Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:54 pm on 28 February 1991.
It is an honour and a privilege to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer), which was well received on both sides of the House. The hon. Gentleman has been a distinguished Member for two constituencies in Clwyd and his contributions to Welsh debates in the past 20 years have been valued by us all, even though we may not always have agreed with everything that he said. Both Opposition and Conservative Members who may not always entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, undoubtedly have a considerable respect for his honesty and integrity and his courage to stand up for his convictions over those years. It was interesting to listen to him tonight looking back over the years and noticing some of the threads that stand out in Welsh politics.
There is a considerable amount that divides us in the House. Perhaps the divisions in our communities become more apparent in the House. Certainly they are more apparent than the Secretary of State found when he went around Wales and talked to people, whether in local government or elsewhere.
It is 17 years to the day since at least three of the hon. Members present tonight entered the House. As the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist) said, my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Dr. Thomas) entered the House 17 years ago today. So did the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells). We were elected on Thursday 28 February 1974. A great deal has changed since then, but enormous problems still face us in Wales. They pose an enormous challenge.
A subject that has been paramount in our discussions in Wales in the past 12 months was not given the attention that I would have expected in the speeches of the Secretary of State and the Labour Front-Bench spokesman. It is the poll tax. Week after week, a substantial proportion of the people at my surgeries come to see me about the poll tax or community charge. I am glad that the Government are reviewing their policy. I only wish that they had never invented that iniquitous tax. As several hon. Members have said, it is an inefficient tax. It costs perhaps three times what a reasonably efficient collection system should cost.
But more important than the inefficiency of the poll tax is its unfairness. It is a basically unfair tax. It is unfair to people on low incomes who are just above the threshold for receiving benefit—people who earn perhaps £120 or £125 a week. They have to face the full impact of the community charge. A husband and wife dependent on that one income both have to pay the community charge.
I realise that the charge in Wales is lower than in some areas of England, but so are levels of income in many parts of Wales, particularly in Gwynedd. Individual after individual and family after family come to my surgery about the poll tax. They do not complain about having to pay some charge. They are not up in arms, but in tears, because they do not know how to cope with the financial burden that the poll tax places on them. They do not necessarily want to make a political protest or to default in their payment, but they just do not have the money to pay. To pay the poll tax, they would have to go without something, such as a car to travel to work, new clothes for their children or perhaps adequate food. Perhaps they would not be able to maintain their mortgage payments.
Something must be done quickly about the poll tax. I accept that discussions are being held now and I was grateful that Plaid Cymru had an opportunity to put our points to the Secretary of State for Wales and the Secretary of State for the Environment. But we have been told that it could be two years before legislation to replace the poll tax is introduced, even if there is an election and a change of Government. Something must be done in the meantime to alleviate the burden on thousands of people throughout the length and breadth of Wales. Something must be done this April to provide more generous community charge benefits and to eliminate the 20 per cent. payment which those at the bottom end have to pay, for whom £40 or £50 is more than they can afford. We must do something to help students, student nurses and the disabled, who are missing out on benefits that were available under previous legislation. Something must be done now.
While I criticise the Government for the way in which the poll tax is working, I am also critical of Her Majesty's Opposition for the way in which, when the community charge legislation was proceeding through Parliament, no viable alternative was put forward. One should have been proposed, because we had enough time to think about it. Some of us gave evidence to the Layfield commission in the 1970s. In our evidence and policies, Plaid Cymru is in favour of a local income tax. This is the type of taxation used in many countries. It is used in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Over 90 per cent. of the revenue of local government in those countries comes from local income tax, while in Germany over 80 per cent. comes from that quarter. The same system could be employed here, as we suggested to, and as was proposed by, the Layfield, commission.
Years have passed since Layfield, and we are without a solution. Perhaps, when he winds up the debate for the Labour party, the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) will give an undertaking that should we have a Labour Government following the next general election, whenever it might take place, they will not only do away with the poll tax but will introduce, in their first full year in office, not only a new system but one that is immediately income related.
I am not talking of a system with some income-related element some time in the future, but immediately. If we do not have that, but simply have the reversion to a variation of the rates system, we shall find ourselves with the unfairnesses that went with the old system, and I see no merit in jumping from the present frying pan into yet another fire. We must get to the nub of the argument, which is about having a system that is income related.
We have heard much in this debate and elsewhere about the current running through Welsh public opinion—it is near unanimity—to the effect that there is room for a change in local government structures. There is a belief in the Labour party in unitary authorities, amalgamating the district and counties. One could argue about the number, whether there should be 17 or 25. That policy is also held by the Liberal party. My party has advocated it since long before the Local Government Act 1972. I have also heard Conservative Members advocate it.
Whatever the arguments in England, if that type of consensus exists in Wales, why can we not just get on with it now? The Secretary of State could introduce legislation dealing only with Wales. If he talked in a non-party political way with leaders in Wales, he would find not only a sympathy for unitary authorities—I would want to see community councils below them—but a much greater sympathy for an elected all-Wales body. One could call it an assembly, a regional council, as Labour does, or a parliament, as we aspire to. But the idea that £5 billion of expenditure should be in the hands of three Ministers—who appoint 1,200 people to quangos throughout Wales—all at a time when, as the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West said, the Conservative representation is a small proportion of the Welsh membership here—I recognise that my party also has a small representation here—is not a democratic way to run a country. If Ministers were honest in their hearts, they would admit that.
