Editor John Osmond

Associate Editor Rhys David

Administration Helen Sims-Coomber and Clare Johnson spring 2005

Design WOOD&WOOD Design Consultants. wood2.com

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his year’s centenary of Cardiff as a city warrants a close examination of its role and in particular its relationship with the rest of Wales. Set against other cities around the British Isles Cardiff has no obvious Institute of Welsh Affairs tparallel. It lacks the grace, visual grandeur, and easy confidence of Edinburgh. St Andrew’s House 24 St Andrew’s Crescent Compared with Dublin it lacks critical economic and cultural mass. In size it Cardiff CF10 3DD measures up to a medium English city such as Nottingham. Yet it has ambitions which are far more extensive. After all, it is our capital city. What Telephone 029 2066 6606 E-mail [email protected] English city of equivalent size has a Cathays Park, a National Museum, a Web www.iwa.org.uk Millennium Stadium, a Millennium Centre for the Performing Arts, or a landmark building to house a National Assembly, now rising in Cardiff Bay? The IWA is a non-aligned independent think-tank and research institute, based in Cardiff Although Cardiff is also celebrating 50 years as the capital of Wales with branches in north and during 2005 it is undeniable that many Welsh people have yet to come to west Wales, Gwent, Swansea Bay and London. Members (annual terms with its role. One thing that unites many Welsh people outside the subscription £30) receive agenda three city is a perception that too much wealth is concentrated within it. For times a year, the Gregynog Papers, and instance, in our special feature in this issue David Blackaby and Stephen can purchase reports at half price. Drinkwater ask whether Cardiff has benefited more from being our capital branches city than Wales has benefited from having Cardiff as it capital. Would such a question be asked of London, Edinburgh, Belfast or Dublin? North Wales Secretariat c/o Andrew Parry North East Wales Institute (NEWI) Part of the mixed feelings about Cardiff can be attributed to the changing Plas Goch Mold Wrexham LL11 2AW character of the Welsh industrial experience, explored by Peter Stead in his Telephone 01792 354243 contribution. Although the overwhelming majority of Welsh people live in Gwent Secretariat c/o Geoff Edge an urban environment, in their imagination they often live somewhere University of Wales Newport Caerleon Campus P O Box 179 else. Most of us have a rural location somewhere in our hinterland. Newport NP18 3YG Perhaps as Peter Stead suggests, we continue to inhabit in our heads what Telephone 01633 432005 the late Sir Glanmor Williams described as “an archipelago of small towns West Wales Secretariat and villages.” Such an outlook rests uneasily with the realities of the c/o Robin Lewis The MAGSTIM Co. Ltd metropolitan world that Cardiff increasingly represents. Spring Gardens Whitland Carmarthenshire SA4 0HR Telephone 01792 354243 Contradictions like these can only be worked through over time. Maybe another fifty years are required. In the meantime what can the city fathers Swansea Bay Secretariat c/o Marc Clement do to address them? One thing they can certainly do is to improve Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department University of Wales Swansea Cardiff’s connections with the country it serves in a more focused and Singleton Park Swansea SA2 8PP determined way. For example, a notable failing is Cardiff’s transport links, Telephone 01792 295489 both internally between the city centre and the Bay, and beyond, Wales in London especially its connections with the Valleys that were responsible for its c/o Welsh Development Agency 1 6th Floor Tower 42 creation. What we need as a start is a modern, light rail or tram network, 25 Old Broad Street of the kind common in other European cities, to integrate Cardiff with the London EC2M 1HY Telephone 020 7222 2822 Vale and Valleys. spring 2005

upfront politics & policy

4 power broke 19 watershed john osmond looks at the denis balsom lsuggests that career of Denzil Davies to the 2005 general election will discover some clues on the have a lasting impact on Wales future role of Welsh MPs at Westminster 22 high hopes vernon bogdanor queries whether Welsh politics have yet ‘come of age’

24 an alternative government nick bourne argues that the opposition parties in the National Assembly need to entertain the idea of coalition 33 swimming in clear 38 blogging futures red water tomos grace looks at the role david morris explains why of the Internet in reinforcing Welsh Labour activists have Welsh identity 8 news formed a new ‘grassroots’ organisation 40 digital divide wil thomas says computers broadcasting should be located somewhere capital thoughts between the blender and the 36 microwave. 10 wales behind: broadcasting europe in front barricades sue balsom on Ofcom’s peter finch finds delicate

COVER STORY COVER medium term rescue package light in anonymous Cardiff 27 democratic deficit adam price says that with its for ITV1 Wales 12 city reflections permanent majority the peter stead wonders where Assembly is replicating Welsh urbanity begins and Westminster’s ‘conformity of ends indivisible power’

15 a cuckoo in the nest 29 seats and votes david blackaby and stephen john cox argues for ‘enabling 2 drinkwater argue that legislation’ to implement 42 y filter sqwar Cardiff’s growth is increasing Richard and says STV is key aled rowlands reports on an economic disparities between to maximising turn out in experiment measuring Welsh east and west Wales Assembly elections inter-connectivity

Cover: 1995 sculpture, ‘A Private View’ by Kevin Atherton, commissioned by CBAT and South Glamorgan County Council, and located on the Taff Viaduct in Cardiff Bay. Photo by Pat Aithie of Ffotograph. newsflash

coming up…

• Cardiff Lunch: The Future of the BBC with guest speaker Michael Grade, BBC Chairman Hilton Hotel, Cardiff, Monday 12 June 2005. £27.50 for IWA members; £32.50p for non-members social policy environment • Debate: A National Gallery of Modern Art 53 64 22 June 2005, Glynn profit and loss in haunt of the horse Vivian Gallery, Swansea. charles de winton reports on rural wales 6.00pm Debate harold carter argues that the Wales’ latest long distance 7.30pm. Reception with economic imperatives that footpath, the Epynt Way artists William Wilkins drive commercial decisions and Ifor Davies and arts should not be applied to 66 greening consultant Dave Clarke. sparsely populated areas consumption Chaired by Peter Stead. alan knight says retailers 56 size matters should work with government • IWA National james foreman-peck finds in producing environmental Eisteddfod Lecture that Welsh secondary schools impact assessments for the Wales and the should not grow any bigger products they sell Future of Europe Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, Presiding Officer, 59 health performance culture marcus longley and tony National Assembly beddow examine what The Pagoda, 68 cafeteria catholicism 45 build it but don’t toll it health professionals really National Eisteddfod, harri pritchard jones Caernarfon, 12 noon anthony beresford examines think about the Welsh NHS assesses the impact of Tuesday 2 August, 2004. the arguments surrounding Benedict XVI on a church Lecture to be delivered the proposed M4 relief road that punches above its in Welsh with south of Newport weight in Wales simultaneous translation europe 70 glanmor williams 1920 – 2005 just published… 48 creu cyfle – kenneth o morgan on the cultural explosion founder of the 20th Century • Wales on the Web eluned haf outlines school of Welsh historians Gregynog Paper by a project promoting links Andrew Green, National Librarian of between Wales and the ten the last word EU Accession States Wales, £7.99 88 peter stead • Integrated Children’s 50 promoting cohesion Centres in Wales glenys kinnock argues the EU Interim report from is about pooling sovereignty ongoing IWA research for mutual benefit project, £10

• Welsh Politics Come of 62 a programme that Age: Responses to the answers back Richard Commission 3 alun burge reports on Book edited by John progress with Communities Osmond £14.99 First more information: 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, photocopying, recorded or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher, Institute of Welsh Affairs. ISSN 1464-7613 www.iwa.org.uk upfront power broke

john osmond looks at the career of Denzil Davies to discover some clues on the future role of Welsh MPs at Westminster

ollowing a bruising These realities are presently disguised by the large electoral contest it may Scottish presence in the outgoing British Cabinet, in be an unkind question, particular Gordon Brown as Chancellor, John Reid as butf in the age of devolution Health Secretary, Alistair Darling at Transport, and what are Welsh MPs for? In formerly Robin Cook as Foreign Secretary. However, this the general election predominance is likely to prove merely an echo from the campaign health issues pre-devolution age. dominated much of the debate and MPs report that In future, too, we are likely to have fewer Welsh MPs. this remains a constant issue Certainly, this was the view of the Richard Commission for their constituents. Yet in which examined the case for extending the powers of the Wales decisions on health Assembly. It argued that sooner or later the National reside with the National Assembly will achieve full legislative powers and when that Assembly. The same applies happens the number of AMs will need to increase, probably to schools, council tax, from 60 to 80. At the same time, and following the precedent environmental issues such as wind farms and much of the already set in Scotland, the number of Welsh MPs will have rest of the domestic agenda. to reduce, probably from 40 to 32.

