Referendum in Wales

Part of Orders of the Day — Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill – in the House of Commons at 6:30 pm on 4 June 1997.

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Photo of Martin Caton Martin Caton Labour, Gower 6:30, 4 June 1997

Thank you, Mr. Lord, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this important debate on a referendum that will decide how Wales is to be governed in the new millennium. I continue a long and proud tradition of Labour representation in the Gower constituency that goes back to 1906 when John Williams was elected as Gower's first Labour Member of Parliament. He was followed by D. R. Grenfell, supported by the South Wales Miners Federation, and then by Ifor Davies. I never knew either D. R. Grenfell or Ifor Davies, but there are a number of people still living in the constituency who remember them both with enormous respect and affection.

I did, and do, know my immediate predecessor, Gareth Wardell. He was my Member of Parliament for 13 of the 15 years that he represented Gower in the House. Many of the hon. Members who served alongside Gareth during that time will know much better than I do the contribution that he made in this legislature. From speaking to his colleagues, in particular his fellow Welsh Members, I find that there is clearly enormous respect here for the work that he did, and especially for his willingness and ability to master detailed subjects.

Alongside those parliamentary colleagues, people all over Wales have recognised and valued the tremendous job that Gareth did as Chairman of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, undauntedly leading investigations into all sorts of aspects of public life in Wales over the years.

I know and will remember Gareth best as a superb constituency Member. As a local councillor, I would take constituents to his surgery when I felt that any case needed his involvement. I honestly cannot believe that the concern that he showed for those people or the attention that he gave to seeking solutions to their problems have been surpassed by any hon. Member.

I know that Gareth's friends here will join the people of Gower in wishing him all the very best in his return to higher education as head of geography at Trinity college, Carmarthen. I know, partly because I was told it on the doorsteps so many times during April, that I have a very tough act to follow. I intend to do my very best.

It is probably not common knowledge this far east, but in south-west Wales the residents of the city of Swansea are nicknamed Jacks, and people who live in Llanelli are called Turks. Most of my constituency lies between those two population centres, which has led some bar-room wits to describe us as half Jack and half Turk—or Jerks, for short. People who talk in that way make a big mistake, first, because such terminology can seriously damage the health in the area that I represent, but, more importantly, because the people of Gower may be many things—indeed, they are many, many things—but a bunch of Jerks they are not.

It is a huge privilege to have been elected to represent so beautiful and diverse a constituency as Gower. I am acutely aware of the responsibility that I now carry as its Member of Parliament and I am conscious of the problems that I may well face in the years ahead because of that very diversity.

The Gower constituency cannot be described by any stretch of the imagination as a single homogeneous entity. It snuggles around the south-west and north of Dylan Thomas's "ugly, lovely town" of Swansea, and provides the new unitary authority, the city and county of Swansea, with virtually all its rural population.

On the face of it, being non-urban seems to be all that the various communities that make up Gower have in common. Starting in the south, Mumbles, where I live, is an old fishing village that developed into a seaside resort and has expanded to become part of Swansea suburbia. Mumbles is currently struggling to revitalise and renew itself, always seeking to conserve and treasure the best of what we have inherited from the past.

To the west is the Gower peninsula, which most people think of when the Gower constituency is mentioned. It was the first designated area of outstanding natural beauty in the country, and a wonderfully fascinating combination of coast, countryside and estuary for palaeontologists, archaeologists, historians, zoologists, botanists, oceanographers or holidaymakers.

Even the peninsula itself can be divided at least into two. South Gower, with its glorious cliffs, caves and sandy beaches, is much more anglicised, even in place names and pronunciations. North Gower, on the Loughor estuary, is equally beautiful in its own way and still holds on to the Welsh language in villages such as Crofty, Llanmorlais and Penclawdd.

Penclawdd is, of course, the home of Gower cockle gathering, with the only commercial cockle beds in the country where people can harvest all year, every year, because they refuse to use mechanical drags; they still hand-rake and gather, thereby ensuring a sustainable shell fishery that provides an environmental example for the whole of Europe.

