www.iwa.org.uk | Spring/Summer 2014 | No. 52 | £4.95

is Wales sleepwalking to independence?

Could the Euro elections set off a chain of events that will lead Wales to the brink of Independence?

+ Gerald Holtham: WELSH LABOUR SHOULD SUPPLY ITS OWN OPPOSITION | Rhun ap Iorwerth: SWITCHING FROM JOURNALISM TO POLITICS Jon Owen Jones: WILLIAMS COMMISSION WORSE THAN 1974 REORGANISATION | Adam Price: SAVING THE LANGUAGE IN THE HEARTLANDS Trevor Fishlock: ‘WITH MALICE TO ONE AND ALL’ | Menna Elfyn: A POETIC TRIBUTE TO NIGEL JENKINS The Institute of Welsh Affairs gratefully acknowledges funding support from the the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Waterloo Foundation.

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All change at the IWA on Wales remain a core part of the IWA’s mission to generate an intelligent debate about Wales’ future. After advertising for volunteers Editorial Manager: John Osmond we’ve assembled a talented editorial board to Editorial Board: help shape the content of the Welsh Agenda. Lee Waters, Geraint Talfan Davies, Kirsty Davies, Rhys David, Gerry We’ve introduced some changes to this issue Holtham, Jessica Blair, Marcus and we’re circulating a questionnaire for you to Longley, Clare Critchley let us know what you think and to help us as we Literary Editor: Peter Finch develop a new strategy. Office Manager: This edition is the last with John Osmond Laura Knight at the helm of the magazine and Peter Finch as Design: Literary Editor. This will also be the last issue for [email protected] Kirsty Davies overseeing the production process. Kirsty is leaving the IWA after more than five years To advertise, tel: 02920 484 387 The new look for the Welsh Agenda is just one as deputy Director to become Oxfam’s Director in The publisher acknowledges the reflection of the change that has taken place at Wales, and does so with our best wishes. financial support of the Welsh Books Council. the IWA in the last year. A new Chair, a new Each of them have made enormous board, a completely new staff team and a new contributions to the IWA, and John’s unique Institute of Welsh Affairs office are just some of the ways we have refreshed role is the subject of a piece by Peter Stead in 56 James Street, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff, CF10 5EZ ourselves following our strategic review. the magazine. The drive and commitment of Tel: 02920 484 387 Our pilot project applying digital John and Geraint Talfan Davies at the IWA over Email: [email protected] crowdsourcing to policy debates helped the past two decades has been extraordinary, www.iwa.org.uk influence the Silk Commission report on the and we all owe them a debt of gratitude. The IWA is a non-aligned independent think-tank and research institute. devolution of policing and justice; The new Geraint was one of the original founders of Members (annual subscription £40) Senedd Papers series has had a strong start the IWA and has been our Chair since 1992. It receive agenda three times a year, can purchase reports at a 25 per cent in generating ideas for the political parties to is difficult to do justice to his contribution, but reduction, and receive discounts when consider as they begin drawing together their we shall try at the members’ summer party we attending IWA events. manifestos; and the new The IWA Debates are planning in Cardiff in July to honour him. series, sponsored by Aberystwyth University, Keep an eye out on our website for details. Branches hit the ground running with an impressive event It is testimony to the achievements of the North Wales Secretariat examining one of the thorniest issues facing outgoing team that the IWA attracted a breadth c/o Huw Lewis policy makers - the future of student tuition fees. of first rate applications to our open advert for 6 Maes yr Haul, Mold, Flintshire CH7 1NS We’ve also listened to member feedback new board members. The new team we have Tel: 01352 758311 in improving our communications: our weekly assembled includes some well known names, and Gwent Secretariat e-newsletter makes sure that our members are others less well known, who are leading in their c/o Rob Southall kept up to date with the latest developments fields. Our new Chair, Helen Molyneux, is profiled University of Wales, Newport, at the IWA, and get a reminder of some of by outgoing trustee Rhys David in the magazine. Caerleon Campus the best content on our Click on Wales news The new team - board and staff - will be PO Box 179, Newport NP18 3YG analysis website. working together over the coming months to Tel: 01633 432005 Our conference format has been updated. put together a strategy for the IWA. We will be West Wales Secretariat The full day format and the default PowerPoint consulting with you too, of course. But let us c/o Margaret Davies presentations have been put aside for a shorter not underestimate the challenges we face. Principal’s Office, Trinity University College, and more varied approach. And to answer the Funding is a key issue for the IWA and one Carmarthen SA31 3EP concern from members that the events are that we need to address urgently – we need to Tel: 01267 237971 outside the price range of many, and are too raise £100,ooo this year in order to be able to Swansea Bay Secretariat focused on Cardiff, we now produce a summary continue to our work as Wales’ leading think tank. c/o Delith Thorpe note of our main events, as well as recording We need your help to ensure that the 38 Southlands Drive, many of them, so that even those not able to charity not only survives, but finds its voice as Swansea SA3 5RA attend can dip in to the ones of interest. We’ve Wales’ critical friend. Tel: 01792 404315 also had a resurgence of branch activity around IWA Women the country. Lee Waters, c/o Jess Blair And of course the Welsh Agenda and Click Director, IWA Tel: 02920 484 387

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 1 4 40 contents 04 ‘We need to > features 20 Wales, sleepwalking 33 Thinking the shout louder’ to independence? unthinkable on Rhys David meets 14 Opportunistic Lee Waters examines economy the new Chair of the moments that extend the consequences Sukhdev Johal, John Institute of Welsh Affairs the boundaries of for Wales of Scottish Law and Karel Williams Welsh devolution independence call for a contrarian 06 Farewell to the John Osmond predicts research centre to devise ineluctable John O we’ll look back in ten 23 Life in the slow lane policies for local and Peter Stead suspects years time and find that Rhun ap Iorwerth finds regional experiments that he and the welsh events have dictated the switching from journalism agenda’s departing pace of constitutional to politics means adjusting 36 Wales needs a region editor will meet again change to the oil tanker pace of based on language political change Adam Price makes the 17 Crowdsourcing views case for a development > commentary on policing and justice 25 Council borders authority for western Jess Blair describes an shouldn’t follow where Wales 08 Welsh Labour should IWA online research the crows fly supply its own initiative aimed at Jon Owen Jones says the 38 Build more houses opposition widening the Welsh Williams Commission’s to save Welsh Gerald Holtham devolution debate proposals for new local communities government boundaries Dafydd Iwan explains why 11 Welsh TV is more 18 Social solidarity and are worse than the 1974 there should now should than Dr Who the constitution gerrymander be a stronger emphasis Lee Waters Michael Keating explains on Y Fro Gymraeg why welfare provision 27 Culture shift needed 12 Don’t rip the heart out is at the heart of the in delivery of public 40 Empowering bottom- of the Coal Exchange Scottish independence services up locally-driven Nerys Lloyd-Pierce debate Nerys Evans says the development Williams Commission’s Dave Adamson and 62 recommendations Mark Lang report on the must be taken as a whole regeneration lessons that have emerged from their 30 Welsh Government year long study of Tredegar should move quickly on city regions 43 Housing should follow Geraint Talfan Davies transport in south-east #52 argues that Wales has to Wales Spring/ compete with English Roger Tanner says cities that are expanding to a Development Summer embrace their hinterlands Corporation should create a new garden city 2014 on the edge of Cardiff

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54 events >  IWA Senedd Papers: Welsh Council Tax Reform Wednesday 14 May 2014 12.30pm-2pm Media Briefing Room, Senedd, Cardiff Bay The second in the IWA Senedd Papers series Gerald Holtham, economist and chair of the Holtham Commission, looks at the devolution of some tax powers to Wales and suggests an alternative method of collecting council tax. Entry free but booking essential on www.iwa.org.uk or call 02920 484 387.

> What future is there for public transport in Cardigan Bay? Monday 9 June 2014, 7pm-8:30pm 45 Political pressure > reviews Aberystwyth Arts Centre to decide Welsh This event will see a panel of experts and academics discuss the possibilities and issues surrounding the future of public transport funding fate 58 Welsh Queen in rural Wales. Eurfyl ap Gwilym finds that of commerce Entry free. If you’d like to attend this event RSVP the branch Wales could lose nearly Deirdre Beddoe Chair at [email protected].

a £1 billion if High Speed > Prudent healthcare – can it save the NHS in Wales? Rail in England is regarded 60 Testing the UK’s Thursday 12 June 2014 1pm–6pm as benefiting Wales policy of drift Central Cardiff: venue TBC Aled Eirug Health Minister Mark Drakeford has said the NHS in Wales must move towards a culture of ‘prudent health care’ – not 48 Lessons for Wales providing treatment where it is unlikely to benefit the patient, from North Dakota 61 Brains of the coalfield or could do harm – if it is to carry on providing an equitable Ian Jenkins says there J. Graham Jones service. Speakers include Mark Drakeford, Health Minister; is a strong case for the Sharon Hopkins, Director of Puboic Health, Cardiff and the Vale; Professor Ceri Phillips, Swansea University; and Sir Mansel Welsh Government to 63 R.S. was ’ere Aylward, Bevan Commission. establish a state bank Tony Brown IWA members: £45 + VAT; Non-members: £90 + VAT To book visit our eventbrite page or call 026920 484 387

> IWA Inspire Wales Award ceremony – > culture 64 Last Word in association with the Western Mail Dangers of Friday 20 June 2014, 7pm 52 Fishlock’s File squandering City Hall, Cardiff – Hosted by Angharad Mair The IWA Inspire Wales Awards rewards those doing inspiring With Malice to Britishness work in the fields of Education, Arts, Science, Business, the One and All Peter Stead Environment, Sport, Community, Active Citizenship, School Trevor Fishlock Governor and the promotion of the Welsh Language. remembers when Booking essential. Visit www.iwa.org.uk or call 02920 484 387 his typewriter was > How can Cardigan Bay punch above its weight confiscated and the economically? telex was a teacher Monday 6 October 2014 Aberystwyth Arts Centre of patience Can we think creatively about how we use the next round of European funding to solve deep-rooted economic problems in 54 Public poet who made the Cardigan Bay area? things happen Entry free. If you’d like to attend this event RSVP the branch Chair at [email protected] Peter Finch pays tribute to Nigel Jenkins (1949 – 2014) and Menna Elfyn In the previous issue of the welsh agenda we published an article Just Published contributes a poetry by Michael Sullivan entitled sequence dedicated to Carwyn’s ‘One Wales’ philosophy spikes Plaid’s guns. This article > A real Citizen Service for Wales his memory was a condensation of a much By Andy Bevan longer conference paper which First of the Senedd Papers in association with the National acknowledges and quotes Assembly Commission extensively from an article by David S. Moon: Welsh Labour in power: ‘One Wales’ vs. ‘One Nation’, > Taxation in Wales published by the journal of social By Gerald Holtham democracy Renewal No 27, in The second Senedd Paper proposes a new method of May 2013. collecting council tax in Wales

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded or otherwise without the permission of the publisher, the Institute of Welsh Affairs. ISSN 1464-7613 More information: www.iwa.org.uk

news Helen Molyneaux

‘We need to shout louder ’ Rhys David meets the motor accident management company, on her career, in which she has been Helphire. spectacularly successful. She made it new Chair of the Institute The 48-year-old mother of an from a Cardiff University law degree of Welsh Affairs adult son and teenage daughter to solicitors Philips & Buck (later remains chief executive of the personal transformed into Eversheds, one injury and consumer legal specialist, of the big Cardiff law firms) before reporting to the new owners in Bath. starting New Law with a small office, Meanwhile, her interests across a desk, and one employee. Her firm the spectrum of Welsh issues have now employees 390 people, making it broadened through another job she one of Cardiff’s biggest private sector When Helen Molyneux was invited has been involved in – membership employers, with other offices in Bristol to apply to succeed Geraint Talfan of the Commission on Devolution and Basingstoke and an associate Davies as only the third chair of Wales’s in Wales under the chairmanship of business in Glasgow. Its sale to Helphire longest-established think-tank, her former Assembly Clerk, Paul Silk. This will ultimately bring its backers a sum in first inclination was to decline. Yet the was given the task of examining the excess of £40 million. timing was tantalisingly appropriate. It case for new powers for the Welsh She was persuaded to join the coincided with an important deal she Assembly, including responsibility for Silk Commission because she had was just completing to sell New Law, some taxes raised in Wales. become aware of the impact of political the Cardiff firm she founded in 2004, to Until now Helen’s focus has been decisions on business, and of the

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importance of sharing in discussions “The IWA has a key role to play in Approaching 40 years of age and a on the changes that would help to setting a longer term vision for Wales,” top insurance lawyer specialising in alter lives and change society for she said. “What do we want Wales to personal injury and employers’ liability the better. She became a member look like in 10 years’ time? How can she was sure of a continuing successful of one of the panels put together for we do things better and how can we career as a partner at Eversheds. the presentations after publication improve people’s lives in a practical However, she decided the partnership of the Silk Part One report on fiscal way instead of just talking about model in a big firm was not for her. powers, and then as a full member of policy?” Politicians, she believes, need Instead, she decided to create a new Part Two which looked at the case for to set a goal of what Wales should be type of legal entity positioned to take advantage of the upcoming Legal Services Act, which freed non-legal “There is not enough awareness of what the businesses to own law firms and offer legal advice – hence the title New Law. IWA has achieved, which perhaps we can This has built its business by address through better follow-through on providing the in-house legal services offered by a number of big corporates, the ideas it generates.” including supermarkets, banks and insurance companies to their clients. That is what made the business attractive to Helphire, a provider of outsourced help, such as vehicle repair wider powers. Issues, such as transport like some years ahead and, working and replacement, to the clients of provision for people travelling to work back from there, put in place the steps insurance companies. The acquisition and the impact of business rates, are needed to achieve agreed targets. of New Law, which has worked closely are just two examples she gives of “It is a privilege to be asked to follow with Helphire for five years, means where the policymakers in Cardiff Bay Geraint as chair of the IWA,” Helen a further range of services could be shape the environment for employers says. “The Institute has a very good bundled into the parent company’s and employees alike and where public reputation and has punched well above offer. input is vital. its weight for a number of years.” Even Helen will not be short of quality “The Silk Commission has given its so she believes its work is still far too advice from her colleagues on the views, and its recommendations now little known or recognised in Wales. She IWA board, which now includes new need to be driven forward in the party points out that it has been instrumental recruits in Graham Edwards, chief manifestoes, through public debate and in initiating debate on a wide range of executive of Wales and West Utilities, Jo through legislation,” she said. “The IWA initiatives from the Wales Millennium Foster, head of the political unit at PHA is a way I can carry on and progress Centre to the Cardiff Metro, and has media and previously a close colleague some of the ideas we discussed.” exercised influence across the country of deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, Where her business commitments through its branch structure. “There is Roger Lewis, chief executive of the allow, Helen intends to be an active not enough awareness of what the IWA Welsh Rugby Union, Professor Kevin chair of the Institute, working with has achieved, which perhaps we can Morgan of Cardiff University and David the new director Lee Waters to set address through better follow-through Stevens, chief operating officer of out the vision and strategy of the on the ideas it generates.” She says. “It Admiral Insurance. organisation as it moves into its second needs to shout louder.” “I have big shoes to fill,” she quarter century. She will be able to Helen’s career and drive suggests notes. “I am conscious the IWA is an call on support from a board recently she will deliver a strong focus on what organisation that is greatly valued and strengthened with some Welsh heavy- the IWA can do best, though she I want to carry on with the good work hitters, containing some of the leading recognises that as in any organisation that has been started. I want to develop figures in Welsh business, academia the constraints imposed by the need a strategy that people can understand and other fields. to raise funds will always be there. In and buy into and then to measure our Helen is critical of the short-termism recent years these have intensified, as a success against what we have said we which she has seen among politicians, result of the financial squeeze many of aim to do.” constantly eyeing the next election – the IWA’s key funders are experiencing. and more concerned with process than She has a record as an innovator Rhys David is a former outputs. She believes this is where the and entrepreneur, which suggests journalist with the IWA can provide a valuable antidote. change could be on the way. Financial Times.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 5 news

Farewell to the ineluctable John O

Peter Stead suspects that he and the welsh agenda’s departing editor will meet again

We Welsh live in a relatively free did need them to put pen to paper. idea of how a later friendship with John society but nevertheless at various Devolution was coaxed out of the would make me think of constitutions stages of our lives we will all have the chattering classes of Wales by one as never before. Born during the War personal experience of living in thrall campaigning and untiring editor. We and raised courtesy of the Welfare to someone who establishes a hold have lived through the era of John O. State I could never be anything other over us. From my grammar school days In every story of national liberation than grateful that I was British. Taken particular Latin and Maths masters from around the world there are to London to see the Coronation come to mind. By comparison my dramatic instances of leaders who go decorations in 1953 I never doubted university days were the quintessence straight from gaol to be presidents. Just that my capital city was the most of liberty although there was one boss as often there are stranger stories of important place in the world. who made the asking of favours into leaders who avoid stereotyping. I was a Encountering John was a jaw- a lifestyle. However, nothing in my product of a Wales where one judged dropping experience for I have never professional career can compare with everybody’s worth by the Valley in met anyone who was so deeply the unrelenting demands that have which they were born, the school they antipathetic to everything London been made by journalist friend John attended and the teams they supported. stood for. Those ministries that had Osmond - he, of course, of this parish. I was not quite ready then to be urged given me my free education and Month after month through many into a new perception of my country medicines were for him the centralist decades John has interrupted my by somebody born in Abergavenny, enemy. Four decades on I retain a peaceful life in Swansea by ringing educated at King Henry VIII Grammar personal British perspective but I fully to ask for some written thoughts that School and Bristol University, who had recognise the tremendous impact were urgently needed for inclusion worked as a journalist in Yorkshire and of John’s systematic undermining in some publication that would guide who could never remember whether it of a British dimension which, in any Wales through its latest crisis. I was was soccer or rugby that was played at case, had become something far less not alone in this respect. When future Ninian Park. benevolent than Labour had envisaged historians explain how a new Wales One weekend in the 1960s an in 1945. In constitutional terms John, emerged at the start of this century academic colleague and I were as a political scientist, was amongst the they will need to place full emphasis stranded on Lundy and, whilst there, first in Wales to appreciate that the UK on how thousands of phone-calls from we played the game of devising a had become a shaky proposition and Cardiff were required to persuade constitution for a fully independent that the time was opportune for playing many otherwise dozy academics and Lundy Island. This was merely a time- with constitutions. bystanders that their country really filling game and at that stage I had no I still have vivid recollections of

6 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org John Osmond pictured at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. Photo: John Briggs.

Encountering John was a jaw-dropping experience for I have never met anyone who was so deeply antipathetic to everything London stood for.

