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Mr. Livsey: Will the Minister use his best endeavours to get agrimonetary compensation for farmers in Wales, who are owed about £45 million as a result of prices not being achieved over the past 12 months?
Mr. Hanson: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Government have already given agrimonetary compensation to farmers in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. Further compensation is an issue, but the Fontainebleau agreement is in place and that will involve additional taxpayers' money for farming communities. We are concerned about rural areas and acknowledge those issues.
Objective 1 funding is another major theme. It was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) and other colleagues, including Opposition Front Benchers. All Members know, because my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said so on a number of occasions, that public expenditure survey cover and match funding are being examined by the Government in the spending review. I recognise why Members raise those important issues, but I refer to remarks made yesterday by Hugh Richards, the president of the National Farmers Union in Wales:
We have heard much about match funding for Objective 1 structural funds in the past few weeks but we must make progress.
It is important that
the right projects are proposed and backed to create sustainability for Welsh agriculture.
2 Mar 2000 : Column 653
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We should focus on that.
The other key issue is the devolution settlement generally and the hon. Member for North Shropshire, my hon. Friends the Members for Ogmore (Sir R. Powell) and for Rhondda, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) all made important points about the way in which it is working in Wales. It is less than nine months since the advent of devolution on 1 July 1999. It represents a major structural change in the governance of Wales and the way in which Members of the House and others relate to it. I say to my hon. Friends and other Members, let us see how it operates and consider how it is developing from all angles. Most of all, let us make it work and make it stable. We have to consolidate and work with what we have at the moment.
Delivery of services, stability, partnership and the themes discussed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State are extremely important and we want to emphasise them. However, I remind the House that we must not forget the big picture, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), and what the Government can do and have done to help to transform Wales. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore asked for a detailed statement of what the Government have done to help to support the people of Wales. I can tell him without fear of contradiction that we have had a busy and productive time since the general election. A lot has been achieved for Wales and there is a lot more to follow. I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends that the hon. Members for North Dorset and for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) and every other Conservative Member who participated in the debate have opposed every single thing done by the Government since the election.
We have talked about the economy and employment. As has been mentioned, the new deal has transformed the lives of many individuals in my constituency and others throughout Wales. In Wales, 12,000 young people, 2,000 long-term unemployed and lone parents have secured jobs through the new deal. It has transformed people's lives in Wales, which the Conservative party has opposed. At the end of last year, I attended the new deal launch for the over-50s in north Wales, the launch of the new deal for musicians in Cardiff, and the ONE launch in Cwmbran in the constituency of the Secretary of State in November, all of which are transforming people's lives. An additional 46,000 people are in work in Wales since the general election.
Mr. Paterson:
Is the Minister aware that one calculation has it that each job, unsubsidised in the real market, costs £23,544?
Mr. Hanson:
The hon. Gentleman has voted against the new deal and does not support it, but it is transforming lives. Colleagues who represent seats in Wales know that to be a fact.
The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy mentioned tackling poverty and social exclusion, as have others. The working families tax credit has meant that 87,000 Welsh families have had an increase of £24 a week. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Mr. Ruane) launched the initiative in his constituency in November.
A total of 585,000 pensioners have benefited from the winter fuel allowance. In November, the first pensioner in Wales received the cheque from me on behalf of the Wales Office in Bangor. About 109,000 people have benefited from the minimum wage in Wales.
I know that the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo), who is now gracing the debate, is a convert to the minimum wage, but the Conservative party voted against it. The predecessor of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, Keir Hardie, would have been proud of our party and its achievements in Wales. When we look at free television licences for pensioners, the massive increase in child benefit and our targets to tackle child poverty in Wales, as in the rest of the UK, we realise that the Government are delivering for Wales.
My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said that crime was an important issue. Police numbers are up in every police force in Wales since the general election because of the Government's assistance and help. Three police forces out of four have shown a fall in recorded crime from the highest ever levels, recorded under the Conservative Government.
