Commission on Devolution in Wales

David T C Davies Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Gillan]

The right hon. Gentleman will be very pleased, therefore, that the Assembly now has primary legislative powers, and I am sure that he will be spending a lot of his time constructively trying to encourage the Welsh Government to come forward with some legislation, because it is now many months since the election, and correct me if I am wrong—I see the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) and the hon. Members for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and for Arfon (Hywel Williams) nodding their heads—but we have not yet seen any draft legislation from the Welsh Government, even though they were well prepared in advance of the referendum.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware, of course, that the loyal county of Monmouthshire voted no in the recent referendum, as it always has in previous referendums.

[Mrs Gillan]

That shows the advantage of this approach to constitutional change: all hon. Members, no matter where they come from, how they speak and from what direction they approach constitutional matters, will have an opportunity to express their views. I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I am sure that he will speak later in the debate and let the House know what he feels the Silk commission should consider.

Before I took that series of interventions, I was saying that neither the Assembly nor the Welsh Government are accountable to the people of Wales for the money that they spend on the policies that they implement. The Welsh Government simply receive the Welsh block grant voted by Parliament, and spend it.

That cannot be right. With power comes responsibility, and it is surely better for the devolved institution to be accountable to the people of Wales not just for decisions on public spending in Wales, but by being responsible for raising some of the money needed to pay for those decisions. Even local authorities, despite receiving block grants, have responsibility for raising local council tax, and consequently they recognise the difficulty of raising tax moneys before they spend money. There is no reason why one institution—

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[Mrs Gillan]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid and good point, but once again I do not want to prejudge or tie the hands of the Silk commission, although I cannot imagine a situation in which an agreed solution, as I have anticipated and laid out in the terms of reference, would disadvantage Wales. That is far from my motivation, as he will see as I progress with my speech.

The commission already has contributions to its evidence base from work such as the Holtham commission’s reports, which were prepared to a Welsh Assembly Government remit, but crucially, unlike Holtham, the Silk commission can take things a step further. The terms of reference require the commission to consider implementation and to make recommendations on how best to resolve the legal and practical implementation issues that arise from devolving a package of fiscal powers and having consistency within the United Kingdom.

The commission will aim to report on part 1 of its remit in the autumn of next year, and the Government will consider its recommendations very carefully. Members may wish to contribute directly to the commission as well as in today’s debate, but I very much hope that we will be able to hold a debate, again on the Floor of the House, at some stage following the delivery of part 1 of the commission’s findings, because the intention is to take the matter forward as consensually as possible.

The commission will then turn its attention to the second part of its remit—to look at the current constitutional arrangements in Wales. Specifically, it will consider the powers of the Assembly and the boundary between what is devolved and non-devolved, and make recommendations to modify the boundary, if they are likely to enable the Welsh devolution settlement to work better. Again, the commission will need to consult broadly on its proposals and make only those recommendations for change that are likely to have wide support.

Currently, the Assembly has powers in all 20 devolved areas, and it will be for the commission to decide whether there is a requirement to tidy up the devolution boundary, but any further changes to the settlement will need to be right for Wales and right for the United Kingdom as a whole. I anticipate the commission reporting on part II of its remit in 2013.

With the exception perhaps of the right hon. Member for Neath, there is broad agreement on the basis for moving forward and considering issues of both fiscal devolution and accountability. The Government have moved forward collaboratively with all four political parties in the Assembly, in establishing the terms of reference and the members of the commission, and I thank in particular all four party leaders in Cardiff Bay for the positive and co-operative spirit in which they are engaged with me and my office to agree the way forward.

[David T. C. Davies]

We are at an early stage in proceedings, but will my right hon. Friend and, perhaps, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) when he speaks explain whether those nominees will be representatives who represent what their parties think, or delegates who simply pass on what their parties suggest?

[Mrs Gillan]

That is a matter not so much for me, but for the right hon. Gentleman, who I am sure will want to deal with it when he addresses the House. As far as the Conservative party is concerned, I want to be as inclusive as I can of people’s views, and that is why I am trying to create a period in which any member can make a contribution. The Conservative party, in particular, will make contributions to the Silk commission’s proceedings.

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[Mr Hain]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point with great passion precisely because he was one of the people who entered Parliament to fight for the rights of young Welsh citizens who were denied by that callous Conservative Government.