And although Westminster still controls the Welsh purse In these circumstances what kind of career will Westminster offer aspirant Welsh politicians? How attractive will the job strings and is the place where major decisions on the be if all they can look forward to is unending obscurity, economy, defence and foreign affairs will be taken for the occupying a place of influence perhaps, but with little foreseeable future, the work of Welsh MPs hardly registers in prospect of power? Few are better placed to help answer the Welsh press and media except at general elections. In these questions than Denzil Davies, who has just retired as between it is Assembly Members who generally occupy Labour MP for Llanelli after spending the best part of 35 what little space and airtime is granted to politics. And so far years sitting on the backbenches. as London journalists are concerned Wales warrants barely a flicker on their Richter scale. At the outset of his career it all looked very different. His was a brilliant arrival as MP for Llanelli in 1970. Brought up the This is only one part of the dilemma that confronts our son of a blacksmith in Cynwyl Elfed in the heart of rural newly elected Westminster representatives in establishing Carmarthenshire, he had an outstanding academic career. He their role and recognition. For devolution threatens a studied classics at Carmarthen Grammar School, won a fundamental destabilisation of their traditional function. place at Pembroke College Oxford, and emerged in 1962 The coming of the National Assembly and its likely with a first class degree in law. He then spent a year at development means that in future most Welsh MPs, Chicago university, followed by a lectureship at Leeds whether they are in Government or Opposition, are likely university before being called to the Bar in 1966. In the same to be confined to the backbenches. This is simply because, year he was on the short list for the Labour nomination in since the Assembly is responsible for most of Welsh the Carmarthen by-election. In what was undoubtedly a domestic policy, Westminster governments will fortuitous stroke of luck he was unsuccessful, since Plaid 4 increasingly want their Ministers to represent English Cymru’s Gwynfor Evans won a notable victory in that constituencies. And for the same reason political campaign. But he had been noticed, and when James advancement within the UK parties will be harder for Griffiths announced his retirement as MP for Llanelli a few Welsh and Scots MPs. years later he inherited a much safer seat.

spring 2005 upfront

Denzil Davies at home in Burry Port.

Within five years he was in the government as Minister of of his opposition to European integration and the Euro. State at the Treasury, Harold Wilson approving of his However, it is this preoccupation that has provided him with expertise as a specialist in tax law. A few years later, as a vision of the potential future role of Welsh MPs at Financial Secretary he was knocking on the door of the Westminster. He says they should concentrate on what Cabinet. “It was a fascinating four years,” he said. “The might be termed ’High Politics’, the large-scale, strategic government had no majority. I was regularly in the House of global matters beyond the role, and certainly the powers, of Commons at 3am trying the get Finance Bills through. We the National Assembly. had the oil crisis and the International Monetary Fund breathing down our necks.” However, the 1979 election and In a famous intervention during the passage of the 1997 the arrival of Mrs Thatcher soon ended his government Wales devolution Bill Ted Rowlands, then MP for Merthyr, career. Apart from a short period as Shadow Defence bemoaned the implications for his representative role. He spokesman in the mid-1980s when he made a folorn bid for declared that if he were to advise one of his children where the deputy leadership of the party, he has spent the to set their sights on a political career he would not be able remaining 25 years an isolated, rather brooding figure on to recommend Westminster. Instead he would tell them that Labour’s backbenches. in future the National Assembly or the European Parliament would be where power would increasingly reside. Denzil He has pursued a lonely path making interventions on Davies said this reflected Ted Rowlands’ engagement with foreign affairs, and particularly Britain’s role in Europe the domestic agenda. As he put it: 5 which he has observed with a growing scepticism. When he had an opportunity to return to the Labour’s Front Bench “I agree that if your main preoccupations are with health, say, under John Smith’s leadership in 1992 he refused because or education, then the National Assembly is, and increasingly

spring 2005 upfront

will be, where the decisions on expenditure will be taken. Temperamentally they didn’t believe in planning, they didn’t However, my interests have been largely in the fields of want it. defence and foreign affairs and I foresee a continuing role for Welsh representation on these issues at Westminster. “I can see that the Welsh, Scots and Irish can support the European Union as a counterweight to England. But how “This reflects the reality, as I see it, that there will be a can you have one interest rate to cover a Union from here greater role in future for the nation state to take the to Turkey? You have to have an economic union before you initiative in adapting its policies and priorities to meet can have a political union. You simply can’t get a political global trends. Governments are going to have to respond union across 23 countries. De Gaulle was right. They quite quickly to changing situations within the global should have kept it to the original six. I think I’ve also been economy. But the more you entrench your powers and proved right in the way the Common Market, now the procedures in organisations like the European Union, the European Union, is developing.” more you constrain your freedom. This is because the treaties that underpin such organisations inevitably Along with Ted Rowlands Denzil Davies was also famously circumscribe what you can do.” sceptical about Labour’s devolution proposals in the 1999 referendum. In particular they opposed the element of proportional His Euro-scepticism goes back to the early 1970s when he representation that was part of the settlement. He said: recalled that he and Brynmor John, then MP for Pontypridd, were called in to see Roy Jenkins, the leading Labour figure “I felt it important to ask some basic questions. But I’ve advocating European integration: never been against devolution in principle. I voted for it in 1979 and 1997. As I saw it the Welsh Office was “I tried to listen but I didn’t like what I was hearing. I felt outgrowing itself and there didn’t appear to be effective the process would be good for lawyers but not for accountability. In addition there was the problem of the democratic accountability. At the time Edward Heath and Quangos. It was a natural extension to have an the Tories were in favour because they thought it would kill administrative Assembly, with the expectation that the off socialism - this was a market we couldn’t close down. Quangos would be absorbed into its operation - although In the Labour Party its supporters such as Roy Jenkins the Welsh middle classes didn’t want that to happen. believed it was a mechanism for controlling the multi- nationals. In the end, however, it was neither capitalism “If we move to legislative powers I agree with the Richard nor socialism but about a transfer of power. Being a Celt I Commission that that will necessarily mean more AMs in could smell a loss of sovereignty a mile away. The English the National Assembly. Inevitably that will mean a decrease didn’t really appreciated that at the time.” in the number of Welsh MPs. In turn that will reduce the impact Welsh MPs can make at Westminster. At the same How did he respond to the more principled argument that time it is going to be more difficult for Welsh MPs to make the Common Market, later the European Union, was progress within their parties at Westminster. Taken necessary to lock France and Germany into so strong an together this will mean a diminution of their influence.” embrace that they could never contemplate another war? In evidence to the Richard Commission he argued that the “I never believed that. Maybe I’m just a Welsh anarchist case for giving the Assembly legislative powers was but I couldn’t buy that fashionable stuff. It was the constrained by finance. As he put it: division of Germany after the Second World War, and NATO and the Soviet Union that preserved peace through “We are reaching the point, I believe, where it is the Cold War. democratically unacceptable that the United Kingdom Parliament should be asked to transfer functions to the “I don’t think the EU will work ultimately for England. National Assembly in circumstances where the cost of When I was at the Treasury I was impressed with the exercising those functions effectively falls on United French economic planning system across the Channel. The Kingdom taxpayers, but where the democratic French had a consistent approach to investment and representatives of those taxpayers have no say in how industrial planning that we just couldn’t seem to emulate. those functions are exercised by the National Assembly … Meanwhile, we were struggling with trying to implement a Since Wales comes nowhere near being able to fund from prices and incomes policy to control inflation, through its own resources total government expenditure in Wales, 6 wages agreements with different sectors of the economy. it would not, I believe, be right for the central government to be asked to fund the cost of further devolved functions “I think the Welsh and Scots would have gone along with while being denied any say on how those functions are the French approach, but the English just wouldn’t have it. exercised.”

spring 2005 upfront

This was, in effect, a fiscal analysis of what has become known as the ’West Lothian question’, named after the constituency of Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP who constantly raised it during the devolution debates of the 1970s. In short, following devolution why should English MPs allow their Welsh and Scottish colleagues to vote on English matters when English MPs are denied a vote on Welsh and Scottish domestic affairs? The answer has been the compromise solution of reducing the number of Scottish MPs, a course that is likely to be followed in Wales when the Assembly acquires legislative powers.

Denzil Davies acknowledged the political reality of this compromise. He also accepted that in practice it is very difficult for MPs at Westminster to influence the Welsh policy agenda. Looking back he said the only experience he had had of wielding such influence was when he had been in government:

“When I was at the Treasury a departmental brief passed across my desk arguing the economic case for the immediate closure of twelve pits in south Wales. Rhondda MP Alec Jones, then Minister of State at the Welsh office, and myself joined forces to argue a strong case against this within the Department of Energy and we won the day. The paper was quietly dropped.”