The hon. Member for North Dorset criticised the Labour Government's achievements on health in Wales. He should be aware that, in partnership with the Assembly for Wales, this year the NHS in Wales will receive an additional £175 million worth of expenditure and has an additional £1 billion to spend over the next three years. In the first two years of the Labour Government, 11,000 more in-patients were treated than in the last two years of the Conservative Government.
The Labour Government has given an extra £844 million for the Assembly to spend on education over and above current plans. The money is transforming the lives of children throughout Wales, building new class rooms, putting new teachers in place and giving new skills. The Labour Government are achieving for Wales. All the points that hon. Members have made are important and valid.
We have made a difference to people in Wales. It is about delivery on those issues, making a change, transforming people's lives, and partnership with the Assembly to achieve that. The Queen's Speech included a range of legislative opportunities: the Local Government Bill, the Care Standards Bill and the Learning and Skills Bill, which all give opportunities to let the Assembly look at those things in a Welsh context. I am particularly pleased to welcome the Secretary of State's announcement about the independent children's commissioner for Wales.
The Labour Government have delivered for Wales, are working in partnership and do make a difference to people's lives. We have a vision for Wales, which includes local decision making, helping to make the Assembly work and ensuring that the Wales Office fulfils that job in central Government.
We want to create fairness, enterprise, stability and opportunity for all, and to show the importance of the UK being central in Europe. We want to ensure that we have a Wales that is for all, celebrating Labour's history in our 100th year, what we have delivered for the Labour party in Wales and for the people of Wales, and modernising for the future, with the Conservative party remaining where it is now: it has little influence, no power and no support.
It being Seven o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment lapsed, without Question put.
Mr. Livsey:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Could you use your good influence? We have lost one and a half hours of our Welsh debate today and although 18 right hon. and hon. Members wished to speak, only 12 managed to do so. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) wished to celebrate his birthday by speaking in the debate and was unable to do so.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
The hon. Gentleman knows that from time to time Government statements have to be made on important issues. After that, it was for hon. Members to govern the length of their speeches. Had speeches been shorter, many more hon. Members would have been called and we could even have celebrated the birthday of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik).
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Touhig.]
Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North):
I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to highlight the renewed threat facing tens of thousands of protected tenants so soon after it seemed that the Government had at last provided them with some security, following a decade of steep, sometimes stratospheric, rent rises.
Two years ago, I introduced an Adjournment debate drawing attention to the plight of protected tenants. Many of them are elderly or facing retirement; some are vulnerable, the majority are on fixed incomes and almost all of them, by definition, are tenants of long standing. Their secure tenancies predated the deregulation of the private rented sector brought about by the Housing Act 1988. At the time, they were given assurances that their position would not be affected by deregulation, but that proved not to be the case.
Before the 1988 Act, rent assessment committees had to consider factors such as the age, character, location and state of repair of a dwelling. Rent officers and rent assessment committees were also obliged to assume that there was no scarcity of comparable rented accommodation in the locality, as that would have had the effect of sending the price of accommodation up. This provision traditionally meant that fair rents were held below the market price.
The 1988 Act created more tenancies at market rents in the form of assured tenancies and assured shortholds. It also allowed rent assessment committees to take the market into account when setting rents for regulated tenants. The entire framework for the setting of protected tenants' rent was drastically altered. Rent officers and rent assessment committees were increasingly being persuaded that fair rents should be set in line with market rents.
Rent rises started to run well ahead of inflation. By the mid-1990s, rents were often many thousands of pounds a year higher than they had been at the start of the decade.
In my debate in 1998, I urged on a sympathetic Government the need for swift action to prevent people from losing their homes, to redress the fear and anxiety that was shadowing so many lives and to protect the character of our inner-city communities, which is dependent on a stable and mixed residential base, but is in danger of being swept away by the pressures of the international property market.
I was therefore delighted, as were many of my constituents, when, 14 months ago, the Government introduced regulations, based on section 31 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, to impose a rent cap. While still allowing rent rises well in excess of the retail prices index--up to 7.5 per cent. above in the case of initial re-registrations--the cap none the less assured tenants that they did not face a doubling or trebling of their rents over the following years. It allowed them to plan their future--sometimes their last years--with confidence. The rent cap was greeted with relief and gratitude.
7.1 pm
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