I hope that the Silk commission will take account of the principles of fairness and justice in its deliberations. Some resources from the south-east of England are, and in future should still be, redistributed to Wales, the north-east of England and other areas of England with lower levels of economic activity and prosperity in order to help everywhere in Britain to become economically more sustainable. However, I remain suspicious that this right-wing Government do not share this vision for Britain and may exploit the Silk commission for their own ulterior motives.

Compared with Scotland, there is a much more significant amount of commuting across our border with England, as pointed out earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). Traffic flows across the Wales-England border are substantial. North-east Wales is highly integrated into the economy of Merseyside and north-west England, while in south Wales the bulk of traffic movement is focused along the M4 corridor. About 80,000 people live in Wales but work outside Wales in the UK, and about 50,000 people work in Wales but live in the UK outside Wales. This gives a total of about 130,000 people who travel across the border to work every day. A little over half of this cross-border traffic is accounted for by people commuting in and out of north Wales. Despite Scotland’s much larger population, the number of commuters crossing its border is roughly one third of the number commuting in and out of Wales.

More than 1.4 million people in Wales—nearly half its total population—live within 25 miles of the border with England, and nearly 5 million people in England live within 25 miles of the border with Wales. In aggregate, 30% of the population of Wales and England—nearly one third, or more than 16 million people—live within 50 miles of the border between the two countries. In contrast, the number of people living close to the Scotland-England border is much smaller. Only 5% of the combined population of Scotland and England—just one sixth of the equivalent for Wales, or about 3 million people—live within 50 miles of the border between those countries. Given that the Welsh economy is much more closely bound into the economy of England than is the Scottish economy, the potential for economic distortions and tax avoidance as a result of tax devolution is of greater concern in Wales than in Scotland, which is why the Calman agenda cannot simply be transposed wholesale on to Wales. We would like a clearer indication from the Government of how they intend to deal with these crucial cross-border issues, and I hope that the Silk commission will address them.

Something else is not within remit of the Silk commission, however, but the issue is much bigger than the Barnett formula or tinkering with the constitution—it has felt like the elephant in the room during today’s debate. There is a serious jobs crisis in Wales, and the Government need to wake up urgently to that. For example, Tata Steel employs 20,000 people in the UK, of whom 8,000 are in Wales, in overwhelmingly highly skilled, well-paid jobs, with three to four times that number of dependent jobs in the economy outside. In Wales, that means perhaps 25,000 or more jobs. Last week, MPs were briefed by Tata’s European chief executive. He did not mention corporation or any other tax, which the Silk commission is considering. Instead, his overriding criticisms of Government policy, which he worried was threatening the future of steel manufacturing in the UK—at Port Talbot, for example—were very different. He said that the Government had to act on raising demand for UK steel through infrastructure investment—in other words, through more growth and jobs. He also argued that energy costs were far too high—fully half as high again as in France. What are the Government going to do about that? Nothing.

[David T. C. Davies]

I had similar representations from Tata. The company is clearly worried about energy costs rising as a result of environmental taxes, which are being implemented because of a perception of increased temperatures, which do not seem to be increasing at the moment. Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is time to look at the issue again?

[Mr Hain]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has a reactionary view on the climate change agenda—perhaps that is reflected in his question—but the briefing that we had from the European chief of Tata Steel was clear. He said that it was overwhelmingly the lack of Government support and investment in the economy—and the demand for steel that comes from that—that was hitting his industry so badly, along with energy prices, thereby risking future investment. Incidentally, the hon. Gentleman’s question also gives me the opportunity to remind him that although he celebrated the county of Monmouthshire’s no vote, the fact is that 49.36% voted yes, while 50.64% voted no. That does not seem to be a massive rejection of devolution in Monmouth.

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[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to be here on a Thursday discussing Wales. Unlike some Members, I shall not be offering a welcome, cautious or otherwise, to the Silk commission. I have no doubts about the motives or the knowledge of any of those taking part in it, some of whom are well known to me, but I feel that we could save ourselves a lot of time and money by doing away with the commission and getting on with what we all know is going to happen. We know that the commission is going to spend until the summer of 2012 looking into the granting of fiscal powers to the Welsh Assembly. I suspect that all sorts of things will appear in the newspapers and on BBC Wales, and that there will be a debate or two. The usual faces of the great and the good in Wales will be wheeled out in support of all of this, and there will be public meetings on wet weekday evenings in various parts of Wales, to which a small representative sample of the public who all like the idea of giving further powers to the Assembly will turn up. At the end of it all, we will be told that the vast majority of people who responded were in favour of giving further powers to the Assembly, and those further powers will be given. Then phase 2 will begin, in which, I see from the report, we will consider “varying” the powers of the Assembly. Well, we all know what that actually means. It means increasing the powers.

