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Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire): My hon. Friend understates his case. According to the Automobile Association, if all the increases in fuel duty, value added tax and road tax are added up the average motorist pays almost £900 a year more to run a car. As he rightly says, a car is the last asset that a poor family in rural Wales can afford to lose, because with it will go the job.
Mr. Evans: The Government fail to understand that public transport is non-existent in parts of Wales and depending on it would be ridiculous. My hon. Friend is right to remind us of all the other extra taxes--stealth taxes--that have been put on the motorist in Wales.
On education, the Government said that class sizes would fall, but after an initial fall they have started to increase. That is a particular problem. The National Union of Teachers is concerned that in six local education authorities--Conwy, Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil, Wrexham, Ceredigion and the Vale of Glamorgan--the number of junior school classes with more than 30 pupils on the register has already increased. The people were promised that things would get better, but we are starting to see them get worse.
There is also a fear over rural schools and parents at Bwlchygroes primary school in Llanfyrnach are appealing to the National Assembly against Pembrokeshire county council's closure plans. The school is one of five that the council plans to close to save money and we have to have assurances from the Government about their commitment to rural schools. The Learning and Skills Bill, which is going through Parliament, is seen as a threat to sixth forms because of the way in which funding is being changed. Education is our investment in our future and it should not be spun out of all recognition.
Objective 1 status has been mentioned and we can see from the 21 January report from the Confederation of British Industry in Wales headlined "Major manufacturing gloom in Wales" that there is a real problem. Certain parts of Wales look to objective 1 status to ensure that they can attract extra investment, but on 17 February I received a press release from CyberCall, a west Wales company that is looking to expand with more than 400 extra jobs. It is dependent on objective 1 funding and match funding coming through and it looks to the Government to stop playing politics with the issue.
Mr. Martin Caton (Gower):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Evans:
Time is catching up on us, other Members want to speak and I am coming to the end of my contribution.
The Government should take cognisance of the Select Committee report, which was scathing about their treatment of that issue:
Mr. Wigley:
It is important to draw the House's attention to that valuable report, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Secretary of State responded by saying,
Mr. Evans:
As far as the judgment on the report is concerned, I can tell the right hon. Gentleman whom I would believe. It is extremely important and influential and I hope that people will not close their eyes to what it says. Many in Wales are depending on objective 1 funding and they cannot wait until the end of the review.
The Government were elected under the banner "Things can only get better" and the Secretary of State said that he would be judged by what they did over their period in office, but can he say that things have got better for students in Wales, pensioners, motorists, farmers, those who are waiting for treatment on the NHS, taxpayers in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom who will see stealth taxes go up by more than £40 billion in a Parliament, those in schools in Wales who look to a better service and those who are waiting for objective 1 match funding? There is only one conclusion: "It's worse than under the Tories" in Wales. [Hon. Members: "That is what you say."] I am sorry--the words are not mine, but those of John Hopkins, Labour's Blaenau Gwent leader. In the Gwent Gazette on 10 February he said, "It's worse than under the Tories."
Mr. Llew Smith:
That piece of literature was written in the English language. If the hon. Gentleman reads it again he will find that those are the words not of Councillor John Hopkins, but of the local newspaper. Councillor Hopkins did not make that statement.
Mr. Evans:
I am sorry--the Gwent Gazette says that there was an "astonishing attack" on the Prime Minister and that the
Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda):
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans)--at least I will look good. I congratulate him on his profundity: he referred to the naming of bridges, public holidays, London parties and trucker Hague going through Wales. However, I must confess that towards the end of his speech he did apply himself to some real issues.
If the hon. Gentleman wants a campaign, will he join me on mine? I would much rather see the Welsh flag on the Cenotaph than have a public holiday on 1 March. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will join me in the campaign to pay tribute to all those Welsh people who died in wars in this century fighting to preserve our democracies and freedoms. Let us all join in the campaign to have the Welsh dragon on the Cenotaph. I will gladly trade it for a public holiday on 1 March.
