Examination of witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 10 FEBRUARY 1999
PROFESSOR VERNON
BOGDANOR, PROFESSOR
DAVID MIERS,
MR BARRY
JONES and MR
RICHARD RAWLINGS
60. Given that that is your primary recommendation
to us, and given all that you have already said in evidence today
and in your paper, why do you think we need a joint committee
which covers all three, what would be its terms of reference and
who would be on it? Do you still want to pursue that with us?
(Mr Jones) We envisage there are certain situations
which would affect all three devolved entities within the UK,
and the area specifically which comes to mind is relations with
Europe; all three devolved entities would have similar problems
with regard to promoting their case, their respective cases, with
the UK Government, in Brussels, and we think, in that circumstance,
there would be benefits from a joint committee of the three devolved
units, so that the regional territorial needs and concerns would
be fully taken on board by a central British Government decision.
And the point we make this for is that the normal means whereby
these interests are articulated is the Secretaries of State for
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and, certainly in the case
of Scotland of Wales, we feel that there will be a decline in
the status and in, we suspect, the political clout of the Secretary
of State for Scotland, and Wales, and that, therefore, there has
to be some sort of institutional support system to compensate
for that.
Mr Stunell: I am beginning
to see some overlap here, which I am not very clear, again, I
am not sure if I am understanding you or whether I am seeing something
which is not real. But, within the devolution legislation, and
within the Government's announcements, is a proposal that there
should be joint working between those three elected Assemblies
and Parliament and also other outlying institutions, the Isle
of Man has been mentioned, for instance, and that would be something
that was primarily staffed and based on the elected representatives
to the Assembly and to the Scottish Parliament. What you are suggesting
appears to be something which will be primarily made up of elected
Members of this House who represent constituencies there, and
I am not sure quite if I understood your proposal correctly, and
you think there is a role both for the inter-Assembly and parliamentary
co-operation and for the parliamentary co-operation within the
United Kingdom Parliament? That is a question.
Chairman
61. But could I add to that, because do
you think that this joint committee would consist, in addition,
of Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Westminster Members, or
would it be Members from the Assemblies and Parliament, in Scotland,
with the Government of the day, here, in the United Kingdom, or
would it include the United Kingdom Members for the other parts
of the Union?
(Mr Jones) Our view is that the committee would
be made up of Members of Parliament.
62. Of which Parliament?
(Mr Jones) Of this Parliament, the Westminster
Parliament.
Lorna Fitzsimons
63. We have still got sovereignty, do not
throw it away. Is there a danger of a territorial, as with always,
everybody is gaining territory now, the reality is that we do
not want to, we want to have precise abilities, as Members of
Parliament, to question, to keep to account, but we do not want
duplication, and we have a chance, with this procedure, to actually
avoid that and to aid clarity. Now is there a danger, in your
mind, that this devolution committee could actually overlap in
any way on the territorial committee for Wales that you have suggested,
or I might have read too quickly your proposals, in terms of detail,
of the territorial committee, but it looks, in the way that you
are suggesting it, that, actually, unless you are very careful,
it could come up with proposals, concerns, about the way devolution
has happened, just as much as the overall devolution committee
could?
(Professor Bogdanor) We feel, Chairman, that there
are some issues of devolution that will be specific to Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland, because of the different forms
of devolution that they are having, but there are also some issues
which are common to the devolved areas. You have stressed quite
rightly, Chairman, the question of the powers of Cardiff, and
also Edinburgh and Belfast. But we feel there is a danger that
the devolved areas could be forgotten at Westminster. That happened
with Northern Ireland in the Stormont period, from 1921 to 1972,
not only on civil rights matters but also such matters as industrial
development. These matters tended not to be raised in the House
of Commons, because people said "Oh, there's a Parliament
in Northern Ireland." We think that should not happen with
the devolved areas in the future, and therefore we believe there
is a role for both types of committee; and, indeed, it may be
that central government arrangements will also evolve. I think
the Royal Commission on the Constitution suggested, in the 1970s,
that if we had devolution the offices of the Secretary of State
for Scotland, and Wales, should end and there should be a Ministry
for territorial government, perhaps within the Home Office, or
Environment, or some other Department, or perhaps a separate Ministry.
We do not know how these arrangements might evolve. But in these
circumstances a territorial committee of the kind we are suggesting
would be a natural committee to scrutinise the particular Department
concerned. We do then feel that there are some problems which
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and, possibly, the regions
of England they share in common, and they ought not to be overlooked
at Westminster.
