Welsh Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:56 pm on 28 February 1991.

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Photo of Mr Barry Jones Mr Barry Jones Shadow Secretary of State 5:56, 28 February 1991

I must move on in my speech, because many right hon. and hon. Members wish to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

It is clear both to me and to my right hon. and hon. Friends that we do not recognise the Wales about which the Secretary of State has spoken. It is for the right hon. Gentleman to listen to our worries. The right hon. Gentleman rattled the sabre of charge capping, but I challenge him to name one irresponsible local authority in Wales.

I warmly welcome the 650 jobs that the nine projects that we have been promised will provide one day. I also welcome the £8 million for the training and enterprise councils. The Cynon valley cash is encouraging. However, as the right hon. Gentleman has announced some money for Cynon valley, why will he not meet the Heads of the Valleys Standing Conference? I urge him to do so.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), I pay a sincere tribute to the president of the South Wales National Union of Mineworkers, Mr. Dutfield, who stands down today. He is greatly respected throughout Wales. He is a fourth generation miner, who has 30 years' experience of face-working himself. His commitment and integrity are compelling. However, I remind the Secretary of State of what has happened while Mr. Dutfield has been president. In 1985, there were 20 pits in south Wales, employing 20,000 men: today, there are only four pits and 2,000 men.

We have had our triumphs in Wales this year. Our technical triumphs include Ford and Bosch, and Toyota in my constituency. We have all welcomed the marvellous news of British Airways' planned expansion at Cardiff airport. I congratulate both the Welsh Office and the local authorities involved—both the county and the city authorities—on their work to achieve that. However, may I also congratulate the Welsh Development Agency and the Development Board for Rural Wales? I advise the Secretary of State firmly that those agencies were created by a Labour Government—often in the teeth of opposition from Conservative Members—[HON. MEMBERS: "They voted against."' Yes, there were votes on the matter and there were votes against those agencies. However, the economic life of Wales during the 1980s would have been a complete disaster without those agencies. I am glad that there are now science parks in Wales at Aberystwyth, Deeside, Bridgend, Swansea, Cardiff and Menai Bridge. They must form the future base of the Welsh economy.

The Welsh Office is entitled to sing about its successes, but it is short sighted of the Secretary of State to come here today and to imply that all is well. I shall put it this way: Service industry cannot substitute for manufacturing industry … The decline in Britain's manufacturing base has continued … This country does not give a high enough priority to manufacturing industry … Industrial research and development has been growing at a slower pace than elsewhere. Those are not my words: they are the words of the current chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries. Furthermore: The rumoured large rises in power prices will deal a savage blow to manufacturers … Business is being left to carry the can Manufacturers of steel, chemicals, paper and industrial gases may face increases in electricity costs of up to 25 per cent. Interest rates have been too high for too long. Those are not my views: they are the view of Sir Brian Corby, the president of the Confederation of British Industry.

The claims made by Conservative Ministers only two years ago that they had produced an "economic miracle" now look absurd. In the St. David's day debate two years ago, the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) said: Wales is experiencing a substantial fall in unemployment".—[Official Report, 1 March 1989; Vol. 148, c. 306.] The latest CBI "Welsh Industrial Trends Survey", which was published last month, reports that business confidence in Wales is experiencing its sharpest decline since the survey began in 1978.

The Cardiff chamber of commerce and industry stated recently: it is clear that future investment in plant, machinery and buildings—the last bastion of confidence in the near future—has finally succumbed and investment plans are almost universally being revised downwards". In a memorable speech last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said that we must pay attention to indigenous Welsh companies, to the industry that is already here. He described—he derided—the supposed Conservative transformation because, as he said: we have only 6,000 miners but 60,000 bank employees. With prescient words, my hon. Friend warned of difficulties if we build local economies … on the shifting sands of the service sector".—[Official Report, 1 March 1990; Vol. 168, c. 453–55.] He was right. Today, the banks are shedding labour and we are losing steel and coal jobs. Indeed, the head of Barclays Bank, Sir John Quinton, who is not noted for his support for my party, has suggested that his bank will have to lose a large number of jobs. So is Lloyds. Indeed, Sir John Quinton himself said a few weeks ago that he feared a 1930s-scale problem in the economy. I hope that he is wrong.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) said in this debate last year: We in Wales do not have immunity from the consequences of the Government's hideous and mounting economic problems."—[Official Report, 1 March 1990; Vol. 168, c. 427.] They were prophetic words indeed. My right hon. Friend was absolutely right. Even the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) told in his speech last year of several companies which were on the critical list. He is on the critical list, too, but that is neither here nor there. He warned of a move from loss to liquidation. He warned that an overdose of interest rates might damage the economy. He was right—it has. Government policy errors have put major pressures on Welsh industry.