I take the hon. Gentleman to task for castigating local authorities that have overspent. With his Government's reorganisation of local government in Wales, communities in the valleys could not afford to provide public services, except by stretching funds and sometimes overspending. The merger, for example, of Rhondda, Taff Ely and Cynon Valley councils--two of the poorest areas in Great Britain, by any socio-economic indicator--was bound to fail. It was done by his colleagues in government.
Some of my Labour colleagues are a little reluctant to give money to the poorest areas. Inclusive politics, which is the buzz phrase in Wales, goes out of the window when some of the richer parts of Wales are asked to give something to poorer parts--then we see the inclusiveness and brothers in arms. As always, the Welsh are happy to stab each other in the back on occasions and not to support themselves by running under the same flag, except perhaps on days when we play rugby against the English.
The Secretary of State is right to draw attention to Labour's achievements in Wales, but I was much amused to read the document that came around a little earlier that listed securing a yes vote in the devolution referendum as one of Labour's achievements. Many of us, and certainly the vast majority of the people of Wales, would not regard that as an achievement by any standard.
A peculiar view has developed: more government means good government. The more tiers of government there are, the better people are represented and the more democracy there is. In one sense, democracy is a finite thing; it is not extended by creating all sorts of organisations. Democracy can be destroyed, and democratic deficits or gaps can arise as a result of creating too many institutions. It will certainly eat up many already poor resources, which should be spent on education, schools, hospitals and other health facilities.
During the debate on the Welsh Assembly, all sorts of statements were made. My hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) said that investors and industries abroad were queueing up, waiting for the Assembly to be set up; they saw that Wales was going to become a democratic country and they were prepared to invest. That was one of the arguments of the vote yes campaign: everyone was waiting for Wales to become democratic, as though it were not before.
I am extremely proud to be Welsh, but I am also proud to live in a British community which, from my experience--I have worked as a geologist in many countries--is probably one of the best to live in and enjoys a measure of democracy that most people in the world do not achieve. I do not think that setting up the Assembly extended democracy--it extended bureaucracy. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), the leader of the Welsh nationalist party, scoffs at that. Is he daring to suggest that bureaucracy in Wales has not increased as a result of the setting-up of the Assembly?
Let us consider a point that the Secretary of State made: 60 Members are now making decisions that were previously made by three Ministers. Secretaries are coming out of our ears in Cardiff, all being paid very handsome salaries; it is all very expensive. Is that an extension of democracy and not simply an extension of bureaucracy? I cannot see how my constituents in the Rhondda, one of the poorest areas in Wales, have benefited from any democratic increment that was supposed to come with the National Assembly.
Like some Labour Members, Welsh nationalists talked about inclusiveness. Wales was going to enter into a great period of inclusive politics--brothers in arms, Welshmen marching forward into the new millennium. Wow. Look at what has happened over the past few months. What sheer hypocrisy was spouted during that referendum campaign.
What has happened since the Assembly was set up? Frankly, one great achievement is that we have created a class of political eunuchs in Wales--not just in Cardiff, but in Westminster, too. In Cardiff, 60 people are being paid to do a job that was previously done by three people. There is a hugely expensive superstructure, a point that was raised by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley in relation to the new building. There are now more civil servants in Wales, so there has been a huge extension of bureaucracy. We were not exactly writhing under the yolk of British rule before last summer.
I understand that the eunuchs of the Ottoman empire spent time extolling the Sultan's characteristics--I am not sure who in Wales could be classified as the Sultan in the harem. The eunuchs invented increasingly elaborate titles for themselves in the harem. I am not suggesting that that is paralleled in the Welsh Assembly, but there seems to be a preoccupation with status and titles--and it is not confined to the Members. The statue of Oliver Cromwell stands outside, and visions of that age are evoked in me when I recall that the principal officer serving the Welsh Assembly is called the Counsel-General, one of the most wonderful titles that I have come across. I am not sure who picked that term out of the mire. I wonder what he is all about.
