Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 6:27 pm on 28 February 1991.
Yes, that is Government policy. TIPAS and other agencies exist for that purpose. Nobody wants to encourage cowboy builders, who have been a blight on some old people. The new system, which is designed uniquely for Wales, ensures that the poorest people—who experienced difficulty in finding the necessary contribution under the old scheme and were sometimes missed—can get a 100 per cent. grant. That will be one of the defences against cowboy builders. A properly costed proposal must be presented and approved before the money is released, so the new scheme should protect people more effectively than the old one.
Another reason why it will be better is that those who will benefit from the increased value of their homes should make a greater contribution. I was always surprised that people received a present of a lump sum of money from the taxpayer and ended up with a house, the capital value of which had increased. Such people received a double present. Many of my constituents enjoyed such a gift because, of the 12,500 houses approved under the enveloping scheme, my constituency had the most.
Hon. Members who went on the Rhondda, West by-election campaign in the mid-sixties will remember people saying, "Why on earth are they building that estate up in the mountain? Nobody will want to live there, it is too cold and windy." All those who criticised the council then were right. It has been an utterly cataclysmic disaster for Penrhys in the Rhondda. Fortunately, through the priority estates project, we are spending many millions of pounds to put it right. I welcome the recognition of housing difficulties that were caused in the past.
I draw the attention of hon. Members to two issues that highlight the future of Wales. First, the Cardiff bay proposal, which will illumine the capital city and will reflect on the whole of south Wales, it should be welcomed by all those who have an interest in the area, as it will beautify part of the west of the country. All hon. Members will recognise that Wales, together with Portugal, the Western Isles and Ireland, has the difficulty of being slightly on the fringe of the EEC. Those who live in the hub of the EEC will enjoy the most heat, if I may draw an analogy between the EEC and the sun.
Secondly, we should welcome the Ebbw Vale garden festival. It will show many people who did not already realise it how beautiful the valleys are, how close and well connected they are to the midlands and the south-east, and what a tremendous welcome companies would receive if they brought their business to the valleys. At the head of the valleys, in the Ebbw Vale garden festival and in the development of Cardiff bay, Wales has something going for it.
I have two worries. First, I agree with the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside in some respects. For some time, Wales has had a low level of educational achievement. It probably dates from the time when most people did manual work that did not require academic qualifications. If one was bright and went through a Welsh grammar school, one received a peerless education. The helots worked underground, on the farm or in the steelworks, or did some other manual job. Today, however, people need academic qualifications. They cannot even drive a tank or fire a gun without qualifications—they are far too expensively equipped. Whether people are banging a typewriter or whatever, they need qualifications that their parents and grandparents never dreamed of. Unfortunately, it has been difficult to convey this necessity to many people in Wales.
A spin-off of that problem is low ambition, which we are having to overcome painfully. We want to be able to ask youngsters what they want to be and to hear them say, "A brain surgeon or a doctor, or a Member of Parliament." They may never achieve that, but some children in the classroom may do so. In a middle-class area we might believe a child who says that he wants to be a doctor, but it is doubtful whether we would even receive such an answer in Cynon valley. We must boost those dreams and ambitions. Among the ambitions is the realisation of children and parents that they must have qualifications. Children must pass exams, stay on at school, and, if necessary, return to school for them.
My second worry is an important, in-house worry, of which I have made my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State aware in the past. I am worried about the way in which the block grant is made up in the Welsh Office. The health sector in the block grant is beginning to eat up other parts of the Welsh Office budget. We are proud of the tremendous growth in health expenditure and the new posts and other achievements are fine, but there is a price to be paid for them. Although we receive a proportionate share of the health department's budget, which comes in the form of the block grant, it is not enough because of particular factors in Wales. Older staff are at the top of the salary scale and there is greater morbidity. We do not have the 8 per cent. of people switching to private health care, as they do in many parts of England. Those factors all put a greater pressure on health care in Wales than in England. The Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Security should recognise those issues in future.
I have outlined two problems—how we accommodate the expenditure for health within the present financing of the Welsh Office and the problem of education. Other than that, for goodness' sake, let us increase the ambitions and dreams of the young people in Wales.