Mr Gardiner
64. Chair, if I can perhaps throw, I do
not know what your cricketing metaphors would be, Chair, but a
googly into this, what job do you envisage a Welsh Member of the
Westminster Parliament having, under the new arrangements, and
how will it differ from that of an English Member of Parliament?
(Mr Jones) Initially, and, indeed, for most of
the time, a Welsh MP will be like any other Member of Parliament
of the Westminster Parliament. He, or she, will have career objectives,
he, or she, will have particular interests in certain areas of
political activity, social welfare, or whatever, and we have no
doubt that they will seek to climb the greasy pole, like any other.
65. Spare me the abuse, let us just go with
the facts?
(Mr Jones) I was trying to be complimentary to
you. But, in addition to that, we envisage that there will be
a role for Welsh MPs to play. Now we do not wish to divert Welsh
MPs totally from the natural career which they see for themselves
in being elected to a Westminster Parliament, which is why we
identify the need for a Welsh territorial committee, which will
be, effectively, the liaison between Welsh MPs and the Members
of the Assembly. And the reason for the liaison is that Wales
will still depend, to a large extent, upon this Westminster Parliament
in getting legislation processed, in getting amendments to legislation,
and ensuring that the discretionary powers for the Welsh Assembly
are as great as possible; so that there still would be a substantial
role for those Welsh MPs. And, in order to free the majority of
them from the day-to-day concerns, which are now devolved to the
Welsh Assembly, we think it is actually imperative there should
be a single committee, with a focus on liaison and partnership
with the Assembly, directed to ensuring it develops the expertise,
the knowledge, the background, and the skills within this House,
in order to promote the Welsh case. In other words, we try to
get the best of both worlds, you might say, from this arrangement.
Chairman
66. Mr Richard Rawlings, would you like
to respond to Mr Gardiner, as well, briefly?
(Mr Rawlings) Yes, I would like to make a general
point about the discussion, I think, Chairman. I think that perhaps
the two groups here are coming from rather different directions.
The emphasis in our paper, in our policy proposal, is very much
centred on the territorial committee, and, building on the idea
of the territorial committee for Wales, and then perhaps for Scotland
and Northern Ireland, we then move on to the idea of, I think
we called it, a joint committee, but a looser possibility would
be joint arrangements, as between the different territorial committees,
to discuss matters of common interest. I think Europe was mentioned.
Block funding could clearly come into that category; the administration
and the working of the concordats, which I see as absolutely fundamental
to the way in which devolution is going to work, would be another
possibility. Whereas, I think, the questioning, quite understandably,
has tended to come from the other direction, which is to focus
on this joint committee, the committee on devolved powers, whatever
it happens to be, and then to go down. And I think that that is
not the emphasis of our paper, the emphasis of our paper is very
much on territorial committees for each of the territories, and
then a recognition that, in addition to the very different interests
that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs will wish to develop
and explore, there may be a series of common issues where it might
be useful for joint arrangements to be in place.
Chairman: Thank you,
Mr Rawlings. I want to call David Drew, Lorna Fitzsimons and then
Clive Efford, to put the questions together, so that you can then
deal with those, and then we will pass on to another issue.
Mr Drew
67. I would like to carry on in the same
vein as Barry, because I think that that is something that I am
interested in. We can have all the structures and the systems
under the sun, but it is the people who are either going to make
it work or not make it work, and I am just intrigued who you see
on these territorial committees, how many MPs, all Welsh MPs,
what happens if you have got people who are on the Welsh Assembly
at the same time as here, how do they divide up their time? In
a sense, we get the best of every world at the moment, because
every Welsh MP, every Scottish MP, every Northern Ireland MP,
can have an interest in their part of the world, if you like,
through the Grand Committee, and some who really want to specialise
in that can put their name forward for the Select Committee, because
any Member can do that, but, unless you do not happen to have
any representatives in those parts of the world, it is likely
to be people from that part of the world who get onto the Select
Committees. Now what worries me is that if you want an inclusive
regime then, with the very nature of things, it is going to get
quite unwieldy, in some respects; if it is too narrow, I can see
some MPs feeling quite excluded from it, and if they do not happen
to be in the Assembly, if they do not happen to be in the Committee,
then how do they voice their—they are not just going to
be ciphers of their constituents, important though that may be.