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be taking a rather “conspiratorial” view of these developments in Welsh politics. Does he think that the referendum, too, was a conspiracy?

[David T. C. Davies]

It is not a conspiratorial view; it is a view based on the history of what has been going on. We seem to be locked in a kind of constitutional groundhog day, with the same sequence of political events repeating itself over and over again. The process starts with the Welsh Assembly being granted a whole load of powers and saying, “That’s it, we’ve got all the tools we need for our toolkit.” That seems to be the popular term at the moment. “We’ve got everything we need now. We’re just going to get on with the job.” Then, a few years—or, in this case, a few months—later, it says, “Well, actually, we can’t do the job we need to do. We just need a few extra powers.” Then a commission of the great and the good is set up, often with the same people appearing time and again. They go off and consider the matter, public meetings are held, and they come back and say, “Yes, we need a bit more.” Perhaps a referendum is held, or perhaps there is just another Act of Parliament or some statutory instrument. The Assembly gets what it is given and everything goes quiet for a few months. Then the whole thing starts up again. We are in the first phase of the cycle at the moment. This is not a conspiracy; it is just how things have been happening in Wales since about 1999.

I would be delighted if we really were going to consider varying the powers of the Welsh Assembly, because I assume that varying can cut both ways. It could mean that, rather than just handing the Assembly new powers, we could look at taking a few powers away from it, once in a while. I suggested that in a Westminster Hall debate a few years ago, when Wales was doing particularly badly on the health service, but it did not seem to meet with much approval from anyone—certainly not anyone in my political party. The very fact that it had been suggested was a source of outrage to many.

The Welsh Assembly can take powers away from local authorities that are failing in Wales and, quite rightly, it has used them from time to time, so I see no reason why the Silk commission should not look realistically at the possibility of removing powers from the Welsh Assembly in devolved areas if standards have clearly dropped below those that all in the United Kingdom are entitled to expect.

Another area that I suspect the Silk commission will not look into—the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) mentioned it—is environmental taxes. To my mind, that would be very interesting indeed. As the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, Tata and other manufacturing companies in Wales that use large amounts of electricity are very angry about the way in which the environment has been used as a means to impose all sorts of extra tax burdens. The issue of the environment is worth exploring, but now is not the time or place—[Hon. Members: “Come on.”] It is very tempting, but I see Mr Deputy Speaker imperceptibly shaking his head at me. It is not for me to pose the question of why the temperature has not got any hotter since 1998, despite the fact that large amounts of carbon dioxide have gone into the atmosphere. That is not a question for today, but it is a very interesting one none the less—and I have never heard a satisfactory answer to it.

Let me move on to a more important question. If we accept that things will at some point start getting hotter because of carbon dioxide, requiring us to put all sorts of taxes on our industries, and if Welsh industries such as steel are affected, surely it is only right that those taxes be applied not just across the whole of the European Union or Europe but across the whole world. If we do not insist on that as a starting point, all that will happen is that those manufacturing industries—so important to us in Wales for jobs—will simply relocate to other parts of the world where those taxes are not being applied. It will not make a jot of difference to global carbon emissions, which will continue to come from wherever those factories relocate, but it will make a difference to jobs and the amount of tax that the Treasury collects within the UK. I would love to see the Silk commission looking into that idea, but I am afraid that I shall probably be disappointed.

You might conclude, Mr Deputy Speaker, from what I am saying that I am in some way against devolution—[Hon. Members: “No, never!”] I am not. I am devo-realist. I was against the idea of a Welsh Assembly and I have voted no at every opportunity ever since, but I say genuinely that I have a very high opinion of the abilities of the individual Members of the Welsh Assembly. I had the pleasure of working with them for eight years. I do not doubt their motives. I do not doubt the credibility of people like Rhodri Morgan, Dafydd Elis-Thomas or Nick Bourne, even though I might disagree with them on many fundamental issues.

My problem with what we are doing is very simple. The West Lothian question is the elephant in the room here. Every time we give further powers to the Welsh Assembly, we are weakening the United Kingdom. I believe that even some Labour Members, in their quieter and more reflective moments, share some of these concerns. Surely the priority for us constitutionally should not be thinking about granting further powers to the Welsh Assembly, but ensuring that all citizens of the UK have the same constitutional powers. The issue is about addressing the fact that we here in the Westminster Parliament vote on how the English run their schools, discuss how the English run their hospitals, yet we do not accept the right of anyone, including Members of Parliament, to have any say in how these issues are dealt with in Wales.

