Mr.
Hain: Actually, I do. Will the hon. Lady welcome the
reported remarks by Glyn Davies, the Conservative Assembly Member, last
week? He was reported as sizing up his ministerial car and ministerial
office at one stage in the budget discussions, because the Welsh
Conservatives were ready to form an alternative Government, as they
want to do, either now, if they can, or after next
May.
Mrs.
Gillan: Glyn Davies has obviously been taking lessons from
the Secretary of State, who is sizing up the ministerial Jaguar that he
hopes for following his election as Deputy Prime Minister. There must
be some synergy between the two
politicians.
Mr.
Hain: For the record, let me say that I already have a
ministerial Jaguar. It is armoured, and I think that it weighs 4
tonnes. I do not imagine that, even with her energy, the hon. Lady
would be able to give it a push.
Mrs.
Gillan: It is reputed that with the next job the Secretary
of State will get two jags, so two jobs will move to two
jags. I will take no
lessons from a Secretary of State who openly boasts that he negotiates
a better deal for Northern Ireland than he does for Wales, and then
tells the people of Wales that they should be green with envy. With
commitment like that, it is no surprise that he is now campaigning to
move away from Wales—in ministerial terms—and take over
the only office in the Government that requires even less time and
effort than he puts into making the case for Wales.
Of course, we are grateful that
the Secretary of State has taken time off from his campaigning to come
here and present the Government’s case, and what a thin case it
was. Last year, he trumpeted the fact that the Gracious Speech was a
bumper Queen’s Speech for Wales, as it contained an
unprecedented number of Wales-specific Bills. This year, in an attempt
to hide his embarrassment over the lack of Wales-specific Bills, he
argued in the Assembly that the Government of Wales Act means
that
“We no longer need
any.” I watched that
sitting of the Assembly. The Secretary of State’s speech today
was remarkably similar to the one that he gave then—indeed,
passages were taken directly from it. The logic of his comments was
that Westminster should be shut out completely and that we should move
rapidly towards full law-making powers for the Assembly. However, we
all know that he will not let that happen, because it would rip open
the divisions in the Welsh Labour party that the Government of Wales
Act is designed to mask.
In reality, the only way to
describe the Queen’s Speech is “More of the same for
Wales from a Government who have promised so much yet delivered so
little.” Every year, we get the same old promises from Labour,
and every year we get the same old Labour failure. I admit that we get
good intentions as often as not from the Labour party and the Welsh
Assembly Government, but we get no delivery.
While there were no specific
Wales Bills in the Gracious Speech, most of them— 20 or
so—will apply in whole or in part to Wales, not least the usual
raft of Home Office Bills, which has become such a hallmark of this
Government. There have been more than 50 since they came to power, and
we now have at least six more. I ask myself how many of those
provisions will finally be implemented, how many will be repealed and
how many will be overturned by future legislation. There is no clearer
admission of failure, after nine years of a Labour Government, than the
fact that we have six more Home Office Bills.
We have yet another Criminal
Justice Bill and an Organised Crime Bill, yet people in Wales know that
under Labour violent crime has gone up by 50 per cent. and that local
police forces are still dealing with the financial consequences of the
botched merger plans. There is an Offender Management Bill, but people
in Wales are aware that under Labour prisons are at breaking point and
dangerous criminals are being released early. Yesterday, we heard that
the strain on the police has increased even further, because 41 police
cells are being used to house prisoners. The financial problems that
that will present to our police forces in Wales are probably
irreversible. There is also a further immigration Bill, but under
Labour foreign prisoners are being allowed to stay in the United
Kingdom. Chris
Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): The hon. Lady has referred to the
number of prisons in Wales and the fact that many of them are very
full. She is probably aware that many Welsh MPs are concerned that
their constituents, when they go to prison, do not go to a local prison
and often have to go somewhere in England. Does she think that there
should be an additional prison or two in Wales and, if so, where would
she put
them?
Mrs.
Gillan: The hon. Gentleman knows that for two years I
spoke on prisons and probation for my party. He is not going to get any
false promises or spending pledges from me at this stage. The disgrace
of our prisons is exactly the same in Wales as it is in the rest of
the country. I appreciate that there is no prison for women in Wales,
and I know that there is no facility whatsoever in north
Wales. I was greatly
disturbed, when looking at things from this perspective, to hear that
Welsh-speaking prisoners were being held very far away from their home
area, without the facility to communicate fully in the Welsh language.
That has caused me some concern. [Interruption.] The hon.