He agreed that such opportunities would rarely be presented in future, if at all. Instead, it was now be up to the Welsh First Minister in the National Assembly to take Wales’s case directly to Whitehall. What then will be the role of a likely diminishing band of Welsh MPs, apart from providing lobby fodder for their parties? If Denzil Davies’ record is any guide it is surely to develop expertise in world affairs and to become an independent voice to represent where possible a distinctive Welsh view. In Denzil Davies’ case the opportunity was presented most forcibly in the vote on the Iraq war in 2003. As he put it:

“On Iraq I voted against reluctantly, since I was no more in favour of Saddam Hussein than anyone else. But going to war is not something to be done lightly. You have to weigh up the probabilities and it seemed to me that after the first Gulf War Iraq was hardly the threat it was being made out to be. I knew from experience that intelligence is hardly ever as detailed and specific as the 45-minute warning claim suggested. Also, I watched Tony Blair very closely when he was making his key speech advocating the war. It was a fine speech in terms of the rhetoric. But there was too much certainty and the approach was messianic. You had the feeling that he believed he could change the world. There was a glint in his eye. I was not persuaded.” 7

• John Osmond is Director of the IWA.

spring 2005 news

integrated creu cyfle – children’s cultural centres explosion

A new IWA report, tracking different procedures and A 352,000 euro project, led the development of protocols, invariably the by the IWA has been Integrated Children’s success of the centres will selected as the only project Centres across Wales was depend upon the skills of the from the UK to be funded launched at a Cardiff centre managers and staff. under the European Union’s conference attended by Many fear that limited budgets PRINCE Programme. In total more than 100 and historically low investment 400 proposals were practitioners and policy in multi-disciplined training will submitted to the scheme makers in February. The mean that they will fail to from across the European publication marked the attract the right calibre of staff Union and 48 were chosen, completion of the first with some posts having to be with the IWA being the sole successful bid from the UK. phase of an IWA re-advertised before they are research project filled. Creu Cyfle-Cultural Explosion funded jointly by the is an innovotive project Welsh Assembly A second problem identified involving a large number of Government and the Esmée in the report was organisations including Fairbairn Foundation. incorporating the open Academi, Dawns i Bawb, access play within more Gwynedd Council, S4C, and The report maps out the traditional approaches to the William Mathias Music development of the Assembly early years education. In part Centre. The aim is to create Government’s innovative this was due to a lack of new and ongoing linkages Integrated Children’s Centre experience with open access between cultural policy. This entails the play facilities. greater co- organisations in Wales and establishment of at least one ordination between play those in the ten new member centre in all the 22 Welsh organisations and centre states of the European Union. local authorities to combine staff should enable this It will be launched on the first early years education and problem to be overcome. of July to mark the first day care with a range of services of the UK presidency of the for families and young However, the biggest European Union. people. Bringing together problem for the centres has four key elements of early been a lack of revenue A large proportion of the years education – childcare, funding. Whilst they have activities will be focused on open access play, training, received substantial capital the new Galeri centre for the and community development funding from both the performing arts recently – the centres focus on a wide Assembly Government and opened at Caernarfon. They range of social problems. the Big Lottery Fund, they include: have struggled to finance • Dance, music, literature The IWA’s report notes that their running costs. and media iniatives, plus a while there is great enthusiasm mosaic in Caernarfon’s amongst policymakers and The second phase of the new Victoria Dock. practitioners for the project, a IWA’s study is now examining • A gala concert and number of stumbling blocks ways of tackling these conference in Caernarfon have prevented more rapid problems by developing on 19/20 February 2006. 8 development. The first is a lack guides to best practice. of appropriately trained staff. • Eluned Haf writes more on Given that the centres offer a • Integrated Centres in Wales is Creu Cyfle-Cultural Explosion multitude of services with available from the IWA at £10. on page 48.

spring 2005 news fine tuning for high tech success by Robin Roberts

Some of Europe’s best known globally competitive on the support structure, including: within the auto industry. new cars get their final seal of world stage. This also means • The Welsh Automotive The WDA’s role in approval only after they have not trying to compete in Forum which provides a securing Regional been driven in secret on those areas where the odds voice for the industry. Selective Assistance demanding Welsh roads, a are stacked against us. • Accelerate Wales which is funding has helped to leading Ford executive told There’s no point in focusing playing an important role keep down costs and an IWA Swansea Bay Branch on providing low cost, low in developing supply maintain competitiveness. lunch in February. “Much of tech components because we chains that meet the I believe the WDA is a the public road development cannot compete with the low challenge of world class role model for other of some of our best-known cost economies of Eastern competitiveness. economic development vehicles takes place on the Europe, let alone China, India • The Auto Technium in agencies, both in the UK roads of north Wales,” or South-East Asia. Pembrey which is creating and elsewhere in Europe. declared Richard Parry-Jones, a centre of excellence for Vice-President for Global He said that Ford’s performance engineering. “I do not want to Product Development at Ford. experience at the Bridgend • The Waterton Technology underestimate the “Believe me, if a car can Engine Plant showed what Centre at Bridgend which importance of the perform there, it can perform could be achieved when is helping to increase skill Westminster political anywhere.” management, the unions and levels by forging links apparatus in all of this, but our employees work between industry and I do get the strong sense Richard Parry-Jones is also together and pull in the academia. of an increase in the Ford’s Chief Technical Officer same direction. “That the and heads up a department plant is the sole global of 30,000 engineers, source for Jaguar V8 engines designers and scientists. He speaks volumes about its has a home in north Wales ability to step up to the mark where he was born, and uses in producing hi-tech, his knowledge of the area to premium quality products. fine tune the chassis of such They’ve built on that success cars as the Ford Fiesta, through some of the Focus and Mondeo before additional orders they’ve they go into production. won from Volvo and Land Rover. And let’s not forget He told his audience that the other 535,000 hi-tech included automotive business petrol engines they build for leaders that they needed to Ford each year.” think globally to survive. “It’s Richard Parry-Jones at the wheel no longer just a matter of He said the Welsh were too supplying one plant in one shy about the success of “Much of the success of commitment to securing location,” he said. “It’s their indigenous motor the industry here in Wales more investment in Wales essential that Wales-based industry, pointing out that it has been due to the since the creation of the suppliers think with a global is made up of some 50 proactive roles played by Welsh Assembly. The mindset and look for international component government at both the automotive industry – opportunities on the world suppliers together with Welsh and Westminster alongside electronics and stage. You can bet the around 250 other companies. levels,” Mr Parry Jones avionics – has been a high competition will be thinking In total it employs about said. “For example, the priority for the Assembly and acting in that way, so the 28,000 people. The collective Welsh Development since its inception, and the Welsh components industry sales generated from all this Agency has been very similarities between these must step up to the challenge. activity has been valued at an successful at winning a three sectors is leading to 9 average of £2.5 billion a year. host of projects which synergies and the sharing “The only way any of us stay The industry was benefiting have helped to stabilise of concepts, experience in business is by being from a growing Welsh and encourage growth and knowledge.”

spring 2005 capital thoughts

Pontprennau to threaten Newport. Pushes west through Ely, St Fagans and Creigiau to look in the eye of Swansea. wales behind: Strip developed. Hanging round the rail link for warmth. It can take a good forty minutes to drive across – chicaned and bus laned. Traffic lights at every super- europe in front store. Nowhere else in Wales comes anywhere near us.

might not look that realistic in the As a city Cardiff is new. Other than the suburbs on a Saturday morning, but Castle and a few churches there’s little they do along St Mary Street at 2.30am extant that pre-dates Victoria. Until the most nights when the clubs disgorge. industrial revolution Cardiff wasn’t Cardiff Fun City. Business Centre. Empire much more than a market town with a of the stable and the senseless. silt-threatened quay and a reputation for ruffians and occasional fishing. 1800 The city has been the Welsh capital years of languishing on the way to now for more than fifty years but only somewhere else left us little exploitable in the last ten has it really begun to history. The Romans used Cardiff as a show it. Drinks Capital, Sports Capital, staging post on their way to Neath. In Service Capital, Call Centre Capital, the middle-ages Carmarthen was a Shopping Capital, Capital of fast cars much bigger and more important town. and media businesses, Capital of the Only the accident of having a navigable creative arts. “Culture is now our core river quay with the iron and coal valleys business,” said Russell Goodway, leading to it allowed Cardiff to develop. former Council Leader and one-time With their better tides, both Barry and Lord Mayor, although nobody really Swansea might have made it, but knew just what that meant. geography was against them. Newport, too, might have been in the running if it Cardiff never made it as EU Capital of hadn’t been for an early failure of Culture for 2008, although it bid hard. tramway and railway builders to exploit Other contenders were bigger places. the routes to their natural epicentre. Liverpool, another post-industrial port with a multi-cultural hinterland and the The coal and iron explosion of the city which won, is enormous by early nineteenth century made Cardiff comparison. Cardiff doesn’t connect with expand like an angioplasty balloon. peter finch finds its Valleys was one of the judging panel’s The Bute family, above all others, held criticisms. The Valleys which gave the city sway: land owners, transport delicate light in its industrial existence. Rhondda. Taff. developers, dock builders, pre-eminent Rumney. Their populations flock here for exploiters of trade. They were in anonymous Cardiff the glitter of Cardiff’s shops and the gleam charge for more than a hundred years. of its bars. They run our service industries, manage our call centres. Do we do By the time the boom was all over and here’s more rain, sheets of it, anything for them? We take their money. industry in rapid decline the population coming in from the south west had risen by more than 250,000, and pouring up Queen Street. Cardiff, which began as a sliver of a sucking in immigrants from all over tThe pedestrians are mostly half clad and medieval town, clustered inside town Wales, from Ireland, the West Country, trying to ignore it. Style but no grace. walls, south of the Castle, east of the and beyond. We lived in Victorian This is Friday night and the capital is Taff river, is now an extended lozenge. terraces or slumland back-to-backs. The doing what it usually does. Celebrating It’s built into the elongated space that streets were dark. Cardiff, leading coal 10 the present. Living in the hedonistic lies north of the sea and south of the exporter of the world, five docks, a moment and doing it for all it’s worth. ridges that mark the beginnings of the hundred warehouses and endless rail Reports that Cardiff consumes more coal field. Cardiff squeezes east yards, sat, smelling of the steel works, alcohol than anywhere else in the UK through Trowbridge, Pentwyn and in the unending Welsh mist.