There is a disturbing trend in jobs. I want the Secretary of State to admit it. May I show him some headlines such as: Job losses average 200 a week. That was a headline from the Western Mail, a daily newspaper in the Principality. Another such headline was: Dole total surges up to 100,000. It is apparent that the worst cases are in Aberdare, Bangor, Caernarfon, Holyhead, Rhymney and parts of Pembrokeshire.

In south Wales there have been closures, redundancies or announced redundancies AB Electronics, British Steel, Wolseley Electronics in Pontypridd, Mardy colliery, Deep Navigation Mine, the great company Hoover, the BBC and Harlech Television. Those are white collar and blue collar posts in basic industries and technology industries. The greatest losses are in mid Glamorgan, south Glamorgan, west Glamorgan and Gwent. We are losing and we have lost well-paid, real jobs which required training. They were jobs of status and the very jobs that create wealth. They were jobs for breadwinners and mortgage payers.

I remind the House that the Conservatives have been in power for the past 12 years. Now the evidence of recession is all around us. Redundancies in Wales increased the final quarter of last year by 43 per cent. on the previous year. Unemployment in Wales has risen for four successive months and for eight of the past nine months. Output in the Welsh economy fell by almost 2 per cent. in the third quarter of last year.

In north Wales the story is similar. Brymbo steelworks has closed with the loss of 1,250 jobs. At Owens Corning and Remsdag jobs have been lost. At Castle Cement 200 jobs were lost. Perhaps 300 jobs at the Laura Ashley clothing company will be lost. At G-Plan Furniture 120 jobs will be lost, and at Style Furniture 60 jobs will be lost. More than 100 jobs will be lost at Pilkington. There will be 70 job losses at J.C.B. Axles and Gearboxes and 70 at Marchwiel creamery. Further west, jobs will be lost at Austin Taylor Telecommunications and Crosville bus company.

North-east Wales has lost more than 2,000 jobs in a short time. I conclude that the new economy that the Government helped to build is not yet sufficiently robust and is suffering redundancies in high technology and manufacturing industry. My excellent local authority of Alyn and Deeside published a report this week which said, even before it knew about the redundancies at Shotton: there are substantial deep seated structural inadequacies within the local economy of North East Clwyd and Deeside in particular, and demonstrate that there is still a continuing need for intervention by the Government, its agencies and the European Commission to help to protect, rebuild and restructure the local economy because it has not yet developed the intrinsic strength to successfully complete these tasks on its own. Of course it has not. The economy will need all the assistance of the Welsh Office and all the agencies at its disposal as well as all the assistance that local authorities can give.

I have expressed my anger about Shotton. I counsel the Secretary of State, in the light of the evidence that I have given and the latest redundancies at Shotton, not to issue news releases entitled: Brighter future for North Wales economy, says David Hunt. Such notices are misjudged. The Secretary of State must have a finer sense of what is happening in Wales than to make crudely optimistic statements as he did today. It would be far better if he told us other things and said, "We look to you to give us assistance. I acknowledge that there are defects."

It is clear to all of us that the redundancies and the shake-out will continue for some time yet. The deep recession might, with bad luck, be even worse than we expect. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent was right in his speech last year and so was my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. Job losses of such quality and in such amounts are serious. They denude our manufacturing, wealth-creating base. The Government's economic mismanagement is undermining the hard-fought, indeed, brilliant gains of inward investment. It is 'hurrah' for Sharp, Brother, Toyota, Ford and Bosch. That is well done. But it is also goodbye to Brymbo, south Wales collieries, Castle Cement and the Hoover plant jobs at Merthyr. It is serious.

I remind the Secretary of State of the recession in the construction industry. The Building Federation in Wales warns that 4,000 jobs could be lost in Wales. Its state of trade survey is the worst for 10 years. In response to a parliamentary question, I was told, incredibly, that only nine of Wales's 37 district councils made new housing starts in 1990. Such building is the best spur to the construction industry. No starts were made in Blaenau Gwent, Cynon Valley, Islwyn, Lliw Valley, Merthyr Tydfil, Neath, Newport, Rhondda, Rhymney, Swansea or Torfaen. That is incredible.

Homelessness is not exclusive to the great cities. It is in every town and larger village in Wales. It is a horrendous feature of Welsh life. The waiting lists are extensive. It is for the Government to solve the problem because the Government created the problem and they have been in office since 1979.

It is so wounding to families when they cannot find affordable tenancies. Mortgage rates are sky high. They cannot rent homes from their local council. The problem is the Government's fault and the Government should implement policies to deal with it urgently. The fact that so many of our young people are sleeping out in our towns and villages in Wales, even in the coldest weather, is a scar on our communities. It reflects nothing but ill on the Government.

