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Welsh Affairs

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady and I am very glad that there was co-operation on both sides of the House and in the Welsh Affairs Committee when we addressed that matter, which we have hopefully done successfully. Less positively, I must note the problems with the housing legislative competence order, which has still not passed after some 32 months. The Welsh Affairs Committee raised some fundamental points about the first version, but as a Committee, we acted quickly—there are sometimes complaints that matters are held up by the Committee, but I do not believe that that happened in this case. Of course, there has been a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing between Cardiff and London, which I am sure will be the subject of the Committee's forthcoming report on Wales and Whitehall. Perhaps the Chairman of the Committee rather than I will say more about that. The evidence that the Committee took, which is publicly available, shows a lack of awareness of the nature of devolution among civil service personnel in London. Interestingly, Rhodri Morgan said that dealing with Whitehall was like being the First Minister of the last colony. That may be a Rhodri-ism, but it is very revealing. We must struggle on with the LCO system, but many in Wales and in this House look forward to the referendum, and the establishment—at last—of full and proper law-making powers for the Senedd in Cardiff. Looking forward to the election, Plaid Cymru has a number of policies on key issues, including child poverty, but I should like to talk about pensioner poverty and our living pension policy. According to Age Concern, older people say that tackling pensioner poverty and reforming the struggling care system are top priorities for them, so let me put this plainly: ending pensioner poverty should be at the top of the agenda for any party of government or any aspiring party of government, and Labour and Tory alike have failed to some extent in that respect over many decades. Indeed, coming up to the general election, the London parties seem obsessed with outbidding one another on cuts to public services and privatisation agendas. The point is that so much of the policy debate is about English policy, but, for example, health and education—two major issues—are devolved to Wales. By the same token, of course, they are devolved to England, so it is a two-way street. By the way, I never hear people in Wales complaining about quasi-devolution to England; they seem much more concerned with devolution in Wales. The truth is that in the crucial matters of health and education, this Parliament often acts as England's Parliament. The Leader of the Opposition might pledge on billboards not to cut the NHS, but he should add, "in England", which would clarify the matter for people in Wales.