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Welsh Affairs

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David), who is not in his place at the moment, for organising that visit by young people. I also thank Sara Pickard, who is Mencap Cymru's partners in politics officer, for her excellent work across Wales—she is a fine ambassador for young people in Wales. Bodies such as Mencap Cymru and the Shaw Trust need to be encouraged to build partnerships with the Welsh Assembly Government and the United Kingdom Government in order to achieve their fine objectives. The Secretary of State has emphasised the importance of partnerships. I want to draw hon. Members' attention to the work of my local authority, which is arguably the best in Wales, Labour-led Neath Port Talbot county borough council. It has recently attracted the establishment of a new Amazon distribution centre, which involves 1,200 jobs, encouraged the imaginative Prince's Trust Coed Darcy housing development and transformed the Afan valley into a major leisure and tourist destination, particularly in the case of the mountain bike centre at Glyncorrwg. Its strategic partnerships with the local health board, the voluntary sector, the Welsh Assembly Government, the UK Government and European bodies are paying rich dividends for local communities. Today is about how we can best deliver a better tomorrow for the people of Wales. We can do so by deconstructing and reconstructing our historic nation to build a more open, tolerant, fulfilled and diverse society, valuing, as Aneurin Bevan said, our rich local life at the same time as a wide cosmopolitanism. Sixty years ago this year, Aneurin Bevan and a Labour Government created the national health service, which is arguably our greatest gift to the United Kingdom and the world. Fifty years ago this year, Aneurin Bevan welcomed the great humanitarian Paul Robeson to the National Eisteddfod in his Ebbw Vale constituency. The all-Welsh rule was suspended to allow those two great sons of Wales to speak at what Aneurin Bevan called ““a monument to civilisation””, the National Eisteddfod. Bevan and Robeson had a simple message: Wales is at its best when it speaks to the world and not to itself. They did that through their purposeful lives, and we honour their memory today, when Wales speaks through Westminster to the world. As the Archdeacon of Bangor, the venerable Meurig Llwyd Williams, said this morning in the fine St. David's day service, which has been mentioned several times, St. David's day is"““a time to dream of a better Wales within a liberated world””."