countless residential seminars organised then he would ask “What is Swansea all Whenever I joined one of his ventures, by John in those last decades of the about?” I would have to explain that for whether in print or on television, I century. We would meet in small many Swansea residents Wales is a mere always knew that I was in good hands. groups at Pantycelyn Hall, Coleg plot invented by Cardiff to get its hands Only once did he let me down. As I Harlech or the Hill at Abergavenny (I on public funds and investment: the addressed the camera on the Bwlch did wonder if that was John’s ancestral centralist enemy is now nearer at hand. above Cwmparc, John in his director’s home) to dismantle Britishness. For Of course, there is far more to John’s guise asked me to take a step back John constitutions were always the Wales than the constitution. The many before pronouncing on the role of key but what was attractive was the books and magazines that he has edited Rhondda miners. I took that step urbanity and cosmopolitan ambience give ample evidence of his desire to see and slid thirty feet down the bank of these occasions. The Scots and Irish our country defined by its literature, art towards Cwmparc. My last view before guests were always so intellectually and music. He is also a fierce defender disappearing was of John doubled up brilliant and the emphasis on literature of civil liberties. His perspective has in laughter seemingly caring little about and culture so apparent that we never remained truly cosmopolitan and his the fate of his presenter. doubted that we were rescuing these interests in foreign literature, films and I later took revenge. When islands from the philistines. I frequently beauty spots mark him out as a man filming in Los Angeles we dashed disagreed with John but the political of the world. His mission, unflaggingly uninvited into an apartment and on sub-culture he was creating was sustained over a generation, has always to a balcony to capture a sunset shot, enriching Wales. been to give Wales its own place in rushing straight past an oriental family Rather like that famous New Yorker that modern world. Having fought for eating dinner. “Did you apologise to cover that depicted the rest of the USA devolution, it was he and Geraint Talfan those Chinese?” asked John. “Yes”, I as a small backdrop to Manhattan we Davies who almost uniquely appreciated said, but then explained “they were all have our own imaginary maps of that a new civil society would have to be Vietnamese”. Determined to milk the Wales. For John there was just Cardiff created in Wales. The National Question moment I added, “and they wanted to and Penarth surrounded by the visual Again was the very appropriate title of know if you were English!” splendours of Pembrokeshire and mid one of his books. In truth, for John that Wales. John would tease me about my has always been the question and it preference for the Valleys and Swansea endures. Bay. Swansea has long been a bone of Ultimately it has been John’s sheer contention. I would tease John about professionalism that has guaranteed Peter Stead is a cultural his not knowing how to get here and the effectiveness of his public career. historian of 20th Century Wales.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 7 Commentary—

of any UK politician. But the feeling is the government they deserve. Bringing Welsh Labour rather that devolved government has not the government closer to the people was succeeded in changing important things supposed to increase public interest and should supply its for the better. Comparative education attention and generally to release energy own opposition statistics from PISA and more anecdotal in the political system. Oh dear. Even evidence from the health service suggest the biggest friends of devolution cannot Gerald Holtham on why we need a continued falling behind. The Welsh plausibly claim that has happened. To to rekindle some excitement in Government even gets the blame for the improve government and its perception Welsh politics if the National Welsh economy growing more slowly than among the public, we have to revitalize Assembly is to grow much of the rest of the UK, so falling back our politics and get people more engaged. in relative GDP per head. Some of that is a How on earth do we do that? bum rap. How a subordinate government A revitalized politics poses a particular with highly restricted powers and no dilemma for any Labour Party supporter The Silk Commission’s second report control of fiscal policy is supposed to have in Wales. Revitalization surely requires a on extending devolved powers reflects caused long-established relative economic bit of suspense, the possibility of change. a lot of careful thought and analysis. decline is not clear. Doesn’t that mean Labour is supposed to How much is implemented, though, will Enthusiasts for more devolution right lose office from time to time? You can’t depend on politics. Securing change now will argue that the performance of expect Labour folk to work for that but from Westminster may well require a government should not change views there is an alternative, namely a much demonstrating that Welsh public opinion on the constitutional settlement in any greater degree of intra-Party open-ness, is actively demanding change. case. You can’t chop and change the more public discussion, even policy Now public opinion does seem to have constitution with every twist and turn disputes. Labour, like any political Party, shifted over a decade or so to a firmer of a government’s fortunes, they argue, contains different views. Instead of acceptance of the National Assembly. Yet and we need a sustainable settlement. covering these up in the interests of Party my impression is the public views it a bit Accept for the sake of argument, they say, discipline, perhaps they should be allowed, like the Welsh soccer team: we’re glad the Welsh Government’s performance indeed encouraged, to hang out. we’ve got one, like other countries, even has been disappointing. To use that to Spin and news management in the though rather few of us go to the matches. oppose further devolution is to suppose interests of securing electoral advantage And judging by some of the results it that the performance is not down to the have undoubtedly reduced the quality doesn’t seem to be playing particularly difficulties of one administration. It is to of political debate in the UK as a whole well. Although soccer is a more popular attribute disappointment to some deep- and served to turn off many of the public game than rugby in Wales, much less seated inability of the Welsh people to UK-wide. But in Wales, the Labour Party emotion is invested in the national soccer organise a democracy. is electorally strong enough not to need team than in the rugby team – probably Any such inability cannot be down those techniques. It does not need to be so because the latter wins more often. to size considering that there are smaller defensive. If it debated differences of view That suggests that greater countries than Wales in Europe that in public and acknowledged difficulties interest in the National Assembly and manage a much greater degree of self- openly and honestly, there is no Welsh greater enthusiasm for extending its government fairly successfully. Do we Daily Mail to run tendentious headlines responsibilities might follow if it was think so little of ourselves? Must we about ‘splits’. seen, or believed, to be more successful. be fatalistic about the capabilities and It comes down to this: Welsh politics Much of the indifference to any further capacities of devolved government? Why is predictable and a bit boring. Given the devolution and reservations about can’t they improve? enduring impotence of the opposition, if Silk seem to be based on the thought: That argument has a good point but Labour is to rekindle political interest it “shouldn’t they sort out some of the it does not allay the concerns of many must provide its own opposition – or at problems we’ve got for which they are people that responsibility should not run least its own political and policy debates. already responsible before they take on far ahead of capacity. If the soccer team Unlike their London counterparts many more”. wins more matches the crowds will come; Welsh Ministers show a marked The general perception is not that the score more policy successes and the active reluctance to appear on television to be Welsh Government has made terrible demand for further devolution will grow. interviewed. That is the hallmark of the errors. Labour, after all, has been in I am not sure that success is just a cautious incumbent who can only see a government continuously and still does matter of devising clever policies and downside to public exposure. But their job well in the polls and Carwyn Jones has building competence in the civil service. would be easier if the public understood some of the highest approval ratings In the long run, in a democracy people get the real difficulties they face. And in Wales

8 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Commentary

the media, such as it is, is not particularly new but which evaporated as the Assembly the public has refused and clung to the hostile. The difficulties can be put over and settled down to business as usual. system. Admittedly a degree of selflessness the options debated. A possible stimulus could come from is required of our politicians to move to Just imagine if a Minister came multi-member constituencies. Suppose such a system. What an opportunity to on and said “We’re sorting out A and we reduced the number of Assembly demonstrate that they are not ‘just in it for B but I’m at my wits end over C; our constituencies and elected three members themselves’, as cynics claim. policies don’t seem to be working and for each. Each Party would have to put up This is not a new idea. The Richard the opposition’s ideas are no good either. three candidates per constituency and the Commission recommended such an We’re considering this and that and we’d public would express their preference by electoral system for Wales long ago. welcome public input”. Would he or she be voting 1,2,3…. Different views within the Perhaps we need to implement the an object of derision or would people think same Party could be judged and endorsed proposal of that Commission before we they were hearing something real from a by the public, reflected in the order in tackle the proposals of the latest one. politician – and respect them more? In any which it voted for a Party’s candidates. case, our politicians don’t have to pretend If people in Pontsticill are determined to be perfect and know-it-all; the public to vote Labour, they can at least ask ‘which wouldn’t believe that anyway. Labour’. Yes, that would result in a degree A change in political culture is needed of intra-Party competition, traditionally to make our people relate more to their anathema to UK politicians, but it would government. Such a change in culture give the public more influence and the cannot happen easily. Does it need some public would like it. For proof, look to the institutional stimulus? Perhaps we need Republic of Ireland where such a voting Gerald Holtham is an IWA to revisit some of the ideas for electronic system has long been in place. From time trustee and chaired the consultation and public involvement that to time politicians have urged changing it Commission on Funding and were around when devolution was brand and set up referenda to do so. Every time Finance for Wales.

Commentary

Hall asked whether this mattered and gave and advisors who had spent some time Welsh TV is more the following answer: “Of course it does: preparing for a ‘grilling’ seemed palpably than Dr Who the vitality of any nation must surely rest underwhelmed, rather than relieved, by the on more than its journalism. One cannot limp engagement from the AMs. Indeed, Lee Waters says BBC bosses have fully realise a nation’s creative potential it will hardly have left an impression with made important concessions on or harness its diverse talents through the the senior leadership of the BBC that the the need for more English language important, but narrow prism of news” National Assembly is body to treat with Welsh television That last point is something that has caution, let alone fear. not been fashionable as politicians have The men from Auntie did not give focused on safeguarding the coverage of ground on the recommendations of the A year to the day he took over as BBC’s news and current affairs to ensure that the Silk Commission to create a devolved Director General, Lord Tony Hall, made a development of distinctive polices are not body within the BBC Trust, and they highly significant confession in a speech lost on the voters. But it came with the price poured cold water over the notion of a in Cardiff in April. Despite the shift in of sacrificing ‘general programmes’. Welsh edition of Newsnight. production of major networks shows The morning after Hall’s speech, the There were, however, some important to Wales, he said there’s not enough Assembly’s Communities, Equality and concessions by the BBC leadership. television made about Wales in English. Dr Local government Committee held two The Director General acknowledged Who may feature Welsh landscapes, but it hour-long sessions, first with Chris Patten the representation of Welsh politicians is no substitute for programmes which tell and the Trustee for Wales, Elan Closs and issues on BBC 1’s flagship Question the modern story of Wales. Stephens and later with Tony Hall and Time programme was “really important” Hall conceded that the amount the Director of BBC Wales, Rhodri Talfan and currently was “not right”. And the broadcasting about Wales in English Davies. It was a tepid encounter, hardly network BBC coverage of last year’s, has been eroded over the last decade to the extent that it does not deliver a full and rounded reflection of Welsh life and culture. This is a confession that some Not only did the committee spend of his predecessors were reluctant to too much time on the issue of the make, as were some of Lord Chris Patten’s predecessors as Chair of the BBC Trust. BBC’s coverage of the devolved For the past ten years the IWA has sought to raise this issue in several forums and in administrations, but they failed to seize dialogue with the BBC itself, but the BBC has been reluctant even to concede that there on the concessions made the night is an issue – presumably frightened of the before, and more generally missed the financial consequences. The decentralisation of drama production to Roath Lock – opportunity to probe and press the welcome and wholehearted though that has been – was an answer to a different problem. decision makers. Tony Hall’s speech was, therefore, novel and significant in several ways, a recognition that:

> Welsh language provision is not the only issue in Welsh broadcasting. an interrogation - in fact, a case study in which referred to the role of Environment the scrutiny deficiencies of a hard-pressed Agency rather than the new Welsh body, > There has been a substantial erosion of 60-member Assembly – and, perhaps, the Natural Resources Wales, was “just not English language television services for quality of AMs more generally. good enough”. Wales over the last decade and more – Not only did the committee spend The most significant concession, across BBC Wales and ITV Wales. too much time on the issue of the BBC’s however, remains that acknowledgment coverage of the devolved administrations, that aspects of Welsh life are not > The shortfall lies not in news and current but they failed to seize on the concessions “sufficiently captured by the BBC’s own affairs but in those other reflections made the night before, and more generally television services in Wales”. Simply of Welsh life such as drama, comedy, missed the opportunity to probe and recognising that there is an issue is an entertainment and culture. press the decision makers. BBC executives essential pre-condition to addressing it.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 11 Commentary

But this is where things will get difficult. a small town of some 10,000 people to It is unlikely that a fresh cheque is Don’t rip the becoming a key commercial player on the going to be put on a desk at BBC Wales heart out international stage. any time soon. And it would be a mistake In more recent times, the building for Wales simply to adopt an Oliver of the Coal provided a unique, atmospheric music Twist-like posture. Though the BBC Trust Exchange venue, hosting names as diverse as blues member for Wales, Elan Closs Stephens, legend Walter Trout, saxophone supremo couldn’t rein in her instincts when she Nerys Lloyd-Pierce bemoans Courtney Pine and indie rockers Arctic said “If there is a specific pot of money, the corporate men who are Monkeys. So many Cardiff residents have then I would like to hear where [Lord Hall] bent on destroying the Welsh good memories of evenings spent there, a would want to spend that to have the capital’s heritage venue brimming with character amid a sea biggest possible impact on the feeling of of insipid establishments. identity within the Welsh audience. Cardiff’s fondness for the Coal Lord Hall is clearly encouraging a Exchange is borne out by a newly launched bigger debate, from which there might, The Coal Exchange in Cardiff Bay is petition aimed at Culture Minister John eventually, be a more substantial gain. without doubt one of the city’s most Griffiths that has already gathered more He said: “I do believe the BBC will need fascinating buildings. Constructed as than 2,000 signatures, a figure that is to think hard about how it strengthens its a base from which traders in the city’s rising rapidly. support for national and regional self- industrial heyday could carry out their The Coal Exchange is a Grade 11 listed expression as it prepares its case for a new globally important work, it is the place building. The Victorian Society states that charter. I would like to invite you all to be a where the world’s first £1m deal was such a listing protects much more than the part of the debate.” struck. One would imagine it’s a building façade. It also protects the interior, plus worth cherishing. outbuildings, boundary walls and all other However, a freedom of information structures within the ‘curtilage’. Simply recognising request, made by conservation engineer The council claims the building is that there is an Jon Avent who works opposite the Coal unsafe, and on the point of collapse. Exchange, reveals that Cardiff City Council However, conservation engineer Jon issue is an essential apparently has an intention to demolish Avent, who has spent the last 20 years pre-condition to the listed interior, keeping only the facade. looking at listed buildings in various As anyone who has been inside the states of disrepair, says he is of the firm addressing it. But Coal Exchange will testify, the interior belief that the Coal Exchange is not about this is where things is magnificent. The former trading floor to collapse. In his view, it needs a few boasts rich wooden panelling, an oak isolated areas attended to, but nothing will get difficult. balcony, stained glass… To demolish all too challenging. this would be to rip the heart out of the It’s hard to fathom why the council Coal Exchange. It would destroy the very cannot see the value of restoring the aspect of the building that illustrates its Coal Exchange, potentially with help from potent historical significance. the Heritage Lottery fund. It has been Wales should seize that invitation Inside, it’s possible to imagine the suggested that the council wants to build a with both hands. That will entail more electric atmosphere as coal owners, ship modern conference centre behind the Coal imagination, focus and mastery of the owners and their agents met daily on Exchange façade. But why use a building detail by our elected representatives than the floor of the trading hall to negotiate of national significance for this purpose, was evident at the Assembly Committee their latest deals. During the peak trading when there are plenty of other options? sessions, and more engagement in the hour of midday to one o’clock, the floor A common criticism of Cardiff Bay issue by the Welsh Government than it sometimes had as many as 200 men is that the overwhelming majority of has shown in recent years. But it will also milling around, shouting, gesticulating, and its investment in regeneration went on require the engagement of Welsh civil wrangling over prices. the modern waterfront development, society as a whole. It was estimated that up to 10,000 while the historic core, with its run-down people passed through the building each but spectacular old buildings was wilfully day. At one time, the Coal Exchange’s ignored. Furthermore, as was pointed importance was such, that the price of the out in Apolonija Susteric’s Artes Mundi world’s coal was determined there. Built 2012 contribution, Politics in Space, Tiger Lee Waters is Director between 1883 and 1886 the Coal Exchange, Bay Project, in the brave new world of the of the IWA. was pivotal in Cardiff’s transformation from revamped bay, culture was ignored.

12 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Commentary

With so much already trashed, it So much of Cardiff’s heritage has already been seems inconceivable that yet another lost. The canal system that could have been a piece of the city’s fabric can be cast aside with cynical abandon. Yet with will, vision major tourist attraction is now underground. and imagination, a magnificently restored The picturesque 16th Century ruins of Greyfriars Coal Exchange could be the centrepiece priory were bulldozed and now lie beneath of a revitalised Mount Stuart Square. The Coal Exchange played a hugely important Capital Tower. part in the city’s history, it should play an equally important part in the city’s future. Some years ago I saw the iconic Patti Smith play at the Coal Exchange. Sadly, this view is true enough. A How could this have been allowed Wandering around Cardiff Bay on a pre- visitor with an appetite for a richly diverse to happen? performance jaunt, she noted the shoddy cultural experience would find the Bay So much of Cardiff’s heritage has new build on the waterfront, and the sad sorely lacking. Even the designation Cardiff already been lost. The canal system that neglect of the spectacular buildings further Bay lacks the guts and power of a name could have been a major tourist attraction ‘inland’. She told the audience – “don’t let like Tiger Bay. is now underground. The picturesque 16th the corporate men destroy your city”. The Had old and new been married with Century ruins of Greyfriars priory were trouble is, they seem hell-bent on doing so. vision and panache how different the story bulldozed and now lie beneath Capital could have been. Cardiff Bay could have Tower. Almost any other city on the planet  been a thriving and envied cultural centre, would have celebrated the priory as an a place that seamlessly embraced ancient historical feature to be prized. But planning and modern. Instead, the Bay is a schizoid has never been a Cardiff strong point, and Nerys Lloyd-Pierce is Chair of place of two halves. it isn’t today. Cardiff Civic Society. Changing Union—

Opportunistic moments that extend the boundaries of Welsh devolution

John Osmond predicts we’ll look back in ten years time and find that events have dictated the pace of constitutional change powers, duly held in March 2011. It seems likely, therefore, that progress with the Silk Commission’s proposals will be equally determined by events and their unforeseen consequences. First up will be At a dinner in early March to celebrate the the Richard offerings have prospered in the the Scottish independence referendum launch of their final report on enhancing the past decade. in September, closely followed by the UK powers of the National Assembly, members Of course, the main thrust of the general election in May 2015. of the Silk Commission pledged to meet again Richard Commission’s agenda – that the A narrow No vote in the referendum, in ten years time to see how many of their 61 National Assembly should acquire primary somewhere within the range of 55 per cent recommendations had been taken up. legislative powers – has been enacted. On to 45 per cent, will create a new context That might seem a long time, the other hand, other parts of their package for the Silk agenda. The unionist parties will especially in politics when a week can (which they argued should be regarded demand that Westminster comes up with be an eternity. Nonetheless, that was as a whole) remain unfulfilled, notably a package of further devolution to ward off how long they judged some of their ideas increasing the number of AMs from 60 pressure from the SNP for a re-run of the might take to become part of the emerging to 80 and their election by the single plebiscite if it wins the Scottish Parliament Welsh constitution, especially those transferable proportional vote. election in 2016. In turn this will raise the concerning devolution of criminal justice When Peter Hain put through his 2006 bar for Labour and the Conservatives so far and the creation of a separate jurisdiction. Act, which enabled legislative powers as Wales is concerned. It was sobering to note that their subject to a referendum, he predicted that it So, for example, the Scots may well be projection forward to the Wales of 2024 would take at least ten years to be realised. offered complete control over income tax was made almost ten years to the day However, he was overtaken by events, with an ability to vary the basic, higher, and that the Richard Commission report and in particular the Assembly election additional rates – something which Silk was launched in Cardiff in 2004. When of 2007. This resulted in the coalition recommended but has been rejected by the examining how the Silk Commission’s between Labour and Plaid Cymru, the One UK Government. Without this discretion the recommendations might come to pass, if at Wales programme for government, and parties in Cardiff Bay have declared devolving all, it is instructive to look back to see how its commitment to a referendum on more power of income tax unusable, with Welsh Labour also demanding a needs-based formula for calculating the block grant. If Scotland gets discretion over varying income tax rates the way will be opened for Wales to follow suit. It is noteworthy that in mid-March Scottish Labour unveiled proposals to extend the Scottish Parliament’s ability to vary The Changing Union project is being undertaken by the IWA in income tax from the present 10p to 15p in the collaboration with the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University and pound, and also to vary the top higher and Cymru Yfory/Tomorrow’s Wales. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation and the additional tax bands upwards. Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the project is tracking and influencing Prospects for early implementation the devolution debate across the UK over three years in the run-up to the of the Silk Commission’s main Scottish independence referendum in September 2014. See the project’s recommendations for moving to a website www.changingunion.org.uk reserved powers model for the Assembly and for the devolution of police, energy

14 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Changing Union

and water is likely to depend on Labour Silk Commission Part II report main recommendations being in government following the 2015 general election. At Welsh Labour’s Spring > Moving from the current conferred powers model of devolution to a reserved powers model. A reserved powers model, which sets out the powers which are conference in Llandudno in April Ed not devolved rather than the powers that are, would clarify responsibilities and Miliband committed to implementing the allow more effective, confident governance. It would also bring Wales into line Silk recommendation on reserved powers. with the other devolved administrations of the United Kingdom. At the Welsh Liberal Democrat conference in Cardiff a week later Nick Clegg signed up > More backbench Members of the National Assembly, between 80 to the whole Silk package. and 100, to improve scrutiny and accountability. If there is a hung parliament and Labour > Devolving most aspects of policing, ensuring effective cooperation across the or Conservative prospects of forming a UK continues. government depend on a coalition with the Liberal Democrats or a deal with the SNP > A phased approach to the devolution of the justice system, devolving the and Plaid Cymru (or both), then expect Silk youth justice system immediately with a feasibility study for the devolution of to move to centre stage. After all, this is prisons and probation to follow. how the Silk Commission was established > Completion and implementation of a review of other aspects of the justice in the first place, as a result of an off-the- system by 2025. cuff commitment made in the agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal > Increasing the threshold for devolved consents for all energy generation from Democrats in their coalition deal following 50MW to 350MW. the 2010 election. It was put in as a > Aligning the devolved competence for water to the national boundary, concession to the Welsh Liberal Democrats, recognising the need for further consideration of the practical implications. an alternative to their demand for reform of the Barnet formula. > Devolving powers in relation to ports, rail, bus and taxi regulation, speed and Out of such opportunistic moments drink drive limits; have the boundaries of the Welsh > Strengthening the Welsh dimension of BBC governance within the UK Trust devolution settlement been expanded, framework and transferring the direct government funding of S4C from the and the same is likely to prove the case in UK Government to the Welsh Government. the next few years. Further progress could then be made following the 2016 National > Specific recommendations on a range of other subjects such as the devolution of teachers pay. Assembly election. All the parties will need to say something about Silk in their manifestos. And, of course, events will be speeded up if the outcome requires a coalition, most probably of Labour with the Liberal Democrats or with Plaid Cymru. In that eventuality expect a commitment to a further high powered commission with a legal tinge, established to investigate the advantages of devolving powers over the administration of justice and moves to a Welsh legal jurisdiction. When the members of the Silk Commission meet again for dinner, in 2024, they are likely to find that the Welsh constitutional landscape has been altered substantially, and probably in some ways they had not anticipated ten years earlier.