spring 2005 capital thoughts

World cities had long pasts, great ancient domes on Ferry Road. Millennium Star light. A promised land of Ikea, Marks buildings, planned early redevelopments, Cruisers on the Arms Park. A great and Spencer, B&Q. And places you can trappings of Empire, might and power. boulevard connects the old city with actually walk to. Cardiff had St John’s Church, the Castle, the new. The bronzed cycle helmet of Splott and Grange farmhouses and a the Wales Millennium Centre changes I’m walking now, down Lloyd George, monument to a great ancient tree which colour with the sky. But the past has towards the Bay. The magnet of water. once stood at Fairoak. The stump is still largely been forgotten. Cardiff is now a In front of me is the focus: Pier Head there, top of Ty Draw Road, rotting but post-modern city – dense, growing, Building, red brick with unaccountable signposted. Go take a look. and anonymous. cannons still in its forecourt, dwarfed by the new buildings around it. There are other parts of the past which Unlike its rivals Cardiff relishes its Schizophrenic Lloyd George with its we could have honoured. But mostly otherness. Distance and alienation; a two street signs on opposite sides: we’ve knocked the city flat. The world unknowable, full of anxiety, speed Lloyd George Avenue and Bute Avenue – Georgian Town Hall on its island in the and noise. It does not yet have the high- the two makers of Wales. Along it run middle of High Street; the Victorian rise, system-build and featureless city Persimmon’s apartment blocks – Rimini, Town Hall with its monumental columns block look of Chicago or Birmingham Amalfi, Sienna, Sorrento. All Italian. lining St Mary Street; the Cardiff Arms where adornment, embellishment and Behind them rises Redrow’s Altolusso Hotel sitting at right angles across personalisation have been sacrificed in on Bute Terrace, 292 skyscraper Castle Street; the great Park Hall Cinema the face of the pulsating hoards. But it apartments. A new Mediterranean for and Theatre, now a car park; the does have anonymity and it celebrates Wales. Lloyd George spills out onto medieval Town Walls, now a couple of metres back of Bradford & Bingley; Bethel Chapel, later the Casablanca Club, in Mount Stuart Square, now an open space; the perfect termination of Georgianesque Windsor Place in the arc of St Andrews Crescent, now wrenched apart by Boulevard de Nantes and its four lane traffic; Hills Drydock; the Rhymney Rail Station; the Canal which made parts of Cardiff look like Amsterdam; the Missions to Seamen; The Mariners Church on the West Dock Basin; the Custom House, the North and South, the New Sea Lock, the Glastonbury Arms, the Greyhound, the Rainbow Club, the Cape Horn Hotel, the Peel Street Mosque.

These things have gone and, for the most part, are now unremarked in the landscape. No plaques or signs. There that. You can go from one end of Queen Roald Dahl Plass, Norwegian author, was one on the Town Wall but it’s been Street to the other on a crowded son of Cardiff. To my right, beyond the taken down. Should Cardiff have Saturday and have no one look at you, underpass graffitied as Docks Crew redeveloped itself differently? Or are other than charity collectors and Big 2003 is the Greek Church. Then Ty these memories of past places merely Issue sellers. You get swift service from Gobaith, for the destitute. Cardiff: Wales nostalgia? Cities should not be shop assistants who never talk to you. behind it, Europe in front. museums. Some things will inevitably You can have an affair here and no one be in the way, others will fall down. will spot you. You can commit a murder Cardiff’s history has been badly served and not be caught. by the rush of the late twentieth • Peter Finch is Chief Executive of century. The gallop for profit has given But don’t let’s exaggerate the Academi, the Welsh writers 11 us new bars and apartments to be depersonalisation. Compared to organisation. This essay is adapted proud of. The lights of Cardiff Bay now Manchester, Birmingham or London, from his Real Cardiff Two – shine all the way over to Bristol. Snow life here is all sweetness and delicate The Greater City, Seren Books, 2004.

spring 2005 capital thoughts city reflections

Chelsea and Manhattan are my thought of essentially as a Bristol favourite places, I more honestly Channel seaport. It was a world every explain what, in Welsh terms, my bit as satisfying, and indeed fascinating criterion would be. I explain that I as the one Dylan Thomas had found would find it impossible to live more some forty miles along the coast. I was than fifteen minutes or so from a range shaped by that town and have always of pubs (preferably including a Brains expressed gratitude and loyalty house), Indian, Chinese, Italian and towards it, but I was always aware that French restaurants, a mutiplex cinema my essential persona had been or two, a theatre and concert hall, a determined at an earlier time in other league football ground, several rugby places. Both my parents were products grounds, a college and reference of the south Wales Valleys and had library, five or so bus routes, a grown up in the inter-war Depression. mainline railway station with regular They had both belonged to families that and direct trains to London, a few had experienced unemployment and supermarkets, a fish and chip shop, an personal tragedy. My grandmother had art gallery, a beautiful medieval church, died during her ninth pregnancy when an off licence, a travel agency and my mother was one, and when my peter stead wonders finally, and quite essentially, a sea father was fourteen his father died as a view. I am then a simple, man, easily result of an accident underground. where Welsh urbanity pleased and, as it happens, thoroughly Throughout my childhood I was taught contented and fulfilled. the realities of industrial life and told of begins and ends how families dealt with the inevitable Having got that off my chest I then reversals of fortune. I have never have to listen to almost every other doubted that it was from earlier family e are all suburban now” person present extol the virtues of the experiences that I took the spiritual, was Leo Abse’s Welsh countryside. I quite enjoy their ethical and political values that I have immediate conclusion as accounts of deepest Gower, the attempted to sustain. There had been whe learnt of the Welsh Tory gains in the drama in their lives (far more than I was Beacons, Cardigan Bay, ’unknown’ mid 1979 General Election. That day I could Wales and even occasionally, and ever to experience), but it had not been not have been the only member of his somewhat perversely it seems to me, all doom and gloom for the Valleys had television audience who felt distant north Wales. But their loving given them (as I was to be reminded in uncomfortable and a little ashamed to be descriptions, taken together with an all my holidays in their childhood told that I was now a citizen of an inspection of their inevitable framed homes) a totally positive outlook on life. increasingly suburban nation. I have landscapes by the latest artistic genius subsequently been forced to concede to come out of Fishguard or Two themes stand out and constitute that in strict sociological terms I am Machynlleth, are enough for me. My influences for which I always give thanks. essentially a suburban man, albeit one urban identity is clinched by my Both my parents thought of themselves who no longer lives in a ’semi’. This relative indifference to the hinterland, a as being thoroughly urban and as realisation hurts because, of course, I deprived world from which my citizens of towns that were integrally a imagine myself to be a truly urban man, ancestors were happy to escape. I am a part of an urban culture that extended someone whose identity has been forged strictly once or twice a year man. I just across the United Kingdom and indeed by all those sophisticated elements that need the occasional day out (and it has the United States where relatives had define modern urban culture. to be that) to reassure myself that migrated. The Welsh language was Wales is still both lovely, and sleepy. spoken at the hearth and in chapel but 12 In dinner parties one always seems to alongside that easily accepted base there end up talking about where one would In truth most of my urban requirements was an open invitation for them to avail ideally choose to live and, once I have were met from the outset as I was born themselves of schools, clubs, sports, protected my image by boasting that and grew up in Barry, a town that I societies, films, dance halls concerts

spring 2005 capital thoughts chain stores and cheap excursions. The now the poorest part of the European transport (especially rail). Of course, whole point about surviving financially Union and that many of the structures this is precisely where Leo Abse’s was that there was, not so much ’out that normally allowed urban fulfilment analysis becomes relevant for in there’ as, all around a world of had collapsed. For over a century general our middle classes have entertainment and diversion. To be industry had done everything for us. become entirely suburban. They live in modern and sophisticated was to avail First there were jobs and then, as the their semis in fairly well defined zones oneself of all this fun. historian G.M. Young said, “things at the edge of town or preferably on tended towards a culture”. Of course, it more spacious lots in adjacent villages This sense of being in the swim rather is always the job of the historian and where the dogs, green wellies and disguised a more complex sociology. All social commentator to analyse the way four-wheel drive vehicles allow a my parents’ immediate ancestors had cultures are tending and it must be said degree of squirearchy play-acting. come to town from Victorian rural that for urban Wales things were not society, be it in Wales, England or looking good. We had lost our way. Not only is life in the suburbs good (the Ireland and they had brought much of school run is a bit of a nuisance) but it the countryside with them. The old farm As Welsh communities lost their allows one to escape any degree of or village remained the spiritual home, economic raison d’être there were responsibility for what goes on (or does and even in the new industrial world other obvious explanations for urban not go on) downtown. Necessarily one there were chickens, geese, ducks and decline such as the dominance of the has to go to the occasional formal even ponies to be looked after. car, the unrelenting imperialism of function or WNO performance, but in Meanwhile, their Valley-reared children television and the decline of public general downtown has been abandoned could take the bus into the town centre and enter the twentieth century. And the important point is that they could enter it in the knowledge that their particular town was as good, if not better, than anywhere else in the Western world.

