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Welsh Affairs

I should like to add my voice to those of hon. Members who have welcomed the re-appointment of the Secretary of State. I congratulate him, and I am sure that he will do very well in the post. May I also unreservedly apologise to him for the slur cast by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), who implied that the Secretary of State and I were converging politically? That will undoubtedly be damaging to him, but I hope that it causes him less anxiety than it might just cause me. Apart from the skilling bit, I disagreed with everything the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) said. He was meticulous, however, in the way he put his speech over. I noted much of what was said by the hon. Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire (Nick Ainger), and I thought that he made an interesting contribution. I am not going to talk Wales down. That has already been done by the right hon. Member for Islwyn. There are problems in Wales, but I am not saying that all is bad. There is less unemployment than there was, by a long chalk. The trouble is, however, that wages are low. We need to upgrade and upskill, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, in order to succeed. Emphasis will no doubt be placed on that in the coming months and years. I do not share the right hon. Gentleman's view that the objective 1 money has been a complete waste, but it has not been put to good use. It could have been used better.