Gentleman knows that I have been around for too long to make any
pledges on new prisons at this stage. He will have to wait until the
electoral cycle takes us into a general election, when all will be
revealed. However, the Conservative Government will make a far better
fist of running the Home Office and the prison and probation systems
than this Labour
Government. The border
and immigration Bill is due, but under Labour foreign prisoners are
allowed to stay in the United Kingdom rather than being deported and,
after nine years in office, our borders are still out of control. We
all know that at Holyhead funding for special branch officers has been
cut and, despite its being the third busiest port in the country, we
still do not have immigration officers on duty 24 hours a
day. Albert
Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab): The hon. Lady says that
there has been a cut, but she will know that the Home Office has not
even made the decision on the funding for dedicated security posts this
year or even next year. It will make that announcement in January, and
we should await those figures before we talk about
cuts.
Mrs.
Gillan: The hon. Gentleman lives in fantasy land. The Home
Office budget has been frozen, and it will be cut in real terms. He
should read the fine
print. The Bill on
local government promises greater freedom for local authorities from
Labour’s stifling targets and red tape, and we welcome part of
that, but the people in Wales are still reeling from the 97 per cent.
increase in council tax and the politically motivated rebanding and
revaluation that was imposed in Wales but cancelled in England because
of the election. We
support the broad thrust of the Pensions Bill, although I expect that
by the time it gets to the Floor of the House the Secretary of State
will be saying that we are anti-pensioner in the same way as he tries
to paint us as anti-Welsh. However, people in Wales will remember that
this Labour Government, and the Chancellor in particular, destroyed
private pensions, halved the savings ratio and placed half of all
pensioners on means tests. It was all too late for the steelworkers at
Allied Steel and Wire, as the Secretary of State knows. The right hon.
Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has made it clear that in
1997 we had some of the best pension provision in Europe, and now we
have the worst. Who is largely to blame? The man who is likely to be
the next Prime
Minister. We would
have welcomed the Further Education and Training Bill, had it been
about real reform rather than yet more bureaucratic
tinkering. Again, people in Wales will recall that under Labour the
number of 16 to 18-year-olds not in education, employment or
training—the
NEETS that my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire
(Mr. Crabb) was talking about earlier—has increased
in Wales Although we
support much of the Legal Services Bill, after nine years of Labour
people are rightly appalled that large parts of Wales are being turned
into legal aid deserts and access to justice for vulnerable people is
being restricted. We are promised more reforms of the NHS, when, under
Labour, NHS dentistry, waiting lists and threatened hospital closures
remain a national disgrace. It is the same old promises and the same
old failure. Last
week, in his letter to Labour MPs—I am sure that all Committee
members received it—the Secretary of State admitted, in a rare
moment of candour,
that “Too often
the Government has seemed to hand down policies from on
high” and
“too often our
communication...feels like a lecture rather than a
dialogue”. He should
know, because he has been one of the principal offenders in this Labour
Government. His latest diktat from on high is the Government of Wales
Act. The Gracious Speech referred to that Act—its only direct
reference to Wales—and mentioned the Government working closely
with the devolved Administration. However, that relationship can only
be viewed in the context of the Act, which the Secretary of State
presents as a significant measure of devolution that settles the
constitutional issue for a generation. In reality, he knows that it
does no such thing—it is both fragile and
unstable. In an
Assembly debate the other day, the First Minister referred to the new
Orders-in-Council procedure as an intermediate step and a halfway
house. A halfway house cannot be the same as a settlement, as they are
not compatible. It is clear that the First Minister and the Secretary
of State are at odds on the issue and, of course, on many other things.
That is why the Secretary of State is calling for a new constitutional
convention between Cardiff and Westminster. What he did not tell the
people of Wales is that under his version of the convention the only
effective power of veto over proposed legislation coming out of Cardiff
would lie in his hands and his hands alone. As I have said, he will be
able to act literally as the imperial viceroy of Wales, dictating which
laws come to Westminster for approval and which are sent back to the
First Minister in Cardiff. All the while, the role of this House will
be diminished, and right hon. and hon. Members from Wales will be
marginalised. What
else can the Secretary of State mean when he says that there should
be “a clear starting
presumption that Assembly requests for new powers will be
agreed”? It will be a
centralising measure wrapped in devolved clothing, and it will give all
power to the Secretary of State for
Wales. Despite the
Government’s addiction to programme motions, at least the Bills
in the Queen’s Speech that apply to Wales will go through the
full parliamentary process. That is in stark contrast to the Orders in
Council that the Secretary of State allows to come to us from Cardiff.