More than anything else, what I took from my parents was this sense that their upbringing had been special, that they had been educationally and culturally fulfilled because Merthyr and Maesteg, although savaged by the Depression, had not only been as up to date and modern as anywhere else but were in themselves wonderful places of which they could unashamedly boast. I have gone on boasting for them and even now I echo my father in believing Merthyr to be a key metropolis in the history of Western civilisation and my mother in thinking Maesteg rather trendy.

That urban world of which both my parents and I were products had a final flourish in the 1960s before de- industrialisation plunged hitherto vibrant and culturally self-sufficient small towns and villages into a new era of decay, anonymity and lifelessness. There were consolations such as the internet, satellite television, cheap flights to Spain 13 and the growing sophistication of Cardiff, but there was no disguising the fact that a huge tract of urban Wales was

Welsh suburban man – Leo Abse MP, pictured on Budget Day, 1969. capital thoughts

pour out talent. But now ’out’ is the operative word. The able students, charismatic actors and singers and precocious athletes are off to a wider and more favoured urban world and will return to Wales only for Christmas and the occasional award ceremony. Quite simply the range of life-fulfilling opportunities on offer in our best schools and colleges must now be made available around the clock to society as a whole. The cultural richness of the short school day must become the template for the life of the local community in general. Everything must be done to ensure that access, for access it was that once made these places great.

Life must be injected into our ruined towns and villages and in the larger centres control must be seized back from the brewers. This calls for political vision, Miners coming of shift at Maerdy Colliery, the last pit in the Rhondda where there were once 52 pits: but these are tasks that will require more “I was always aware that my essential persona had been determined at an earlier time in other places” (Photograph from A Century of Struggle – Britains Miners in Pictures 1889 – 1989, NUM 1989). than the efforts of politicians. The people of Wales, that is all the people of Wales, and control has been handed to the and one visit to San Paulo was enough to must enlist in the fight to reconstitute brewers. This is probably a worldwide make me feel like a real country bumpkin. urban society. Public money can only be phenomenon but I suggest it would be the start. It is now private money that is hard to find another urban area in the Now many people in Wales, especially needed to ensure that there is renewed Western world to rival Wales in terms of the old and the young are stuck in what access to the kind of cultural the number of once commercial and are unmistakably dead villages or far- opportunities that once made Wales cultural buildings converted to bars. The flung estates. Urban life means a train distinctive and distinguished. pub has always been important as or bus journey in and a crowded taxi Dylan Thomas made clear in Old Garbo, ride back in the early hours. It is a Corporate sponsorship and hospitality the classic text of Welsh urban life, but journalistic cliché that ’taxi drivers are useful elements but they should not even he could have predicted that know best’, but only in Wales do they not be a substitute for personal Welsh urban culture would become know more about society than involvement. Risks need to be taken, exclusively a matter of boozing. teachers, policemen or politicians. we need faith in people’s taste and we should give up that tendency to Quite simply in Wales we need to Throughout urban Wales local heritage underestimate our own cultural reconstitute urban society. A showpiece committees have been established with sophistication. Our only concern Cardiff is highly desirable (every society the specific aim of engendering local should be the quality of local life. It is a needs a metropolis) but it is not enough. pride. Together with other historians I huge challenge but if we fail Wales will The task is huge because to an extent we have been approached by them to give become merely a land of sheep and disguised the fact that our classic urban talks in which I highlight why village X tourists with a community of culture (1880-1980) had flourished in or town Y played a crucial role in forging commuters on Deeside and one of what Sir Glanmor Williams once Welsh radical politics, or to give an politicians and broadcasters huddled described as “an archipelago of small account of how that particular place’s around the Taff. Meanwhile, of course, towns and villages”. We were always famous sons and daughters had gone there will always be active Welsh essentially villagers masquerading as on to fill churches, win matches, scribble societies in London and Benidorm. townies but our unrivalled rail network a few stories or poems, thrill Covent 14 allowed us to get away with it. We were Garden and take Hollywood by storm. never unremittingly urban in the same • Peter Stead is a cultural commentator sense of London’s East End, New York’s Thanks to dedicated and inspirational and visiting Professor of History at the Lower East Side or Chicago’s South Side teachers our villages and towns still University of Glamorgan

spring 2005 capital thoughts david blackaby and stephen drinkwater argue that Cardiff’s growth is increasing economic disparities between east and west Wales a cuckoo in the nest

t is fifty years since Cardiff was table one: gross value added per head. index (UK = 100) made the capital city of Wales. Since then, and especially in Wales West Wales East Wales Cardiff Newport Swansea irecent years, it has seen substantial and the and Vale and Mon. private and public sector investment. Valleys This has led to population growth and 1995 84 74 101 106 91 81 rising prosperity levels relative to the 1996 83 73 100 104 91 80 rest of the country. In recent years there 1997 81 71 100 105 91 79 has been a centralization of public 1998 79 68 99 104 95 79 sector agencies and public facilities in 1999 79 67 100 107 99 80 Cardiff, such as the Millennium 2000 78 66 100 109 101 81 Stadium and Millennium Centre and of 2001 79 66 101 114 99 82 course the National Assembly, as well 2002 78 65 101 114 97 83 as the enormous investment in the Source: National Assembly for Wales web site Cardiff Bay regeneration project. This has led some to suggest that Cardiff and movement in GVA over time across employment. One way in which the gap has benefited far more from being our the three major cities in south Wales is between East and West was to be closed capital city than Wales has benefited very different. Cardiff has a GVA per head was through employment creation. from having Cardiff as its capital. above the UK average and, while However, Table 2 shows that from March remaining relatively stable between 1995 2000 to February 2004 nearly as many Measures of economic welfare have and 1999, its position has seen a dramatic jobs were created in East Wales (40,000), long been the subject of controversy improvement since 1999. On the other as in West Wales and the Valleys (44,000), but in spite of its many weaknesses hand, Newport had a strong performance despite the fact that the labour force is Gross Value Added (GVA) per head has between 1995 and 1999 (reaching the UK well over a third higher in the West. remained the principal yardstick and average in 2000), but its relative position standing point in assessing the level of has weakened since 1997. The relative Figure 1 also reveals that the employment economic activity and welfare in a GVA per head in Swansea shows the rate has increased more quickly in the society. Table 1 shows that a greatest stability, recording a slight East than in the West. At the same time, a substantial gap exists between levels improvement since 1999. Swansea has relative improvement has been seen in of prosperity in Wales compared to the done much better than the whole of West the position of West Wales and the Valleys UK as a whole and the gap shows no Wales and the Valleys which has seen its since February 2004. signs of closing. In 2002, GVA was only relative position decline since 1995. 78 per cent of the UK average. table two: employment ’000 These recent changes are somewhat Within Wales a substantial gap exists surprising given that West Wales and the West Wales East between East and West. Proximity to Valleys has Objective 1 designation for and Valleys Wales Offa’s Dyke and its major lines of the period 2000-2006, resulting in a £1.2 March 97 to Feb 98 743 457 communication to neighbouring English billion injection from the EU matched by March 98 to Feb 99 748 452 centres of population are major at least £1.3 billion from other sources. March 99 to Feb 00 737 477 characteristics of the more successful The relatively low level of GVA per head March 00 to Feb 01 744 483 areas. Reflecting its relatively low levels in West Wales and the Valleys is a result March 01 to Feb 02 752 474 15 of prosperity in 2000, West Wales and the of two major factors: low wages and a March 02 to Feb 03 760 497 Valleys qualified for EU Objective 1 relatively low proportion of the March 03 to Feb 04 788 523 funding. The table shows that the level population of working age in Source: National Assembly for Wales web site

spring 2005 capital thoughts

figure one: employment rate (rolling year)

Source: data taken from National Assembly for Wales web site

Table 3 shows that the labour market Welsh average of 70.5 per cent. and professionals, has an advantage profiles of the three cities are very Earning levels, however, are very over Newport and Swansea where the different. Cardiff, with a population of different. Cardiff has the highest figures are close to the Welsh average 315,000, has seen the fastest growth in earnings at £455.1 per week, well of 36.1 per cent. Cardiff also has population in recent times with a 9.8 above the Welsh average at £414.5. relatively fewer employees in Operative per cent increase since 1981. The figure Swansea has the lowest earnings at and Elementary Occupations than for Newport is 4.3 per cent, while £385.3, which helps account for its Newport and Swansea, helping to Swansea has seen a 2 per cent relatively low level of GVA per head. improve its relative position further. population decline over that time. The level of earnings in an area will be In terms of industrial structure, Cardiff has 16 The percentage of the population of strongly influenced by its industrial and fewer employees in manufacturing, while working age in employment is very occupational structure and the skills of Newport and Swansea are close to the similar in the three cities, ranging from its workforce. Cardiff with 47 per cent Welsh average at 16.1 per cent. A major 70.7 to 71.4 per cent, and close to the of its workforce defined as managers strength of Cardiff’s individual structure is