[Jonathan Edwards]

May I take it from the hon. Gentleman’s comments that he is arguing for a fully federal United Kingdom, whereby all the historic nations of the UK are treated on an equal basis?

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I have made that view public in the past. I think there is a strong case for looking at some form of English Parliament or some means to prevent Welsh and Scottish MPs from voting on matters that affect only England. I repeat that I have already made that viewpoint public. I do not pretend to know the exact answer, but I am in favour of something along those lines. It might well be that at that point, we would have to consider increasing the powers of the Welsh Assembly in line with those of the other parts of the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman will know, however, that that is something that happens in many countries across the world—in Canada, Germany and countries with a Commonwealth tradition such as Australia, for example. If that is thought through properly, it can work. My current difficulty is with the asymmetric nature of our arrangements. Giving further powers to Wales in this way—through the Silk commission if that is what it decides—is going to make them even more asymmetric.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Gentleman not accept that in a border area such as mine, people go across the border to use hospitals, for example, so it is quite reasonable for me to be concerned about what is happening to the health service in England, because many people in my area use it?

[David T. C. Davies]

Of course I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I live on the border as well. Many of my constituents go across the border, but what right do he and I have to tell the English how to run their health service if we are not prepared to accept that English MPs whose constituents might come over into Wales should also have a voice over what happens within the Welsh health service?

[Mrs Gillan]

No doubt my hon. Friend will therefore give a warm welcome to the statement made on 8 September by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), the Minister responsible for political and constitutional reform, announcing our intention of establishing a commission to look into the West Lothian question. I understand that in the not too distant future there will be further statements on the subject, which will of course address the important questions that my hon. Friend is raising today.

[David T. C. Davies]

I do indeed welcome that statement, and I look forward to participating, but I hope that we do not end up putting the cart before the horse. I hope that we do not all go off in different directions, rather than getting things done in an orderly fashion. The constitution is a very delicate thing, and it needs to be balanced.

[Mr Hain]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the constitution is delicate and needs to be balanced, but is not the answer to his question—the answer to the English question, if you like—that we should remedy the asymmetrical nature of devolution in the United Kingdom by devolving powers to the English regions, not just to the London region, which already has considerable powers? [Interruption.] The Secretary of State mutters from a sedentary position that that has been rejected, and I accept that it was rejected under our Government in the north-east referendum, but I felt at the time that that was a very low-grade form of devolution. One of the things that people told me on the doorsteps in such places as Middlesbrough and Tyneside was that they did not believe in another form of regional government if it did not involve any real powers. If it did involve real powers, however, that would be the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question.

[David T. C. Davies]

I suspect that there may be something in what the right hon. Gentleman says. The referendum on powers in the north-east took place quite early in the process, and there is now a much wider understanding of the implications of devolution throughout the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, there is still a problem.

We devolved powers to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on the basis of their historical roles as nations within the United Kingdom. I do not see how we can just come along and artificially create nations within England where nations have not previously existed. I also suspect that this is not a debate that any of us here should be having. It must ultimately be for English MPs to decide for themselves whether they are content to remain representatives in England or would prefer to be representatives in the regions thereof. Let us not forget that there are 6 million people in Scotland, 3 million in Wales and 1.5 million in Northern Ireland. We have not so far devolved powers on the basis of the numbers of people in the countries concerned, and we therefore have no real right to say that because there are 50 million or 55 million people in England, they do not have the right to have a Parliament based on their own historic nation.

[Mr David]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that until now the primary motivation for devolution has been not a recognition of nationhood, but the need to enhance democracy? That is what devolution is ultimately all about. It is not about placating nationalism; it is about enhancing democracy.

[David T. C. Davies]

There have been several motives for devolution. Nationalists saw it as a stepping stone towards independence—I imagine that they would be fairly honest about that—while others, some of whom are now on the Opposition Benches, were afraid of nationalism, and saw devolution as a way of preventing the nationalist genie from getting out of the bottle. I think that they were mistaken. I fear that some may have taken the narrow political view that Wales would always be dominated by Labour whereas Britain would not necessarily be, and that therefore it would not be a bad idea to carve out little corners of the United Kingdom where Labour could always have an inbuilt majority and a left-wing Government could rule. I dread to think that that is the case, but, being a bit cynical, I suspect that there may be some grounds for believing that it is.