John Osmond was founding Director of the IWA and is now a freelance journalist, writer and policy consultant. Members of the Silk Commission present their final report to Welsh Secretary David Jones

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 15

Changing Union

frontline practitioners, despite the fact that the Police Federation submitted evidence to Crowdsourcing views the Silk Commission. On the other hand a positive outcome on policing and justice was our choice of Tom Davies, the former Independent Police Complaints Commissioner who chaired the project and brought kudos and respect to the process. He led discussion internally on the online platform, and externally, by The IWA’s pilot project engaged authoring pieces for ClickonWales to draw Jess Blair describes an IWA online with 55 participants, involving them in comments which were then discussed research initiative aimed at widening in a six-week debate using a specially on the platform. the Welsh devolution debate designed web platform. This operated A problem was how to synthesize in the manner of a shared blog, with 33 the results. Reducing six weeks of of the participants creating content and dialogue between 33 participants into a commenting on each other’s views. They set of shared conclusions was a difficult comprised academics, lawyers and Police task. Inevitably, some topics had more The Silk Commission’s recommendations and Crime Commissioners, together with discussion than others. Overall, however, in favour of the devolution of policing representatives from the third sector and we were able to promote a debate where and justice powers to Wales - the last the Welsh Government. They discussed one had been lacking previously. major Welsh public service still under questions about crime reduction and how Our participants were overwhelmingly Westminster control - received headline devolution of policing and justice would supportive of the idea of the devolution of attention in the media. Yet there has been work in practice. policing, youth justice and later the justice relatively little debate about what this What soon became clear was that system as a whole. At the same time they would mean in practice. some parts of this agenda such as youth were able to articulate the case for the Certainly, there are contradictory views justice, where the Welsh Government transfer of some of these powers better in relation to the proposal. For instance, has already taken an initiative in drafting than others. Probation was an example while a Silk Commission poll found that 63 a Youth Justice Bill, were easier to debate where an expert submission had to be per cent supported the devolution of police than others. In the case of youth justice obtained before most of them were ready powers, the same percentage wanted our participants were able to articulate to come to a view. In such cases they were justice powers kept at Westminster. what a devolved system would look understandably reluctant to offer opinions In an effort to generate greater debate like and its likely benefits, for example about something they felt they knew the IWA has undertaken a crowdsourcing reducing reoffending rates. relatively little about. research project, bringing together online This contrasted with other areas of If implemented the Silk Commission’s the views of a wide range of people. the justice system, such as the courts recommendations on policing and justice We were commissioned by the UK’s administration, where it was more difficult will mean radical changes in how these Changing Union Project to use policing for participants to appreciate the problems functions are administered in Wales. The and justice as a pilot project to test the and benefits that might result from debate the IWA has initiated now needs to effectiveness of the method in generating devolution. Although the Silk Commission be broadened out if the full implications are wider engagement than is generally has opened up the prospect of devolution to be fully understood and accepted. This possible with more conventional research in these areas, there is still some way to discussion needs to continue and grow. approaches. go before we have a clear picture of what Crowdsourcing is a relatively new a fully devolved justice system for Wales method of research, though it has already would look like. had some impact worldwide. It enables As intended, the pilot project was a tapping into the knowledge and opinions learning process. Police officers, probation of a much larger group of people than officers and other practitioners were can be achieved by more traditional noticeably absent from the discussion. Jess Blair is Policy Analyst for methodologies. A notable example was Undoubtedly, our failure to engage with the IWA. The full report of the Iceland’s attempt to crowdsource a new them, despite offering anonymity, was a policing and justice pilot project constitution following the 2008 banking drawback. Probably it was a reflection of can be accessed on the UK’s crisis and the collapse of its Government. the sensitive nature of the subject amongst Changing Union Project website.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 17 Changing Union

Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish Deputy First Minister, is arguing the case that social justice can only be guaranteed in Scotland if an independent government is in charge of its delivery.

Social solidarity and the constitution are two dimensions here, the functional and Michael Keating explains why welfare provision is at the heart the territorial. of the Scottish independence debate Social policy specialists talk of old and new social risks. Old social risks are those posed by the traditional industrial labour market and male-headed households. They include the need for family support, The constitutional debate in Scotland has instruments in the field of economic pensions and insurance against spells of begun to turn on issues of welfare state development while reserving the main unemployment. reform. Nationalists propose that welfare macro-economic powers. On the other hand, new social risks should be organised on a purely Scottish There are two rationales for reflect the complexities of modern basis, while unionists, especially in the reserving redistributive powers. First is society. They include the highly Labour Party, insist that it must remain a an instrumental argument, that a larger complex mechanisms of generation and purely UK responsibility. My argument is area is better able to mobilise resources reproduction of poverty, about which there that, as with the constitution in general, for redistribution and insure against is little consensus; skill erosion in a high- there is a middle position. asymmetric shocks. Against this is the tech economy; changing family structures; The current allocation of powers in argument that it is at the level of the nation precarious employment; and new social policy is largely inherited from the that affective solidarity exists, which demographic challenges. The context also old Scottish Office system, but is consistent provides the rationale for selecting the includes the appreciation that generational with traditional federal and public goods community within which redistribution and gender divisions are also relevant. theories. Redistributive matters are mostly takes place (no welfare states are ever truly There is a broad consensus on the reserved for the centre, while allocative universal). These arguments were recently need to move from passive support to matters, such as the organisation of public explicitly confirmed in the report of the active measures to incorporate excluded services, are largely devolved. This was Calman Commission. sections of the population in the labour also true of the devolution proposals of the My argument is that these assumptions market, although there are striking 1970s, with the exception that the current must, at least, be modified in the current differences between right and left on the settlement gives Scotland some important era of welfare state transformation. There generation of the new inequalities and on

18 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Changing Union how they should be tackled, notably on the differing definitions of the deserving target points to changes in the balance of welfare balance between incentives and coercion. groups and more in the field of services than instruments so as to fit local needs and The modern vocabulary includes ‘social of cash payments. preferences. Measures like the ‘bedroom inclusion’, ‘activation’, ‘social investment’, There is a strong argument for tax/spare room subsidy’, designed for ‘active labour market policy’ and ‘workfare’. Europeanising certain welfare provisions. conditions in the south of England, may

Recent years have seen a rescaling of functional systems across economic, social and cultural domains, and a rescaling of government to match.

The old distinction between Europe is now the framework for market have little relevance in Scotland (or in the redistributive and allocative policies has regulation and therefore for its social north of England for that matter). also broken down, with the appreciation counterpart. It is Europe, not the nation As a matter of functional efficiency, that most policies (and all public state, that covers the largest population and the present division between passive services) are redistributive to some most resources and can best respond to welfare (reserved) and active welfare degree. This is especially true if we asymmetrical shocks. On the other hand, (largely devolved) creates mismatches and enlarge the notion of distribution beyond it is manifestly clear that Europe has not disincentives, which are beginning to be income groups to include things like generated the affective solidarity to make it recognized. The location of housing benefit gender, generation and place. possible to produce more than small-scale at the same level as responsibility for social Recent years have seen a rescaling transfers (through Cohesion policy) and housing is one instance. Another matter is of functional systems across economic, one-off bail-outs. the interface between unemployment and social and cultural domains, and a All of this is prising apart the formally disability support and training, economic rescaling of government to match. The coterminous domains of economic development, urban regeneration and ‘new regionalism’ literature emphasises regulation, social solidarity, political social work services. There is never an the way in which economic restructuring representation and governing institutions. undisputed optimal level for the integration follows global, regional and local logics, It does not mean that solidarity is leaving of public services, while the idea of ‘joined- and not just national ones. Regions and the nation-state and relocating at either the up government’ is often a naïve illusion. cities have been identified as key levels supranational or sub-state level. We are However, we can probably do a lot better for the analysis of economic and social witnessing, rather, a multilevel solidarity, than at present. restructuring and the emergence of new operating at distinct scales and in different It is fruitless to design a reformed problems and policy opportunities. arenas. The old assumptions described at system of devolution predicated on the Training and active labour market the beginning of this article no longer apply. present mode of welfare state. One thing policies are increasingly elaborated and In present-day Scotland these that we do know is that the welfare state implemented at local and regional levels, functional and territorial dimensions is undergoing major change, if only for corresponding to labour markets. Politics intersect, and are shaping the discussion pressing financial reasons. This provides an at these levels is increasingly contested by of social welfare and devolution. Survey opportunity to rethink how Scottish welfare social forces seeking to define the terms of evidence shows that Scots do not differ might fit into an emerging multilevel model development projects, notably the balance radically from citizens elsewhere in the and how resources might most effectively between competitive growth, social inclusion United Kingdom in their broad preferences be deployed. and environmental considerations. The for welfare. However, public policy does not idea of inter-regional competition within emerge directly from citizen preferences open markets has become a central feature but from the aggregation and compromise of political debate, although it has been among interests and preferences within  questioned in economic theory. political institutions. Michael Keating is Professor At the same time, national solidarity This has produced a rather different of Politics at the University is under challenge as affective identities balance within Scotland, notably on of Aberdeen and Director of are shifting. The evidence here is mixed matters of universalism and public the ESRC Scottish Centre on and rather inconsistent, but it is at least no provision. In the longer run such differences Constitutional Change. This longer axiomatic that the ‘nation-state’ is necessarily imply distinct fiscal choices, article is based on a presentation the sole locus of social solidarity, especially and indicate the need for mechanisms he gave to a conference in plurinational states. There is evidence by which Scotland might recapture the organised by the European of welfare differentiation across devolved benefits of its own social investments, for Institute for Identities at Swansea regions in Europe, largely in the form of example in university education. It also University in February.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 19 Features— Cover article Wales, sleepwalking to independence?

Independence is a fringe issue in Wales. Just 12% of Welsh voters support Lee Waters examines the it, and that figure has been stubbornly consistent. But it is far from consequences for Wales of implausible that within a decade Wales could find itself standing alone, not Scottish independence through any conviction that independence is the best bet, but because the UK has left us. Let’s consider what could happen. At the end of May it seems likely that UKIP will claim victory in the elections to the European Parliament. Although European issues have hardly featured in the campaign - the Labour election broadcast failed to mention them even once - the results will be seized upon by skittish

20 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Features / Cover article

Conservative MPs. some are convinced that England Wales that funding mechanism was Fearful of the impact of a strong would lose little sleep over Scotland’s rather generous to Scotland, and UKIP showing in the General Election departure, I go with those who decommissioning it would see the Scots they will seek to put pressure on David think the split would be the biggest £4 billion a year poorer. Such is Wales’ Cameron to harden his line on pulling psychological blow to the ruling elites lack of leverage that the Treasury Britain out of the EU. Although surveys since the fall of the Raj. didn’t even feel the need to dispute the suggest there’s all to play for in a future A vote to leave the UK would analysis, it simply ignored it. referendum on our membership of be just the beginning of a lengthy As part of their case that the UK Europe, the noise generated by the negotiation on the terms of Scotland’s is ‘better together’ the unionist parties election result will suggest otherwise. withdrawal from the UK. Thorny issues have pledged to keep the Barnett Same old story? The difference this like the future of the nuclear submarine Formula in place. It would seem that time is Scotland. base and the currency won’t be easy to offending the Welsh is a small price Surveys north of the border suggest resolve. In the event that Scotland opts to pay for placating the Scots. Wales, far less support for UKIP, and far greater to leave it would be wise of Whitehall Gerald Holtham has concluded, is to be support for remaining within the EU, to be magnanimous, but Unionists’ treated as ‘the runt of the litter’: “like the than in other parts of the UK. The instincts are to make the nationalists youngest child of a poor family that gets latest YouGov poll shows that in an In/ stew in their rhetorical juices. It could only hand-me-down clothes, whether Out referendum 48% of Scottish voters well get ugly. appropriate or not in style or size.”, he would opt to stay in, compared to 37% So where would that leave Wales? told a committee of MPs recently. in England (voters in Wales would Unsettled, for a start. And a bad These are significant statements as narrowly back staying inside the EU by tempered ending of the Union would they signify the Welsh political elites a margin of 39%/35%.) especially unnerve the Welsh ruling beginning to give up hope that the Faced with the prospect of class. Eager to please, they have been union is responsive to its, modest, English voters embracing UKIP at the very polite in making their claims for demands. “The United Kingdom Euro election, and the Conservatives consideration. But a resigned sense is not a ‘sharing union’. It is rather plausibly talking about a withdrawal of powerlessness has solidified in a realpolitik union. Those with the from the EU, the Scots “might well their minds over the last year as it has loudest voice and a credible threat of question whether they are part of become clearer that the reasoned cases secession, get to have most influence the shared community of interests” made by endless committees of enquiry on how resources are allocated”, says according to Professor Ailsa for more powers and more money Prof Richard Wyn Jones of Cardiff Henderson, Head of Politics at the University of Edinburgh. A bellicose response by a panicked Tory right would play into the hands of the pro-independence Yes campaign. A vote to leave the UK They would warn that if Scotland votes to stay within the UK in September’s would be just the beginning plebiscite the Conservatives would cut them off from Europe. Deftly of a lengthy negotiation on handled that is surely worth a few more the terms of Scotland’s percentage points in the polls. The Yes campaign now has the withdrawal from the UK. momentum, and at the No campaign, having already deployed its major arguments against independence (the threat of losing the pound and have had little effect. University’s Welsh Governance Centre. the risk of Scotland being denied EU Four years ago a Commission And, as he starkly put it, in order to membership), a quiet sense of panic is on fairer funding for Wales, led by keep Scotland in the Union the UK beginning to set in. respected economist Gerald Holtham, parties are prepared to “throw Wales A vote for Scottish independence pointed out that if Wales were treated under the bus”. on September 18th is not only possible, on the same basis as England it So that begs the question, would it looks increasingly plausible. would get some £300 Million more Wales fare any better if Scotland was A narrow Yes vote would see the than it received under the so-called to leave the UK? It is possible that the union forged in 1707 ruptured. Whilst Barnett Formula. Unfortunately for Unionist parties will feel that it was

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in Wales. An independent Wales could have to cut public That may be too hypothetical a services by two-thirds if it were not in receipt of a proposition to concentrate many minds in the present Welsh Labour Party. The subsidy. There is no sign that the Welsh people have current generation of politicians are the appetite for that – and why would they? comfortable with their position: the power politics of control at a Welsh level, and the cyclical chance to govern at a UK level. But if the second option withered it may force a re-think, and unfortunate to lose one bit of the Union within the UK is driven from Brussels the Euro elections could well set off a and they won’t be careless enough to and not London. If the EU aid tap was chain of events which start to change lose another. The Welsh may be ‘love- turned off, with nothing equivalent in perceptions. bombed’. Concessions will be cheaper: its place, the concern that economic But before supporters of after all tossing a lamb chop to Wales policy is pre-occupied with keeping the independence get carried away, they will no longer meaning sending a leg of golden eggs coming from south east of will need to start fashioning a vision lamb to the Scots. But it seems unlikely. England geese would fester further. It is of a Wales outside the union which is Scotland always mattered more than indicative that Michael Heseltine’s very far more convincing than they have to Wales, and a resurgent England, and bold plan for devolution of funding to date. As disagreeable as the Union may its future in Europe, is likely to attract the English city regions did not get far become, the alternative is surely worse. the greater attention of the centre. with the UK Treasury. Wales has a budget deficit of about With Scotland gone England will have But if this hypothetical chain of a third of our GVA. An independent jumped from 85% of the UK, to nearly events is set off it will be politics that will Wales could have to cut public services 92% of the rump state. really shift things. Crudely put, Labour’s by two-thirds if it were not in receipt So what would Wales do next? As conversion to devolution in the late of a subsidy. There is no sign that the the debates around the Barnett formula 80s and early 90s was powered by a Welsh people have the appetite for that demonstrated Scotland was never an calculation that it was the only way the – and why would they? ally, but it has been a friend in ensuring party could be sure of exercising power The scenario I describe is not, that devolution is at least considered in Wales. Some years later Kim Howells perhaps, the most likely outcome. But when decisions are made. Stripped reflected on the shift in opinion within it is a plausible one. And if it came to of the Scots, the formal machinery of his party: “The difference was having pass what would the response of the Government designed to feed in our lived through an extremely difficult Welsh political classes be? views will be denuded further - the decade and a half in which we seemed Whilst support for independence Joint Ministerial Committee will pack to have very little say over what we would move beyond the fringes I even less of a punch when it’s just could or couldn’t do in terms of shaping struggle to see the political mainstream the Welsh and Northern Irish at the the world we inhabited” he said. embracing it. But clinging to our table. The need to keep the north of That powerlessness could again comfortable certainties may not be an Ireland stable would at least ensure shift thinking on the left in Wales. With option either. The world around us may that Whitehall would need to pay some Scotland out of the equation the ability change so dramatically that we find continued cognizance of the lands of Labour to govern alone again at ourselves with a series of bleak choices. beyond England, but with a population Westminster would be significantly At the time of writing a No vote of just 3 million alongside an English constrained. That may force a in Scotland still seems the most likely, population of 53 and ½ million, Wales realignment of the left on a British level though with the lead narrowing it may be will always struggle to influence. - a permanent coalition of Labour and a slim victory that would settle little. But If Scotland was to vote to leave the parts of the Liberal Democrats. But that the scenario I’ve set out could well come UK, a bundle of pro-EU votes in an In/ too will, inevitably, need to be primarily about, with profound and far reaching Out EU referendum would leave with focused on the massively dominant part consequences for Wales. And it’s about them. If the polls are correct Wales’ of the Union: England. time we started facing up to the fact that wish to remain in the EU would be A union dominated by a larger the ground beneath is moving. overwhelmed by England’s wish to neighbour, chiefly presided over by leave. Not only would that create a right of centre Governments, and clash of values but it would create deep standing outside the EU, is a very unease about our economic wellbeing. different proposition from the current Lee Waters is Director The little regional policy there is Union eulogised by unionist politicians of the IWA.

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contain the euphoria within. That’s because I believe passionately in my nation, and the need for all of us to step up to the mark and work together to set a course for a more prosperous future for Wales. That Life is why, 16 years later, taking my seat in the Senedd in Cardiff Bay, I felt a huge weight of responsibility. Now I had the chance to try to play a small part in helping Wales set that course, and to prove that the hair’s-breadth victory in in the 1997 was the correct step to take on a path to realising a national ambition. Having been around the National Assembly as a journalist from its inception - and a close-up observer during devolution’s formative years between 1997 and 1999 - there may slow have been an expectation that I knew how it all worked, that becoming an elected politician as opposed to an impartial observer in the same institution would be like slipping from one pair of familiar boots to another. lane Different style, same fit. But I made it clear at every opportunity that I was Rhun ap Iorwerth finds switching from journalism to politics approaching this new chapter in my means adjusting to the oil tanker pace of political change life as exactly that - a new experience, a blank page. A learning curve was ahead of me as steep as any I’ve faced before, and that is how I wanted it. There was no purpose in thinking Like devolution itself, adjusting to life opportunity to vote and show support of this as a casual jump from one side as an Assembly Member is very much a for one political opinion or individual of the fence to the other, from observer process, not an event. over another secretly in the ballot to do-er, a gentle shift from one part of Yes, the night of August 1st 2013 box, my job was to publicly scrutinise the national establishment to the other. in Llangefni will forever stay in my all equally. I always endeavoured to This was a leap from the ‘nothing-to- memory as an event of immense pride do that. I was pleased that following do-with-me’ world of commentary to for myself and my family, when my my decision to stand for election, the ‘judge-me-by-my-actions’ world of decision to walk away from a career I hardly anyone used that wonderfully political responsibility. loved and treasured was repaid with convenient tool called hindsight to cast I was honoured to have been the firm backing of the people of Ynys doubt over my impartiality in nearly 20 able to play a very small part in the Môn. Yes, the following day in the years with the BBC. development of this new Wales through Senedd when I took the oath to serve The one time that impartiality was journalism - communicating as well as a member of my nation’s Parliament something of a challenge was during as I could with the public about the was an event of great emotion, coming the 1997 devolution referendum. I gave first unsteady steps being taken by our as it did within months of losing my equal weight to both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ newborn democracy. We as journalists mother. But that was just the beginning. campaigns, and hopefully challenged were learning as we went along, as I always found it very easy to be both camps to explain why Wales were the politicians. This was a new impartial as a BBC political journalist. should or should not begin to take ‘Welsh politics’. It was my chosen profession, and some responsibility over its own destiny. The shortcomings of the new although journalists are mere citizens But the declaration of the result was the Assembly were clear to see. The who, like everyone else, have an one occasion where it was difficult to second Government of Wales Act was

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inevitable, and the second referendum some debates, the simple fact of being questioning sessions form only a a neccessity to counter the 1997 ‘No’ in opposition, and the sausage-factory small part of our workload, but the camp predictions of a ‘talking shop’. substance-light nature of Ministers’ temptation at times for AMs not to fully Yes, it was the right thing to do to grab questions sessions. I knew all of this and engage in debates and to deal instead with both hands what was on offer in didn’t let it stop me entering the fray. I with our constituency and committee 1997, but to have a new institution went into this with my eyes wide open. work and the ever-growing stream of with both hands tied behind its back, It’s politics. emails from our convenient computer blindfolded and gagged was never Some of the ways we work could terminals in the chamber is one that’s going to let us take confident leaps be improved, I’m sure - and will be almost impossible to resist. I’m as guilty forward. The public had every right to improved over time, no doubt. There’s as anyone, but is there a way to ensure be impatient. a strong argument that the Wednesday that when we are in the chamber, Now it’s my turn for patience to opposition debates are given too much we are always there mentally as well be put to the test. As a broadcast time, at the expense of scrutiny of as physically? journalist, my next deadline was rarely the government. We’re there to hold There is good reason why we make more than a few hours away. More the government to account, after all. the most of all opportunities to tackle often than not, the time to deliver was These debates are important, and give the e-postbag or read committee minutes or even seconds away. Now opposition parties the opportunity to papers: the workload is heavy and my timescale is calibrated in months influence the political agenda, but it’s time is scarce to keep on top of it. This and years. “You’ll find it frustrating,” about getting the balance right. is by no means a complaint - I enjoy several AMs and commentators fired in I’m enjoying my time on the it. However, whilst the arguments for my direction following my by-election Enterprise and Business Committee, the need to bring in additional AMs to win. I think I know what they mean, but there has been a realisation that properly deal with legislation as well and I also think I am prepared for that financial scrutiny of Government as serving our constituencies is one frustration - by being determined to not actions needs to be sharpened. that will never win favour among the let it frustrate me. This is a criticism levelled at other electorate, I’m sure, the reality is that if By frustration, I assume my fellow UK Parliaments, too. This is being we are to be effective in transforming AMs mean the oil-tanker pace at which addressed in Cardiff Bay and I think Wales, we need a Parliament with the ideas can be translated into action. I we’ll be a stronger institution for it. manpower to do it. assume they also mean the tedium of Plenary debates and Ministerial We also need the tools. This is not the article to weigh up the merits of the Silk recommendations on taxation. Suffice to say that we will not deal No longer on reporting duties, the new AM for Ynys Môn Rhun ap Iorwerth with the issues of critical importance for Wales or turn aroud our economy without the taxation facilities to enable us to push a radical Welsh agenda. In the Assembly and outside, it is the responsibility of all of us who believe in our real potential as a nation to take ultimate control of our destiny to show ambition and leadership. These are still early days for me in politics, as they are still, in reality, for our new national Parliament. I’m humbled to have been given the opportunity to serve Ynys Môn and to serve Wales. The challenge now is to use the opportunity to the best of my ability.

Rhun ap Iorwerth was elected AM for Ynys Môn in the by- election in August 2013.

