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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

I am not sure whether that learned classical intervention is designed to undermine the case that I am making or to demoralise me as I am an old man. Considering my Welsh origin, I have not contributed a great deal to the structure and politics of the Principality. Tom Hooson was the cousin of the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, who, alas, is not with us and is unwell—we send him our best wishes. Tom Hooson was for some time—not long enough—the Member for Brecon and Radnor. In 1959, we together wrote what I think was the first booklet on the Welsh economy to be written by a political party, entitled Gwaith i Gymru, or Work for Wales. One of the propositions that we rather tentatively put forward in that booklet was one that I was able to advance, together with Tom Hooson, at the Welsh area conference at Llandrindod Wells, when Mr Henry Brooke was the Secretary of State for Wales. It was that we should have referenda—we did not call them that—in Wales on a county basis to vote yes or no for the continued closure of Welsh public houses on Sunday. We had those referenda every seven years for 35 years until my noble friend Lord Howard—Michael Howard—was able to repeal that legislation because Wales had been completely liberated. That is the way in which to achieve an objective in this case. It would be prudent to meet the sincerity and the concentrated position of all those who have spoken in this debate and realise that the inclusion of a body of this kind in legislation of this kind misjudges the legitimacy of the case and the way in which it should be dealt with. I say that—and it is a point that I have made previously—because when I became Chancellor the Exchequer a long time, although not 100 years, ago, I set out in search of a bonfire for the quangos. The other day, I discovered a letter to the Times, published on 28 January 1980, from a gentleman who said: "““As a member of two Quangos which have both been disbanded, I refuse to be made to feel guilty about being an expensive luxury or usurper of Ministerial powers. Indeed, until I began to read that I was a form of contemporary parasite, I was happily living in the mistaken belief of actually giving a form of service to my country””." I confess that the gentleman who wrote that letter, David Hobman, was complaining about the abolition of the Metrication Board—one of the quangos that I was able to put on my bonfire. To add insult to injury, he pointed out that it was I, as Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs, who appointed him to the very quango that we were abolishing at that time. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said that we might have to wait five years to see the consequences of what is happening. The point is that we have had to wait, and are still waiting, for the consequences of abolishing the Metrication Board. Nothing could have been more stupid, or done more damage to paralyse our country, in the context of almost every other country in the world. However, that is a by-the-way. I seriously urge my noble friend and the Government to refrain from including S4C in any part of this legislation. It is manifest from the quality and nature of this debate that S4C is something more significant than a mere instrument. The matter could be readily resolved by a response to that. I finally revert to my Wykehamist paradise. A fellow Wykehamist, who is, alas, no longer with us, was Lord Whitelaw. As we have heard, it was he who established the body about which we are talking. Others have wisely said that every Prime Minister needs a Willie. That was my noble friend Lady Thatcher. We need a Willie now who will take account of what the real Willie said not all that long ago. He created S4C and would be turning and revolving in his grave, whether speaking Latin or English, in his denunciation of this proposal. I am not very good at Latin, but he would repudiate altogether a decision by this Government to include this organisation in this legislation.