[Owen Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is, as usual, being generous in giving way. Does he agree that a further crucial aspect of the rationale for devolution in Wales and Scotland was demand, and that that may have been a greater consideration than nationhood? Does he also recognise that, because of a feeling that—for reasons related to distance and divergence in economic performance—people are getting worse deals from the Government in some parts of England than in others, such as the south-east, there may well be a growing demand in some areas for a fresh look at the possibility of English regional devolution?

[David T. C. Davies]

The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s first question is that despite the enormous amount of money spent on the referendum in 1999, only one in four people went out and voted yes, so the demand could not have been that great. As for his second question about the issues that are bubbling away in the various regions of England, I do not profess to know the answer, and I certainly will not be trying to pose that question. As I said to the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), the English will have to work out for themselves whether they wish to base a future settlement on England itself or on regions thereof. It is not for us to tell them what to do.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

It would be wrong for English MPs alone to discuss, and decide on, such matters. As a UK parliamentarian, I agree that English devolution is the great unanswered question. However, Welsh MPs—along with Scottish and Northern Ireland MPs—will want to have a say in that because it will have a considerable impact on the UK as a whole. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider this point in his peroration, because we would not want non-England MPs to be shut out from the debate on English devolution. Nor would I want England MPs to be shut out from our debate here today, and it is great that some England MPs are present.

[David T. C. Davies]

That is a sensible point, but my peroration has become more of a conversation now, and I wish to return to it. I shall think about what the hon. Gentleman has said, however, and I suspect that all of us will want to contribute in various and different ways if and when the England question arises.

The Silk commission is addressing fiscal powers. The leader of Plaid Cymru—I think he is still the leader—said that that could have an historic effect on Wales, by which I assume he means that it will lead to all sorts of extra powers being acquired and Wales heading much further along the road that he wishes to travel down. I am very concerned about the prospect of giving fiscal powers to Wales, however. It is hard to see how we could maintain the integration of the various parts of the United Kingdom if we were all doing different things fiscally. The Silk commission has apparently ruled out borrowing, but I have been told by those in a position to know that it has ruled out only some kinds of borrowing, and anything can be examined. There are certainly ongoing discussions about different kinds of borrowing.

[Mrs Gillan]

The Silk commission can look at future borrowing, whereas current borrowing is at present the subject of bilateral discussions between the Treasury and the Welsh Government. The Silk commission can look at future borrowing.

[David T. C. Davies]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that clarification, but what she says will not help me sleep any more easily tonight.

Before this debate started, an urgent question was asked on the Floor of the House about what has been going on in the eurozone area. That is, in fact, fairly simple to understand. There is a central bank and a currency area with all sorts of individual parts within it—we call them nation states still, although Brussels will probably want to change that in a few years—and those individual parts have all been doing their own thing. The Greeks have been borrowing as much as they wanted, and have been spending it on allowing their civil servants to retire at 50 and on buying off strikes. In short, they have been spending it on doing things we would never even consider doing—filling people’s mouths with gold, as Nye Bevan would have put it. As a result, there is now an enormous crisis across the whole area because the taxpayers of Germany are simply not prepared to bail out nations that have been behaving in an irresponsible fashion.

Yet we in the United Kingdom, having escaped the economic servitude of the euro—which many Opposition Members would have liked to put us into—now seem to want to create a situation whereby exactly the same thing could happen on a smaller scale. We have a central bank and Government responsible for interest rates and general financial policy, but there is now a proposal that the constituent parts of the United Kingdom—specifically, in this instance, Wales—should be free to go off and borrow at low interest rates, knowing that ultimately somebody else could pick up the bill.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that currently local authorities in Wales can borrow and raise their own revenue, so what is the difference?

[David T. C. Davies]

They can only do so under fairly strict terms of engagement. There is no major difference, but what I am saying is that I do not want any more bodies to be able to do that. I certainly would not welcome the idea of the Assembly doing what Westminster Governments have done before—let us be honest about it—which is wait until a general election is coming along and then suddenly borrow billions of pounds on the international markets knowing that not many people understand the difference between debt and deficit, and are therefore unlikely to be able to work out the probable consequences of what is happening. Governments buy themselves elections in that way. I do not want to put that temptation in front of Members of the Welsh Assembly.

Finally, I am even more concerned about the idea of a separate judicial system for Wales. That would be costly and complex.