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Jon Owen Jones says the Williams Council borders Commission’s proposals for new local government boundaries are worse shouldn’t follow where than the 1974 gerrymander the crows fly

Rhodri Morgan phoned. He wanted to labour leaders loathed one another. a short drive or train journey from speak to me immediately before the We soon realised that any radical Cardiff and Pontypridd. That counted Remembrance Commemoration later proposal from us could never achieve for nothing because for six years it was that morning. It was 2001 and Rhodri a consensus. In particular we couldn’t part of the Aneurin Bevan Health Board. asked me to withdraw my opposition to get agreement on moving away from No matter that goods and people had the Assembly Government’s proposal the existing county boundaries. Anyway moved up and down the steam coal to create 22 new health authorities. it wasn’t our Bill and so we settled on tributaries of the Taff since Silurian times. He argued that Jane Hutt’s policy the lowest common denominator. That counted for nought since Cwm Taf of coterminous health and local With memory of that bitter process still Health Board stopped at Pontypridd. government boundaries would make fresh in his mind and with a fragile new To be fair NHS Wales didn’t for a better and more efficient service. institution to run, Rhodri was probably create this problem, although it does I said I agreed but only after Wales first wise to leave that hornets’ nest alone continue to compound and maintain adopted a sensible division of local for a while. it. The historic divisions of Wales authorities - by which I mainly meant Although the 22 health authority were 13 counties which remained fewer. As it turned out my opposition structure was an expensive and wasteful virtually unaltered from Tudor times didn’t count for much and 22 health mistake the idea of coterminous until 1974. Meanwhile, the industrial authorities were formed. Eight years administration hasn’t been abandoned. revolution had dramatically altered later they were abandoned for the Why else was the Commission led the distribution of population so that current structure with seven boards. by a hospital administrator with a Glamorgan and Monmouthshire had Last year the new First Minister remit restricting it to recommending more people than all the rest of the reopened the debate by setting up the authorities that fitted within the existing country. So forty years ago a new Williams Commission. This has now seven Health Boards? Coincidentally or administrative map was proposed recommended fewer local authorities but not, Sir Paul Williams’s first task when which amalgamated a number of rural fitting within the existing seven Health he was appointed as Head of NHS shires and divided Glamorgan. Boards. Before looking at the merits Wales was to set up the Health Boards. The first proposals that led to this of these recommendations it is worth He has been Wales’ most competent change, made in a Labour government reflecting on why Rhodri didn’t grasp this health manager and I am sure that he consultation paper in 1970, argued for nettle more than a decade ago. wouldn’t want to disrupt the Health seven counties. In south east Wales – Five years before that Remembrance Boards again. However, solving one basically the old Glamorganshire and Sunday Rhodri and I had both served in problem can cause another. Monmouthshire - they envisaged three Ron Davies’s team as the Conservative When tasked with the objective of city-led counties focused on Newport, government broke up Wales’s 37 District determining a new structure for Welsh Cardiff, and Swansea but including their and 8 County Councils and formed the local government there are a range Valley hinterlands. They considered 22 Unitary Councils we have today. of important considerations. History, dividing Glamorganshire into three Although this wasn’t our policy it was economy, culture and ease of service but rejected it. Three divisions would our responsibility to try and fashion a delivery come quickly to mind. But result in a county that was “weak… united Labour response. This proved whichever way these factors take us handicapped by a lack of resources and to be extremely difficult as local leaders they cannot allow us to cross a Health lacking suitable land in seeking solutions defended the boundaries that secured Board boundary. Oh no! These six- to its problems”. Instead they said that their authority. Where perceived year-old divisions, hastily made to undo the “arguments clearly point in favour of interests conflicted we tried to arrange the chaos of the 2001 decision, now two powerful administrative bodies that meetings to hammer out a consensus. trump every other factor. No matter that will rank with any in the UK”. There were often heated exchanges and Caerphilly had been part of Glamorgan So what changed? Well the it is no exaggeration to say that several for hundreds of years or that it is but government did and Ted Heath was

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elected later in 1970. Although the White Paper and the consultation favoured an east/west split Conservative controlled Cardiff Council lobbied the Tory Government and they agreed to gerrymander Glamorgan into three parts. Labour protested but in vain. The Bill contained three Glamorgans, not two. Although this division contradicted ease of delivery and made no historic, economic or cultural sense, it did make political sense to the Conservatives. They were in with a chance of controlling greater Cardiff, essentially the proposed South Glamorgan. But in every other way the arguments that were made for two Glamorgans (based on Cardiff and Swansea) 40 years ago are even stronger today. The future prosperity of the Valleys is even more dependent now on their links to the coastal cities and to the M4. Unfortunately the politics has got harder. Tories created South Glamorgan because they could win elections there and today they may still harbour hopes. The Liberal Democrats might also view South Glamorgan as an aspiration. On the Map showing one of the possible new local authority divisions proposed by the Williams Commission – for 12 councils to replace the present 22: “In place of one poor Valleys county with atrocious communications, Mid other hand Plaid Cymru can win Valley Glamorgan, the Commission advocates two. This doesn’t halve the problem, it doubles it.” councils so the present split suits them. But what about Labour? Surely if council do a better job? Or does the to plan Welsh services. I spent the first Labour were so opposed to the three- Assembly fear competition from an quarter of my life in the Rhondda Fach way split in the 1970s they can’t have elected body? and the second quarter in the Cynon changed their minds? Labour should Any reorganisation is going to Valley. As the crow flies the two Valleys dominate a strong East Glamorgan but cause a great deal of disruption at are never more than a few miles apart. that doesn’t mean that the politicians considerable cost and one heck of But we are not crows and any journey and administrators who control the a row. Those are not reasons for not between Pontygwaith and Mountain current divisions will remain. Lots of doing it but they are reasons for making Ash will take the best part of an hour. middle sized fish in small pools are very sure that you are making things In the Valleys five miles north or happy to stay where they are. better not worse and that your changes south is far easier and quicker than five The Williams` proposals are even will last. I grew up in the Valleys miles east or west. Today there are two worse than the 1974 gerrymander. when they were a part of Glamorgan Cabinet members and one party leader In place of one poor Valleys county and I worked as a teacher for Mid who are also Valleys people. They with atrocious communications, Mid Glamorgan. That division made so little must know what’s in the best interests Glamorgan, the Commission advocates sense that the county headquarters of their communities and it doesn’t two. This doesn’t halve the problem remained in Cardiff as did the staff necessarily coincide with the interest of it doubles it. At least part of the social club on Westgate Street. local politicians. Welsh Government must agree with George Thomas was the Welsh my arguments or why else are they Secretary in 1970. He and I wouldn’t proposing City Regions? Instead of a have agreed on a great deal but we Jon Owen Jones is a former toothless quango led by the WRU’s were both from the Rhondda and Welsh Office Minister and Roger Lewis, wouldn’t a strong elected recognised that you don’t use a flat map Labour MP for Cardiff Central.

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the NHS, the structure of Local Health Citizens and communities must Culture shift Boards was outside the Commission’s become much more closely involved remit. However, the role of the NHS, in identifying and meeting their needs. needed in and its performance and interaction The public sector must engage with with other services, was very much people and communities – not only delivery of within scope. to understand their views, but also to We were also tasked to look at enhance their wellbeing and to prevent public services the interface between non-devolved crises from happening in the longer services and consider the work of the term. Openness, engagement and Silk Commission. We were asked to democratic accountability must drive propose an optimal model of public the service changes and improvements service governance and delivery for that citizens and communities need. Nerys Evans says the Williams Wales in light of that assessment. That in turn demands the Commission’s 62 recommendations It emerged quite early on during comprehensive, urgent and radical must be taken as a whole our evidence gathering that many of programme of change that we the challenges facing public sector recommend in our report. We all organisations in Wales are similar. This have a stake in this. It will require led us to take a thematic rather that widespread consensus and ownership Local government mergers only sectoral approach to our work. These on the need for reform. There must featured in just four out of a total of themes were: be no complacency, allocating blame 62 recommendations in the Williams or piecemeal tinkering with the status Commission report. The remaining 58 • The complexity of the public service quo. That is why it is vital that the contain necessary transformative actions in Wales. programme of change addresses all that deal with the challenges facing the •  Challenges surrounding the scale of of the five key themes in our report. public sector in Wales. Our report and organisations and their capability of Picking and choosing among what we recommendations are presented as operating effectively. propose would be equally futile. a package. All the recommendations •  Our capacity to scrutinise service Overall, our proposals define are interlinked and designed to delivery which is also linked to a programme of radical and radically transform how public services governance mechanisms. comprehensive change which would are governed and delivered. This is •  Leadership, culture and values of the reduce the complexity of the public because the problems they address are Welsh public sector. sector. Too much effort is wasted themselves mutually reinforcing. •  Performance and performance on managing complex public sector It is worth remembering the context management of organisations and systems and relationships rather than in which our work took place. The services in Wales. on providing quality services for financial pressures on public services citizens. Our proposals will simplify are severe and unsustainable. They will An overarching theme that accountability, remove duplication, remain so for at least a decade. The encompassed all of these elements was streamline partnerships and ensure population is getting older and younger the role of the National Government organisations work together effectively. at the same time. Consequently, the and its relationship with the Although the public sector collects demand for key services will continue organisations that are delivering public a wealth of data about performance, to grow. These pressures exist across services in Wales. it is not well used to deliver improved the developed world. They are beyond The full 350 page report should outcomes. We recommend a single and anyone’s control, and are nobody’s be read to fully understand the case concise set of national outcomes, with fault. We need a public sector that can we make for change and why we’ve local partnerships and organisations rise to these challenges. concluded with some basic views about feeding in to them. This will increase The remit given by the First Minister the purposes of public services and clarity and accountability while also was to consider the governance and why their delivery must change. The allowing service providers the flexibility delivery of all public services in Wales. public sector cannot continue simply to meet the needs of those they serve. We gathered evidence and issued responding to crises or aim to provide If choice and competition are not recommendations on all devolved uniform services to a passive population. to drive improvement, then clear public services and their capacity to Instead, we need to enhance accountability and informed scrutiny meet current and future challenges. democracy, and make the most of must do so. Yet governance within Due to relatively recent changes within Wales’s very strong sense of community. organisations is too often ambiguous

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and indecisive. Scrutiny and other has driven improvements. A few outcomes through strong delivery. accountability mechanisms are typically other countries have adopted a small Cherry picking our under-valued and ineffective. We number of clear national outcomes recommendations will not deliver the propose changes which will make for the public service and we believe step change needed to reform public organisations more responsive, and will that this approach would benefit us in services in Wales. Our report identified mean accountability mechanisms are Wales. This approach should be easier critical, fundamental and unavoidable better informed, more complementary, in a small country where engagement challenges for the whole public sector, more effective and less burdensome. is relatively easy, so making it easier and ways in which those can be The public sector needs strong to establish the necessary clarity and mitigated and managed. Some of these leadership. We propose a range consensus about what matters. call for major changes to structures, of measures to appoint the best Greater clarity and distinction roles and processes which will need to people as leaders, to develop them is needed from Welsh Government be properly and robustly managed in and to identify their successors. between different measures, indicators, implementation. Others entail one-off We also propose that public-sector targets and outcomes. We recommend changes to current practices, but are organisations should unite around that the Welsh Government set still vital. a shared, collaborative and citizen- key National Priority Outcomes for The public sector is so complex centred set of public service values. the public sector, and create more that too much effort is taken up The Welsh Government sets the streamlined and consistent ways of with managing relationships. That’s national policy for public services measuring service performance below compounded by many organisations but delivery is undertaken by other that, without prescribing the detailed having insufficient capacity, which often organisations. Evidence we received measurement of operational and leads to crucial issues of governance highlighted the need for greater clarity delivery matters. and accountability within organisations on the relationship and expectations Funding arrangements must also being neglected. That leads to poor and on service delivery within the public be simpler and focused on achieving patchy performance, with problems sector. Confusion exists regarding the outcomes. We recommend that failing to be detected or addressed adequately. Overall there’s insufficient pressure for change. That in turn The public sector is so complex that too leads the Welsh Government to want to be seen to ‘do something’ – which much effort is taken up with managing typically means being more prescriptive about targets, duties, strategies, grant relationships within the sector. That’s terms and so on. But that just adds to compounded by many organisations complexity, starting the vicious circle all over again. having insufficient capacity, which often But change is possible, as other governments around the world leads to crucial issues of governance have recognised. Confronting these and accountability within organisations challenges and embarking on serious reform is a mark of maturity, not of being neglected. weakness. We have the talent and the commitment in Wales to succeed in this – to secure sustainable and world- class services delivered by agile and responsive organisations. use, breadth and purpose of different all specific grants that the Welsh indicators set by Welsh Government Government pays to other public sector Nerys Evans was a member of and regulators. bodies must be reduced and where the Williams Commission, is We heard how the police service possible included in unhypothecated Vice Chair of Plaid Cymru and now only has one official target, funding. A system of earned autonomy former AM for Mid and West which has led to greater clarity and should be developed in which recipients Wales. She is a Director at understanding for the service, which of funding can demonstrate positive Deryn Consulting.

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Features / Williams Commission Welsh Government should move quickly on

city regions Bristol Mayor George Ferguson, with his trademark red trousers, is more relaxed than the usual politician – “his own man, with his own values”.

own man, with his own values. The was a sign that Wales’s engagement Geraint Talfan Davies argues that superficial adversarial instincts of party with the city region concept is Wales has to compete with English politicians seem anathema to him. In beginning to develop, even if it can cities that are expanding to embrace his Bristol role he does not need them. still feel skin deep. Despite all party their hinterlands He has something more to offer. support in the National Assembly, a Much of this was apparent in Welsh Government task force report March when he faced an audience advocating the adoption of the city in Cardiff at the IWA’s conference on region concept in south Wales, and City Regions: from aspiration to reality? the recent creation of advisory boards Here was the antithesis of negative for South West Wales and South East George Ferguson, the elected mayor Welsh localism. There was, he said, no Wales, there seemed to be in the of Bristol is known for his red trousers. reason why Cardiff and Bristol should audience a nervousness that it could all They are his trademark. If for no not work together, and every reason fall apart. other reason, he does not look like a why Cardiff should be generous about It is true that the city region concept politician, and in some ways he is not the development of Newport. He even has had to be imposed by the Welsh one. His principal qualification for affected to be relaxed about London. “I Government on our largely recalcitrant election in 2012 as Bristol’s first elected celebrate London. I celebrate the fact local authorities, but that does not mayor, was not his six-year stint as a that it is overheating. We can all benefit make it an entirely top down process. Liberal councillor in the 1970s, but the from that. Cardiff and Bristol represent The Welsh Government has the support imprint he has left on his own city in his the best first stop west of London. We of a large part of Welsh civil society. Yet professional capacity of architect. His can share it out.” that same civil society is also nervous passion is for place making, and he is There was irony in the fact that this that, having taken the initiative, the rather good at it. powerful elected mayor from across Welsh Government will, as on so many A lifetime’s achievement – he is a the Severn should have been speaking things, fall down on delivery. past President of the RIBA – allows him in the Welsh capital in the very week The government is certainly not to appear rather more relaxed than that Cardiff Council’s Cabinet was short of other distractions, not least the usual politician. The only message undergoing a political implosion. the prospect of local government he has to stick to is his own. He is his The spirit of the IWA conference mergers as recommended by the

30 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Features / Williams Commission

Williams Commission. That is why, In May 2011 nine cities formed the and some additional finance. when offered the chance to express its Scottish Cities Alliance: Aberdeen, This is the context in which Wales priorities, there was such insistence by Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, will compete in future. It will not be the audience on the early creation of a Perth and Stirling. It also involves the an internal Welsh competition. Some strong Passenger Transport Executive Scottish Government and the Scottish simple population data gives a sense of for South East Wales - to implement Council for Development and Industry. where the two Welsh city regions are the Metro transport proposal – as a It has been formed “to develop placed currently and where they would key indicator of the government’s Scotland’s potential as a competitive be placed in the lists of city regions. seriousness and urgency. and world class place to live, work, visit, Table 1 demonstrates how much It should surely be possible to invest and do business.” smaller Welsh local authorities are announce a timetable for establishing In England eight cities constitute in population terms, compared with such a body, with the necessary the Core Cities network: Birmingham, the councils that make up the English executive freedom, quickly: scoping Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, city regions. The average size of local its remit, funding, governance, and Nottingham and Sheffield. Following authorities in south east Wales is a staff recruitment, with target dates for Manchester’s lead, local government third of the size of those in the West any necessary legislation and vesting it across England have been forming Yorkshire region. In fact, south east with the necessary authority. We need combined authorities to represent Wales is the only city region in England a fast horse that can jump the fences, their wider city regions. They will and Wales that has any local authorities not a camel that can spread bad re-create, albeit in another form, the of less than 100,000 population: breath everywhere. English metropolitan authorities that Torfaen 90,000, Monmouthsire 88,000, The presence of George Ferguson, existed from 1974 until they were done Blaenau Gwent 68,600 and Merthyr along with other speakers from English away with by a centralising Thatcher Tydfil 55,700. Swansea and Cardiff also think tanks – the Centre for Cities government in 1986. represent the two smallest central cities and the Centre for Local Economic The Greater Manchester Combined within each city region. Strategies – was also a sign that Wales Authority was created in 2011. Earlier But Table 2, a city region league is, at last, joining a wider discourse. this year the government approved the table of population, paints a slightly There is now room to hope that our creation of four combined authorities different picture. debate will not fall foul of those who around Sheffield, Leeds-Bradford, In population terms a south east believe that city regions are some alien Merseyside and the North East. Greater Wales city region rises to the middle English imposition. The truth is that, as Birmingham and the Bristol region of the pack. It would actually be Professor Kevin Morgan reminded us, also have ‘city deal’ agreements with substantially larger than the Bristol and city regions are a global phenomenon, government. City deals have also West of England city region although, although it is perfectly possible for us been negotiated with 20 other smaller of course, currently less prosperous. to infuse the concept with our own English cities. All these arrangements South West Wales does remain at values. But we have to plug in. involve the devolution of some powers the bottom of the pack, even having

Table 1: City region league table

City region No. of local authorities Average LA population 1 West Yorkshire 5 445,360 2 Greater Birmingham 7 376,957 3 Sheffield CA 4 329,325 4 North East 7 274,842 5 Bristol + W. of Eng. 4 270,525 6 Gr. Manchester CA 10 260,100 7 Liverpool City CA 6 244,883 8 South West Wales 4 166,725 9 South East Wales 10 145,550

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 31 Features / Williams Commission

Table 2: City region league table by population

City region City region Population Central city population Central city % of city region 1 Greater Birmingham 2,638,700 1,028,700 39 2 Gr. Manchester CA 2,601,000 483,800 19 3 West Yorkshire 2,226,800 787,700 35 4 North East CA 1,923,900 284,300 15 5 Liverpool City CA 1,469,300 442,300 30 6 South East Wales 1,455,500 336,200 23 7 Sheffield CA 1,317,300 547,000 41 8 Bristol + W. of Eng. 1,082,100 433,100 40 9 South West Wales 666,900 231,300 35

the Treasury watered down this heady brew. In recent weeks it is Ed Miliband who has said that he is interested in implementing Heseltine’s more full- blooded approach. Other reports have highlighted imbalances between London and the regions, not only in property, but also in foreign direct investment and even the arts. One report indicated that 85 per cent of arts philanthropy goes into central London. A Parliamentary Select Committee is now looking at the issue and Opera North and Welsh National Opera have submitted joint evidence. What has this got to do with Wales? We have an overall interest in fostering the re-balancing of the UK, Outline of a South East Wales Metro, produced by Mark Barry in his 2011 IWA report A Metro for Wales’ Capital particularly towards manufacturing, City Region. The priority for those attending the IWA’s Metro conference in March 2014 was for Welsh Government but also in infrastructure. The macro- to create a Passenger Transport Executive for South East Wales to make a reality of this vision. economic levers do not lie in Wales, which is why Welsh Government and included Pembrokeshire, which the the north-south divide and the need Welsh civil society need to take a view Welsh Government has done in its to re-balance the UK - an issue that, on wider UK or English economic plan. Excluding Pembrokeshire would inexplicably, seems little talked about in and development policies. Of course reduce the south west region by Welsh policy circles, although we are on there is every chance that central 117,400, bringing it down to just under the wrong side of the line drawn from government will lose interest in re- 550,000. Not unexpectedly, Swansea is the Wash to the Severn. In England this balancing anything after an election. much more dominant in its region than latter debate is gathering momentum, The Treasury is not into empowerment. Cardiff is in south east Wales. fuelled by the disproportionate effect of But if Wales’ relatively small cities and It is notable that five of these nine benefit cuts on poorer regions. their hinterlands rest content on their city regions are in the north of England. A slew of reports from thinks tanks current level of competitiveness, we Some have even suggested that – the Centre for Cities, the IPPR, the will take a big risk with our future. Manchester and Liverpool combine into RSA – have built on Lord Heseltine’s a city region of more than 4 million. This 2012 report No stone unturned that Geraint Talfan Davies is a northern concentration also explains made the most radical case for broadcaster and journalist why the city region debate in England devolving power and money to cities and Chairman of Welsh melds into the wider discourse about and regions in England. Predictably, National Opera.