So I just wonder if you could tease out where you see that going?
(Professor Bogdanor) This is an important point,
to which we have given a great deal of consideration. On the whole,
we thought it would be a mistake to have a committee with all
the Welsh MPs on it. What we are trying to suggest is that there
should be a single voice for Wales, a powerful vehicle for Welsh
interests. We thought that having all the Welsh MPs on it might
make it slightly unwieldy, for a committee which is to combine,
as it were, the deliberative function of the Grand Committee and
the inquisitorial function of a Select Committee. So we thought
the Committee should contain perhaps between about 11 and 13 Members,
that is about a third of the Welsh MPs, but we thought it need
not necessarily be chaired by a Member of the Government. And
we took the view that, with a clearly defined——
Chairman
68. When you say the Government, do you
mean——
(Professor Bogdanor) I mean a Member of the Governing
Party, I beg your pardon. We took the view that it should not
necessarily be chaired by a Member of the Governing Party. Since
a number of Select Committees are not chaired by Members of the
Governing Party, including this one, we believe that, if its remit
were clearly defined, the Committee could be an extremely powerful
body by combining those two functions.
Chairman: Lorna Fitzsimons,
and Clive Efford, if they could both come in by asking their questions,
then perhaps Professor Miers, amongst others, can respond.
Lorna Fitzsimons: It
is interesting. I genuinely see now that you have teased out more
than actually was on the paper. We circulated the evidence, or
we have given the opportunity for our Welsh colleagues to actually
participate in this, and, interestingly enough, I do not know
whether it is either because they just saw the abolition directly
of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, and therefore wanted, but
it was a genuine confusion between the real difference, and I
think you have highlighted it slightly, in your talk, you talked
about actually having new and different powers than the current
Select Committee does, and that is why you have rebranded it a
territorial committee, to mark the newness of its powers, its
enhanced status, whilst going not for the grandiose in the Grand
Committee but the more focused approach. And I think that it does
need some selling, in terms of our Welsh colleagues, that that
would give them the remit, the format, to do what they feel they
currently can do as Members of Parliament.
Mr Efford: I would
like to come to the issue of the deregulation committee and the
territorial committee in a minute, but——
Chairman: Devolution.
Mr Efford
69. In terms of the constitution of the
territorial committee, if it is exclusively made up of Welsh Members
of Parliament, for instance, then not all parties would be represented
on that committee. So I thought I would just throw that in, and
I would just like you to comment on that when you are answering
Lorna's question, because that is a problem, if it is just exclusively
territorial Members?
(Professor Miers) Chairman, perhaps I can answer
some of those particular points, and perhaps one or two more general
points, concerning what such a committee would do. On the particular
points, I would just echo Professor Bogdanor's observation, we
would think about 11 or 13 Members of Parliament, reflecting party
balance; we do not take the view that these would necessarily
all be drawn from within Wales.
(Mr Jones) Not necessarily, no; we must get the
Conservatives on, I think.
(Professor Miers) An obvious point, and I think
this is actually quite an important point, and we have already
alluded to it, is that, at some stage, there is bound to be some
concern on the part of MPs, as it were, on the border, the English/Welsh
border, concerning the impact, as I have already suggested, of
decisions taken by the Welsh Assembly but which may have spillover
consequences. So we see it as party balance, not confined to Welsh
MPs. You mentioned the point, I think, about the Welsh Assembly.
It is, of course, possible, under the Government of Wales Act,
for a person to be a Member of the Welsh Assembly and an MP simultaneously,
though I understand it to be the case that a dual mandate is not
favoured, and so we are working on the assumption that, in due
course, even if initially there may be one or two people of that
kind, representations will be separate and represent separate
constituencies. The main point, I think, which is what would this
committee do, which I think is implicit in the last question;
I suppose, putting it in terms of principles, we would see it
this way. That, perhaps if we take the Welsh Affairs Select Committee
role at the moment; clearly, its role is going to diminish, that
follows as night follows day, its role will diminish; nevertheless,
there will continue to be matters which a Welsh Affairs Select
Committee, if it were to continue, would conduct inquiries upon,
like reserved areas, for example. So there will continue to be
some work to be done, and if you look at it in terms of functions,
those functions will need to be discharged by Westminster for
the future, as will such functions as reviewing how, as I suggested,
the Welsh Assembly's decisions impact outside Wales.
