Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:06 pm on 3 March 1992.
The hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) shouts out that I ignored it all. The point is either that there was inadequate consultation or that there was adequate consultation but I did not listen to the hon. Gentleman's points.
The second point made by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) was that the proposals were gerrymandering I have pointed out, and pointed out again to the House today, that I am using the existing building blocks of district councils. I am asking the local government boundary commission to look at boundaries, but I have not sought to change the boundaries. I have built on the existing blocks.
The third point was that the proposals were a diversion —an attempt to make people in Wales forget about the economic bad news. I have news for the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside. If he carefully scrutinises the newspapers in Wales, he will see that there is a consensus that Wales is coming out of recession. I quote the headline of one article yesterday: "Wales set to lead UK upturn". The hon. Gentleman is losing so far.
The hon. Gentleman then said that Labour's agenda for local government had been in place for two years. I have news for the hon. Gentleman. I have read carefully through Labour's proposals. As I understand it, the first proposal, some two and a half years ago, was that all the country and district councils
should be abolished and replaced with a single tier of between 17 and 25 most-purpose local authorities in Wales for all local government functions.
There was then some discontent in the Labour party about the proposals. There was then a rethink—not proposals that were two years in place, but a rethink.
The latest idea is that there is to be a Welsh assembly, although the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) has thrown further doubt on that—