32 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Features

Thinking the unthinkable on economy

Sukhdev Johal, John Law and Karel Williams call for a contrarian research centre to devise policies for local and regional experiments

Like any other kind of government, With limited powers and without decile 9 and an original income of £110k devolution is an experiment, and radical policies devolution in Wales has or more put a household into the top experiments should be about learning made no difference to our economic decile in 2011-12. which builds on successes and recognises trajectory of relative decline. Along What are we to make of such mistakes and disappointments. That with many of the English regions, outcomes? The obvious excuse is that, is a cause for concern about Welsh including the North East and West in economic terms, devolution is an devolution where political and economic Midlands, we have lost one economic experiment which has not yet been learning is profoundly uneven. Our reach base and not found another. On the tried. A devolved Welsh Government is for more devolved powers to build on relative GVA measure, Wales slipped needs much larger fiscal powers which the political success of self- government from 54 to 43 per cent of London’s should include the power to vary instead of rule from London. However, GVA between 1989 and 2011. As the relevant taxes like corporation tax or few recognise that so long as anything first graph shows (overlead, page 34), VAT. This is unlikely to be tried because like current economic policies are things are getting worse with recession many fear the result could easily be implemented, more devolution will not and austerity: with 5 per cent of the an Irish type regime of concessions halt Wales’ continuing economic decline. UK population Wales claimed no to attract tax-avoiding multinationals Despite this, the momentum is more than 2.5 per cent of GVA growth to relocate to Newport and avoid towards more devolution in Wales with between 2007 and 2012. corporation tax. the English regions playing catch up, While London policy makers fix The scope for more responsible while the central state is on the defensive on aggregates like GDP growth and macro management is limited. In about Scottish independence. The job creation, differences between and Wales (as in the UK) there is no Plan majority vote in the Welsh referendum within regions ensure we are not ‘all in B alternative to austerity because of 2011 legitimated more devolution the same boat’ economically or socially. no set of orthodox macro-economic and that was followed through in the The widening inter-regional disparities policies can deliver sustainable growth. recommendations of the Silk Commission between Wales and London are now Consumption cycles of boom and for tax and spend powers. like those between Sicily and Florence. bust are driven by housing equity Following the Heseltine Review, At the same time sharp intra-regional withdrawal which was larger than the Coalition government is quietly divisions everywhere separate a public GDP growth in the premierships of promoting city regions. Meanwhile sector middle class which has done very Thatcher and Blair. Wales is different Labour centre left think tanks in nicely since 1979, from the organised only because the property price a recent letter to the Guardian private sector working class which has driver is weaker and reliance on recommended “giving away power and been wasted by deindustrialisation. As public expenditure is stronger. More resources to our nations, regions, cities, the second graph shows (page 35), the fundamentally, as our graph on localities and where possible, directly to real income gains of the past thirty years household income gains shows, the the people.” in the UK have been captured by the problem is not growth but distribution. Such changes might revitalise top two deciles who are not all London Income gains do not trickle down to political participation but are unlikely bankers: Welsh households with an the bottom 30 per cent of economically to secure better economic outcomes. original income of £65k or more get into active households. This is a worsening

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 33 Features

Share of (nominal) GVA growth by region 45.0

40.0

35.0

30.0

25.0

20.0

15.0

10.0 Share of GVA growth (%) Share of GVA

5.0

0.0 North North Yorks and East West East London South South Wales Scotland N. Ireland East West Humber Midlands Midlands East West

1989-1997 % 2.8 9.0 7. 0 6.2 8.0 8.9 20.2 16.0 7. 8 3.3 8.2 2.6 1997-2007 % 3.0 9.6 7. 4 5.5 6.4 8.6 23.9 14.3 7. 7 3.5 7. 6 2.6 2007-2012 % 2.4 7. 6 2.2 4.7 4.7 7. 0 38.1 19.0 6.0 2.5 6.1 -0.3

problem for Wales because austerity incremental learning (1), (2) and (3) own CRESC research centre, based in expenditure cuts are now forcing public in many policy areas. Take the recent Manchester, has argued for a new kind authorities to lead downwards pressure controversy about NHS and hospital of Welsh industrial policy focused on on wages and conditions. performance in Wales. Here the what‘s left in the foundational economy Against this background, the Assembly is incrementally learning – that part of the economy that produces question for the Welsh Assembly and about hospital inspections and such everyday goods and services like food Welsh Government is: what have they like, partly through an opportunism and adult care; and also proposed learnt? In answering this question, we about statistics which is part of the new policies like the social licensing of can distinguish between four different adversarial political process. But when supermarkets that truck the goods in and kinds of learning: it comes to economic policy, there is no van the money out. enthusiasm for a learning (4) or large These ideas are being taken up 1 Within the framework, which scale reframing of economic policy within Wales. Adam Price’s economic uses the latter to judge between even though it is clear that (with or plan for Y Fro Gymraeg represents outcomes. without the WDA) inward investment the new economic thinking about 2 By adapting the framework, in order has not solved our problems and localism, as does Dave Adamson’s to remedy a detectable problem. Ministers are on the back foot with Deep Place argument about what 3 As gaming the framework in every new plant closure. to do in Tredegar. However, radical order to turn it to advantage, for Paradoxically, it is outsiders from new thinking is not being developed instance by complying formally with English-based consultancies and research in a major Welsh research centre performance metrics. centres who have led the argument for on the economy and has not been 4 As large scale reframing during economic reframing because Wales taken up by the Welsh Government. which the validity of the whole cannot win with present policies. It was This is a tragedy because continued framework is undermined. the New Economics Foundation, based Welsh economic underperformance in London, which produced a report will undermine social spending by From this point of view, the Welsh for the Wales TUC arguing that inward Welsh Government within a decade. political classes are capable of investment was not the answer. Our Moreover, this is doubly constrained by

34 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Features

As the near permanent party of government Welsh Labour has to change. It is not enough to exploit the Silk recommendations and take back the utilities for public good.

Share of the growth in real original income between 1979 and 2012 in economically active households (%)

45.0 40.0 39.0 35.0 30.0 25.0 19.7 20.0

15.0 13.3 11.3 10.0 8.0 5.5 5.0 3.1 -0.1 -0.6 0.8 Share of real original income growth (%) 0.0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -5.0 Decile group (1 lowest and 10 highest) limits on redistribution from the centre intellectuals who need to be brought than Labour in Wales. and a poor local tax base. together (with outside reinforcement) in Senior civil servants will discourage So what needs to change in Cardiff a research centre whose brief is to think political vision and heterodox economic so that new economic thinking gains the unthinkable on behalf of Wales and strategy and thereby normalise a traction and informs radical action? other loser regions. definition of politics as manoeuvre Wales needs a contrarian research As the near permanent party of between factions and personalities. Is centre whose agenda is reframing the government Welsh Labour has to it too much to expect some backing Welsh economy and devising active change. It is not enough to exploit for reframing and new policies from policies for new local and regional the Silk recommendations and take Carwyn Jones and, next time around, experiments. The history of the social back the utilities for public good. This a radical appointment as Business and sciences in Wales since the 1980s would only be the first step towards Enterprise Minister? is about the pursuit of reputation running the Welsh foundational as defined in the Anglo American economy for the benefit of the bottom mainstream: heterodoxy has been third of active households and the Sukhdev Johal, John Law and expelled from university economics economically excluded. Karel Williams are professors departments. The main achievement is There were signs of change in Welsh at Queen Mary University of the building of Cardiff Business School politics when Plaid Cymru changed its London, the Open University now ‘ranked fourth in the UK for cultural aura with a new leader. But, and Manchester Business research excellence’ because it plays how far has the Labour Party moved on School. They work in the ESRC the same game as its competitors. from what was described in the Kevin funded Centre for Research The Welsh Institute of Social and Morgan and Geoff Mungham book on Socio Cultural Change. Economic Research is a worthy federal Redesigning Democracy - The Making of Their recent joint work on the initiative but puts the main emphasis the Welsh Assembly (2000)? The mass foundational economy and on on the social part of socio-economic. party has continued to decline, so government as experiment is In various departments of different that the Federation of Small Business available in working papers on institutions, Wales has a scatter of organic (Wales) may now have more members the cresc.ac.uk website.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 35 Features / Arfor Wales needs a region based on language

Adam Price makes the case for a development authority for western Wales

There is now a desperate need for a The question for the Welsh speaking • Making bilingualism a mandatory regional strategy which reflects the reality areas is which model would best suit? component of procurement policy of our linguistic geography. This should In the south there are movements – as in the Basque country – to include everything: from economic towards city-regions around Cardiff and promote local buying. development, linguistic planning, public Swansea, with related enterprise zones. •  Making bilingual signage mandatory services, housing and planning, to There is a need to create a regional in every sector, according to a transport. The main objective should be counter point to counter balance this – timetable and by area, in order to to revitalise the west in its broadest sense, not a region based on cities but based create identity. by merging the economic and linguistic on language. •  Securing a language premium – a elements together. Creating a regional authority public subsidy from the centre – to The only way to achieve this in covering the western seaboard would reflect the role and contribution of practical terms is through ensuring that be a revolutionary step in the history the region in sustaining the Welsh there is a governmental structure which of local government in Wales. It would language. Until recently families is related to this task. We need to create break the traditional north/south within the Irish Gaeltacht that a region for the west – from Benllech to colonial divide, and state that linguistic raised their children in the Gaelic Bury Port. The four most Welsh-speaking / cultural considerations are more language could claim a payment authorities – Môn, Gwynedd, Ceredigion relevant than geography. Sceim Labhairt na Gaeilge of around and Carmarthenshire – would be Arfor is the name that I suggest for 260 Euros a year. I do not propose its heart, but without forgetting the the new region. It would be a directly a system of direct payments but if Conwy Valley, west Denbighshire and elected authority, but would operate sustaining the Welsh language is a Montgomeryshire, north Pembrokeshire locally through county committees national aim this must be recognised and the Welsh speaking neighbourhoods similar to the quasi-federal system through the public financing system. in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot. of the current county of Powys. • Creating a bed levy within the This is not as utopian as it seems Aberystwyth would seem to be the tourism sector in order to fund local upon first glance. We are moving appropriate natural location for the economic development. inevitably towards creating some form main chamber of the Western assembly, •  Investing in transport infrastructure of regional level of government. The the Menai strip the capital city and in order to secure internal cohesion. series of regional consortia in different Carmarthen as a bridge to the South. This would mean upgrading the contexts reflect this, as well as the Creating a new geographical entity public transport infrastructure to question mark above the future of in the West would allow us to present ensure that it would be easy to the education authorities. It is clear policies in favour of the Welsh language travel between the main population that the Redwoodian model of 22 across the region, such as: centres, specifically re-connecting unitary authorities has failed and that Carmarthen to Aberystwyth and also further reorganisation to seven or eight •  Making the Welsh language the main Pwllheli-Caernarfon-Bangor. regional authorities is on the horizon administrative language within the sooner or later. public sector. One of the main aims of the new Arfor

36 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Features / Arfor

will be to create for the first time a process of urban growth, for the first time ever perhaps, in favour and not at the expense of the Welsh language. The process of urbanisation has been a factor in the west for a century and more. One of the main factors has been the changes in agriculture. In the 40s of the last century a family farm of around 50 acres would have sustained a family and a crew of agricultural workers whereas now 200 acres, significant capital and probably a second income are required. People’s expectations in terms of Children in Llanrug near Caernarfon prepare for the 2013 Urdd Eisteddfod. The 2011 Census revealed that the living standards and social life have also village was the most Welsh-speaking community in Wales. Overleaf Dafydd Iwan argues this is in part because it has seen the most new houses built in the whole of Arfon. been transformed – by television, the internet, by going away to college and so should flow to the West. across the region, a kind of West Wales on. And unless we can offer these kinds Is it possible to create this kind of Development Board but with a linguistic of opportunities for leisure – socialising new paradigm, increasing population as well as economic aim. That is the with people of the same age and same and strengthening the language at model for Udaras na Gaeltachta created nature in the same place – which is the the same time? What gives us hope in 1979 to administer the Gaeltacht city experience, within a Welsh speaking in the figures is the growth seen in areas in the Republic of Ireland. Until west, then young people will continue to the amount of Welsh being spoken in last year Udaras was also a hybrid of an flock to cities such as Cardiff, Manchester, the main Welsh speaking hinterland agency and local authority with direct London and so on. around Caernarfon – in areas such as elections to the board. The innovation in There is also a strong relationship Waunfawr, Clynnog, and Llanllyfni. the constitution of Udaras which should between the size of a population and The Menai area– the cluster of undoubtedly be replicated in the Arfor economic growth rate. That is to say, towns around the Menai river – region is the merger of economic and small towns and villages cannot reach Bangor, Caernarfon, Llangefni and cultural-linguistic aims, in recognition of a sufficient size for specialisation and the surrounding suburbs contain the dual crisis western communities face. creating a diverse local economy and perhaps 50,000 people in total. ‘Dinas If anyone doubts the effect of this means that an array of local needs Menai’, as some describe it, has already governance on the development have to be bought in. One of the main been designated as the main focus of of the Welsh language I would reasons therefore for the relative poverty development or hub for the north-west encourage study of the difference in of the West is the failure to create in the Wales Spatial Plan. This needs to the decline in the language in the area population centres of a significant size. be upgraded and the multi-centre Menai of Gwynedd Council over the last ten And yet in the context of the Welsh turned into the capital city of Welsh years compared with Carmarthenshire language traditionally, population speaking Wales with the aim of making council which has reigned over an increases and the developments which it a magnet for young Welsh speakers unforgivable loss in the Amman Valley. allow this – marinas and so forth – tend in the same way as Cardiff is on a wider This is a result of a deliberate policy of to be seen as threats to the linguistic scale. In the same way Aberystwyth, denying the primary role of the Welsh pattern. One of the main aims of Arfor Carmarthen and Llanelli should be language within the education system. will be to overturn the pattern of rural developed as secondary centres along depopulation and in-migration which the lines suggested by Gareth Wyn Adam Price is former Plaid has been a feature of the West for the Jones and Einir Young for development Cymru MP for Carmarthen last half a century. Young people have domains nearly a decade ago. East and Dinefewr and will be left for the excitement and opportunities One governance model for Arfor the party’s Assembly candidate of the large cities in England and Cardiff, would be an authority in the form of for the constituency at the vacating houses for wealthy, older in- local government but on a regional scale. 2016 election. This is an extract migrants. This picture must be turned Another option, which is inferior in my from his recent policy paper on its head and our own in-migration opinion, would be to keep the current Arfor - A Region for the Welsh of Welsh speakers in their 20s and 30s system and create a development agency Speaking West.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 37 Features / Arfor Build more houses to save Welsh communities Dafydd Iwan explains why there should now should be a stronger emphasis on Y Fro Gymraeg

Some people who knew of my which sends the lifeblood coursing policy of Gwynedd, or a large part antipathy towards Adfer and the idea through its veins. Now I would be the of it, in Ynys Môn, Ceredigion and of Y Fro Gymraeg during the 1970s first to recognise that such communities Caerfyrddin, and a strengthening of find it ironic that I now support specific are not wholly confined to the west of the language policy in neighbouring policies to strengthen the Welsh Wales, and we must take great care not Conwy, Dinbych, Maldwyn and Penfro. language in the west. Back in the days to undermine those Welsh-speaking I would applaud the ideas of when we had no elected National communities still managing to retain Adam Price, not so much in creating Assembly, and the Welsh language their language close to the border, one County Authority for the west, was not a fully official language, I was especially in mid and north-east Wales. but a Developement Agency for convinced that achieving those twin But there is a growing awareness the western counties, charged with aims was our priority as a nation – as a that we have to apply stronger policies economic policies designed to whole undivided nation. specifically designed to bolster the develop communities and creating the However, now that we have a language as a community language conditions necessary for the survival of legislative Assembly and official status in the west of Wales. During the the language. for the language, we must recognise consultation period leading to the This brings us to the complicated the regional differences within Wales, Language Act of the Cymru’n Un question of the relationship between and tailor our policies accordingly. government, I attended a few meetings the economy and the language, and And as for the Welsh language, we where the consensus on this matter more specifically the relationship must acknowledge that it must be was evident, and it is a matter of regret between planning and housing policies fostered in many different ways, as a that this has not progressed as an idea and the language. Asking developers to new emerging language of life in the since the Act was passed. I believe that prepare ‘Language Impact Studies’ to capital city, as the lively lingua franca of several events now being envisaged support planning applications serves no a large professional class, as the medium could be an opportunity to translate purpose whatsoever, as such ‘Studies’ of education for thousands of young this into real policies. can be fashioned to prove anything. If people from non-Welsh speaking homes Firstly, the eagerly awaited, they are to be effective, a neutral body in the east of Wales, but most of all as and long delayed, publication of – such as the Language Commissioner the common language of a diminishing the ‘standards’ by the Language – should prepare such studies on major – but still significant – number of Commissioner must I believe recognise applications, based on specific agreed communities in more rural areas. that different policies must apply in and proven criteria. If we lose these communities different parts of Wales. To put it simply, The spotlight has recently been where Welsh is the natural means there should be a far stronger emphasis on the TAN 20, but let’s be honest of communication of the majority, it on Welsh as the major language in and recognise that ‘Technical Advice would not necessarily mean the demise western areas. In this context, the Notes’ are not going to be the salvation of the language, but the language reorganisation of local authorities will of any language. What is needed is a would cease to be a ‘living’ language in provide an excellent opportunity to planning system based on a holistic the full sense of the word. It would lose strengthen the use of Welsh in local approach to communities, where its main source of power – the power government, and to apply the language linguistic and cultural and social factors

38 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Features / Arfor

are just as important as land-use and noir. Some give the impression that if we houses restricted in size and restricted infrastructure. I was a keen supporter of stop building houses, the influx of English to local need has to be a central plank. ‘spatial planning’ championed by Sue incomers will stop and the language will As for local goverment Essex, and now apparently discarded by be saved. Wrong! Most people moving reorganization, what must go hand-in- the Welsh Government. This attempted from England to Wales (not all) have hand with this is giving more powers to understand how Wales worked, and money, and they will find a house to suit and responsibilities to community how the different regions interacted, them, and will pay the asking price. If we councils, and encouragement for and how this could be translated into stop building new houses, all that will them to cooperate with neighbouring planning and economic policies. happen will be that prices will be driven councils so that they can undertake I am also a great supporter of Plaid up, making it more difficult for local significant projects in the community. Cymru’s notion (again somewhat people to buy – or rent – a home. After all, they have powers which forgotten) based on Professor Gareth It is worth remembering that the the Welsh Assembly does not – the Wyn Jones’ work on Wales as a last Census revealed that the most ability to raise taxes and to borrow number of regions or ‘development Welsh-speaking community in Wales money! But they must be given more domains’, each with an urban hub is Llanrug – the village which has seen responsibilities so as to give community serving a more rural hinterland. The most new houses built in the whole councillors – the people closest to our idea of decentralisation is paramount, of Arfon. Am I saying that building communities - a more meaningful and moving key jobs – and government more houses will save the language? challenge, and a more effective role in departments – out of Cardiff to other Of course not, but we must change the planning and regenerating process. parts of Wales, must be seen as a major the emphasis from allocating land for factor in reviving the fortunes of rural housing, and arguing about numbers, Dafydd Iwan was President Wales, and helping to create a critical to the factors dictating planning of Plaid Cymru 2003-10, is mass and thriving hubs in north, west permission. And housing should always Director of Sain, Wales’ leading and mid Wales. be planned according to local proven recording company, and To many concerned with the well- need. And under present legislation, secretary of Cymdeithas Tai being of the language, housing is the bete- ‘affordable housing’ – well-designed Gwynedd housing association.

ON JUNE 12TH THE IWA WILL GATHER TOGETHER KEY FIGURES TO DISCUSS ‘PRUDENT HEALTHCARE’.

Professor Sir Mansel Aylward, Bevan Commission, Welsh Health Minister Mark Drakeford AM, Sharon Hopkins, Director of Public Health, Cardiff & the Vale, Prof Dylan Jones Evans, Bristol Business School are just some of the speakers.

Date: Thursday 12th June, 1.30pm Venue: Cardiff City Centre, TBC

Ticket Price: £45 plus VAT for members and £90 plus VAT for non members.

For more information or to book tickets please visit the IWA website: www.iwa.org.uk or call 029 2048 4387 or email [email protected] Features

Empowering bottom-up locally- driven development

The Sirhowy Valley above Tredegar – pristine once more. Dave Adamson and Mark Lang report on the regeneration lessons In the foreground are the remains of a self acting incline that have emerged from their year long study of Tredegar haulage for lowering stone from the adjacent quarry down the hillside to Bedwellty Pits. The quarry was in use from the 1850s onwards.