The Government, having created unemployment, are abandoning the unemployed. They are cutting their training budget and putting hundreds of employment training and youth training scheme places in Wales at risk. They are putting training providers out of business and closing training programmes. I want the cuts to be reversed. The employment training centre at Pentre in Deeside in my constituency will close at the end of March with a loss of nine full-time jobs and 115 ET training places.

In the north-east Wales area alone, 700 ET places are to be axed, a cut of over 40 per cent., and the 17 operating training organisations will be reduced to nine. Community Activities and Training in Ogmore—CATO—in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) should be allowed to continue. I recently accompanied my hon. Friend to see the Secretary of State, who was kind enough to see us. We argued for the continued existence of CATO. My hon. Friend made out an excellent case for CATO, which has a good track record. It has a farm, it assists those who need adult education and it serves an area which has lost its collieries. It is a fine organisation which should remain intact. Following a ministerial visit, it was given a good bill of health, and my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore has given CATO good leadership.

I must refer to the predicament in Ferndale of the Ferndale-Rhondda home improvement service. Although it is instructive and has a Rhondda reputation, it fears the loss of staff, perhaps 15 of 33. It deals annually with perhaps 50 trainees and it does only good. It helps pensioners, providing them with new floors and windows. It rectifies, for example, damage done by frozen water pipes. It is currently helping an 87-year-old blind resident and aims to rewire a terrace of homes in Ferndale. It is professionally successful, socially necessary and economically beneficial. Rather than going out of business, it should not be at risk in any way.

The Observer on Sunday reported that 6,000 experts who have been training the unemployed face redundancy next month. That cannot be right. As Britain's unemployment rises, why put 6,000 trainers out of work? Is it wrong and poor government. It is tragic that Britain should be advancing—rather than use the word "advancing", I should say "reversing"—in that way, and I urge the Secretary of State to fight in Cabinet to rectify that wrong. Government expenditure on regional preferential assistance to industry has been cut. That must be labelled a foolish policy. Welsh Office spending is to be cut by 35 per cent. in real terms over the next three years.

My hon. Friends and I say that the injustice of Government policy has found no better expression than in the poll tax, which is unfair, unpopular and inefficient. It is clear from experience that the inefficiencies, the cost and the waste of the poll tax are multiplying rather than diminishing with time.

I find, talking to professionals, that the poll tax is difficult and costly to collect. In Alyn and Deeside alone, there have been more than 27,000 changes in the poll tax register since April. About 25 per cent. of staff time in the poll tax section is occupied with the registration process. The system costs £9·95 per charge payer in Alyn and Deeside.

Labour policy for a system of modern rates is clear. The same cannot be said of the Government. They are in a mess on the poll tax and the Secretary of State for the Environment is said to be fretting at the poll tax muddle according to an "unnamed senior Tory MP" quoted in The Sunday Times last weekend. According to that paper, he said: We are totally at sea. Ask half a dozen MPs what we should do and you get totally different answers. What is the position of the Secretary of State for Wales? As Minister for Local Government, he said in July 1989: I welcome the community charge system, to which I was committed at the last election and to which I remain committed".—[Official Report, 25 July 1989; Vol. 157, c. 900.]mmm In March 1990, only a year ago, the right hon. Gentleman said: the community charge is a much fairer and simpler system".—[Official Report, 21 March 1990; Vol. 169, c. 1109.] Tell that to the marines. We do not believe it.

Without a doubt, the Conservative party is divided over the poll tax issue and hon. Members who represent marginal seats know that it is an electoral albatross. At the same time, the Government do not seem willing or able to admit what everyone else has known for years—that the poll tax is a colossal, costly criminal blunder and that the only way forward is to abolish it. That we shall do.

The Secretary of State for Wales earned his promotion to the Cabinet for the efficient and enthusiastic manner in which he embraced and proposed the poll tax, improved its bite and defended it. So I look forward with interest to hearing him explain, as he surely will, why the poll tax must be abolished. I predict that soon the Minister who perfected the poll tax, tooled it up and oiled it to perfection will be disowning it for reasons not of conversion but of potential, hoped-for electoral gain.

The poll tax is destroying local government, so difficult is it to administer and collect. It has not been accepted or acknowledged by the people of Wales, because they know that it is unfair and unjust. At every electoral opportunity the people of Wales have rejected it, and that goes for Euro-elections, county elections and parliamentary by-elections. It has been rejected with contempt in Wales.

Today, more than ever, we must think about the future and Wales—the whole of Britain—has a clear choice. Either we build a strong, competitive, high-skill economy or we resign ourselves to becoming a low-paid, second-rate economy with all the implications that that has for unemployment, the standard of public services and our quality of life.

A Labour Government will be elected and, when that happens, we shall address ourselves to the problems of the people of Wales.