Mr Gareth Thomas: I am not sure how that point arises from what I said. I am entirely confident that the National Assembly for Wales, working in partnership with the Labour Government at Westminster, will be able to deliver and exploit the full potential of objective 1 funding. After all, the Labour Government secured that funding for Wales.
Mr Gareth Thomas: Yes, as I know the interest--some people might say obsession--of my hon. Friend in the subject.
Mr Gareth Thomas: It will not come as a surprise to my hon. Friend that, not for the first time, I am in complete agreement with him. I mentioned the minimum wage. In addition, the working families tax credit is helping about 80,000 families in Wales and making a significant impact on many people's quality of life. Pensions are a big political issue throughout the United Kingdom. I am pleased that the...
Mr Gareth Thomas: I agree entirely, which brings me to the Government's proposals for increasing the participation of over-50s in the labour market. I make no apology for dwelling on that subject because I represent a constituency with the highest number of pensioners in Wales and one of the highest in the United Kingdom. No less than 35.5 per cent. of my electorate are of pensionable age. Over the past 20...
Mr Gareth Thomas: That is a very worrying feature and I well understand my hon. Friend's concerns. More than half of people aged over 50 who are now economically inactive receive most of their income from state benefits. The economic cost of that is great, and has a dampening effect on Welsh GDP, which lags quite considerably behind the rest of the UK. The performance and innovation unit recently published a...
Mr Gareth Thomas: Unfortunately, that is not just an economic question, but a political issue. British manufacturing as a whole, although under considerable competitive pressure due to the high value of the pound relative to the euro, is still succeeding. We have a relatively large manufacturing sector in Wales, which, admittedly, has had problems and difficulties recently, but is making a good fist of it....
Mr Gareth Thomas: I speak as someone who has grave reservations about the wisdom of proceeding with the Bill, especially in the light of the fact that the Auld commission has been charged with the task of comprehensively reviewing the criminal justice system. Incidentally, I also speak as a member of the Bar. I tend to support the Government on the amendments. Although many hon. Members have raised valid...
Mr Gareth Thomas: I take on board what has been said. Although I have made broadly positive comments about the clause, the Government should address the following point. Does not common sense suggest that a bench of magistrates will, one way or another, want to take into account the character of a defendant? Even if magistrates do not want to do so, is it not true, given what some uncharitably call the...
Mr Gareth Thomas: Given that the hon. Gentleman is a member of the Bar, I am surprised that he underestimates the courts' ingenuity in getting around such provisions. I draw his attention to new section 19(2)(a), which states that the court can take into account circumstances including the nature of the case. I have a bald question for my hon. Friend the Minister to answer, if he can. Is it his understanding...
Mr Gareth Thomas: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), who is Chairman of the Select Committee on Social Security, of which I am a member. He provided a comprehensive analysis of the inquiry conducted by the Committee. An inquiry and report such as the one that we are debating today offers an admirable example of the good work that Select Committees can do....
Mr Gareth Thomas: My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. A few doctors keep cropping up, time and again. They are very powerful, or are seen to be powerful, which might account for the reluctance to complain. The complaints system is not particularly user-friendly. The rate of successful appeals has traditionally been very high, although I accept that that is not necessarily a reflection of poor medical...
Mr Gareth Thomas: I do not have such evidence. I raise the issue—I do not want to dwell too long on it—simply to rebut the Government's suggestion that, because we could not provide a list of identities of individual complainers, that had somehow undermined our evidence. It is imperative to have a programme of recruitment that ensures that doctors who really want to do this job, and have some pride in...
Mr Gareth Thomas: This debate has been interesting for a variety of reasons, not least because of the bout of in-fighting that broke out on the Opposition Benches following the speech of the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill). I might not be quite as much of an Euro-enthusiast as my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell), but I think it fair to say that most farmers in the United Kingdom are...
Mr Gareth Thomas: The hon. Gentleman has accused me of using specious statistics, but will he confirm that crime doubled between 1979 and 1997?
Mr Gareth Thomas: I do not propose to detain the House for long, but simply wish to make a few general points. I welcome the Bill. It is not surprising that it has received cross-party support, and that there will be no Division on Second Reading. It introduces various reforms which—I am sure many hon. Members will agree—are necessary to allow the Government to continue waging an effective war against...
Mr Gareth Thomas: That leads to the need to consolidate the plethora of powers and orders available to the court. I should like to hear the Minister's comments on that. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Government's reforms are right. I am a member of the all-party penal affairs group. Some Members present may recall that the eminent penologist and criminologist Dr. David Thomas QC addressed us not...
Mr Gareth Thomas: I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further provision in respect of local government in England and Wales, for disclosure of information to the public and for convening meetings in public; and for connected purposes. Local government is undergoing great changes as part of the Government's agenda of modernising councils and making them more effective, more flexible...
Mr Gareth Thomas: I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) for abbreviating his speech to allow other Members to get in. Indeed, I will confine my comments to a few remarks, so that others may speak. The Budget will be welcomed in both my constituency and the country at large because it addresses the economic and social priorities: the need to build on the foundations of stability,...
Mr Gareth Thomas: I shall make a very brief contribution from my perspective as a Member whose constituency is not metropolitan, but largely rural. It has a small ethnic minority community and the issue of racism does not assume as much salience as perhaps it should. It would be wrong to assume that the Bill was not of the utmost relevance to everyone in the United Kingdom, because it has to do with the...
Mr Gareth Thomas: May I thank my right hon. Friend for explaining precisely how he arrived at what was obviously a finely balanced judgment? Does he agree that although many people will find it difficult to understand why it was not possible to see justice done in this case, we should not lose sight of the fact that this country facilitated the process whereby important principles of international law were...