We believe that a more positive future poverty in post-industrial areas. connects global environmental than just ‘managed decline’ is possible •  Adjust to a more environmentally conditions with local action, also for many of our disadvantaged post- sustainable economic model. influences our approach. However, we industrial communities across the south try to overcome its limited perspective Wales Valleys. Over the last year we We offer a critique of Neo-Liberalism, on public service reform and over- have been undertaking an in-depth which sees the poor as a victim of emphasis of individual consumption study of Tredegar in Blaenau Gwent to their own failings, rather than as a patterns by also considering Total identify a series of action points that we consequence of the uneven distribution Place approaches to public services. argue would collectively provide a route of wealth and opportunities, which we These identify collective consumption towards a more sustainable future. argue is an inevitable consequence of public services and a more In our report Toward a New of the Neo-Liberal model itself. In this collaborative relationship between the Settlement: A Deep Place Approach assertion we are not alone. For example, citizen and the local state. to Equitable and Sustainable Places we are supported by the recent report The ‘Foundational Economy’ model published at the end of April, we of the Welsh Cooperatives and Mutuals developed by Karel Williams also outlined the main arguments. We Commission. We advocate some of influences our approach. This is the believe a focus on place can be a the central principles of Keynesianism, area of the economy where 40 per cent powerful mechanism for managing but imbue them with contemporary of the UK workforce is employed in public policy interventions. Our report concerns for poverty eradication and providing services such as social care, sees this focus as the most appropriate environmental protection. utilities, telecommunications or food. and effective means to address two Our Deep Place approach is We see the Foundational Economy as significant and interconnected social influenced by social exclusion the principle means to achieve local policy problems, of how to: analysis, which provides an important economic growth. mechanism for understanding why In combination these perspectives •  Overcome the inequitable certain places become disconnected constitute our Deep Place approach, distribution of wealth, and the from the mainstream economy and which we apply to a detailed case unacceptable agglomeration of society. Transition Theory, which study of Tredegar. We argue for a more

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localised economic model for the town, and transport. Tredegar is a significantly half as likely to get five good GCSEs which we believe can both eradicate disadvantaged location in terms of and study subsequently at university. poverty and achieve sustainability. We health inequalities. Consequently, we David Egan has recently argued that do not suggest that there should be a argue that public health policy needs to in order to successfully close the separation of the economy of Tredegar be underpinned by a comprehensive poverty gap in education, there needs from mainstream economic activity, as anti-poverty strategy that addresses to be interventions as part of a holistic the Welsh economy itself is intricately the gross inequalities that have come strategy involving schools, families connected to the UK, European and to characterise Welsh society. We also and communities. In keeping with the global economies. We do suggest, suggest that, where possible, local general principles of subsidiarity and however, that a semi-autonomous local procurement of goods and services localisation evident in the report, we economy would be better placed to should be actively pursued. However, support Egan’s suggestion that there enhance the foundational economy the NHS and clinicians are only part, needs to be a Cooperative Educational through localised supply chains and albeit an important part, of the solution Trust established to include schools patterns of employment. We identify to overcoming health inequalities. Also attended by residents of Tredegar. four key local economic ‘sectors’ that of significant importance are sustainable Provision of housing services are critical to the future success of a communities and engaged local people. including construction, repair, more localised economy in Tredegar: International evidence has shown that renovation and low carbon the greater the engagement of local retrofitting also provides considerable • Food populations with their own health, the opportunity to promote local economic • Energy conservation and generation more significant the benefits. development. Economies of scale • The care sector There are major educational would suggest a joint approach • E-commerce and employment attainment gaps between the people bringing together a Housing Renewal of Tredegar and the more affluent type intervention together with energy The study also considers the major areas of Wales. Of course, Tredegar is conservation measures. In the case of challenges facing Tredegar in four other not alone and across the UK children social housing we can be confident key areas: health, education, housing from the lowest income families are that housing quality will reach the Features

Welsh Housing Quality Standard, though this is not true of the private We support the objectives sector rented accommodation. The most critical issue currently in housing of the Williams Commission is the extent of supply, particularly of affordable homes, but there appears recommendations, but believe to be little interest amongst private house builders in building in the area. they have not gone far enough. We suggest that Blaenau Gwent local authority should explore mechanisms for securing private sector interest in both rental and market sale provision by undertaking a ‘de-risking’ strategy on its development land assets. Public transport in Tredegar is limited and expensive. We argue that transport affordability must be closely We support the objectives of the we identify a need for a clear process considered, particularly for those on Williams Commission recommendations, of ‘double devolution’, in which a low incomes or seeking to return to but believe they have not gone far level of autonomy for this tier of local the labour market. Walking and cycling enough. In order to deliver a Deep Place government is developed. can provide a sustainable transport solution we argue it would be necessary We are very conscious that the solution, but there are limitations in to have single authorities, not just fewer proposals in our Tredegar Study face terms of travel distances and there is a and larger local authorities, seeing the most hostile financial climate of need for investment in safe walking and the merger of local authorities, police the last fifty years. The impact of the cycling routes. authorities, fire authorities and local UK Government’s welfare reforms has We suggest that the lack of local health board functions. been estimated by Welsh Government authority involvement, can lead to Governance for resilient and to have taken almost £1 billion from a disconnect between larger more sustainable places should be inclusive the Welsh economy. The ability of strategic road improvements, and the and seek to engage local citizens with Welsh Government to compensate localised needs of the Foundational the management of their public realm. for such polices is limited. As the Economy. The Cardiff Metro proposals We suggest that this requires a very austerity programme translates into represent a realistic option for improved different perspective from the normal cuts to the Welsh Government’s own regional connectivity in south-east approach to power at community level budget, the knock on effect for local Wales, but there are some key issues it and is dependent on a willing and open authorities will create formidable would need to address. We suggest that ability to share power and work for challenges for service delivery in places one of these considerations is the issue common objectives. such as Tredegar. In this light we fully of ownership and control, as well as the In the immediate to medium term support the recommendations of the ongoing revenue of the Metro. we recognise the need to develop the Silk Commission for extended powers The need to coordinate activities role of the Town Council in Tredegar and for Welsh Government to include and develop synergies between the foster the emergence of a local anchor borrowing and taxation powers, which actions of national, regional and organisation to develop a Place Plan that might underpin some of the actions we community patterns of governance addresses the physical, social, cultural have identified in our report. is essential. Despite the demise of and environmental futures of the town. the Wales Spatial Plan, there are We argue that the proposed Planning Bill an array of spatially oriented policy and the Place Plans approach will require Professor Dave Adamson is developments including Enterprise extending to include social and economic Chief Executive and Mark Zones, Local Growth Zones, City issues, as well as the simple physical Lang Senior Researcher at Regions, and the Wales Infrastructural planning of the community. the Centre for Regeneration Investment Plan. Welsh legislation We also argue that more strategic Excellence Wales. Their report currently under consideration include regional planning and connections to Toward a New Settlement: the Future Generations Bill and the a ‘polycentric’ city region create the A Deep Place Approach to Planning Bill, both of which could have potential for economic development Equitable and Sustainable major implications for the models of along with reform and improvement Places can be downloaded at governance required in Wales. of public services. In the longer term www.regenwales.org

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west of Cardiff. Housing should Also north west of Cardiff is the track bed of a disused railway line that used to link the west of the city to follow transport in Llantrisant. This is recognised in the Metro plan as an ideal opportunity to develop a modern rapid transport route to accommodate commuting south-east Wales into the city from Rhondda Cynon Taff (currently running at 18,000 trips a day). The most likely form of rapid reflected in an increase in the number of transport here is a tram-train facility Roger Tanner says a Development households. The recession and financial similar to those to be found in many Corporation should create a new crisis has prevented new households continental cities. garden city on the edge of Cardiff from forming and increasing numbers of The Cardiff Local Development Plan twenty and thirty-year-olds are forced to sort of recognises this by showing a live with Mum and Dad. However, this number of possible transport routes in can only be a temporary phenomenon. the Constraints Map accompanying the When wages begin to catch up and plan. However, transport proposals are overtake inflation, demand for new absent from the all important Proposals It has always been a disappointment dwellings in the Cardiff travel to work Map, which shows only the strategic to me that, during a career in town area will be enormous. development sites. planning that spanned 40 years, my Cardiff City’s deposit Local Cardiff Civic Society is no ‘NIMBY’ native city of Cardiff, far from taking Development Plan proposed to meet organisation. Rather, the Society wants the lead in Welsh planning, has usually the anticipated demand through the to see Cardiff grow in a sustainable way lagged behind. Indeed, it looks like allocation of eight large ‘strategic into a modern European city. However, Cardiff City will be one of the very last sites’ for development, mainly in the it is objecting to Cardiff’s deposit of Wales’ 25 planning authorities to remaining green space around the Development Plan which, it says, should adopt a Local Development Plan. north of the city. Three of these sites, be phased so that housing development Now, however, the city has an with a capacity for 7,000 to 13,000 follows public transport infrastructure, opportunity to lead the way - not dwellings, are allocated to the north not the other way around. only in Wales but in the whole of Great Britain – by promoting the Sketch showing the extent of the proposed New Town to the north-west of Cardiff – a 21st Century version of the development of the first 21st Century ‘Garden City’, with high density communities clustered around public transport stations, but physically separated by New Town in the UK. extensive parks and recreational facilities. The opportunity is presented by the combination of two powerful drivers. First is the city’s phenomenal population growth, certainly in Welsh terms, and the consequent demand for housing. Second is the prospect of a comprehensive rapid transport network in South East Wales – the ‘Metro’ (see the welsh agenda No. 49, Spring 2013). Between 2001 and 2011, Cardiff’s population grew by over 46,000 - a quarter of the population growth in Wales. Cardiff has continued to grow, with an additional 3,100 people added in 2011-12, representing – 30 per cent of the national increase. At present this rapid growth in population has not been

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The all too plausible scenario is a single entity – a New Town - rather the quality of the built environment. that the rapid transport route will than a series of competing unconnected • The Development Corporation take a decade to plan, finance and extensions of existing suburbs. would be a social landlord, much implement, by which time the bulk of Furthermore, we believe there is a more capable of delivering the huge the new houses in the three strategic compelling argument for developing numbers of affordable houses that development sites will have been built this New Town through a purpose Cardiff needs, than existing cash as extensions to existing city suburbs. built delivery body – a New Town strapped housing associations and Inevitably this would add a torrent of Development Corporation. Although local authorities. • The Board of the Development Corporation would formalise a The ‘Garden Cities’ of the 20th Century partnership between local authorities, the private sector, public utilities featured low density semi-detached houses and government, that will have to with generous private gardens. They were occur anyway if development is to occur sustainably but which would a positive response to the densely packed be far more effectively implemented unhygienic slums of the 19th Century. through the development corporation model. • The Development Corporation would be charged with creating new communities in accordance with the Welsh Government’s sustainability agenda, for example on energy efficient dwellings, which the private sector is reluctant to implement. new car borne commuters on to the no new towns have been built in Britain already congested road system. for several decades, the legislation for The ‘Garden Cities’ of the 20th Century Far better to concentrate declaring one is still on the statute book. featured low density semi-detached development in the next decade on other The advantages of a New Town houses with generous private gardens. sites in the city and in adjacent local development over the private They were a positive response to the authority areas that can plug into existing development led alternative are densely packed unhygienic slums of or enhanced transport facilities, while the numerous: the 19th Century. The ‘New Town’ rapid transport link to the north west of proposed here is unlikely to follow that Cardiff is being constructed. • The development is much model but could pioneer a 21st Century Further, the civic society advocates more likely to be planned in an version of the Garden City with high going beyond that. Instead of merely integrated, sustainable way with a density communities clustered around responding to the demands of the complementary suite of land uses, not public transport stations but physically developers and landowners who have just housing. separated from each other by extensive drawn up the proposals for the strategic • In an era when council budgets are public ‘gardens’ in the form of parks or sites, Cardiff should take the lead by being cut and unlikely to be able recreational facilities, as illustrated in itself defining areas for development in to fund infrastructure, a new Town the diagram on page 43. its Development Plan, in partnership Corporation could raise funds against Does Wales, and its capital city in with Welsh Government and Rhondda the value of its future assets. particular, have the vision to grasp this Cynon Taf. These should be entirely • A Development Corporation would exciting new opportunity? new neighbourhoods, each centred on be able to use compulsory purchase a station on the proposed rapid transit powers to acquire land that was Roger Tanner was Strategic route all the way from western Cardiff needed for infrastructure. Planning and Regeneration to the growth areas around Llantrisant • Most importantly, a Development Manager with Caerphilly proposed in Rhondda Cynon Taf Local Corporation can secure the majority County Borough Council Development Plan. of the uplift in land values conferred before retiring in 2013. He Moreover, this integrated by development allocations and is now active in Cardiff Civic development and transport corridor recycle this into infrastructure and Society and the Royal Town should be planned and developed as facilities to serve the public and into Planning Institute Cymru.

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Political pressure to decide Welsh funding fate

Eurfyl ap Gwilym finds that Wales could lose nearly a £1 billion if High Speed Rail in England is regarded as benefiting Wales

Depending on how the Treasury allocates the funding, Funding Policy published by the Treasury in 2010. Clearly by implementation of HS2 - the high speed rail link between the time the next Statement is published in 2015 there will London, the English Midlands and the north of England – be changes in the provision for the various programmes. will have a significant impact on the Welsh Government’s capital budget. A major issue for Wales is whether, if this expenditure goes If HS2 spending is regarding as being fully part of the ahead, it will be included as part of the calculation of the Barnett block grant calculation Wales would benefit by Barnett-derived block grant that will be allocated to the Welsh nearly £1 billion over ten years. On the other hand, if the Government over the next decade. According to the latest Treasury takes the view that it is outside the calculation of Statement of Funding Policy the total 2010-11 provision for Barnett consequentials, as happened with spending on the the Department of Transport in Whitehall was £13.265bn. The Olympic Games, then Wales will receive nothing. weighted comparability factor for Wales was 73.1 per cent. This HS2 is divided into two phases: means that Wales receives its population share of any change in the Department’s programmes totalling £9.697 billion (73.1 Phase 1 will link London with Birmingham, and will cost per cent of £13.265 billion) of the departmental provision. The £21.4 billion including a contingency of £5.7 billion but balance is £3.568 billion, of which Network Rail accounts for excluding the cost of rolling stock. Construction is due to start £3.23 billion, and none of this is devolved to Wales. in 2017 and should be completed by 2026. In the calculations that follow, the population ratios are those set out in the latest Statement of Funding Policy where Phase 2 takes the connection north to Leeds and the Wales to England ratio is 5.79 per cent. This was the ratio Manchester and will cost £21.2 billion. Completion dates are used by the Treasury in the recent uplift in the Welsh block less clear. The current assumption is that Phase 1 and Phase grant thanks to an increase of £2 billion in the Department 2 will be built sequentially although consideration is being for Transport budget which included £850 million of given to starting Phase 2 before Phase 1 is completed. preliminary expenditure on HS2. This £2 billion increase led to an additional £85 million In considering what impact this major project might have on for Wales (£2,000 million x 0.731 x 0.0579). Wales received Wales three assumptions have been made: an uplift corresponding to expenditure on HS2 because between Spending Reviews the Treasury uses the pre- • Consideration will only be given to Phase 1, although existing comparability factors and population ratios and similar considerations will apply to Phase 2 applies these at the departmental level - in this case the Department for Transport. • HS2 Phase 1 expenditure will be fully funded from Looking to the next Spending Review expected in 2015, increased public spending, will be an addition to the expenditure of HS2 could be treated in one of three ways, Department for Transport budget, will not displace other shown in the box on the following page. capital spending, and will be evenly spread over the ten There are therefore three possible funding outcomes for years of construction with respect to time and will include Wales: absorption of the contingency allowance. • If HS2 is treated in the next Spending Review in a similar • Expenditure on the other Department for Transport way to the London Olympics then Wales will receive no programmes will be as set out in the latest Statement of additional funding at all.

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Option 1: Exceptional Option 2: UK weighting Option 3: English weighting It would not be included in the Expenditure on HS2 would be regarded Expenditure on HS2 could be assigned Department for Transport budget and as for the benefit of the UK as a whole, a comparability factor of 100 per cent, so would not be subject to the Barnett resulting in a partial proportionate as was the case for the £14.8 billion formula. As a result Wales would not increase for the Welsh budget. Taking London Crossrail programme which receive any increase in funding. Many the data from the latest Statement has no devolved equivalent and was would view this as outrageous but of Funding Policy and assuming that therefore regarded as for the benefit such a treatment was employed in the nothing else changes, then the total of England alone. This would be used case of the London Olympics: there is Department for Transport annual in the computation of the overall, no account of the London Olympics provision would increase by £2.14 weighted comparability factor for the in the provision for the Department billion from £13.265 billion to £15.405 Department for Transport. In this case of Culture, Media and Sport in the billion (the £21.4 billion cost of HS2 the devolved administrations would 2010 Statement of Funding Policy and Phase 1 spread evenly over ten years). each receive their population share such expenditure did not increase the The weighted comparability factor for of the change in the Department for budget provision of that Department. In Wales would be 62.9 per cent (£9.697 Transport provision due to HS2. The the case of the Olympics the devolved billion /£15.405 billion). Thus if the total overall weighted comparability factor administrations did not receive Department for Transport departmental for Wales would now be 76.8 per cent any increase through the Barnett spend per year increases by £2.14billion (£11.837 billion [£9.697billion + £2.140 mechanism. If this option were adopted due to HS2, Wales would receive billion] /£15.405 billion) and Wales Wales would receive no funding an additional ~£78 million per year would receive an additional ~£95 corresponding to expenditure on HS2 (£2,140 million x 0.629 x 0.0579). million per year (£2,140m x 0.768 x once the revised Statement of Funding 0.0579). Policy is agreed in 2015.

• If the project is treated as being for the benefit of the UK as the first time in the 2015 Statement of Funding Policy. a whole (Option 2) Wales would gain £780 million over the The terms of the Treasury’s Statement of Funding Policy ten years of Phase 1. is supposed to be agreed with the devolved administrations. Given the current confusion and disagreement between • If it HS2 treated in the manner of Crossrail and not being Whitehall and Cardiff Bay over the funding for the electrification of benefit to Wales (Option 3), we would gain £950 million of the Valley lines it is even more important that the Welsh over the ten years of Phase 1. Government marshals its arguments well in time and ensures that Wales gets a fair deal in accordance with the principles set The difference between options 2 and 3 is £170 million over out in the Statement of Funding Policy. These include: ten years. Given that the two phases of HS2 are of similar cost and duration then the impact on Welsh funding would • Transparency: the system is readily understood and its be similar for Phase 2. In practice of course the comparability operation is open to scrutiny. factors and population ratios employed by the Treasury will • Consent: the system commands the support of change post 2015 but the broad conclusions and estimates governments, parliaments and people and is equitable and set out here will continue to be valid. predictable in operation. These are just the ‘technical’ arguments surrounding application of the Barnett formula to HS2. In reality many The next Spending Review will take place soon after the decisions are made as a result of political negotiation and the UK General Election in 2015. It will be up to us in Wales to leverage of the parties involved. In too many cases the UK press the UK political parties to commit in their manifestos to Government, through the Treasury, is judge and jury in its Wales receiving its consequential share of HS2 expenditure. own case. Following the election and in the lead up to the release of A key event in the resolution of the HS2 funding question the Statement of Funding Policy the Welsh Government will will be the next UK Spending Review. At each such review need to ensure that funding of HS2 will have a full, 100 per the Treasury publishes an updated Statement of Funding cent Barnett consequential for Wales. Policy which sets out the guidelines for the application of the Barnett formula and crucially also publishes comparability factors for the various public spending programmes. It is to Eurfyl ap Gwilym is Plaid Cymru’s economics adviser be expected that the HS2 programme will be included for and a Trustee of the IWA.

46 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org 5/Education Features Lessons for Wales from North Dakota

primary mechanism by which money is created, Ian Jenkins says there is a strong case for the and in the process promoted speculation and Welsh Government to establish a state bank unsustainable bubbles in the economy. What we need instead is to redirect credit issuance towards more stable, productive and sustainable uses. For a productive economy to exist there must be adequate streams of affordable credit. There is The past 30 years have seen the expansion, no doubt that affordable borrowing for investment deregulation and privatisation of the financial has been a vital contributing factor in the decline sector at the expense of the ‘real’ economy’ of of the productive economy in Wales. manufacturing and production. Indeed, the role Instead, we should follow the public banking of money middlemen acting as intermediaries model in Germany where, after World War II, has grown exponentially. According to the Bank its Landesbanken facilitated the growth of the of England, this activity accounted for around mittelstand sector of Small and Medium Sized 1.5 per cent of the UK economy’s profits a year Enterprises. The same approach has enabled between 1948 and 1978. However, by 2008 the the Bank of North Dakota (BND) to contribute figure had risen to 15 per cent. significantly to the State’s being the only one in There is nothing wrong with ‘Intermediation’ the USA to run a budget surplus post-2008. as such. Banks should be middlemen between What is money and where does it come from? investment capital and the productive economy. These are questions rarely asked in mainstream The issue is the extent. As former US bank economics. Yet the answers to the questions hold regulator William K. Black observed, “Middlemen one of the keys to understanding the economy serve a very useful purpose, but should not be and for devising a more democratic system. In very big and should not make a lot of money”. his 1975 volume Money: Whence it Came, Where He concluded, however, that that was precisely it Went J.K. Galbraith observed that, “The study what had happened. As he put it, “Finance has of money, above all other fields in economics, is become the dog instead of the tail … They have the one in which complexity is used to disguise become a parasite”. truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.” And he Private banks have gained this dominant continued, “The process by which banks create position through control of credit issuance, the money is so simple that the mind is repelled”.

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Figure 1 March 2010). Source: The Public Banking Institute (http://publicbankinginstitute.org/background.htm) This process is profoundly counter- intuitive. Most people assume that banks lend the deposits they receive, which is not the case. Money issued through loan creation is created out of nothing, subject only to rules for capital reserves. In its Quarterly Bulletin in 2007 the Bank of England made this clear:

“By far the largest role in creating broad money is played by the banking sector... When banks make loans they create additional deposits for those that have borrowed the money.”

In a speech the following year Paul Tucker, a Member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, made the same point: Figure 2 Source: The Public Banking Institute (http://publicbankinginstitute.org/background.htm) “Subject only to confidence in their soundness, banks extend credit by simply increasing the borrowing customer’s current account … That is, banks extend credit by creating money.”

