Construction of Barrage etc. and Other Works

Part of Orders of the Day — Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill – in the House of Commons at 8:45 pm on 20 October 1992.

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Photo of Peter Hain Peter Hain , Neath 8:45, 20 October 1992

When I became a Member on 16 April 1991, I was escorted by my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) and for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells). The significance of those two supporters is that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth was my boss in the by-election campaign—a very successful one, for which he was largely responsible. His primary duty was to keep me in order. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd's primary responsibility was to be my minder—to keep me swimming vertically through the rain which drenched that by-election. The same day as they escorted me into the Chamber they fell out in the debate on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill, then a private Bill. The House sat all night debating it. My hon. Friends kindly advised me immediately prior to the debate to go home and spend the evening with my wife. They believed that my political virginity ought not to be lost during the debate on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill. I gratefully took their advice. Therefore, I intervene now with some trepidation.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth for the diligence with which he has defended his case and for the way in which he has sought to attract an important development to his constituency. It is understandable that he should have done so and I would not deny his right to do so, or the persistence and energy with which he has pursued his case. There are many issues, however, that I as a valley Member of Parliament in south Wales and as someone who is concerned with the general impact of policy throughout Wales—in particular on the south Wales valleys—need to raise on this Bill.

There are important environmental questions, some of which we shall debate later, some of which we debated earlier. I refer to the effect of the barrage on the flora and fauna. The real issue, which I want to address and which is addressed in our amendments, is the cost. In terms of the economy of Wales, and even more in terms of the economy of south Wales, huge costs will be absorbed by the development—perhaps as much as £500 million in direct costs. The figure is movable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has demonstrated eloquently. Nevertheless, the figure is of that order and, on one estimate, it may increase to as much as £1 billion over the years.

The issue that we are entitled to put to the House and on which we are entitled to have an answer is the question of priorities. I can think of communities at the top of the valleys in my constituency which are becoming increasingly deprived as jobs are stripped out of them almost weekly—no, certainly weekly. I think of communities such as Cwmllinfell, Gwauncaegurwen, Banwen and many others.

Those communities ask me, "Where are we being looked after? Where are our interests being protected in the overall strategy being developed by the Welsh Office or by the Government this parliamentary Session?" Those communities look at the substantial costs being borne by the public sector—a point to which I shall return. They ask what the Government's priorities are and whether they are to have more investment so that, as one resident rather cynically said to me at my surgery on a Saturday morning in the little village of Tairgwaith, which feels itself to be forgotten and isolated, the people in those communities can sail their yachts and moor them in the new marina which will be set up around the Cardiff bay barrage. Anyone who knows those communities knows that that is a fanciful notion, to say the least.

Those residents raise the question of priorities and ask whether the priority is for development in the Cardiff bay area or for those huge sums, or their equivalent, to be directed towards valley communities which have suffered more than any others from the impact of Government policies, especially over the past 10 years.

When we consider the valleys and the costs that will be incurred under the Bill, if it is enacted, we should bear in mind that regional preferential assistance to Wales has been cut by almost 60 per cent. at constant prices between 1979 and 1991. The valleys initiative programme, which was launched in 1988, has brought little new funding to the valleys; it has been a question more of recycling existing programmes.

I will quote from the important study commissioned by the Neath conference which was recently held on the future of the valleys. The study was carried out by the Cardiff univerity lecturers Kevin Morgan and his assistant Adam Price, and is entitled, "A New Agenda for the Valleys". It is pertinent to our debate that they discuss the resources being channelled into the valleys compared with the resources being channelled into the area around the M4 corridor and into the relatively large conurbation of Cardiff, which we are discussing this evening, and Swansea.

The study says: While the aims and values of the Valleys Programme were laudable enough, the initiative was essentially a marketing exercise in the sense that it packaged together a host of policies and projects that were for the most part already in existence. Indeed, little or no extra funding was contained in the programme, even when the initiative was extended for a further two years". Those of us who represent valley communities would heartily endorse that statement.

The study points out that, as things stand, the valleys programme expires next March. The Government have not said that they will introduce a new programme which has anything like the scale of the resources that are being channelled into the Cardiff bay barrage development. There is talk of a new policy being unveiled and we shall have to wait and see what it is.

