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Welsh Affairs

The Secretary of State began with his memories of the night of the referendum. In the words of Max Boyce, I was there. I had campaigned against a Welsh Assembly and voted against it. Had there been another referendum on devolution in Wales, I would almost certainly have become one of the few politicians to vote themselves out of a job. One of the reasons I stood for the Assembly was because I reflected the clear view of my constituents in south-east Wales and Monmouthshire who did not want a Welsh Assembly because they were afraid that it would lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. The Labour party is now trying to cloak itself in the mantle of the Union when it was the one to open up Pandora’s box by embarking on that ill-thought-out constitutional reform. It was ill thought out because we now have a Parliament in Scotland, a power-sharing arrangement that sometimes works and sometimes does not work in Northern Ireland, and an Assembly for Wales—but the Government have not addressed the important issue of what we should do about England. More than 50 million taxpaying constituents in England do not have the same level of representation that we do in the Celtic nations. That is the question that needs to be answered before we go ahead with any further changes to the constitution. For that reason, I am concerned by calls that I hear from all over the place for more powers for the Welsh Assembly, but that would only increase the constitutional problems and be more likely to speed up the break-up of the United Kingdom. Apart from the constitutional problems—