The Bank Charter Act 1844 prohibited private banks from printing banknotes, but not from issuing money by ledger entry through the making of loans. Over the past thirty years, with the advent of electronic systems, this facility to ‘print money’, by creating credit in borrowers accounts with a stroke of a keypad, whilst noting a corresponding asset to the bank, has So what is money? The instinctive power to create banknotes (and coins) expanded significantly. The Bank of answer to this question is that money became the exclusive preserve of the England has recently reiterated the is the physical notes and coins Bank of England, in agreement with nature of the system of money creation produced by the government, the Westminster. in a paper entitled Money creation in money produced at the Royal Mint However, the other 97 per cent the modern economy, which formed at Llantrisant, ironically making it of ‘broad’ money in circulation part of the Q1 Quarterly Bulletin for one of an increasingly diminishing is the product of credit issuance 2014. Consequently, this long-obscured range of Welsh exports. Yet ‘physical’ through fractional reserve banking. process has now moved out of the money of this sort only accounts for As Martin Wolf, the Financial Times realm of heterodox economics (some approximately 3 per cent of money columnist, put it, “The essence of the even labelled it ‘conspiracy theory’) in circulation. This ‘narrow’ money is contemporary monetary system is the and into the centre of the debate. indeed the product of government, as creation of money, out of nothing, by under the Bank Charter Act 1844 the private banks’ often foolish lending” (9 So, the power of money creation is

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principally in the hands of private current financial powers in relation to could be created by: corporations who are able to make taxation and borrowing and concluded sizeable profits through the levying of that it should be granted borrowing “…bringing together all the financial interest, as well as being granted the powers. The Commission based this support schemes for SMEs within power to decide which sectors of the conclusion partly on ‘international the Welsh Government, the funds economy should be afforded liquidity. In evidence’ drawn from a single World managed by Finance Wales and the past 30 years this direction of credit Bank publication from 1999: making elements of Business Wales, as has moved increasingly away from the this ‘evidence’ neither ideologically well as UK Government schemes productive ‘real economy’ towards neutral nor current. such as UK Export Finance and the speculation and bubble creation. The Silk report contains no Business Growth Fund.” Now part of the deposit base of consideration of the role of banks private banks is income from local and in money creation through credit This would provide a substantial national government. This allows the issuance, and the attendant problems depository base for any new banks to use public money as a deposit of misallocation of investment, and no Development Bank, which could then base for lending for speculation. This is investigation of the successes of public be leveraged to provide a significant without the seemingly endless reserves banking in the international context, or boost to the loan funds available to handed to these institutions through of the potential role for public banking businesses in Wales. Though Jones- ‘Quantitative Easing’ and other bailout in Wales. Evans focused on his remit of funding mechanisms post-2008 (See Fig.1) Yet it is important that these issues to SMEs, such a Development Wales has an opportunity to utilise be brought into the debate on the Bank could also provide finance for an alternative model of investment for its Welsh economy, since to ignore them infrastructure projects in Wales. This local and Welsh Government funds into would be to exclude a potentially could provide a means for the Welsh a state bank along the lines carried out democratising and sustainable Government to avoid costly external by Bank of North Dakota in the United banking system from the debate. In debt for infrastructure projects, such as States. The bank’s primary deposit base is turn that would risk making any grant onerous PFI contracts, by borrowing the State of North Dakota itself. As it says: of borrowing powers to the Welsh from its own bank. The interest paid Government nothing more than a new on such loans would be returned to “All state funds and funds of state stream of income for private banks. the Welsh Government to be spent in a institutions are deposited with Bank If devolving borrowing powers to the socially useful manner, instead of seeing of North Dakota, as required by Welsh Government were to mean it it disappear from the Welsh economy law. Other deposits are accepted submitting itself to the ‘discipline’ of to the City or another financial centre. from any source, private citizens to the bond markets, then that would be There is a widely perceived need the U.S. government.” a poor outlook for investment: ask any for change to the economic system citizen of Greece, Spain or Ireland. and especially for reform of the way in This framework provides the economy In the second part of his 2013 which banking operates. Most people of the state of North Dakota with review examining access to finance think there is ‘something wrong’ with affordable (and available) credit for SMEs in Wales, commissioned the way in which banking currently for SMEs and resources for the by Business Minister Edwina Hart, functions. I believe that a public improvement of infrastructure. Under Professor Dylan Jones-Evans concluded bank, properly instituted with all due the state banking model the benefit that a Development Bank for Wales diligence and care for regulation and derived from interest accrued in the would be the best way to overcome democratic supervision, can provide credit-issuing process is returned to the the gap between the demand of SMEs a direction for sustainable change in state and can be re-invested or spent in in Wales for finance, and the credit Wales and beyond. the public interest, instead of being paid supplied by banks. He also points to shareholders in dividends or given out that Finance Wales has failed to away in absurd bonuses (See Fig.2). fill the gap, and moreover charges  The overall result has been to make interest rates above the European Ian Jenkins is training to North Dakota the only US state to run a Commission’s reference rates for become a solicitor and is budget surplus throughout the financial the cost of loans from state banks. a director of Arian Cymru crisis since 2008. This must make their Meanwhile, other avenues of funding (www.ariancymru.eu), a model at least worth considering in a such as peer-to-peer lending are also non-aligned think-tank Welsh context. not yet sufficient to meet the needs of promoting alternatives to an The Silk Commission was asked SMEs in Wales. Professor Jones-Evans unsustainable debt-based to consider the Welsh Government’s suggests a Development Bank for Wales economy.

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Culture / Fishlock’s File

The Sikh scholar and journalist Khushant Singh, staunch for free speech, who has just died aged 99.

With Malice to One and All Trevor Fishlock remembers when his typewriter was confiscated Then he was up at 4am with the BBC radio and the telex was a teacher of patience news, writing his provocative columns on yellow pads to be typed by a secretary. Early in the morning he played tennis. He has just died, aged 99. In my attic stands a portable typewriter, Delhi and was killed. It was a major story. I In my next posting, New York, scarred and sellotaped, a museum piece drove straight to the Hindustan Times and typewriter and telex were still useful; but gritty with dust. It was my companion asked to see the editor. the newspaper world was changing and I on the road for many years. I wrote on it His name was Khushwant Singh. first used a small computer in a cab, writing in hotel rooms in India, in the Northwest I did not know him. I found him in the up the funeral of Count Basie in Harlem. Frontier, in China, Russia, Africa and pandemonium of the newsroom. Perhaps But I was still telexing in my Moscow America. It reminds me of the excitement he saw that I was new and needed help. “I’ll years as the Soviet Union crumbled. There of working as a foreign correspondent. It’s give you ten minutes,” he said, clearing the and elsewhere British journalists stood out a useless artefact now but I daren’t throw room with a wave. He talked. I scribbled. as representatives of a free press democracy. it away because it’s a talisman. I fear that if He set me on the road, the kindness of Today many British politicians want to I junked it all my words would dry up. strangers. That evening I watched my regulate an already weakened press. Few It belonged to the communication dispatches rattling through the telex. speak for the freedom of newspapers. You world ruled by the wonder of telex. I I grew to know Khushwant Singh have to wonder what the Cudlipp brothers typed my stories and took the copy to well. He was a novelist, Sikh scholar and of Cardiff, Percy, Reg and Hugh, would say. I a telegraph office where operators with journalist, staunch for free speech, admirer of wonder what Frank Mason of Pembrokeshire fingers faster that snakebites typed a tape, the British Press. His column ‘With Malice to would say. He was a distinguished fed it into the telex machine and dialled One and All’, was a commentary on politics spokesman for freedom of the press. As The Times in London. and events, and often pricked pomposity. editor of the Tenby Observer he campaigned How bitter it was when he couldn’t It was an institution. He had courage and for the Admission of the Press Act of 1908. get through. How wonderful when candour. “I have to speak my mind,” he This gave reporters the right to go to council the machine whirred and glowed and told me. This mind once upset a man in meetings – a step forward for democracy. chattered out the code 264971 Times G. Canada who wrote a letter and addressed I look at the old typewriter now and Connection! The story was on its way. The the envelope to: Khushwant Singh, Bastard, recall that once, on one of my arrivals telex man, or woman, smiled too: the telex India. It was quickly delivered to his door. in Delhi, a customs man took it away. It was a teacher of patience. I attended many of his soirees for a was a while before it was restored to me At the beginning of my posting in India whisky and discussion. Ever-courteous, he and in the meantime another officer said Sanjay Gandhi, the ruthless younger son listened far more than he talked. He closed soothingly: “Your typewriter has been of the prime minister, crashed his plane in down at 8.30am and was in bed by 9pm. confiscated for your own good.” Ah, yes.

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activist. In 1988 he was jailed for damaging Public poet who made the wire at the American air base at Brawdy Pembrokeshire. He was anti-apartheid. He things happen was a believer in Welsh self-determination and like many around him was as stunned Peter Finch pays tribute to Nigel Jenkins 1949 - 2014 by the 1979 referendum as he was delighted by the vote to create a Welsh Assembly in 1997. He was a supporter of the Welsh language movement and reclaimed his family heritage by learning Nigel Jenkins, critic, teacher, encyclopaedist, which was installed but then immediately the tongue as an adult. psychogeographer, musician and poet died removed by the Council for being “too With fellow poet Menna Elfyn he at the age of 64 this January in Swansea. irrational”. Poetry makes nothing happen, established a special kinship of idea and He was a politically engaged Welshman of said Auden, but in the Celtic west things cultural purpose. They co-directed the the left. He was a poet first and foremost were different. MA programme in Creative Writing at who admired Harri Webb and Idris Davies The seeds for Nigel’s love of Carmarthen from 1998 to 2004, engaged as much as he did Allen Ginsberg and psychogeography were sown with his in literary travels across the world, and Amiri Baraka. visits to India in the late eighties and the presented their work in the east and in At the time of his death Nigel was subsequent writing of his prize-winning America. They translated each other’s Associate Professor of Literature at book Gwalia in Khasi. His more recent Real poetry and, while in Asheville, she helped Swansea University. He taught creative Swansea and Real Swansea Two allowed him choose the cowboy outfit he wore at writing for decades both before and after him full creative space. There is nothing to many readings. his great work as English editor of what he compare with Nigel loose in the landscape He is survived by his ex-wife Delyth, his called Psycho, the great time-consuming with history, memory and acid intervention two children Angharad and Branwen, and beast that was The Welsh Academy all copiously to hand. The books sold by his partner, the singer, Margot Morgan. Encyclopaedia of Wales. He was an overt the thousand. The work he was engaged nationalist, a fervent opposer of that on at the time of his death, Real Gower, will largely unelected class that held parts of appear in 2015. Peter Finch is the welsh agenda’s Wales in thrall – including George Thomas, He was a political as much as a cultural Literary Editor Charles and Di. He was a proponent of the underdog, a supporter of those writers who he saw as having been ignored undeservedly or who, by the nature of what they engaged with, were never going to be accepted in mainstream Welsh literary society. Childe Roland (Peter Meilleur), the Llangollen Welsh-Canadian concrete poet may never have become as celebrated as he is without Jenkins’ support. Although hardly an avant- gardists himself Nigel promoted Meilleur as one of Wales’ unsung treasures, helping get him admitted to the Welsh Academy and gaining space for his verse among the public art works of Swansea. Nigel was a public poet. His verse adorns street facades, public buildings and hospitals across the south. He challenged authority head-on with the work he had inscribed onto benches and street paving for Swansea’s year as Capital of Literature. ‘Remember tomorrow’ was a line of his

Nigel Jenkins

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Marwnad o fath— in memory of Nigel Jenkins

Sequence by Menna Elfyn, translated from the Welsh by the author and Elin ap Hywel

Who now will gather snowdrops?

‘Can a flower? Can a poem?’

Seeds blown, will they be welcomed, these native tremblers will they give new breath to the burial ground, whisper to the living Nigel Jenkins 1949 - 2014. Image: John Briggs of a man in a coat, hunter of flowers. Will they? Will you tair llinell o unigrwydd, Today, I know all those histories see their light? a’r gweld yn gafael. poured like the living stream, ‘ I know what I am will satisfy their hearts with tales doing here’, drawn up, forever new. Glas-nos: said the bard, nosweithiau glas, But not today. No, not today. bardd gwlad, glesni’r bore. First we must turn to the history who asked only of grief. for snowdrops, ** ‘a warmer world’, ** Buried in the boots hallowed ground. you bought in Asheville. ‘Hope I can deliver Real Gower I was there; bore witness on time’—note at beginning of as you chose, discussing ** December 2013 the relative merits of various pairs, Byddem yn dadlau some too tight, am ddirgelion yr haiku. You were ‘Real Gower’, others just right, leather softer, Mynnais ei bod yn ddull the druid of oak, more yielding. its strangeness – your cynefin. ry gwta heb gyfleu every talar, scope for a story. And for fifteen years ehangder delwedd. You laughed, repeating your the boots were a source of teasing. Heddiw, yr amheuwr childrens’s charge: After all there was much ‘dim hanes’, no history the little ones said of the sheriff cowboy about you, sy’n deall cryndod, when you took them hiking. the kind of man who, when he hit town

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 55 Culture

would be mobbed by the crowd, ** February, your month eager to be within earshot of that to search out snowdrops powerful voice, Handholding down in the fields and woods, laying down the law, just and measured. (following a visit at Tyˆ Olwen touching them tenderly, Hospice, Morriston) seeing the world through their Only one thing missing— ice-bell purity. your steps, as a cowboy I’d ask you to hold my hand were never that heavy; tightly as the plane rose, This day I vow I will your learning the fear of oblivion some day, secretly was worn lightly. within me. Rising- plant snowdrops in the to its zenith? common burial ground, Nothing wild about you, Thermodynamics: so hard to you then And as for a gun? understand. will flower each year, I you were the empty handed will follow their trail to watch them peacemaker with nothing Today, now I know swaying, shivering, but your boyish pocket knife. you cannot rise above ringing your the turbulence of clouds-- name And I bid you farewell, so hard to comprehend. throughout the parish. not in a wicker coffin Far from the touch of my hand, but on your stallion I could not even return as you make your way one final favour. into the wilderness, Menna Elfyn is Creative sunset ablazing, And yet, I left you Writing Director at the I daresay you’ll rest awhile among your loved ones, University of Wales Trinity St in some stream by the mountain. keeping vigil, David. Her latest bilingual their hands upon you collection Murmur (Bloodaxe ** to ease your flight. Books, 2012) is a Poetry Book Society Recommended Too many funerals Nothing for me to do Translation, the first time for a of friends we sighed but drive homewards, Welsh language volume with as we arrived through motorway’s overflow, English translations to receive at Conran’s departure. to the wailing of wipers, such an award. the tyres screeching. Driving back south, your hand at the wheel ** Notes and a barn owl flits Dyma’r mis y byddet yn mynd cynefin-- a Welsh word for place (of belonging) as it lit our lane homewards, i chwilio am eirlysiau, talar—acre an ember in the sky, lawr yn y meysydd a’r gelltydd, bardd gwlad—poet of a particular area beating its warmth, eu byseddu’n dyner, claddfa’r gymuned--Pennard Community Burial eager for life. gweld y byd trwy glychau iâ Ground eu glendid. Glas-Nos--title of anthology we co-edited for Duende, I said then, CND Cymru in the eighties Conran’s soul Heddiw, addefaf yr af Asheville -- a place in North Carolina we visited leaving the land. yn y dirgel ryw ddydd together as part of a month long tour of the US a phlannu eirlysiau as ‘ Three poets from Wales’. The third poet Today, that owl yng nghladdfa’r gymuned, was the late Iwan Llwyd. is in my heart fel y byddi’n blodeuo Conran—At the end of January 2013 we hauntingly present. bob blwyddyn, a dof travelled to Tony Conran’s funeral in Bangor And you, cyfaill, Cymro, ar eu trywydd i’w gweld and on the way back, a barn owl narrowly incomparable compañero yn siglo, a chrynu avoided the windscreen. yn atseinio i’r plwyf Common burial ground—Pennard Burial no longer the driver. dy enw. Ground and a reference to the fact that Let the road ahead his wish to be buried there was refused by be steady. ** Pennard Community Council.

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Welsh Queen of commerce in mid-Wales. of the rest of her life. Deirdre Beddoe Margaret’s education got off to a slow The First World War also had a major start. Until the age of thirteen she was taught impact on her life. In May 1915, returning by French and German governesses from from New York with her father aboard the whom she learned ‘only trifles’. Thereafter, luxury liner the Lusitania, she almost lost her however, she received a sound education at St life. On the night of 7 May the vessel (which Leonard’s School in St. Andrews and later at was in fact carrying munitions) was attacked Somerville College, Oxford. Margaret loathed by torpedoes fired from a German U boat the humiliation she suffered as a plump and and sank rapidly. Margaret spent hours in the tightly corseted debutante in several London freezing water and though feared dead was seasons and quickly drifted into marriage, in eventually rescued. 1908 with Humphrey Mackworth, the son of a Margaret was to play a major part in the local baronet from Caerleon. war effort. She was appointed Commissioner Two things were to change her life of Women’s National Service for Wales and dramatically. Firstly she discovered the Monmouthshire, organising the recruitment militant women’s suffrage movement when, of women into agriculture and into the newly accompanied by her mother, she took created women’s services. It is interesting part in the Great Suffrage Procession to that Margaret herself writes nothing about Turning the Tide: The Life of Lady Rhondda Hyde Park in July 1908. She was converted her wartime work in which she played a Angela V. John dramatically and threw herself into ‘the prominent public role. John provides a Parthian 2013, £20 Cause’ speaking at public meetings, taking full account of this and offers what I think part in demonstrations, and then committing may well be the reason for its omission in ‘an outrage’ by blowing up a pillar-box in the Margaret’s autobiography - a major scandal Turning the Tide is a lengthy and painstakingly Stow Hill district of Newport. This led to her involving another Welsh woman. detailed account of the life of Margaret imprisonment and her going on hunger strike. By 1918, Margaret was Chief Controller Haig Thomas, Second Viscountess Rhondda John submits Margaret’s own account of her of Women’s Recruitment in the Ministry of (1883-1958). An enormous amount of prison experience to detailed scrutiny. National Service and it was in this London- research and hard work has gone into The other life-changing event of these years based post that she was to enter into producing this volume and the author has used a very wide range of sources. As such, the work makes an interesting contribution Margaret was to play a major part in the war effort. to the study of British feminist history, particularly in the inter-war years. She was appointed Commissioner of Women’s The structure is for the most part National Service for Wales and Monmouthshire, clear. John follows earlier biographical accounts especially Margaret’s own lively organising the recruitment of women into and beautifully written autobiography, This agriculture and into the newly created women’s Was My World (1933). John sensibly draws heavily on it for her first four chapters but she services. It is interesting that Margaret herself writes also adds additional information from other nothing about her wartime work in which she sources to check the accuracy of Margaret’s account, although such excessive detail tends played a prominent public role. to clutter the narrative. Both books give accounts of the privileged upbringing of the much loved daughter of the came at her mother’s suggestion: Margaret violent conflict with Violet Douglas Pennant, immensely wealthy industrialist and Liberal joined her father in running his huge business daughter of Lord Penrhyn, the north Wales politician D.A. Thomas. It was an enchanted empire as ‘a highly confidential secretary and slate magnate. Violet, who had a sound and childhood spent in the family home at right hand man’. These two facets of her life- long held reputation for philanthropy and Llanwern in Monmouthshire and with her as a feminist campaigner and as a business public service, had been Health Insurance delightful Haig aunts and cousins at Pen Ithon woman - were in fact to determine the shape Commissioner for South Wales for seven

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I have always had an admiration for Margaret called the last feudal assembly in Europe. In 1922 she appeared to have won the argument Lady Rhondda because she was a feminist. but by a deft piece of skulduggery, her victory Welsh Labour historians had no time for her was snatched away. John devotes a chapter to the ‘Woman- and there are moments in this book when I can Centred World’ in which Margaret lived from the 1920s onwards. She lived with understand why. Helen Archdale for many years and when that relationship broke up with Theodora Bosanquet. With her great wealth Margaret was able to indulge herself in a wonderful project, establishing and running the journal Time and Tide with an all-women board. As a publication it was unique, covering politics, industry, economics, art and literature. Contributors included Winifred Holtby, Katherine Mansfield, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and George Bernard Shaw. It is a joy to dip into old copies but although popular and respected, years. She had reluctantly taken on the post that women were being dismissed en masse the journal lost money and was subsidised by of Commandant of the Women’s Royal Air from their wartime employment and pushed Margaret’s personal wealth. On her death in Force. Aware of the appalling state of this back into domestic service. Margaret was 1956 there was not enough money left even newly formed organisation, Violet accepted now London based, whilst poor neglected to honour her bequests. on a one month trial basis. At the end of the Humphrey remained in Monmouthshire. By I have always had an admiration for month she submitted her resignation but was 1921 he agreed to pose as the ‘guilty party’ Margaret Lady Rhondda because she was persuaded to stay on only to be summarily and allowed her to divorce him. Margaret’s a feminist. Welsh Labour historians had dismissed shortly afterwards. Margaret private life seems to have taken a different no time for her and there are moments in played a part in Violet’s dismissal. She had turn the next year when Helen Archdale, a this book when I can understand why. It is been asked to write a report on the women’s suffragette and Margaret’s former assistant one thing to know that in politics she was a camps, and in it she was especially critical of in the Ministry of National Service, moved Conservative but it is still a shock for a south the WRAF. John thinks Margaret, who was into Chelsea Court into a flat immediately Walian to read that in the 1926 General doing many other things, had relied on others below Margaret’s. Strike she allowed her London business for her information. On the other hand Violet Margaret remained a prominent figure premises to be used for the government was thought by her biographer to be too on the British and indeed international scene transport organisation that deployed the much of a lady to bully others and allowed the and John devotes a chapter to her business volunteers and blacklegs who drove buses affair to dominate the rest of her life. interests entitled ‘The Queen of Commerce’. and cars in the strike. Margaret’s own autobiography ended in She was fully conversant with D.A’s diverse Nevertheless, I think that her life and work 1918. The year was a decisive turning point business interests ranging from coal, steel, deserve to be much better known, especially for her; the tragic death of her beloved father, newspapers and printers to shipping. In 1926 in Wales. I had hoped that this new book who had actually worked himself to death as she became the first (and as yet the sole) would bring her life story to a wide audience Minister of Food, was a huge loss. There was female President of the Institute of Directors. However, it is an academic and very long only ever one man in Margaret’s life and that By 1937 she sat on the board of thirty-one book. At 645 pages (including 100 pages of was D.A. companies and chaired seven. But the hey day footnotes) it is somewhat off-putting and I D.A. had trusted and loved his daughter. of big profits from heavy industry was passing. think that it would have been a better book In June 1918 he had been made a Viscount Margaret emerges as Britain’s best- had it been a shorter one. and on his death his title passed to his known feminist in the inter-war years. She daughter in her own right. In the same year focussed on ‘Equal Rights’ feminism and it is women over thirty were granted the vote not surprising that a woman in her privileged in parliamentary elections. Margaret saw position would do so as she had very little the war as a wonderful, liberating thing for understanding of the lives of working class women and once again she took on roles women. Her attack on the inequality of the Deirdre Beddoe is Emeritus of national importance in the planning of British political system was her attempt to Professor of Women’s History at post-war reconstruction. She was aware take her seat in the House of Lords which she the University of South Wales.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 59 Culture / reviews

