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Welsh Affairs

The hon. Lady is getting into treacherous waters. We are all equally elected in the House to represent our constituents. The burden of the Tory argument, although they never mention it—I wonder why—is to turn Welsh, Scottish and, presumably, Northern Irish MPs into second-class MPs, who would be denied an equal status in votes on matters that affect Parliament. List Members have equal status, voting and representative rights in the National Assembly, but they do not have the same constituency obligations. Why should they be on the same level as constituency Members? I am just expressing a personal opinion. It is not a matter for me, as it will be determined by Standing Orders and the subsequent protocol in the National Assembly for Wales. Ten years after the people of Wales voted for devolution, there can be no doubt that Wales is going in the right direction. The spectre of industrial decline, unemployment and run-down public services that haunted Wales throughout the 1980s and 1990s has vanished. In its place, we have a vibrant and diverse economy. There are a record number of jobs, with 10 years of continuing growth—never before achieved in our history as a nation—and public services are going from strength to strength. The choice is whether we continue with the economic stability, the partnership with Westminster and the public investment that have enabled Wales to be such a success story over the past 10 years, or whether we cast those advantages aside and risk all that we have achieved by placing Wales’s destiny in the hands of a Tory-led coalition. The plans for such a coalition are well laid. Nick Bourne, the Conservative leader in the Assembly—