---

Welsh Affairs

I add my congratulations to the new Secretary of State for Wales, who will do his utmost to help people. However, he faces numerous challenges, partly as a result of the policies that his Government have enacted in the past 10 years. The Secretary of State mentioned so-called second-class Members of Parliament. I believe that he is a Unionist and that his views and mine on the importance of Wales remaining an integral part of the United Kingdom are probably very close. However, I cannot see how it is possible to continue with the current arrangements whereby Welsh and Scottish Members vote on matters on which they do not have direct representation—they vote on the health service, education and local government in England. As a Unionist, surely the Secretary of State recognises that that is bound to cause enormous tension and is likely to lead to the further break-up and disintegration of the United Kingdom. Preventing Members of Parliament from voting on matters that affect other nations within the United Kingdom will give strength to the Union, which most Government Members and all Conservative Members support. One of the first challenges created by this Government was the change to the funding formula for local authorities, which has left some local authorities much worse off. The changes were subtle, but the new formula for local government, which was set up by the Welsh Assembly, has channelled money away from rural local authorities into more urban ones. The methods were subtle but, for example, the weighting accorded to sparsity in the previous formula has been significantly reduced, and the manner in which sparsity is calculated has also been changed. Instead of considering how close a settlement is to the largest major town, the distance is calculated not by road but as the crow flies, which is disadvantageous in an area with lots of valleys. The formula has also altered the emphasis placed on the number of elderly people in an area. Previously, the number of elderly people was accorded a large weighting, which is right because, unfortunately, as we get older we become more likely to require the services of our local authority. Any formula that does not give significant weighting to local authorities with large numbers of elderly people will be fundamentally flawed. Monmouthshire has many retired people, so we are suffering the effects of that. There is also a fundamental fault in the method used for calculating deprivation. It is arguable whether deprivation should be a factor in deciding how much money local authorities have, but if that is the case—and if it is given the emphasis that it is currently given—the method for calculating deprivation must be seen to be fair. I believe that the fairest way is to look at the average household incomes of people in a given local authority area. This formula looks at how many people are claiming various different benefits. That is grossly unfair on places such as Monmouthshire, which has a high number of people working for low wages, often in tourism, as has been mentioned, or in agriculture, where many people might be earning less than the minimum wage. Yet under the local government funding formula, they are not calculated as being deprived in any way, even though they clearly are. Monmouthshire is not the great affluent place that many people think it is. In fact, the local authority area has two of the most deprived wards in Wales, and when I last checked, the average household income was only just over the average for the whole of Wales. I hope that this is one of the first issues the Secretary of State will tackle. I also hope the Secretary of State will look at the planning laws, and that when he does so he will look at the planning authorities. There was a recent article in the Western Mail about the failings of the Brecon Beacons national park and, although I do not think that any politicians were quoted in the piece, in my experience the park has certainly been very slack indeed in replying to letters and it takes an arrogant and high-handed view towards Members who wish to question it about its planning policies.