Chairman
70. You do not think that would all be done
by a devolution committee of this House, which would represent
Scotland, Northern Ireland, as well as Wales?
(Professor Miers) I would not have thought so,
Chairman, on the grounds that the kinds of decisions which we
have in mind, which are, as it were, domestic, pertaining to things
like, say, education, health, and so on, that would not be the
case, certainly, in the case of Northern Ireland; but, of course,
this committee will take up other things. Professor Bogdanor and
my colleague Mr Jones have already referred to primary legislation;
we would envisage this committee having a powerful voice, and
an important voice, in terms of reviewing what Westminster wishes
to enact by way of primary legislation, in whatever area. So Part
V of the Road Pricing Act, or Bill, to use an example we use in
the paper, Part V will be the part that applies to Wales; now
that will be more or less definitive on what it is that the Welsh
Assembly can do. However definitive it is, whatever the level
of definition, it seems to us that a territorial committee for
Wales would be in a very strong position to review that Part,
and, because we see it as a single committee reflecting what is
going on in Wales, in terms of devolution, it would be able to
bring to a consideration of what will this Part of this Bill do,
last year, or the year before, we happened to see, as part of
our inquiry, or part of our deliberation, that this was the impact
of a particular decision at Westminster, or in the Welsh Assembly,
and that will inform the quality of debate concerning that Part
of the UK Bill, the Westminster Bill.
71. Have I missed something, have you moved
from the existing Welsh Select Committee back to the territorial
committee, or are you posing the two?
(Professor Miers) What I was trying to suggest,
Chairman, was that the territorial committee would pick up and
continue to deal with those things which the Welsh Affairs Select
Committee has dealt with, but minus those things which go down
to Cardiff; but that, in addition, there will be more things,
because of devolution, to be dealt with, there will be other things
to be dealt with, such as primary legislation affecting Wales.
(Mr Jones) And, also, Mr Chairman, I might say,
one significant area, which has not been touched on yet, and that
is there will have to be a liaison between Westminster and Cardiff,
and we see that the Welsh territorial committee would be responsible
for sounding out opinion in the Assembly, meeting at the Assembly.
72. But are you still suggesting, as was
suggested right at the beginning of our discussions, that the
Welsh Grand Committee and the Welsh Affairs Select Committee should
go, and be replaced by the territorial committee for Wales?
(Professor Miers) Yes.
(Mr Jones) Yes.
Chairman: You are;
excellent, that is clear.
Mr Gardiner
73. Excuse my lingering confusion on this,
but, given that powers such as housing, health, health services,
education and training are devolved down, and you are saying that
the Welsh territorial committee will have, I think your words
were, a major influence on the primary legislation going on in
this place, at Westminster, that will be passed for Wales, under
which the devolved Assembly will be working, I do still want to
find an answer to the question of what happens to the 25 MPs,
who are Welsh MPs, what is their representative function? Because,
you said "Well, they will have their interests, and so on
and so forth, and we have put the territorial committee for them
to have that role", but, with respect, the function of an
MP is not to be sorting out his life so he has an interesting
time of things, it is actually to be representing his, or her,
constituents. Now what I am trying to get at is, if you are one
of the Welsh MPs not on the territorial committee, no longer being
petitioned by your constituents about these issues that are now
devolved, where is the representative function of that MP, and
what does it consist of?
(Professor Bogdanor) Well, it seems to me that
the MP will still have a representative function, because, as
I said earlier, all these matters that Mr Gardiner mentioned will
still be the responsibility of Westminster. Now it may be that
constituents will be aware of the precise division of powers in
particular areas of education and health between Parliament and
the Assembly, but I suspect that many of them will not be. I think
many constituents are not aware of what is the responsibility
of local government, so they still regard MPs as being responsible
for local government actions. I would like to emphasise what Professor
Miers said, that the problems of Wales are specific and different
from those of Scotland and Northern Ireland because of the division
of primary and secondary legislation. The job of MPs will be to
keep Government up to the mark to ensure that there is a coherent
division of powers in different areas, so that the amount devolved,
shall we say, in education is similar to that in health, social
services, and so on. We hear a lot about joined-up government
these days, particularly joined-up government at the centre; it
is very important that there should be joined-up government with
the Welsh Assembly, so that it, too, can follow a coherent policy
in the areas which it is responsible for. I do not think Welsh
MPs will be short of things to do.