We are moving forward to a new period in politics in Wales when many of the old demarcations are disintegrating and many of the elements that built up the political structures that have existed for the last 50 or 60 years are changing. I refer to social and economic changes, and political changes must go hand in hand. A metamorphosis is going on in the Labour party—I hope that it will be speeded up—but a metamorphosis is taking place in Wales also.
We could have a democratic forum at an all-Wales level in which we would find elements of consensus as well as of disagreement—the sort of element of consensus that the Secretary of State has found on many issues between himself and Labour councils in the valleys of south Wales. It is the sort of consensus that the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West has seen in the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs. There, when addressing matters of relevance to Wales, we put the interests of Wales first and do not get excited about trying to draw blood from one another. I believe in a democratic, elected Welsh body in Cardiff where co-operation in the interests of Wales as a whole could be achieved. We shall, of course, have arguments about priorities and about the balance between intervention and not having intervention by the state, but the democratic benefits of a community that can not only say what it wants but have the responsibility for implementing it are enormous.
The Secretary of State said that he did not want to see hon. Members denigrating Wales. I accept that, and I have never wanted to denigrate Wales. If there are times when better practice can be shown to exist, not only in England but in continental countries, and if they provide examples to which we should aspire—I have given the example of disablement policy in Sweden as being the type of policy to which we in Wales should aspire—we should make such comparisons, not to denigrate ourselves but to establish the best practice available and towards which we should work.
Some public services in Wales are expensive. In other areas we may not get the share that we might expect—for example, in research institutes and so on—but we must never lose sight of the fact that we in Wales also pay out taxes. We shall be paying about £9 billion in the present financial year. The expenditure by central Government in Wales will be about £8·5 billion, so an amount over and above will be contributed by us to meet the costs of central Government.
The idea should not be put abroad that we depend on handouts from other places. Wales works, pays its taxes and generates wealth, and by and large the services that we need are those to which we are entitled and for which we pay, whether they are for health care, education or employment support. We need improved policies in all those areas.
There has been much talk about training. The National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders is being eliminated in Wales. The training element is to be kept, but there are 200 people in NACRO in north-west Wales who may not be suitable for the sort of training provided by TECs. They may need other support to find work, and nothing will be available for them unless there is a rethink.
This week has seen the appearance of a publication on roads in Wales. The A55 and the M4 are tremendous projects, but there is a desperate need to improve north-south communications in Wales. The Minister travel there and must be aware of that. I hope that we shall see investment in the A470, the A483 and the A487 that run north-south through the middle of Wales and down the west coast. The hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North may accuse me of intruding on his constituency. There is a need for a trunk road link from Aberystwyth to Carmarthen. I know that the hon. Gentleman has been arguing for such improvements.
This week much attention has been paid to railway services. The railway service in north Wales will be emasculated if the present proposals go ahead. There are at present six through trains from Holyhead to London each day but from next October there will be only three. Two of those will leave Holyhead at 4 o'clock and 6 o'clock in the morning respectively. That is not the sort of infrastructure on which we can build a new, modern economy and attract the industry that we want. I invite the Secretary of State to discuss with his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport how this decision can be reversed so that we can have the sort of railway infrastructure that we need.
The Secretary of State spoke about the report of the Welsh Language Board which recently presented a draft Bill. We have had discussions about the need for new legislation for the language for the past five years. I had a meeting in the Welsh Office along with Lord Prys-Davies in 1986. The Minister of State, Welsh Office, was also there, and we discussed two draft Bills. The Welsh Language Board is the Welsh Office's own body and its unanimous finding is that there is an overwhelming consensus in Wales that such legislation should be on the statute book. I hope that we can have a commitment about that.
Welsh agriculture faces desperate problems. I hope that the Secretary of State will not blindly follow the road taken by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in blindly rejecting the MacSharry proposals, some of which might be relevant to Wales. The Secretary of State for Wales has responsibility for agriculture and that gives him the opportunity to place a different emphasis on policy. I urge him to follow that course.
We have heard much talk about a general election. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) has a secret line to 10 Downing street and knows that there will be a general election on 2 May. That may be why the writ for the Neath by-election has not been moved. Perhaps it is feared that Plaid Cymru will take that seat, and it is therefore proposed to subsume the by-election into the general election.
We are approaching the end of another annual Welsh day debate. Many people in Wales ask why there is an annual Welsh day debate. There is no annual English day, because it is assumed that for the rest of the year the House deals with English affairs. Scottish legislation is in and out of the Chamber almost every week, and next week a couple of days will be spent debating Northern Ireland matters. But we have just one annual Welsh day, and that is why we say that we need a new form of democracy in Wales that will respond to our aspirations and hopes as a nation.