Testing UK’s policy of drift and economic impact of the changes. Britain’s overseas adventures. Until at least Aled Eirug Colley uses the various legislative Acts the 18th Century, the idea circulated widely of Unions, both within the United Kingdom that Britain – and its empire - was originally a and the European Union, as the framework Welsh creation. for her succession of essays. But this is not a She reminds us that whilst devolution dry analysis of dusty documents. Rather it is in the late 1990s is often portrayed as an enjoyable exploration, teasing out meaning a novel and imaginative response to a through speeches, cartoons and maps. In democratic deficit by New Labour, it was in doing so it provides the context for documents fact a part of unfinished business from the that we have often misunderstood. late 19th Century, dating from the Cymru For example, she explains that the Fydd movement led by Lloyd George. She background intent of the the Welsh Acts of quotes Winston Churchill in 1910, calling for Union of 1536 and 1542, and their insistence separate parliaments for Wales, Scotland that use of English be required in any public and England, and for regional assemblies office was essentially the same as the in England. She sees much continuity in historian Thomas Macauley explained in the pressure for constitutional reform and relation to India 300 years later. He wrote contends that it is in fact the two world wars that English should be the only medium of that punctuated a political process. subsidised education in British India, so as Her emphasis on the importance Acts of Union and DisUnion to “form a class who may be interpreters of identity is reminiscent of Gwyn A. Linda Colley, between us and the millions whom we govern: Williams and his quest for When was Wales. Profile Books, 2014, £8.99 a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, As she puts it, “political peoples who but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and manage to cohere usually evolve, foster, in intellect.” As Colley comments: and substantially believe stories about This slim, stimulating and insightful book is based on a series of broadcasts Linda Colley made on Radio 4 to mark the year in She reminds us that whilst devolution in the late which the people of Scotland are asked to make a seismic choice and vote upon their 1990s is often portrayed as a novel and imaginative membership of the United Kingdom. response to a democratic deficit by New Labour, English-born (and with a Welsh mother), Linda Colley is Professor of History at it was in fact a part of unfinished business from the Princeton University. She is author of Britons: late 19th Century, dating from the Cymru Fydd Forging the Nation 1707-1837, on the union of Scotland and England and the creation of movement led by Lloyd George. British identity, and Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600-1850, the history of Britain’s entanglement with slavery. At 171 pages, the book’s size may “This was essentially what the legislation themselves. In order to succeed and flourish, initially disappoint those fans of Colley who in 1536 and 1542 was designed to states and nations need an attractive idea of have been entranced by her revisionist and encourage in regard to Wales, and an who they are”. novel interpretation of the nature of British attempt to do, and essentially what for This paean to the importance of story identity and its relationship with England, centuries was achieved: an effective, telling reminds us of the importance of the Wales and Scotland. Indeed, she is one of on-side Welsh ruling class that was media in Wales that tell us stories about the few English historians who have a deep fluent in English, and that behaved in a ourselves. The popularity of Huw Edwards’s understanding of the complicated nature similar (though not identical) fashion to recent series on the history of Wales is of national and cultural identity within the its counterparts in England.” testimony to our own desire to hear our own British Isles, and its implications for the story being told. UK’s constitutional and political character. She points out that such methods were a It is ironic of course, as Colley herself However, this volume carries its scholarship precursor to how ‘London’ tried to deploy points out, that her essays are not just lightly and enables the reader to be guided its power in Britain’s overseas Empire. But about the past but they possess a deeper through the swirl of the UK’s constitutional she does not allow us - or the Scots - to contemporary resonance, given our current and political history without losing the social avoid the fact that the Welsh also gloried in anxieties about globalisation and the UK’s

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place within the European Union. Her view is Brains of the coalfield south Wales coalfields. It is also a storage that England and its Euroscepticism reflects J. Graham Jones centre for rare audio tapes of interviews with a more unfocussed sense of identity than in now long-gone pit workers and their families, other parts of the UK. and houses film footage of ranks of police Colley has commented elsewhere that versus lines of colliers in the dramatic 1984- the argument for the continuation of a robust 85 miners’ strike. British identity should not define itself by The authors are Dr Hywel Francis, since what it isn’t, as in the case of UKIP, but by 2001 the Labour MP for Aberavon, also what it is. But, as she points out, Britishness an accomplished, widely-published labour is often ambiguous. historian and lecturer and formerly Professor It is often interchangeable with the of Continuing Education at Swansea (and ‘United Kingdom’ and is reflected in the the son of the revered south Wales miners’ popular mind with particular institutions leader the late Dai Francis, who is depicted such as the BBC and the monarchy. Her several times within the book), and Siân questioning of what binds us as UK citizens Williams, since 1995 in charge at the Library. is incisive and challenging and reminds us By the 1930s, there were over 100 that the banal flag-waving of the Olympics miners’ institutes in the south Wales does not create more than a temporary unity coalfield. Built and maintained by the miners, of purpose. and financed in part by weekly deductions It is a reflection of Colley’s deep Do Miners Read Dickens? Origins and from their pay packets, the institutes were scholarship and erudition that she articulates Progress of the South Wales Miners’ Library, the location for many adult education the challenge facing Britain in such an 1973-2013 classes in the south Wales coalfield. There engaging manner. Her illustrative stories Hywel Francis and Siân Williams were no public libraries in the Valleys until take in characters who are on the fringes of Parthian Press, 2013, £15.00 the 1920s, so most of the institutes had the Empire, refugees, Irish admirals, Scottish their own library or reading room. These generals, Welsh radicals, and balloonists. The naturally exerted a great deal of influence on stories range across the United Kingdom and In 1983, two university professors looked the communities which they served. Their beyond, to the old empire, and to the heart of slightly bemused as they scanned the books and journals reflected the interests of Brussels. But they also illuminate the themes shelves of the South Wales Miners’ Library. the local community, and usually contained of her book, of the shifting sands of political Rather pointedly one asked the other, a wide selection of both serious and light union and the constitutional recognition of “Do miners read Dickens?” This most reading matter. those differing identities. sumptuously produced and profusely As Dai Smith points out in his ‘Foreword’, Colley’s conclusions are that illustrated volume, a positive joy to handle the institutes and their libraries occupied constitutional change within the UK is and read, is an attempt to answer this and a pivotal role in the social and recreational inevitable, She believes some kind of several other, inter-related questions. It is a life of the burgeoning south Wales coalfield federation and a written constitution should real credit to the expertise and enterprise of Valleys from the high noon of the 1890s replace the current order. She reminds us Parthian Press. until at least the 1950s. Among the best that we live in a state-nation, not a nation- Publication of the book marks the examples were those at Aberaman near state, and she ends her lectures by quoting a fortieth anniversary of the establishment Aberdare, Treorchy, Llanhilleth, Blaenafon Canadian observer of the United Kingdom at of the South Wales Miners’ Library at the and Abercynon, all of which were built the end of the 20th Century: “A policy of drift then University College of Swansea back in between 1893 and 1913. Collectively, as will never result in united strength.” 1973. Formed out of the relics of as many as Smith puts it, they “met the changing needs That ’policy of drift’ will be sorely tested sixty Workingmen’s Institute libraries across of welfare, recreation and intellect from by the Scottish independence referendum in south Wales – the so-called ‘brains of the within communities which coalesced around September. This book is a remarkably clear coalfield’ in an age long gone – the Library their presence as the most enticing and vital sighted guide to what has divided, but also was by far the most successful and enduring part of their whole public life”. held together, the United Kingdom. of the various projects financed by the then On the first day of 1973, adopted Welsh replete coffers of the Social Science Research journalist Trevor Fishlock published a highly Council during the relatively affluent 1970s emotive, provocative, challenging article in and 1980s. It contains an array of banners, The Times which asserted that these precious documents, personal testimonies and institute libraries were now almost daily Aled Eirug is Chair of British photographs of dozens of mines and miners being “destroyed by ignorance, accident Council Wales. from the Rhondda and the other legendary and plunder”, and consequently had “all but

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vanished in the past ten years”. Education Act of 1944, and the resultant disaster of October 1966 is related, followed This volume succeeds in its three- major expansion of secondary education. by the lasting impact of the miners’ strikes fold aims, to be an elucidation of the There followed the emergence of local of the 1970s and, above all, 1984-85. This circumstances surrounding the setting up authority sponsored library services, distinct most impressive section ends with material of the South Wales Miners’ Library in 1973, and lasting changes in the recreational deriving from the devolution referendum an outline and visual depiction of some pursuits of the people who were increasingly campaigns of 1979 and 1997 in south of its most outstanding holdings, and an engaged by television, going to regular bingo Wales, and the final closure in 2008 of the examination of the gradual steps by which evenings, and attending local social clubs. Tower Colliery near Hirwaun in the Cynon it became part of the empires, respectively, Above all else, there were extensive pit Valley which had been run by the miners of Swansea University and later the Welsh closures from the late 1950s onwards. themselves since 1994, until, to their intense Government. Interestingly, its establishment The central and most substantial part dismay, the coal reserves finally ran out. occurred as part of the seventy-fifth of the book, entitled ‘Rich seams’, looks It is pleasing that this section ends with a anniversary celebrations of the setting up of engagingly at the multiplicity and variety of splendid group photograph of an exuberant the South Wales Miners’ Federation in 1898 the holdings of the Library and provides us Elaine Morgan of Mountain Ash receiving an as an ambitious salvage operation to rescue with some fascinating, brilliantly reproduced honorary fellowship at Swansea University in and preserve the contents – and perhaps illustrations of a rich array of banners, July 1994. to some extent the ethos too – of the old photographs, cartoons, posters, minute The final section entitled ‘Enriching lives’ miners’ institute libraries. books and other documentary records, features the stories of several users and The fascinating first section entitled and various artefacts of all kinds. All are beneficiaries of the Library. These include ‘Books and bridges’ chronicles the Library’s fully captioned providing their historical accomplished painter George Brinley Evans evolution over four decades. More than background in south Wales. The main (the oldest contributor to the book, now in 20,000 printed works from the miners’ historical themes are the burgeoning coal his late eighties), trade union leader Tyrone institutes had been collected by 1975 alone, industry of south Wales before 1914, the O’Sullivan, social historian Alun Burge, Welsh later to be augmented by further sizeable impact and the outcomes of the two world labour historian Chris Williams, and some deposits from a large range of institutes, wars, the long depression of the inter-war mature students who have excelled at their together with the fine personal libraries of years, the 1926 General Strike, the ensuing studies in part by making use of the superb people like Will Paynter and the veritable lengthy lock-out in the coal industry, and the resources of the Library. MP for Merthyr S. O. Davies. Much attention role of the miners from south Wales during Attention is also given to the role and is then devoted to a historical review of the the Spanish Civil War. potential of the Library in the current digital developing role of the institute libraries from Due, well-paced attention is then age, its contribution to distance learning, the 1890s onwards. Tredegar Institute – which devoted to the results of the nationalisation including to the development of the issued no fewer than 105,157 volumes during of the British coal industry by the post-war Community University of the Valleys and one year alone, in 1947, played, it would seem, Attlee government in 1948, and the gradual similar initiatives. To round off the volume, an especially central function. Yet as early as programmes of the closure of the coal mines we are given a helpful list of the various oral 1964, the Tredegar institute had vanished, from the 1950s onwards. The theme of the history interviews noted in the main text, a select bibliography of relevant printed The main historical themes are the burgeoning coal industry source materials, biographical notes on the of south Wales before 1914, the impact and the outcomes contributors to the volume, and an index to some of the contents. All are produced to the of the two world wars, the long depression of the inter-war highest academic and pictorial standards. years, the 1926 General Strike, the ensuing lengthy lock-out As one turns the pages of this essentially in the coal industry, and the role of the miners from south popular work, there is a sense that a much fuller background story, supported by an in- Wales during the Spanish Civil War. depth academic analysis, remains to be told of the crucial themes outlined here. It is to be hoped that this challenge may soon be taken and all of its contents had been summarily ever-present risk to life and limb posed up by one of our many distinguished labour dispersed. by this immensely hazardous industry and industrial historians of south Wales. The social, communal and political is also highlighted, with accounts of the history of the coalfield valleys is most most prominent disasters such as those at competently sketched by Hywel Francis. Senghenydd in 1913, and Six Bells Colliery at J. Graham Jones was formerly The once focal role of the institute libraries Abertillery in 1960, with their massive loss Head of the Welsh Political Archive was gradually undermined by educational of life. at the National Library of Wales, advances, notably the impact of the Butler The full significance of the Aberfan Aberystwyth.

62 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Culture / reviews

R.S. was ’ere to children. Leaving after an overnight stay his finest. And as Gwyneth Lewis rightly Tony Brown at her house, the poet puts a pound note points out, RS wrote his best work in his late for each of her young sons on one of their seventies and eighties. pillows and a note: “R.S. was ’ere”. The moving force behind the publication A number of the contributors recall of this collection, Ali Anwar and his H’mm their original ‘encounter’ with the work. At Foundation, have done the poet’s readers school in Cardiff Gwyneth Lewis finds the some service in bringing these recollections poet’s early visions of Wales not to her taste together. The book mainly avoids the merely but years later enjoys a warm relationship gossipy and contains much that is insightful of “teasing bicker”. In school in Wrexham and critically sharp. M. Wynn Thomas has Grahame Davies encounters ‘Cynddylan on his Tractor’. Fflur Dafydd reads the poetry in Despite the media’s her classroom at Dyffryn Teifi and then later embarks on a PhD on his work, only to hear emphasis on the hill farmers on the car radio of the poet’s death as she and Thomas’s nationalism drives for a first meeting with her supervisor. when he died, his religious As she says, in a beautifully written piece, there was something very ‘Thomosian’ about poetry is amons finest. this, like entering a room from which the poet Encounters with R. S. has just departed. Ed. John Barnie Not all of the encounters are academic, The H’mm Foundation, 2014, £9.99. though, or even literary. The book-dealer Jeff Towns encounters the books, usually in a rather elegantly-written comparison of rare editions, rather than the man, including Thomas’s ancient cottage at Sarn Rhiw, the Menna Elfyn, one of the contributors to this a piece of pulp fiction about a Welsh biker site of his fine late work, with Yeats’ Thoor enjoyable short collection of reminiscences gang, which quotes eight lines of ‘A Welsh Ballylee. And, again drawing on his own of R.S. Thomas, quotes the American Landscape’. Jon Gower knew Thomas mainly research, Grahame Davies asserts, “That monk and theologian Thomas Merton: as a fellow birdwatcher — images of birds the matter of Wales is not the main subject “Contradictions have always existed in the crop up throughout these essays — but like of Thomas’s work”. This is a calculatedly soul of man. But it is only when we prefer the majority of the contributions his piece also surprising assertion, but ultimately a sound, analysis to silence that they become a makes astute comments about the writing. indeed fundamental, one. constant and insoluble problem”. For instance, he quotes Andrew Motion Thomas’s ‘Wales’ is less a place than an Contradictions and silence: in some ways suggesting that “There’s a part of [RS] that ideal, a way of living one’s life, open to the these are close to the essence of R.S. Thomas. wants to be a bird, wants that freedom, wants realms of the imagination and the spirit. As While waiting in silence is a recurrent strategy to be exonerated of the foolishness and the Davies argues, Thomas’s engagement with for accessing the spiritual in his poetry, he frenzy of humanity, but he can’t do it, partly the actual condition of Wales—inescapable was not a man unafraid of social silence. […] for moral reasons, the feeling it would be and important as it was -- should be seen as Grahame Davies recalls the silence after an escape, he can’t let himself”. “explicitly subordinate to his wider concerns conducting an interview with RS: “neither Archbishop Barry Morgan, in a thoughtful about modernity and materialism”. In journalist nor poet able to find the words”. It is and acute piece, also goes beyond his relating Thomas to the stance of T.S. Eliot, a toe-curling experience which quite a few of acquaintance with the man to engage with Simone Weil and Thomas’s own hero and us occasionally experienced… the nature of his thinking and his fate: “He exemplar Saunders Lewis, against what they At the same time one also recalls the searched and longed for God and for him the saw as the debased values of our modern, (usually po-faced) humour. Someone at question was not whether God existed but secularised world and their aspiration towards Eglwysfach recently recalled to me that the kind of God he is”. Interestingly, Morgan a transcendent spiritual reality, Davies points she always associated the social R.S. with points out the paradoxical inconsistency to the ways in which Thomas reaches beyond laughter, and it is a motif that recurs here. (that word again) between Thomas’s liberal specific geographical and cultural location. Davies himself later finds him “warmer, theology and his “extreme conservatism” in In doing so Thomas showed himself to be a kinder and funnier” as he got to know terms of church liturgy. genuinely major poet of our times. the poet. Osi Rhys Osmond recalls him Of course, the emotional anguish of that speaking to a group of school children search is what gives his religious poetry its as a “joyous bringer of meaning”. Gillian power. Despite the media’s emphasis on Tony Brown is Professor of English Clarke remembers him as “jovial” and again the hill farmers and Thomas’s nationalism and Director of the R.S. Thomas suggests an unexpected capacity to relate when he died, his religious poetry is among Study Centre at Bangor University.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 14—issue 52 | 63 Dangers of squandering Britishness Peter Stead

So inept and misguided has been the Tory historic parties was fully able to comprehend tackling the concerns of the working classes. handling of the Scottish question that the the new post-industrial sociology and If this tactic failed he foresaw the electoral notion that Cameron’s Government would be consequently both became mindlessly guilty of dominance of a Whig élite. We can see now quite happy to wave goodbye to the Scots has squandering their British dimension. that Cameron heads what is essentially a Whig developed some credence. There is only one Cameron’s persistence in playing the anti- government, one quite incapable of planting Scottish MP on the Tory benches, the Party Welsh card brought the essentially pejorative Tory grassroots across the whole of Britain only collected 16.7 per cent of the Scottish vote term ‘Tory’ back into our headlines and all in the manner that a Heseltine could have in 2010 and the disappearance of 41 Labour the old prejudices came flooding back. I was achieved. Those conscientious indigenous MPs would contribute greatly to the chances of reminded of the 1964 General Election in Welsh Tories labouring to spread the message permanent Tory rule in England. which I reported on the ‘contest’ in Rhondda of enterprise must surely despair at Cameron’s During this Spring it became clear that East. After one day’s campaigning the Tory unfailing Thames-Valley haughtiness. Cameron’s aides were reminding him of the candidate gave me a lift back to Cardiff Labour’s squandering of its British existence of Wales. Suddenly references to during which he proudly boasted that he had dimension has been most apparent in the ‘scandal’ of Socialist Wales were likely to managed to persuade one voter to accept his Scotland where the local leadership lacked punctuate any of Cameron’s replies to Labour poster. He wryly reflected on the way that the intelligence and integrity to oppose the questions in the Commons. Plainly the Prime many elderly voters had accepted his offer of Nationalist challenge. South of the Border Minister was wanting to convey his deep a lift on polling day - they appreciated that the there are clear signs that Labour is developing concern for the physically infirm and school Tories had the smartest cars and meanwhile some awareness of what could be its historic children of Wales even as he diverted attention Labour cars would be released for other duties. role of preventing the Balkanisation of Britain away from troublesome English scandals such He knew that memories of the 1930s counted that could result from the electoral successes as dodgy ministers, the Royal Mail sell-off, for everything here and that there was no of politicians such as Farage and Salmond. flood prevention, the Midlands NHS and the chance of saving his deposit. In all his Welsh Hitherto Labour has hung on to its Socialist increasingly Byzantine Metropolitan Police. references Cameron seems to be resorting to image as it seeks to cement its traditional But so pointed, insensitive and passionate Means Test rhetoric and accepting that this will voters. But surely Labour now has to confront was his exploitation of Welsh issues that one once again become a no-go area for the Tories. and exploit the fact that it is the only party that began to wonder if he had decided that Wales With this kind of tabloid polarisation it can sustain and enhance a true British identity. might just as well go the same way of Scotland. is easy to forget that there have always been We have arrived at a vital moment in the That would remove another 26 troublesome committed Welsh Tories. Wales had 14 Tory history of these islands. There are several Labour MPs from the Commons and throw the MPs as recently as 1984 and even in 2010 they possibilities, some of them potentially whole task and cost of regenerating a post- won 8 seats and gathered 16.7 per cent of the disastrous. Mercifully the polls indicate that industrial society firmly into the hands of those vote. Listening to Cameron I was thinking of what the British people, and not least the incorrigible Welsh Bolsheviks. those Welshmen who climbed to the top of the Welsh, most want to see is an intelligent and For anyone with an interest in history of Tory tree: Geoffrey Howe, Michael Howard and rational devo-max that would still allow all these islands there is much that is astonishing Kenneth Baker. In particular, I thought of the Tory parts of the kingdom to benefit from a dynamic in the manner in which the massively influential candidate being driven through Gowerton in a and diversifying economy. dimension of Britishness is being discounted. jeep during the General election of 1979. He was Talented people from Scotland and Wales At the heart of this new dispensation has been an impressive figure who looked rather as if he can still choose to operate on a wider stage, the failure of the two traditional British parties, was in the process of staging a military coup. I’ve but meanwhile all too many of their fellow- Conservative and Labour to cope with de- often thought how different the UK and Wales countrymen stagnate in increasingly isolated industrialisation. It was the industrial economy would have been if Michael Heseltine had come puddles. The task now is to persuade every and its associated urban culture that gave both to power in his bid for the leadership and we had one to show enterprise by taking advantage of parties their identity and that identity was taken advantage of what became his undoubted being British. The Welsh have one great stroke fundamentally British. That was apparent in appreciation of the true complexity of job of luck: prosperous England is near at hand and, the way in which both parties readily gathered creation in a post-industrial society. once transport links are improved, it’s there for votes in every corner of the kingdom and in Historians now tend to discount the notion the taking. Now, of course, modern technology the fact that both Scottish and Welsh voices that Disraeli was committed to a classless allows us to take our Wales with us. Wales to were heard at the highest level of Cabinet politics. Certainly, however, Queen Victoria’s the rescue! government. However, neither of these two favourite politician wanted to see Tory leaders

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