9.15 pm

The valleys initiative—which, as I said, expires in March next year—was intended to bring 25,000 to 30,000 new jobs to the valleys. In practice, its impact on employment levels in the valleys has been virtually nil. In 1988, when the programme was launched, the male unemployment rate for the valley areas was 18.9 per cent. In 1992, it is 18.7 per cent. Incidentally, those figures are much greater than those for Wales as a whole-—in 1988, 13.5 per cent. and now 13.1 per cent.—and for the United Kingdom as a whole—in 1988, 10.8 per cent. and now 13 per cent. We are talking about a major failure of Government policy.

While we sail blithely on, channelling sums which, in Welsh economic terms, are huge, into the Cardiff bay development, we are ignoring the plight of the valleys. The central valley areas—Aberdare, Rhymney, Merthyr, Pontypridd and the Rhondda—have male unemployment rates of 19 to 22 per cent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said, the figures are increasing all the time and, with the closure of the pits, they will rise even more steeply. We are talking about an important principle. My major reservation about the Bill—a reservation that the amendment seeks to address—arises from the huge sums that are being channelled into the Cardiff bay development at the expense of other more deserving and urgent priorities elsewhere in south Wales, in particular, in the much-deprived valley communities.

There is another linked issue. Supporters of the Bill—particularly those who represent the constituencies affected, whose view I can well understand—argue that the development will involve a huge injection of capital and of public sector investment which ought to be welcomed. But there is an opportunity cost in all this—an economic factor which it is important to take into account. If one channels investment, whether public or private sector investment—and we are told that, over the years, the bulk of the investment will come from the private sector—into a given area, it will be at the expense of investment elsewhere.

We are advancing that central argument in the context of another argument which I find very worrying indeed: the conventional wisdom surrounding policy making in Wales at present is that we must always talk of a greater Cardiff or a greater Swansea. Although it is understandable that people in Cardiff should seek to defend their interests and attract new investment and capital if they can, I challenge the whole notion of south Wales depending on a greater Cardiff or a greater Swansea. The valleys are forgotten backwaters in all this—at best, dormitories or commuter belts for the greater Cardiff and Swansea areas—and all investment is channelled to the M4 corridor. We have deprived working-class communities hidden at the top of the valleys, with very poor infrastructure and pathetic transport facilities.

Let us address the question of unemployment in the valley communities. My hon. Friends have said that many people who work in Cardiff come from outside it. The logic is that if one channels more jobs and investment into the Cardiff area, there will be more opportunities for workers to commute to it. But many unemployed people cannot afford to commute. Many of the people living in remote villages such as Seven Sisters and Banwen cannot afford to commute because the bus fares are prohibitive—where buses run at all—and they certainly cannot afford to purchase cars. They are locked into a vicious circle of unemployment and trapped in communities from which it is impossible to escape. To my mind, the logical solution to that is not to introduce massive new job and investment opportunities around the M4, greater Cardiff or greater Swansea areas but to invest in valley communities and provide the manufacturing opportunities for those communities that they have traditionally enjoyed.

In support of my argument, I quote again the important study by Morgan and Price. It says: With the long and painful decline of the coal industry the Valley communities have been forced to seek an alternative economic vocation, principally in manufacturing and service industries. This economic transition, which is still far from complete, has triggered enormous changes within these communities. In labour market terms perhaps the two most dramatic changes in the post-war era are the decline of a male-dominated workforce on the one hand and, on the other hand, the growing 'dormitory' status of the Valleys, reflecting the fact that new job opportunities tend to be biased towards the south, in Cardiff and along the so-called M4 corridor." That issue is not being addressed by the Welsh Office, and is certainly being ignored in the context of the enormous investment that is contemplated for the Cardiff bay barrage development. The whole issue is thrown into sharp relief by the threat and the reality of pit closures piling one on top of the other. Taff Merthyr in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and Betws in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) have gone. What future is there for those valley communities? None, as far as the Welsh Office is concerned.

Against the background of the position in the valleys, I now turn my attention specifically to the costs of the Cardiff bay development, about which there is some dubiety. In a debate in the House, the then Under-Secretary of State for Wales, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, said: we will ensure that sufficient funding will be made available to enable the corporation"— that is, the Cardiff bay development corporation—

to carry through its task".—[Official Report, 19 December 1989; Vol. 164, c. 308.] That is an interesting statement. I wish that sufficient funding was being made available to valley communities to carry out the necessary regeneration and provide the investment that those areas so desperately need. It is almost as if the Government were willing to write a blank cheque for investment in the prime development by which they have set so much store in Cardiff bay.

The figures have changed and there is a certain mystification around them.