Welsh Assembly Legislation (Attorney-General)

Debate between Siân C. James and Paul Flynn

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

That is absolutely right. The main part of the Bill is to get money back for the health service from the negligent people who allowed diseases to take hold. Many of the unfortunate people affected by asbestosis in Wales worked in industry.

Tied to all this is the Government’s view of devolution. The Silk commission reported after a referendum that measured popular opinion in Wales. We know that the Tories have always had trouble with devolution. They were very much against it in 1994 when, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) has said, three of us were disciplined by the Labour party in Wales. Only one of their candidates in the first Assembly was elected by first past the post, while a few others came in through the assisted places scheme.

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. We are still awaiting the latest information on the findings of the Silk commission. Devolution delivers the things we need for the people of Wales—Welsh solutions to Welsh problems—and yet we cannot seem to prise that information out of the Government. It is a great shame that we cannot make progress at the pace that the communities and citizens of Wales want when we are putting all this time and effort into good governance.

[Paul Flynn]

My hon. Friend expresses very well the position we are in now. The Silk commission, after an exhaustive inquiry, made certain recommendations. We were promised that the Government would reply in the spring, then the summer, then the late summer and then the early autumn, but when will they actually respond? Carwyn Jones rightly said over the weekend that this is a major problem. An urgent bypass is required in Gwent and other constituencies that suffer continual traffic congestion, such as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), in order to find an alternative route for the M4. As Carwyn Jones said, the situation is frozen. The Welsh Government cannot move forward until there is a response to the Silk commission and action is taken on that.

In a few weeks’ time, on 4 November, Newport will recall the great day when thousands of Chartists made their protest against the Government of the time. They intended to establish a republic. The plan was to stop the mail going from Newport—that is the Royal Mail, not the Daily Mail, although there may well be riots about that now—so that the signal would go to the rest of the country that a revolution was going on and that a republic was to be set up. It was very good of Her Majesty to organise a party tonight to give me enough time to explain what happened. Those people wanted to run their own affairs and to have autonomy 174 years ago.

I will conclude, because I am sure that my hon. Friends will want to contribute to the debate, by reading a poem about that march in 1839 by Gillian Clarke, who concludes by saying that the “grudged gift” of devolution was given sparingly:

“Their bones ached from the shift, wind in the shaft,

the heat of the furnaces, yet on they marched,

their minds a blaze because their cause was right,

through darkness from Ebbw Vale, Blackwood, Pontypool,

faces frozen and stung by the lash of rain,

trudging the roads to Newport through the night.

At the Welsh Oak, Rogerstone, betrayed by daylight,

Frost’s men from the west, Williams’s from the east,

Jones’s men never arrived. The rest struck on

To stand united, of one heart in the square

before the Westgate. Had they stood silent then,

had they not surged forward, had they not been shaken

by rage against injustice, had they muzzled

the soldiers’ muskets with a multitude

of silence, had reason spoken,

those steely thousands might have won the day.

But they stormed the doors to set their comrades free,

and shots were fired, and freedom’s dream was broken.

A score dead. Fifty wounded. Their leaders tried,

condemned, transported. The movement, in disarray,

lost fifty years. Then came, at last, that shift

of power, one spoonful of thin gruel at a time,

from strong to weak, from rich to poor,

from men to women, like a grudged gift.”