spring 2005 capital thoughts

table three: labour market area profiles 2003

Cardiff Newport Swansea Wales Population 315,100 139,300 224,600 2,938,000 In Employment % 70.7 71.4 71 70.5 Unemployment rate 6 4.9 5.9 5.1 Gross Weekly Pay (Full-time) 455.1 421.9 385.3 414.5 Employment by Occupation % Managers and Professionals 47.2 35 37.4 36.1 Administrative and Skilled Trades 23.2 22.1 25.2 25.3 Sales and Service Occupations 15.1 20.2 18.4 16.2 Operative and Elementary 14.6 22.7 19 22.3 Employment by Industry % Manufacturing 6.7 17 16.1 16.1 Construction 5.7 3.8 4.2 4.2 Services 87.1 78.7 77.9 77.9 Finance, IT, Business 22 16 16.5 11.9 Qualifications NVQ3 and above 51.1 36.9 45.6 40.2 No qualifications 14.3 19.3 16 17.8 Source: Nomis the relatively high numbers in finance, IT citizens. Concentration of growth in the UK, a source of injustice and and business service industries. certain parts of the country not only unfairness is felt by many outside the damages the economy’s overall growth southeast of England arising from The level of education and skills is performance but also creates social political power being exercised by a another important factor in determining problems in the deprived areas and wealthier region insensitive to the an individual’s earnings and economic leads to an enormous waste of economic problems of other areas. The success. In a world where the same productive resources. problems arising from the technology is available to all, it is the concentration of political power have skills and resourcefulness of those Evidence reveals that inequalities are resulted in the call for greater self- implementing that technology which increasing in Wales. The economy is determination in economic and political determines economic success. Again increasingly being divided along an matters within the regions. It is Cardiff is found to have the highest east-west axis. There are a number of somewhat ironic that the spending of skilled workforce with over half having adverse economic consequences of Objective One funding is now NVQ3 qualifications (’A’ level regional economic disparities. They lead administered by the Assembly equivalent) or above. Those with no to increases in employment inequality, Government out of Cardiff, with many qualifications make up 14.3 per cent of increases in relative inflationary jobs being created in that area from the workforce, which is below the pressures, and to a less than effective this source. Welsh average (17.8 per cent) and use of the nation’s infrastructure and below the figure for Newport and social capital. Moreover, the greater the Also it was recognised that the Swansea. congestion within a region, the greater National Assembly would have a the upward pressure on costs and favourable economic impact on the The increase in skills base of the prices, – for example, average house area within which it was located. The Cardiff population has been partly prices in Cardiff are more than twice government is a source of well- achieved by the migration of the those in Blaenau Gwent – and the rewarded and high-status employment youngest and most economically greater the problem of pollution. Figure and acts as a magnet for other well- productive members of the population 2 shows that commuting into Cardiff is rewarded activities. This has been from other areas of Wales. increasing and is double that of compounded by other major Newport, which is more than double investment projects, such as the A central economic question facing that of Swansea. Millennium Centre being sited in the policy makers in Wales is whether a city. Given its size, an individual 17 regionally imbalanced economy is one In addition, regional disparities may investment appraisal may suggest that that can grow efficiently and ensure also have adverse effects on the social Cardiff is the most cost effective rising living standards for all its unity and solidarity of a nation. Within location for any national facility.

spring 2005 capital thoughts

figure two: net commuting as a proportion of working age population

Source: data taken from National Assembly for Wales web site

However, the effect of grouping recognition of the special needs of it is time for the Assembly projects in the capital is to increase Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Government to implement a more regional inequalities. the Barnett formula was introduced. active policy of moving public sector This resulted in these less prosperous jobs away from the capital. Perhaps in Many argue that large-scale public areas receiving a higher level of Wales we have become overly investment is still required to ’finish the government expenditure per head preoccupied with catching up with job’ of creating a prominent capital city than the population in England. In England and spending public money which will act as a gateway to Wales, addition, many public sector jobs where the impact will be largest, rather attracting further investment and the have, in the past, and are currently than spending resources where needs prosperity created will spread out from being moved out of London to areas are greatest. Cardiff. The danger is that the benefits such as Wales. The Office of National may not spread past the iconic gateway. Statistics is moving jobs from London Evidence for a trickle down effect from to Newport. Cardiff is limited. If the Assembly Government wishes to increase Wales now needs its own internal type prosperity for people in all parts of Barnett formula and a more active Wales, it is important that it monitors its dispersal of public sector jobs to more own expenditure and makes decisions effectively spread prosperity to make sure this becomes a reality. throughout the country. If the 18 Westminster government can move • David Blackaby is Professor of Economics Regional policy in the UK has jobs from London to Newport to at the University of Wales, Swansea, and recognised the importance of reducing reduce regional inequalities, surely Stephen Drinkwater is a lecturer in regional inequalities. In the 1970s, in given the relative prosperity of Cardiff Economics at the University of Surrey.

spring 2005 politics and policy watershed denis balsom suggests that the 2005 general election will have a lasting impact on Welsh politics

he prevailing memory of the Assembly showing in 2003. Only Plaid May 2005 general election is Cymru fell on both measures, likely to be of Peter Law’s catastrophically when compared to the tremarkable capture of Blaenau Gwent. Party's high point in 1999. Electors in However, the substance of the full Wales continued to turnout to vote in results reveal a number of issues for slightly higher numbers than in Britain Wales and, in particular, raise as whole and, of course, in much questions concerning the future of greater number than participated in the devolution and the likely outcome of Assembly elections. the next Assembly elections in May 2007. Meanwhile, Peter Law's election to Parliament raises immediate issues for At one level, the election saw a return the National Assembly. With his to more normal competitive party expulsion, the Labour group is reduced politics after two exceptional landslide to 29 members, a minority of those in victories for Labour. In Wales this the Chamber. While this may not meant the demise of the 'Tory-free' undermine the Assembly Government zone and the return of three new on a day-to-day basis, Rhodri Morgan's Conservative MPs. Many observers had administration becomes desperately become overly complacent about vulnerable to Opposition tactics and is Conservative prospects in Wales, potentially susceptible to a motion of no forgetting perhaps, that in 1983 the confidence. It seems unlikely that Tories returned 14 MPs from Wales. Labour would seek to form another The Labour Party lost five seats, but coalition with the Liberal Democrats, not still returned an historically respectable least because the price they would 29 Members. At the same time demanded for any such accommodation Labour's popular support declined to would undoubtedly be high. With the 42.7 per cent, their smallest share of Conservative David Davies also returned the vote since the dark days of 1983. to Parliament, and not planning to stand The Liberal Democrats returned four down from the Assembly, Rhodri MPs, something not seen in Wales Morgan will be hoping that Westminster since 1950, whilst Plaid Cymru lost duties will keep him and Peter Law votes and the seat of Ceredigion. absent from many key divisions.

In the new post-devolutionary Wales, Managing the day to day business of a these results need to be measured minority government will no doubt against two yardsticks: the previous pre-occupy AMs in the short term. Of general election in 2001 and the last longer term significance will be the Assembly election in 2003. On both proposed changes to the Assembly's counts, the Liberal Democrats and the powers, the electoral system and an 19 Conservatives are up. Labour polled a anticipated boundary review. The 2005 smaller share of the vote in Wales than Labour Party Manifesto promised a in 2001, but improved on their White Paper on the future

spring 2005 politics and policy

development of the National the Assembly secure election via the apportionment in England. Until Assembly. Labour never fully endorsed regional lists designed to ensure recently, similar disparity existed in the findings of the Richard greater proportionality in Scotland, but the recent report of the Commission, but undertook to representation. The 2003 result in Boundary Commission reduced the strengthen the powers of the Clwyd West, where all three defeated number of Westminster Parliamentary Assembly and to alter aspects of the candidates from the main parties were seats in Scotland from 72 to 59, Assembly electoral system in an still able to join Alun Pugh as full achieving rough parity with England. amended Government of Wales Bill to members of the Assembly, is an The Government of Scotland Act has be introduced into the new Parliament. extreme example, but is now allowed the Scottish Parliament to universally quoted to discredit the retain the former seats for its franchise, Polling evidence collected in Ynys Môn present system. whilst returning Members to and Cardiff North during the general Westminster from the new divisions. In election campaign suggested that The Secretary of State for Wales, Peter Wales, the equivalent Act requires opinion on the future of the Assembly Hain, has proposed that candidates Parliamentary and Assembly remains very divided. More than half seeking election to the Assembly must constituencies to be co-terminus and of intending Conservative voters in choose to stand either for a for the number of regional list seats to these two seats wished to see the constituency, or on a regional list, but be half of that number. Any reduction Assembly abolished, whereas the two- are to be prevented from standing for in Westminster seats from Wales would thirds of Labour voters who supported both ballots. Currently, the impact of therefore be immediately felt in the the Assembly were evenly divided any such reform would Assembly, where the prevailing view, between seeking further powers or disproportionately fall upon the endorsed by Richard, is that there retaining the status quo. However, all opposition parties. The party bias of should be more, not fewer, AMs. the principal parties in Wales favour this proposal, in contrast, for example, Doubtless these matters will be the retention of the National Assembly to the introduction of a full system of addressed in the primary legislation and any new, British, leader of the proportional representation advocated required to amend the Government of Conservative Party will need to by the Richard Commission, may have Wales Act, but the way ahead is not recognise this fact. difficulty finding passage through the straightforward. House of Lords. Whilst Labour may be lukewarm on Aside from these legislative securing greater powers for the Furthermore, in 2006 the Electoral considerations, undoubtedly the Assembly, there is little doubt of their Commission will also assume greatest blow from the 2005 general commitment to amend the electoral responsibility for Parliamentary election was felt by Plaid Cymru. The system. Labour AMs remain offended boundaries. Wales currently returns 40 failure to re-capture Ynys Môn and the that party opponents who have been Members of Parliament, a gross over- loss of Ceredigion constitute a serious defeated in constituency elections to representation compared to setback for a Party that, in many ways,

