Government of Wales Bill

I am delighted to declare an interest in all senses of the word, as I have been sitting as a Welsh Assembly Member since 1999. I well remember at the time of the referendum, in which I also played a part—I am certainly not ashamed to say that I voted against the Assembly—Labour politicians were falling over themselves to assure us that the people of Wales would be voting for an Assembly with secondary legislative powers and not a Parliament with primary legislative powers. They were clear about that because they knew that there was not the same enthusiasm in Wales for a Parliament as there was in Scotland. That original legislation was, at best, inchoate and, at worst, completely incompetent; hence the fact that we are back here, eight years later, discussing the whole thing all over again. It would be totally undemocratic if the people of Wales, having voted for an Assembly, were to have a Parliament forced upon them. The powers that the Assembly already has are more than adequate—we have enormous powers over all the devolved areas and over all matters that are likely to improve public services in Wales. The fact is that the Assembly has performed very poorly in its use of those powers—a problem that dates back to its very first meeting. We had to appoint some Ministers at that meeting, and out of all the people that Labour had returned, we managed to find a Welsh language Minister who could not speak a word of Welsh and an agriculture Minister who was a vegetarian. Despite the various problems that confronted Wales at the time, the first decision that this motley group of people took was to spend what they said would be £11 million—it turned out to be £66 million—on a brand new debating chamber. I went to see it the other day with the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) and it is a very fine building. Indeed, £66 million buys a lot of building, but it would also buy a lot of health care and education facilities. As I said, the Assembly already has significant powers in respect of those responsibilities. One Member talked earlier about NHS waiting lists coming down, but the reality is that waiting lists in Wales are two to three times longer than those just across the border in England. Ambulance response times are a disgrace. We have problems with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, yet the Assembly have delivered a £15 million reorganisation that has led to 22 quangos in Wales dealing with health, instead of the four that existed before the referendum. We were promised that education would be the Assembly’s top priority, yet we are witnessing the closure of small schools. Another two have closed in my constituency only this week, at the order of the Assembly’s Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning. Cuts in funding for school sixth forms are likely to take place as a result of the new formula that Education and Learning Wales is considering. Of course, if the Labour Administration had their way, they would impose tuition fees on us. They talk about a nation fit from the cradle to the grave, but what we are getting from them is failure from the nursery to the bursary. The Assembly also have significant powers in other areas, such as local government. They have the power to decide funding for local authorities, and the reality is that council taxes have gone up exponentially—by 130 per cent. in my constituency, and that is before the impact of rebanding. The White Paper and the various documents issued at the time of the referendum stated that the top priority for the Welsh Assembly would be to ensure that the level of gross domestic product in Wales is the same as that for the whole of the United Kingdom. When the Conservatives unfortunately lost the 1997 election, average GDP in Wales was 85 per cent. of the UK average. The Assembly’s top priority was to improve that figure to 100 per cent.; the reality is that Welsh GDP now languishes at 79 per cent. of the UK average. What a dreadful failure but how very unsurprising, given that one of the Assembly’s flagship economic policies was to set up Welsh embassies across the more exotic cities of the world. Such failures are summed up by our failure to deal with agriculture. During the foot and mouth crisis, I was telephoned by a farmer’s wife from Raglan who was unable to get a movement licence for a bull because an official in the Welsh Assembly’s agriculture department did not know what sex it was. Apparently, the farmer’s wife had not included that information on the form. [Interruption.] Those Members who do not come from the countryside should think about it. In contemplating giving more powers to the people responsible for such problems, I am reminded of what Herbert Morrison once said about giving more powers to the colonies. He said that it would be like giving a latchkey, a bank account and a shotgun to a 10-year-old. These people should not be trusted with more powers under any circumstances. [Interruption.] I am waiting for interventions and I am very disappointed that Labour Members have so little to say. They have been telling us all day that the Secretary of State will have the final say, but that is no caveat. It is probably better than giving blanket powers straight away, but the reality is that this provision will cause all sorts of problems in years to come. As has been pointed out, a non-Labour-led Assembly—a coalition-led one, for example—could ask for powers from a Labour Secretary of State for Wales and be refused them, or a Labour-led Assembly could be refused powers by a Conservative Secretary of State for Wales. I certainly look forward to witnessing the latter in the next few years. One can only imagine the rows in the press when such things happen, which will be yet another way of driving a wedge between England and Wales.