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Welsh Affairs

I am grateful for this opportunity to say a few words. I should like to follow up on points raised by the right hon. Members for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) and for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). I have a great deal of respect for both of them, and I shall miss the right hon. Gentleman. It was slightly disappointing, however, if not entirely surprising, that both of them chose to repeat a rather one-sided view of the economic history of this country of the past 20 years. The right hon. Lady seems to forget that people in Wales suffered far more in the 1970s, when interest rates were higher than they ever were under a Conservative Government. The industrial chaos that was wreaked by the previous Labour Government is mirrored by the financial chaos that has been imposed on us by the current one. She also gave the House a rather one-sided view of the miners' strike. She forgot a couple of key points. First, the Labour Government of Harold Wilson closed down far more mines than the Conservative Government of Mrs. Thatcher. Secondly, the miners were not given any opportunity to vote on whether they wished to go on strike, in Wales or anywhere else, during that strike. They were being used by the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers to try to bring down a democratically elected Government, just as they were used in the early 1970s. It was for that reason that the miners' union leaders did not get the support of the Government, or of leading members of the Opposition either. The Secretary of State made pretty much the same speech that he always makes, attacking Conservative policy on everything that happened during the 1980s while skimming briefly over the record of the Labour Government of the past 12 or 13 years. I do not want to rehearse all the economic arguments, the arguments about the health service and so on. I just want to draw his attention to a few key cases in my constituency that demonstrate the failure of Labour in Parliament and in the Welsh Assembly. The Secretary of State spoke first about the economy, and rightly so. He painted a rosy picture. One thing he certainly did not mention was the Severn bridge and its impact on the economy in Wales at the moment. He must be perfectly well aware that the Humber bridge has had a freeze put on any increases in tolls as a result, the Government said, of the bad economic crisis. I have looked at the matter, and users of the Humber bridge pay roughly the same as users of the Severn bridge, albeit that the charging mechanism is slightly different. I cannot understand why people living in the Humber area of England can escape a rise in fees—I wish them all the best and I do not criticise the Government for that—while Welsh people, especially those living in south Wales who commute over the Severn bridge every day, are being treated like second-class citizens and are not being given the same rights as people living in the Humber area. Could it be that there is a Labour marginal seat in Humber, and that the Government are simply trying to buy votes? I would welcome clarification from the Minister with responsibility for that. I go around my constituency speaking to people in business, and they do not recognise the rosy picture painted by the Secretary of State. I recently met David Bone, an engineer and the director of Ocean Resource Ltd, which creates designs for oil refineries and wind farms. He is a successful entrepreneur and a man who is actually doing things that can help to build the economy. He tells me that he has contacted the Welsh Assembly on numerous occasions to discuss aspects of grant funding, and that he has never even received the courtesy of a reply. I find that absolutely reprehensible. I have spent a long time talking to him, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. He tells me categorically that he has corresponded with Ministers in the Welsh Assembly and that none of them had the courtesy even to write back to him, which is extraordinary. Mr. Bone also raised the issue of the green economy, which we all agree needs to be developed in this country. Wales could be a beacon of excellence for green jobs. He raised concerns about the Energy Technologies Institute, which is partly funded by Government money and ought to support industries in the United Kingdom, but appears to spend a lot of its money supporting industries from other parts of Europe. If we are serious about developing the green economy and green jobs, we need to ensure that any public money from British taxpayers is spent on British businesses. On training and so on, the rosy picture that the Secretary of State paints does not correspond with what is seen by my constituents. In that regard, I want to raise the issue of apprenticeships. Recently, a 20-year-old, Damien Radnor of Raglan, came to see me. He is a very enthusiastic, intelligent and articulate young man, who looked around and realised that the country had a shortage of electricians. He spent two years in a local college near Monmouthshire—just outside my constituency, but that is not important—training to become an electrician. He needs to spend a further year working as an apprentice, with an electrician, to complete his course in college. Despite his having written to more than 40 people—I have seen the letters—all have had to turn him down. They are not taking on apprentices, for a variety of reasons: employment legislation makes it difficult; there is no real money to support employers who want to take on apprentices. Consequently, everyone's time and money is being wasted. This young man gave up a well-paid job to study, and spent two years of his life and a lot of money on the process. Presumably, the college course would have been subsidised in some way by the Government, so taxpayer's money was being spent as well. At the end of it, a bright and enthusiastic young man, who wants to go out and work and is willing to write to everyone he can think of, is unable to get a placement as an apprentice. The Secretary of State may shake his head, but I could introduce him to that young man, and I assure him that that is exactly what has happened. More needs to be done to help young people who want apprenticeships. We have heard, of course, about the national health service. Someone said that it had been invented by Labour in the teeth of opposition. That is the sort of one-sided view of history that Labour Members get away with all too often. The reality is that people were not dying in the streets before the health service was formed. Moreover, it was not really a Labour Government who invented it. If anything, it was invented by a civil servant called Beveridge during the second world war. It was accepted by Members in all parts of the House that the national health service, in one form or another, would be introduced after the second world war regardless of who won the election. A health service was already functioning—[Interruption.] Hon. Members may shake their heads and laugh if they want to.