South Gower also provides a fine example for sustainable living and community action. Holtsfield is a remarkable collection of wooden chalets in a wonderful woodland setting, just outside the village of Bishopston, where more than 20 families are trying to live in harmony with their beautiful surroundings and the wider community.

Unfortunately, a property development company has different ideas. It has bought the land and is seeking to evict those chalet dwellers, who are resisting with enormous resolve and imagination and who have the support of the vast majority of the rest of the population of Bishopston, which was wrongly thought of previously by many people as merely a dormitory village for Swansea commuters.

Coming off the peninsula on the North Gower road, one enters Gowerton and begins to meet the community whose recent history is the history of coal, steel and tin. Like the rest of south Wales, it has suffered terribly from the economic decline of, especially, the past two decades.

Villages such as Loughor, Pontybrenin, Penllergaer, Penyrheol, Garden Village and Grovesend have over the years melded together around the central village of Gorseinon, but their sense of identity as separate communities remains strong, as I found out during the election campaign when I accused someone from Loughor of living in Gorseinon. She gave me the strong impression that she would much rather have been described as a "Jerk" than as a resident of her neighbouring village.

Those communities have learnt, often the hard way, the importance of solidarity to achieve common objectives and to enable fulfilment of individuals. They are strong, Welsh, socialist-minded villages where people and families look out for one another and are prepared fiercely to combat what they perceive as injustice. That is probably even more true of the separate settlements of Pontardulais, Garnswllt, Craig Cefn Parc, Pontlliw, Felindre and Clydach, all directly to the north of Swansea.

The tragedy of those communities is that so much of the tremendous talent and quality that exist there has been undervalued and wasted for so long. Very few jobs have come in to replace those lost in mining and steel. Even the small number of manufacturing employers based in the constituency have been shedding jobs in recent years. The decline is reflected in the commercial centres of the larger villages. One has only to walk the main streets of Clydach, Gorseinon or Pontardulais and see the number of empty shops and charity shops to understand why the posters declaring "Britain is booming" that sprouted this spring seemed like a sick joke to people who live there.

7 pm

The different parts of Gower vary enormously because of geology, geography, history and relative wealth, yet there is much that unites us wherever we live in Gower, as became clear to me during the general election campaign.

First, in every part of the constituency there is still a sense of community, an acceptance that we are responsible one for another; a belief that there is such thing as society. Secondly, many of the concerns are the same in the different communities. In every part of Gower, there is equal concern for improving our schools and colleges, rebuilding our national health service, protecting our environment and providing jobs for our young people and the long-term unemployed. When we come to ask the people of Gower, and of the rest of Wales, to vote for the creation of a Welsh Assembly, those same concerns will still be at the top of those people's minds.

I believe that there are enormously powerful constitutional and democratic arguments for making the Welsh Office accountable at last to the people of Wales. Those arguments are even stronger when we consider the might of the quangocracy that has grown up in Wales over the past decade and a half. However, I do not believe that it will be those arguments in the main that will win us the referendum in my constituency or across Wales. People will vote yes if they are persuaded that a democratic Welsh Assembly will provide a vehicle for creating a first-class education system for all our children; if they believe that our Assembly will play a central role in developing a national health service in Wales that can and will deliver quality treatment and care whenever they need it; if they are convinced that a Welsh Assembly can ensure that environmental protection will be at the heart of all policy-making in Wales in the new millennium; if we can show them that our Welsh Assembly—their Welsh Assembly—will be an engine for harnessing the skills and talents of the population of our country, to regenerate our economy and create decent jobs for our people.

We must prove that democracy in the form of a Welsh Assembly is not merely a nice idea if we can afford it, but an essential, practical mechanism for improving the quality of life of the people of Wales. I am sure that we will.

Tempting as is the amendment so eloquently moved by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones), it is time for the Labour Government to carry out their pledge to offer the people of Wales the chance to vote to create the sort of Assembly described in our manifesto. It is time for the democratic debate to move on, to engage with the people of Wales. It is time for all of us who believe that extending democratic accountability in Wales can and will help deliver the goods on education, health, the environment and jobs to prepare ourselves for the task of campaigning to secure a massive yes vote in the autumn.