Hywel Williams
Main Page: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)Department Debates - View all Hywel Williams's debates with the Wales Office
(14 years ago)
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Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
Thank you, Mr Caton, for the truncated opportunity to speak. I had a much longer speech with which I would have been happy to regale the Chamber, but perhaps I will have the opportunity tomorrow.
Evelyn Waugh asked what the point of a Conservative Government was if they did not turn the clock back. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government have so far shown a distinctly non-Waugh-like tendency to change everything, and as soon as possible. Since the election we have had a slew of legislation, some of it eye-catching, some humdrum. Inevitably, some of it has not been thought out properly.
Has the Welsh Grand Committee been able to debate the changes as they apply to Wales? Obviously not. The changes to the funding and status of S4C are an obvious example. They are being rushed through without consultation and without the principal parties involved being consulted properly.
For example, I received an instructive parliamentary answer on 28 October from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. I had asked when the Welsh Assembly Government, the Welsh Minister for Heritage, S4C, the Secretary of State for Wales and the BBC had been informed of the S4C decision. The answer was that they had been informed
“in the days leading up to, or at the time of, the spending review and licence fee settlement announcements.”—[Official Report, 28 October 2010; Vol. 517, c. 413W.]
Hon. Members can decide for themselves if that is a respectful, or even effective, way of deciding the future of a key Welsh institution. The plain truth, of course, is that the S4C decision was rushed through to achieve a cost saving for the DCMS.
I will dispense with the rest of my speech, but will make a point about last night’s debate, when the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) referred to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and its famous entry for Wales: “See England”. That quote usually draws gasps of amazement, from some quarters at least, but what is less often mentioned is that when one looks Wales up under England, there is scarcely anything there. Wales under England just disappears. Without a proper forum for debate, without a specifically Welsh means of holding the Government to account in the House on behalf of the people of Wales and without proper powers for the Welsh Assembly, Wales under England just disappears. As far as I can see, that suits the Government just fine. No wonder they are so loth to hold Welsh Grand Committee debates.