Chairman: Certainly,
we are not short of questions here. David Drew has caught my eye
first, and I know Professor Miers wants to come in on this point,
so if you could store it up. Let us get the two questions, David
Drew and Andrew Stunell, and then, again, if you can deal with
them.
Mr Drew: It is really
partly overlapping what I was saying earlier, about trying to
get clear, in my mind, at least, what the people aspects of this
are, but going on from that and looking at the way in which the
structures have got to reflect how the people will work within
them. I just wonder whether you have thought through the potential
for conflict between the territorial committee and the Welsh Assembly;
this is going to happen, is it not, because the Welsh Assembly
are going to push for more and more. It may have been before I
came into the room you were talking about that, but no body I
have ever had any involvement with has ever restrained or constrained
itself when it comes to trying to do something outside its immediate
powers, because at least they can talk about it, even if they
cannot do it. Now I just wondered if you had thought through how
the territorial committee and the Welsh Assembly—and I was
interested in what you said and I know this is, obviously, to
some extent, a Party's dream, that you have separate people in
different places, but, at the moment, we will have people, almost
certainly, elected to both here and the Welsh Assembly. Now that
could be a very good thing, it could be, as you say, something
that is going to eventually remove itself as a problem, but, those
things together, you can see some legacy of the past and some
possibility of the future of how that tension will arise, and
I just wonder how you see that? I am not going to ask you to predict
the future, but, if this is got wrong, somebody, somewhere, is
going to get egg on their face and it is not going to be very
easy to extricate yourself from what could be quite a deep pit
of tension and conflict?
Mr Stunell
74. I have to say, I am no clearer than
I was about one of the central issues here, which is, the Assemblies
and the Parliaments, plus some other bodies, are intended, as
part of this legislation, to develop some co-ordinating mechanisms
between themselves, and that is seen as positive, and it might
deal, for instance, with the issue of European links to those
bodies. We are also, here, talking about Members of this Parliament
in a territorial committee for each of those entities, I think
you used the word, and we are also now talking about this joint
body, this devolution body. It seems to me that we have actually
got quite a lot of scope for overlapping responsibilities and
accountabilities; and I remain unconvinced. I have not really
heard the argument, I have not understood the argument, anyway,
for what this joint devolution committee would do that would not
be achieved by a joint committee of Assembly representatives and
Parliament representatives meeting outside the ambience of this
place and assembling their own agendas, and debating with Government
Ministers and holding Government Ministers to account on joint
issues which affected them. And I am not clear what the separate
role of this devolution body in here would be?
(Mr Jones) A group of Assembly Members and Parliament
Members from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will have no
legal standing, they have no institutional base of legitimacy
compared to Members of this Parliament; and, although they might
be able to influence, our feeling is that devolution is as much
to do with modernising Westminster as decentralising power out
to the regions, and, therefore, we do not see any inconsistency
in an arrangement whereby the co-ordinating function for the devolved
areas should be applied within the four walls of this building.
So what we do, in fact, is argue for a form of devolution which
is not in contradiction to the parliamentary system but is integrated
with the parliamentary system.
Mr Drew
75. So, ipso facto, you see regional
government as an inevitability, in terms of England, otherwise
there would be, almost certainly, a ridiculous state of affairs,
because English MPs would be in a very different situation from
Welsh and Scottish, and Northern Ireland. Is that a fair statement?
(Mr Jones) I think the present arrangements are
asymmetrical, and I would imagine, in the fullness of time, a
certain symmetry would emerge, but it depends very much not on
decisions being made from on high but on political processes developing
at the regional level in England. I can imagine two or three English
regions with a strong sense of initiative in this area already.
And I think what we have been talking about very much, in looking
at the Welsh situation, is the kind of model which could be applied
to the English regions. Because we think that Scotland and Northern
Ireland are unique, for reasons which we need not go into at this
stage, but that the model which is talked about in the context
of Wales could easily be applied, with suitable modifications,
for the English regions.
Chairman
76. Why should you break England down into
regions, why should not England be dealt with as England?
(Mr Jones) Our contention is that a lot of the
pressure for devolution came not specifically from nationalist
demands, certainly if I can speak in the context of Wales, which
I am most fitted to, but from the need to develop a system of
government administration which was closer to the people, more
sensitive to the demands and needs of the people, and we think
that that policy would not be achieved by treating England, with,
what, 40 million people, as a regional entity, we just do not
see that as a viable option.
