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Legislative Programme and Budget Statement (Wales)

It is all very well having meetings, but if nothing comes of them what is the point? It is likely that there will be a 25% reduction in the public budget for Wales in the coming months. We can have meetings till our heads fall off, but if a quarter of the public budget in Wales is cut, the implications for jobs and the people of Wales are enormous. On the issue of constituencies, the Secretary of State should be meeting constantly with the First Minister and the Cabinet. She will know, as we said this morning, that if the proposed reduction in the number of Welsh seats—probably to 30—goes ahead, the implications for the Welsh Assembly are enormous. You will know, Mr Sheridan, from your Scottish experience, about the complications involved in that. The Welsh Assembly simply cannot function with 45 Members. It will not have sufficient Members to deal with scrutiny or the other business of the Welsh Assembly. As the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd just mentioned, the Government proposals for shaping and re-shaping the parliamentary constituencies have a particular resonance in Wales. In our valleys in the south we cannot play about with constituency boundaries too much—a valley is a valley. All our communications are north to south and south to north—not east to west. Messing about with that will lead to the most artificial concoctions of constituencies—far too big and unmanageable without any link between MP and constituency. Conservatives have always said that they do not agree with proportional representation because it takes away the link between an MP and his or her constituency. Keeping too rigidly to 75,000 or 78,000 electors would destroy at a stroke in Wales the basis of the community nature of our constituencies. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire is not here, but if the proposals go through, he will not have a constituency. Montgomeryshire will go. If Brecon and Radnorshire is added to it, the constituency would start at Crickhowell and end up in Wrexham—the size of Paris and with 100,00 people. Those are the sort of daft creations that will result from the parliamentary reform Bill. They ought to drop it. We will fight it all the way—in this Committee, in the House of Commons, in the Lords and outside—because the parliamentary proposals were not agreed by the people of Wales. It will destroy the relationship between the Assembly and Parliament. It will reduce the proper representation of Welsh people here in the House of Commons and, fundamentally, it is the wrong thing to do.