I also wonder what some of the Cabinet Secretaries actually do for their salary of nearly £70,000 a year, with expenses on top. There is bound to be a limit to the number of cattle markets, newly opened roads or potholes that can be visited. Not many schools or hospitals seem to be in the pipeline. With all due respect--all of them are my colleagues and in the same party--it is not as though they make profound decisions.
The Secretaries do not really have to make decisions. The Assembly is rather like a glorified county council. Many right hon. and hon. Members have served on local
authorities. I had the privilege of serving on the old Glamorgan county council, which covered almost half of Wales. It took bigger decisions than many of those being taken by the Welsh Assembly.
I do not envy the role of the First Secretary, as I think that he has a very difficult job. However, one thing that he could do is reduce the number of Cabinet Secretaries. The great virtue is that it would free money to be spent where it should be spent, not on Welsh schools in London--I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) has left the Chamber--but on schools such as the Rhondda special school for handicapped children. Water is coming through the roof and the yard is unsuitable as a playground for these very badly handicapped children. It is a shame to have spent £25 million on a new building for the Welsh Assembly when other buildings were available and there is not enough money to put three 1918 schools into a decent condition for our valley communities.
There is another virtue in getting rid of some of the Cabinet Secretaries. I understand why the former First Secretary appointed so many of them--he wanted a praetorian guard; people who would be loyal and back him through thick and thin. He wanted to ensure that, as a result of his patronage, whenever he was in trouble he could rely on their loyalty and backing all the way. Well, the events of the past few months demonstrate that one certainly cannot buy loyalty in Wales. I was disgusted by the great haste with which they all fled the field and left my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) on his own. He was further emasculated by the Welsh nationalists who preside over the Welsh Assembly. If ever a dirty deed was done in Welsh politics, it was when Plaid Cymru combined with the Tories and the Liberals to stab him in the back.
Of course, we are no better off. I criticise my colleagues in Cardiff as being eunuchs, but we are also castrated as Members of Parliament. As the Secretary of State said, we still have a role to play. We still have our postbags because people look to us when they desperately need help. In one sense we are the last resort for many of our constituents who have problems. However, we face difficulties in tabling questions to the Executive and we no longer have the ability to question directly in respect of certain areas of government.
That brings me back to my initial point, which relates to a profound democratic issue. Some 200 years ago, America sought independence on the basis of no taxation without representation. The argument was that if taxes were raised and paid, the people's representatives should have the right to know how the money was spent. Now, Members of Parliament are in the ridiculous position of raising taxes, deciding the level of taxation and saying how much should be allocated to Wales, but not having the right to monitor how it is spent in certain areas. We cannot chase the penny, and that is fundamentally wrong.
I am not proposing that decisions should be taken away from the Welsh Assembly--which exists, warts and all. However, there should be a mechanism to enable us to participate and to put direct questions to the First Secretary. Instead of more democracy, we have a democratic deficit.
The current CSR negotiations are a test of the Government's commitment to Wales, and indeed of the Devolution settlement.
2 Mar 2000 : Column 612
The Committee want the Government to get on with it, but the objective 1 report that they submitted to the European Union came back because the EU did not think it adequate. On page x, the Select Committee report says:
That report was made by a Labour-dominated Select Committee.
The Prime Minister has said that the Government will not let Wales down. Welcome though these assurances are, the Government's "trust us" approach is not enough.
it is my view that the report is incorrect in its conclusion,
despite the fact that the First Secretary in Cardiff has said that it is a useful contribution to the debate on objective 1?
people of our area were better off under the Tories than they are with Labour, he says.
That is a quote from Mr. Hopkins. I am sure that the spin doctors from Millbank have been on the phone--it will have been red hot because we all know how Millbank operates against discordant voices in Wales. A number of Labour MPs sitting here must feel that they were right and the Government wrong and we all know that the phones of one or two of them were red hot. I believe what John Hopkins says--it is worse than under the Tories and Wales is fed up with the Government's spin doctors. Wales is fed up with the political shenanigans and internal squabbles. Wales deserves a brighter, better future, and that is what the Conservatives will provide after the next general election.
3.59 pm
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