77. Although you have carefully avoided
mentioning Scotland, where clearly it was driven by a nationalist
Scottish ... ?
(Mr Jones) That is debatable. If you look at public
opinion polls, the sentiments for Scottish nationalism are not
in the majority, and, clearly, a substantial number of people
voted for devolution in Scotland who were not nationalist, and
they must have done so for a reason.
78. But that is motivated by, particularly,
one political party, and, in a way, maybe I am going beyond what
I should, in the Chair, but the new Government, under Mr Blair,
responded to what they saw happening and sought to reflect the
feelings of the Scottish people because of the unique identity
of Scotland still as a country?
(Mr Jones) Yes, I would not dispute that. I do
not want to reduce the impact of nationalism in my analysis, but
I do think it is the case that nationalism is not the sole factor
in all this.
(Mr Rawlings) If I could come back to Mr Stunell's
question, Chairman.
79. And then Mr Drew, as well, if you will
deal with that question?
(Mr Rawlings) And then I would like to emphasise
one aspect of our proposals which I do not think has yet been
ventilated. In response to Mr Stunell, what I would say is two
things. At first, I took you to be saying that colleagues from
the new Assembly and from the Scottish Parliament would be coming
together to meet, and that would be it; and then I took you to
be saying that there would also be input from the Westminster
Parliament into those kinds of meetings. And I would like to say
two things. First, it seems to me that the latter is essential,
and, in particular, I draw attention to the Government's proposal
of a joint ministerial committee, which is not simply a committee
of Ministers of the different territories but will also involve,
as I understand it, the Prime Minister, representing the United
Kingdom, and it seems to me very important that, if these parliamentary
links, or Assembly links, are going to develop, Westminster representatives
play a full role in the creation and the establishment and the
facilitation of those links. And then, secondly, you did mention
the idea of parliamentary representatives being there; well, in
a sense, that feeds directly back into our proposal for some kind
of joint arrangements, because it seems to us that it would be
precisely the Members who had the experience, through the territorial
committees and the joint arrangements that we are proposing, who
would be particularly appropriate parliamentary representatives,
to then go on and become involved in these multilateral arrangements
with the other Assemblies, the Scottish Parliament, and so on.
(Professor Miers) I wonder, Chairman, if I could
just return to, I think, a point Mr Gardiner, and the second point
which Mr Drew raised, just before I forget the answers to those.
Mr Gardiner was asking what the Welsh MPs do, who are not members
of the proposed Welsh territorial committee, and leaving aside
greasy poles, and the rest, and just looking at it in terms of
the post-bag, MPs as just constituency people; so there are two
areas upon which matters will arise for them, there will be the
devolved areas and there will be the reserved areas. So far as
the devolved areas go, I noticed this was quite an important aspect
of the evidence you had from Mr Atkinson, it is unquestionably
the case that an MP, I call it the Builth Wells hip transplant
question, he called it the hospital question as well, that a Welsh
Assembly Member will be raising questions in the Welsh Assembly
as to why his, or her, constituents are not getting hip transplants
in Builth Wells, and exactly the same question will be raised
by MPs here, as their constituents. That raises, in its turn,
a question about whether questions can be taken, will be in order,
on that matter; but I leave that aside. That is clearly one aspect.
The other aspect, of course, is the reserved areas, which we have
not touched on at all. One of the most obvious of these, and,
again, we were discussing this on the train on the way up, is
broadcasting, and I can well envisage there is going to be a very
great deal of activity in Welsh MPs' post-bags about the place
of Welsh language broadcasting on BBC, on ITV, in particular,
if those things should be shunted about, or the possibilities
for Welsh language programming are affected by decisions taken
as to where you have a six o'clock news, or a nine o'clock news,
or a ten o'clock news. That is one example. Another example, there
are quite a number of military bases in Wales; again, this is
maybe overspecific, but, again, you can see letters in the post-bag
about overflying, or what have you. So it seems to me that, just
in terms of constituency activity, it is going to be there, in
the same way that it is there for any MP.
Mr Gardiner: Chair,
just briefly, to respond to that, I think my focus was more that,
on your hip transplant example, the person who would be making
the initial representations to the local hospital or the local
health authority would actually be the Assembly Member and not
the Westminster Member. And I fully take the point that people
will not always appreciate that distinction, and therefore will
write to both, or the wrong one. I would not get nearly so many
letters about yellow lines and parking if people did appreciate
the distinction between local and national government.
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