general election result in wales 2005

RESULTS Change Change 2001 – 2003 – 2005 2005 Party Seats Net Votes %+/-% %* Labour 29 -5 594,821 42.7% -5.9% +2.7% Lib Dem 4 +2 256,223 18.4% +4.6% +4.3% Conservative 3 +3 297,830 21.4% +0.4% +1.5% Plaid Cymru 3 -1 174,838 12.6% -1.7% -8.6% UKIP 0 0 20,297 1.5% +0.6% -0.8% Green 0 0 7,144 0.5% +0.2% -3.0%** Forward Wales 0 0 3,461 0.2% +0.2% -0.8% BNP 0 0 1,689 0.1% +0.1% -0.3%** All Others (21) 1 +1 36,390 2.6% +0.3% -2.2% 20 TOTALS 40 6 1,392,693 Turn-out 62.4% +1.8% +24.2%* * constituency ballot ** regional ballot

spring 2005 politics and policy has been the grit in the oyster of the new political map of wales after 5 may 2005 general election modern Welsh politics. In large part, the road to devolution and the National Assembly has been enacted by Labour Governments, but from an agenda significantly driven by Plaid Cymru in Wales and the SNP in Scotland.

As Wales reflects upon the passing of Gwynfor Evans, it should be recalled that without the Carmarthen and Hamilton by- elections, there would have been no Crowther Commission on the Constitution. Without the Commission, no commitment to devolution would have been made, there would have been no referendum and no defeat of the Callaghan government. It can be argued that it was the impact of Thatcherism that really converted Labour to devolution. However, over the last thirty years the Welsh political agenda - whether it be the national curriculum, the Welsh Language Act, S4C, and the Assembly itself - has largely derived from Plaid Cymru acting as a policy making catalyst on Governments of both main parties.

The current malaise in Plaid Cymru is therefore of great import to the further pursuit of the national agenda in Wales. From the high point of 1999, Plaid Cymru has lost seats in the Assembly. In 2004 they lost control of two major local authorities and they have now lost a seat in Parliament. Following the retirement of Dafydd Wigley, the on/off resignation of Ieuan Wyn Jones has given rise not to a collective leadership, but to confusion.

Yet Plaid Cymru is not alone in needing The Liberal Democrats perhaps At first sight 2005 would not appear to to address leadership issues. Rhodri gained most at the general election. be a watershed election for Wales, for Morgan will be 68 in 2007 and whilst he Charles Kennedy achieved massive example compared with 1979. Yet remains fit and enthusiastic, Labour exposure, captured the anti-war watersheds only became clear with cannot ignore the question of succession sentiment and offered a 'soft' hindsight. If the 2005 results force Plaid indefinitely. Post Michael Howard, the alternative to those wishing to defect Cymru to resolve their leadership issues Conservatives will have a new leader from Labour. Come 2007, however, and grasp the coalition opportunities with possibly firmer views on the status the advantages of such electoral that this election has now created in the of the National Assembly.Current Tory prominence seem unlikely. Neither National Assembly, then the longer term policy of proposing a 'preferendum' will the Liberal Democrats be seen as impact of an apparent electoral reverse avoids the issue and appears open- part of the outgoing Assembly could yet be both positive and profound. 21 minded, but for the Conservatives to government as happened in 2003. A prosper, an absolute commitment to the new face as leader could therefore • Denis Balsom is Editor of The Wales Assembly is surely necessary. also refresh’ the Party’s offering. Yearbook.

spring 2005 politics and policy

Rowlands’s caveat anticipated Labour’s lukewarm attitude towards the Richard recommendations and, in particular, to high hopes the proposal that the Assembly be elected by the single transferable vote method of proportional representation. Moreover, the recommendation that he had initially been sceptical that the Assembly be given powers of change was needed so soon, but had primary legislation would entail, by been persuaded otherwise by the analogy with Scotland, a reduction in weight of the evidence. the number of Welsh MPs at Westminster: and as Charlie Jeffery The central finding of the Richard report succinctly comments, “Turkeys rarely was that the division of power in the vote willingly for Christmas.” Government of Wales Act between London and Cardiff had no logical Welsh Politics Come of Age comprises rationale. The powers of the National essays both by constitutional Assembly were uneven, if not incoherent; commentators and by practising indeed they were “grotesque” and a politicians, both from Cardiff Bay, and “lawyer’s nightmare”. Certainly, few from Westminster. Llew Smith, MP for members of the public would have been Blaenau Gwent, is a dissident voice in able to describe with any degree of arguing that the Richard precision what powers the Assembly recommendations would lead to possessed. To discover the precise range separatism. Instead of expanding the of powers one has to consult the powers of the Assembly, he says Wales comprehensive database entitled Wales would do better to abolish it so as to Legislation Online, at Cardiff Law School secure real devolution to local vernon bogdanor – www.wales-legislation.org.uk. authorities. The Commission, he Moreover, the ability of the National claims, consulted only the “chattering queries whether Assembly to promote its legislation classes” and not the real grass roots of depends crucially upon the exigencies Welsh opinion. Welsh politics have and vicissitudes of the Westminster timetable. The obvious remedy, so it However, it is always wise to be yet ‘come of age’ seems, would be for the National sceptical when politicians claim that Assembly to be given powers of primary they have a unique insight into the legislation on the Scottish model. grass-roots; and, in perhaps the most The Richard Commission was the Welsh interesting chapter in the book, Richard substitute for the Scottish Constitutional The contributors to Welsh Politics Wyn Jones and Roger Scully of the Convention, which gave rise to a Come of Age make much of the fact University of Wales, Aberystwyth, show consensus on the powers of a Scottish that the recommendations of the that Smith’s claims are not supported Parliament. There was no attempt on Richard Commission were unanimous. by the evidence. They go perhaps a the part of the dominant Labour Party to However, the former Labour MP, Ted little too far when they say that elicit a similar consensus in Wales. It is Rowlands, wrote a letter, published as devolution is now the “settled will” of striking, nonetheless, that the Annex 8 of the report, distancing the Welsh people. Just 29 per cent Commission was established just three himself from the recommendations: would be sorry if the Assembly were years after the birth of the National abolished – hardly a ringing Assembly, a clear sign that devolution in “I do not believe that the experience endorsement – while 18 per cent would Wales is, in the famous words of Ron and evidence of just four years of be pleased and 43 per cent would be Davies, `a process not an event’. Indeed, the devolution settlement justifies neither pleased nor sorry. Nevertheless, John Osmond believes that devolution concluding at this stage that it they do show that Welsh public opinion in Wales contains within itself “an should be supplanted by an is strongly in favour of an increase in 22 inbuilt dynamic for change, one that at alternative model. However, the the powers of the Assembly. times has swept the parties forward on experience of operating the a tide of events seemingly beyond their settlement over the coming years As Wyn Jones and Scully note, it is a control”. Lord Richard himself said that may justify such a change.” paradox that while “the Welsh electorate

