Fairness and Inequality

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He makes my point for me, and his knowledge on these matters is unsurpassed.

In 928, Hywel made a pilgrimage to Rome. On his return, he held a legal conference in my home country of Carmarthenshire, at Ty Gwyn ar Daf, his residence near Whitland on the Pembrokeshire borders, which led to the legal system practised in Wales before our country was regrettably conquered. His laws meant that those higher up the social spectrum paid more for their crimes—a reverse of the post-2008 financial crash situation in the UK, where the financial elite have got off scot free while the most disadvantaged in society are paying the price through the obliteration of the public services and support they depend on. The basic founding principle of the Hywel Dda laws was equality. Following the death of the head of a family, the estate was distributed equally between all male siblings, rather than passing under the sole control of the eldest, as under the English system.

My reason for taking the House on this historical journey through mediaeval Wales is to make the case that the Welsh political tradition, even going back more than 1,000 years, has been based on the principles of equality and fairness. Those principles were essential elements to the sort of society that Welsh political rulers wanted to build and enshrine in law. Owain Glyndwr was the last ruler of an independent Wales and the seventh most important person of the last millennium, according to a Times poll in 1999. He heralded the return to the laws of Hywel Dda as the founding principle of his independent Wales at the beginning of the 15th century.

Robert Owen, another great Welshman from the county of Powys, is recognised throughout the world as one of the founding pioneers of socialism. In the early 19th century, he contributed to the work of a Committee of this House that was investigating the Poor Law. He called for a society of complete equality, and set about trying to create one with the communities that he had established.

Wales was, of course, the incubator of the industrial revolution, and the working-class uprisings of Merthyr in 1831 and the Chartists later in the same decade were driven by that Welsh aspiration for a more equal society, in which the working classes had a fair share of the proceeds of wealth generated by their toil. As the central element of his proclamation “The Red Dragon and the Red Flag”, Keir Hardie, a proud Scotsman who became the first-ever Independent Labour party Member of Parliament, declared clearly—probably after having given up faith in this place—that the way in which to create a more fair and equal society in Wales was to advance the cause of Welsh home rule.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

There are many inequalities in present-day society, but one of the biggest burdens at present is borne by women. The Government have made tax adjustments of £14 billion, and £11 billion of that has been taken from women. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that women are the hardest hit, whether we are talking about crèche charges or about nursery charges?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I do not disagree with that at all. Some of my colleagues may wish later to expand on what the hon. Gentleman has said