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Mr. Rowlands: For the life of me, I cannot understand why sports and arts council issues cannot be subjected to the full rigour of democratic accountability. I have been puzzled by that ever since it was decided to exclude these two bodies. I understand that they have special status--charters and so on--but there is surely a powerful case for making these respectable quangos democratically accountable and responsible. They make operational and budgetary decisions of considerable interest to, and consequence for, large numbers of people. Why, then, are they to be excluded?
I do not want to embarrass Ministers by reminding them that before the election, we used very strong language about quangos and the quango state. The arts and sports councils were often invoked as examples of just such bodies. Like all other sensible, right-thinking people, I assumed at the time that they would be made fully accountable to the democratic assembly. Now it appears that they, more than any other organisations, are to be excluded from supervision.
I accept the problems caused by the special way in which those two bodies were set up--they were established by warrant, or whatever--but I believe that those two functions could have become the direct responsibility of the assembly. I did not think that we needed a sports council and an arts council whose budget would need accounting for. I think that they could have become an integral part of the Committee structure of the assembly. Those bodies make interesting, fascinating decisions on priorities in all sorts of ways.
Mr. John Smith (Vale of Glamorgan):
Can my hon. Friend envisage, especially in the light of recent events, a situation in which a Committee of the Welsh assembly selected future national rugby teams?
Mr. Rowlands:
My hon. Friend tempts me to say that things could not be worse. Things must get better. What was that lovely song we had for the election--"Things can only get better"? Certainly, after last Saturday, that must be true of Welsh rugby.
May I remind my hon. Friend that there has been lively public debate of all sorts in the Welsh media about arts expenditure. There was a debate, or argument, between the Valley arts association and the arts council. It is a curious belief that democracy will be philistine by nature. I do not believe that that is so.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West):
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the amendments will not restrict the ability of the arts council or the sports council to undertake their current activities, but simply make them accountable?
Mr. Rowlands:
I am suggesting that the amendments are not radical enough, and that given the nature and character of the organisations concerned and the interest
We made that case over and over again in the run-up to the election. I said that if one had to choose two quangos that should be subject to full democratic accountability and responsibility, it would be those two. There were arguments; there were, rightly, lively debates about the various priorities of the Arts Council of Wales.
There is not one of us who is not interested in the way in which the Sports Council for Wales spends and allocates its money. There is interest not only in its grand strategies for young people--many of which are most admirable, according to all the documents that I have read--but in the nitty-gritty decision-making processes by which grants and resources are allocated to various organisations and communities. I would have thought that that was the meat and drink of democratic accountability and of devolution in its real sense. Then we find in schedule 13, after reading through the names of all the other bodies, that right at the bottom, the quangos most exclusively excluded from any form of democratic accountability are the arts council and the sports council.
Mr. Gareth Thomas:
Is it not the case that the Government have inherited an anomaly and that they have to live with it? Would it not require a separate regime to put it right?
Mr. Thomas:
It will be interesting to hear what the Minister says.
Mr. Rowlands:
I wish that I had brought some letters with me, because I had something of a correspondence with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the special status of those two bodies. I thought that Parliament was supreme, and that whatever the problems with the status of the two organisations and the methods by which they were established, Parliament could simply unwind the process. Although that would require various consents and various elaborations, surely it would be within the power of Parliament.
I cannot believe that it is beyond the power of Parliament to bring the Sports Council for Wales and the Arts Council of Wales within the jurisdiction, accountability and responsibility of the Welsh assembly. We fight over whole areas of parliamentary sovereignty, but apparently those two bodies are beyond the scope of that sovereignty.
I must confess that I do not understand that, and have never understood it, throughout all the discussions that we have had. We said that we would light a bonfire of the quangos and, although I do not want to burn down either the Sports Council for Wales or the Arts Council of Wales, I certainly want them to become totally democratically responsible to a Welsh assembly.
Mr. Wigley:
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate and grateful to the Conservative
Mr. Swayne:
That is because of the speech yesterday.
Mr. Wigley:
It might well have something to do with that, but, be that as it may, we should welcome the repentance of sinners on the road to Damascus. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), who spoke lucidly and concisely when moving the amendment. As the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said, the amendments is perfectly reasonable.
I have to be careful in what I say, as my wife is on the Arts Council of Wales, although it may well be that that gives me an added incentive to ensure proper scrutiny of that body.
Mr. Rowlands:
Abolish your wife.
Mr. Wigley:
The hon. Gentleman should not tempt me--his wife has been on the S4C authority and we have already debated the question of whether that body should be answerable.
The Arts Council of Wales and the Sports Council for Wales are important bodies which have a strong Welsh identity--in fact, no quango has a stronger identity than those two. At times, both bodies have decisions to make that should be open to scrutiny. There has been some controversy in recent weeks about certain matters.
The status of those bodies is something with which we could deal in this Parliament, to which point I shall return; but their status has not been such as to prevent Parliament from casting its eye over them in the past. I am sure that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) will recall a meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee where we debated the annual report of the Arts Council of Wales. I remember Lord Hooson--Emlyn Hooson as he then was--being involved in that. If the Welsh Grand Committee can exercise some degree of scrutiny over that body and, by implication, over the Sports Council for Wales, why on earth can the assembly not do the same thing?
If the Government have come up against some technical changes which will take a prolonged period to get through, would it not be sensible to provide in this part of the Bill an order-making mechanism that could transfer responsibility for the two bodies fairly quickly, once that procedure has been exhausted? Our debate has demonstrated a meeting of minds across the Committee, and unless there is a very good reason for refusing the amendments, this may be an issue on which the Minister should choose to give way and incorporate the suggestion in the Bill.
Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings):
I wish to speak on the amendments, but, before doing so, I should like to thank the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) for his acknowledgement of Conservative pragmatism. It is that mixture of pragmatism and principle which has illuminated the Conservative mind throughout the centuries, and hearing that tribute 9.15 pm
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