I give the Secretary of State notice that my party will ensure that
each and every measure that
comes from Wales will be subject to the maximum scrutiny that we can
give it, within the limitations of the 90-minute debate that we are
allowed. If anyone in
Wales wants to see the complete divorce between what Labour says and
what it does, they need look no further than the letter that I referred
to a few moments ago from the Secretary of State to Labour MPs. In it,
he says that he wants “a
radical programme of progressive policies...to narrow the gap between
the rich and the
poor”. Yet who presides
over Wales, which is officially the poorest part of the United Kingdom
and where the gap between the rich and the poor is widening? He
does. The Secretary of
State talks about the need
to “grasp the leadership
of the green
agenda”. That is a clear
admission that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney
(Mr. Cameron) is in fact leading the agenda and that the
Government are playing catch-up. Which Government presided over an
increase in emissions in five of the past seven years, and, after much
persuasion from the Conservative party, promised a climate change Bill
in the Queen’s Speech but failed to include the annual targets
that are necessary to make it
effective? The
Secretary of State talks about
getting “the right
balance between the power of the state and the rights of the
individual.” Which
Government are introducing identity cards and engaging in a direct
assault on centuries-old liberties by abolishing jury trials? It is the
Government of which he is a prominent
member. The
Queen’s Speech is the product of a divided, paralysed and
paranoid Labour Government. The party is divided in Wales between the
First Minister and the Secretary of State; it is divided between Welsh
Labour MPs and Welsh Labour AMs; and it is divided in London between
the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. The Secretary of State referred
to the Assembly elections next May and said that they would be a
bare-knuckle fight between Labour and the Conservatives. Let me assure
him that we will not flinch in the face of his bare knuckles or the
Chancellor’s clunking
fist. Labour has had
nine years at Westminster and more than seven in Cardiff to try to get
things right, but it has failed. The real tragedy of the Prime Minister
is that he promised so much but delivered so little, and the tragedy of
his last Queen’s Speech is that all that his successor offers is
more of the same. The
only prospect that is worse is the combination of socialism and
separatism offered by Plaid Cymru. [Interruption.] It
would take Wales back to the economic equivalent of the stone age by
turning its nearest neighbour into its fiercest
competitor.
The
Chairman: Order. The background noise is getting
louder.
Mrs.
Gillan: They have made my point, Mr. Caton.
They are already back in the stone
age. The
Queen’s Speech made it clearer than ever that Wales, like the
rest of the United Kingdom, needs a change of direction. That can come
only come from a united and revitalised Conservative party that is
setting
the political agenda, rather than a clapped-out and clueless Labour
party. Instead of a Labour party that is divided and paralysed, we need
a Welsh Conservative party that offers the people of Wales change and
optimism—we need a new team in Wales. At the next Assembly
elections, we will be offering real polices for real people in Wales to
improve their lot, rather than the people in Wales getting poorer, as
they have done under this Labour
Government. 10.20
am Mr.
Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab): I am delighted to participate
in this morning’s proceedings. I am not sure which Wales the
hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham knows, but it is not mine. Those
of us who represent Welsh constituencies have a very different
view. However, I think
the hon. Lady’s remarks on the methods by which the changes to
the way in which the Assembly would make laws are worth considering,
and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales also referred
to them. The Select Committee is a good vehicle for pre-legislative
scrutiny, but I am unconvinced that one and a half hours’
debate, possibly Upstairs, is how the order should proceed, and the
matter still needs attention. My right hon. Friend is right that this
is not a rubber-stamping exercise, but a proper means by which the
House of Commons and Parliament can deal with these important
issues. I am also
unconvinced that people in my constituency, or any constituency in
Wales, spend much of their time thinking about constitutional issues. I
think that what was done was right: the opportunity was given to
Parliament and to the Government to change how the Assembly deals with
this business, and it now has the legislative powers to do so. The
business of legislation should now be turned to dealing with the
problems of the people that we in this Room
represent. I shall
concentrate my brief remarks on the impact of the Queen’s
Speech, the pre-Budget report and public expenditure in Wales on the
valleys of south Wales. The Committee could devote an entire sitting to
those issues in the months ahead, because the valleys are so
important. I recall
many years ago, as a very young and green Front Bencher in opposition,
taunting the then Secretary of State, Peter Walker, about his valleys
initiative. He was banished to the Welsh Office by Mrs.
Thatcher—it was part of their difference of views. To be fair to
him, I can say, 18 years later, that the valleys initiative was not a
bad idea, as it brought together all the different aspects of
government and how they would affect the people of the south Wales
valleys. A debate on those matters would be very valuable in this
Committee.
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