the United Kingdom that he says is inherent in the Bill. Those words were cheering to me, but I have to admit that, despite reading the Bill three or four times, I do not have the same impression. I should be delighted if he were right and I were wrong.
Yesterday's debate was rather an anti-climax, probably because the three political parties that have representation in Wales believe that devolution is a good thing. The so-called opposition came from Tory Members, whose party has no representation in Wales. Worse still, some Tory Members' speeches showed that they had little or no knowledge of Wales, its needs or the real nature of the devolutionary process. The quality of the speeches of official Opposition Members rendered the debate a non-event.
"conducted with due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all".
Clause 113 states that the assembly's functions are to be
"exercised with due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people."
Starting afresh, with a new body, we should be able to make certain that those principles lie at the heart of the assembly.
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