[Geraint Davies]

Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the subject of taxation, on the important issue of inward investment and growth, which various speakers have focused on, does he agree that what business needs to provide inward investment is certainty? If there can be changes in corporation tax, income tax and all sorts of other tax, that will put companies off investing in Wales. The only tax that people want to get rid of is the tax that everybody is charged when they cross the Severn bridge—the Severn bridge toll. That is a real barrier to inward investment and trade. We should get rid of that and forget the rest.

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that getting rid of the Severn bridge toll is impossible, because he and I helped to write the report. It is not a matter of law, but a matter of a commercial contract between four companies that came together to build the bridge under certain agreements. There is nothing that we can do about it. Of course the Welsh Assembly, or even the UK Government, could decide to take on the costs of the Severn bridge if they wanted to. However, the hon. Gentleman knows very well that the Government do not have any money at the moment. We have a £1 trillion debt, most of which we inherited from his colleagues in the previous Government, and we are overspending by £168 billion every year. We are not really in a position suddenly to take on the burden of the Severn crossing.

I do praise the hon. Gentleman, however, because he has said something with which I entirely agree: business needs certainty. Businesses are already annoyed that they have to pay the cost of coming over the Severn bridge. The last thing they want is the potential for a load of extra taxes when they come into Wales, and a lack of certainty over whether those taxes may be applied at a later date if they decide to relocate there. To my mind, that is a very good argument for not devolving the power over such taxes to the Welsh Assembly.

I will finish on my point about the judicial system. The last person to toy around with the judicial arrangements in Wales was Henry VIII. He formed a judicial area for Wales, but people in Monmouthshire were so incensed that they decided to opt out of it and in to the Oxford assizes. That caused confusion all the way through to the local government reorganisation of 1974. Various people passed legislation, and some of it applied to Wales, some to Monmouthshire and some did not apply anywhere. Nobody knew what they were doing. People were driving to Chepstow to get a drink in the pub because the chapels had banned it, or something. It was absolute chaos. The last thing we want is a repeat of that. I say to all Members of the House that Monmouth is an integral part of Wales, Wales is an integral part of the United Kingdom, and for as long as I represent this constituency, long may that remain the case.

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[Paul Murphy]

But the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill had nothing to do with better democracy and everything to do with partisanship. The Government were so stubborn in the other place in refusing 10% flexibility that taking local government boundaries into account is hardly possible because of the rigidity that has been introduced in the system. If there had been consensus, that might have been considered, but there was no such consensus.

Finally, we have to be careful that the proposals are not based on a hidden agenda from the Government—what I call the Trojan horse. The hon. Member for Monmouth referred to the West Lothian question, and the Silk commission’s hiving off financial responsibility to the Welsh Assembly, and perhaps—we do not know for sure —taking away the block grant is part of the agenda of the new Conservative party. It used to be the Conservative and Unionist party, but it has long since ceased to be Unionist.

The West Lothian question means that the Government want to have two classes of Members of Parliament, not British-United Kingdom Members of Parliament who speak on everything because we have been elected by our electors to talk about the United Kingdom—every part of it: Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. I referred to the complaints time and again that we are getting too much money in Wales and Scotland. Perhaps the most obvious thing is that out of 117 Members of Parliament representing constituencies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, only nine come from the Conservative party. It will probably be wiped out at the next general election in Scotland and who knows where else. The combination of all those things, to me, means that the Conservative party has now become a party of little England. I am sure the hon. Member for Monmouth, who represents a Welsh constituency, would agree.

[David T. C. Davies]

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern, then, about colleagues in his own party who refuse to appear before the Welsh Affairs Committee to discuss devolved issues? Does he not think that that smacks of a little Wales mentality?

[Paul Murphy]

No, I do not. I accept, though, that there are people in my own party who may agree with some of the things that I think the Conservative party is guilty of—that is, not being awfully worried if Scotland and Wales left the Union. I have been thinking that for over a year now.

The New Statesman published a very good editorial last week, which finished with this:

“For the Tory right, an independent England—economically liberal, fiscally conservative, Eurosceptic, Atlanticist—is an attractive prospect. The United Kingdom, one of the most successful multiracial, multi-faith, multinational states the world has ever known, remains a cause worth fighting for. Yet, over the past weeks, fixated by the EU, the Conservative and Unionist Party seemed less aware of this than ever.”

The Trojan horse is not Welsh nationalism, but the English nationalism of the Conservative and former Unionist party.