spring 2005 politics and policy appear distinctly under-whelmed by the Despite these drawbacks Welsh Politics recommendations, seeking, against experience of devolution so far, the Come of Age provides a clear and Labour, primary powers for Wales, STV, a Welsh electorate have developed an accurate summary of the Richard reduction in the number of Welsh MPs at appetite for more devolution rather than recommendations and of the debate Westminster and perhaps even tax- less, with the plurality of voters now which has followed the report. It is raising powers. His argument was supporting a more powerful parliament rounded off with a flourish by a supported in an important speech by Nick with legislative and tax-varying powers.” stimulating and provocative chapter by Bourne, leader of the Welsh They explain this paradox by suggesting Director of the Institute of Welsh Affairs Conservatives in the National Assembly, that, while approval of what the John Osmond on the implications of on 9 March to the Welsh Governance Assembly has actually done is fairly Richard for coalition politics in Wales. Centre at Cardiff University. Nevertheless, weak, there has, nevertheless, been a For Osmond, “Welsh politics will come such a coalition looks unlikely at present growth in diffuse support for the of age when the Welsh since the Conservatives, despite Nick principle of devolution since 1999, electorate have Bourne, oscillate between wanting to run especially amongst those who did not the Assembly and to abolish it. previously feel a strong sense of Welsh Meanwhile, Plaid Cymru still finds it national identity. Devolution has come difficult to decide whether to help to be accepted in Wales, if perhaps make devolution work, or to prove that unenthusiastically, and the main it cannot work so as to encourage argument is now over the form it support for separatism. At times, the should take. party seems to be performing both roles simultaneously. With the exception of Llew Smith the contributors to Welsh Politics Come of For an alternative government to be Age are generally sympathetic to the possible in Wales, the three non- Richard proposals. Much of the book Labour parties will have to unlearn the does little more than dot the ’i’s and habits of Westminster politics and cross the ’t’s of the report. It is a pity develop conscious coalition strategies, that the book is so short of as they have in some of the Welsh comparative evidence, in particular, counties. This involves a search for from Germany, a country on which common ground. Can the Charlie Jeffery, one of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and contributors, is an expert. The Welsh Plaid Cymru really come to abandon model of devolution, dividing the deep-seated habits of mind primary powers in London from associated with decades of secondary powers devolved to Cardiff, Westminster politics? Despite was first advocated by the Kilbrandon lived through the experience of Osmond’s optimism, this prospect still Commission, on the basis of an changing their government.” But, if appears somewhat distant. To this, no analogy with German experience, there is ever to be an alternative doubt prejudiced English observer, it which in fact it misunderstood. government in Wales, the other parties looks as if it may well take some Moreover, when Kilbrandon reported in will have to learn to co-operate considerable period of time before 1973, Germany was still enjoying an together to produce an alternative Welsh politics finally comes of age. economic miracle, partly, it was programme. It is highly unlikely that Until that happens, this book can safely thought, due to the consensus politics either the Conservatives, Liberal be recommended as an excellent guide generated by federalism. Now, of Democrats or Plaid Cymru will be able to the ongoing debate.. course, things are quite different, and to form a government on their own in Germany has set up a commission to Wales in the foreseeable future. There • Vernon Bogdanor is Professor of consider how the federal system can is unlikely to be a two-party alternation Government at Oxford University. He is be made to yield greater accountability. of power in Wales as there is at a member of the committee This is to escape from Westminster. Therefore, the only way administering the Economic and Social Politikverflechtung – a system of in which Labour can be displaced from Research Council’s Devolution and government so interlocked that it is government in Cardiff Bay is through a Constitutional Change Programme, joint difficult to pinpoint accountability on three-party coalition. publisher with the IWA of Welsh 23 anyone for anything. There is, surely, Politics Come of Age: Responses to much food for thought here for those Osmond sees the germ of such a the Richard Commission, available from interested in devolution in Wales. coalition in a commitment to the Richard the IWA at £14.99

spring 2005 politics and policy an alternative government

here are several reasons why Lord Richard. The Latin caution ’festina the public remains sceptical lente’ (hasten slowly) is appropriate about the Assembly. One of here. Allowing the Assembly time to tthese reasons is that, despite the poor bed in has always seemed to me to be performance of the government, there the wisest course of action. I think that exists the perception that there is no it is desirable that there are at least real prospect of change. This may in three Assembly terms before such a part explain the almost universal change is brought about. identification of the Welsh Assembly Government with the institution itself, I believe that the current settlement is the National Assembly for Wales. It is ultimately untenable and it would be not, perhaps, an issue that exercises difficult to argue for the status quo in the the minds of the public on a daily long term. But I also believe there is little basis, but I do believe there is a latent thirst for going back to the old system. feeling of despondency eating away at Opinion polls have demonstrated that the legitimacy of the Assembly. An the electorate is generally supportive of apparent one-party state is unhealthy powers on subject areas like health, for Welsh democracy. education, rural affairs and culture, residing in Cardiff rather than nick bourne argues Welsh Conservatives have a Westminster. Welsh political topography responsibility to grapple with the has changed and I do not believe that it that the opposition important issues facing Wales today would assist the Welsh Conservative and one of those key issues is that of Party to maintain that the world is flat parties in the National Assembly powers. Of course, vital when clearly it is not. issues such as health, education, the Assembly need to economy and culture occupy most of It is worth noting that an enormous our time, but constitutional questions amount of time, money and effort have entertain the idea of are also crucial. been invested in the Assembly, not just within the narrow confines of the coalition On the Richard Commission’s Assembly buildings in Cathays Park recommendations on increasing the and Cardiff Bay, but also by industry, Assembly’s legislative powers the most charities and throughout public life – sensible road ahead is for the people of for example, in our universities, Wales to decide in a referendum – or schools and hospitals. Nor can I ignore ’preferendum’. A Conservative that Welsh Conservatives have fared government will ask the electorate to well in a devolved Wales. I do not base indicate their preference from a series my views on enlightened self-interest of options, including abolition, the but I would be foolish in the extreme to status quo and a primary law-making ignore this dimension. Parliament. 24 In his St David’s Lecture to the Welsh My own preference is for a legislative Governance Centre three years ago, Parliament, although not necessarily Paul Murphy, the then Secretary of within the time-scale suggested by State for Wales, said “the greatest

spring 2005 Sitting together in the National Assembly has given the opposition parties an opportunity to at least get to know one another: “In the debating chamber, opposition parties often work together and have exploited rare opportunities to defeat Welsh Labour.” protection the Assembly will ever have committee meetings and tended to Knock on any door in Wales and the will be its reputation.” I agree. Three stifle debate in plenary. devolved issues likely to be raised are years later and the Assembly’s health, council tax and the state of reputation is still very much in question On the policy front, it often seems that education. but it is Labour that is pushing the self- devolution has failed to make destruct button. It is Labour’s record I substantial differences. This has not Rhodri Morgan argues that our believe that is damaging the been helped by a reliance on headline Welshness means we should shun Assembly’s reputation both on grabbing gimmicks. They may work choice in public services – he maintains substantive policy issues like the health for an election but they do not bring that choice does not fit with the Welsh service and also on matters of process about real long-term benefits. To give character. For the Assembly like committee scrutiny. two typical examples – on education, government, this means foundation it has emerged that the ’free’ breakfast hospitals and specialist schools are not Openness and accountability are key initiative for ’every’ primary school an option, despite the actions of their selling points for devolution. Indeed, in pupil was only ever intended for one colleagues in Westminster. I do not 1998, Rhodri Morgan said, "The child in every ten and the costs have believe that the people of Wales are Assembly belongs to the people, not soared. On health, the promise of pre-occupied with ideology, rather they the Welsh establishment". Despite the ’free’ prescriptions is still little more want high-quality and efficient public stated good intentions of the Assembly than a pledge. Meanwhile, the weighty services. It is not characteristically government, democracy has not been issues of school and university Welsh to be the sick man of Europe, or, well served by an increasingly funding, hospital waiting lists and the indeed, the poor man of the United complacent ruling party. Particularly level of council tax remain major Kingdom. That is, however, the since Labour has won a working concerns. Serious political will is situation we are in. There is a real need majority (albeit slim), they have required to make a positive impact on for an alternative agenda. 25 demonstrated considerable arrogance these important issues. I realise I in their handling of Assembly business. speak from a position of opposition The possibility of coalition stems They have reduced the frequency of but these are widely held views. essentially from Labour’s failures to

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make devolution a success and bring idea of a government in the Assembly opposition parties, including health, about the changes needed for the without Labour inconceivable? What of education, housing, rural affairs and the people of Wales. Labour dominance is the opposition parties and the prospects Welsh language. It is easy for us all to now being challenged at Westminster for working together? seek refuge in ideological purity, to refer and at local authority level. Indeed, the endlessly to the past and not the future, local government elections of 2004, The presence of an Assembly has not but that will not move Wales forward. when Labour polled 35.7 per cent of created an enthusiasm to vote Political parties after all encompass the vote, may well be a portent for the nationalist. Support for Plaid Cymru many opinions as any politician can future. In the 2003 Assembly elections, dwindled at the 2003 Assembly testify. For the Welsh Conservatives, Labour polled around 38 per cent. election and the party does not pose a working together would present an There still persists the psyche, major threat to Labour power. The opportunity to implement some of our however, not only among Labour Liberal Democrats have flatlined and cherished Conservative ideals. members, that there is no viable have the smallest representation in the alternative in the Assembly. No other Assembly, if John Marek AM of This will be a difficult prospect – party singly is currently able to take on Forward Wales will forgive me. perhaps a long-term prospect – and it the strength of the Labour machine in can only start by greater co-operation. Wales and govern on its own. But there I am the first to boast about the strides This has begun to good effect. In the is a need for competitive politics. we have made as a party, but it is debating chamber, opposition parties unrealistic to expect Welsh often work together and have exploited Voter apathy is a major problem in Conservatives to be able to form a rare opportunities to defeat Labour, on Western democracies. Turnout in the last government alone in the near future. the Business Statement and the First Assembly elections was only 38 per Complicated mathematical formulae Minister’s Annual Report for example. I cent, a fall of 8 per cent since 1999. create many different permutations; few, believe the Welsh electorate will be Entrenched Labour government and however, throw up the likelihood of sole more likely to follow the argument perpetual opposition for the other Conservative governance in Wales (not presented by the Richard Commission parties creates stale and uninviting yet anyway), or indeed sole Plaid Cymru if they could engage more readily with politics. It is little wonder there is no or Liberal Democrat governance. the Assembly and were presented with clamour for more powers for the the prospect of an alternative Assembly among the Welsh people. This means we should examine the government in Wales. Labour Competitive politics would raise merits of working together. This may hegemony must be tested and one way standards in all political parties. Labour’s well be a long term project, but if to do this is to entertain the idea of monopoly is unhealthy, undesirable and people can see politicians putting issues opposition collaboration. does not serve the cause of devolution. ahead of narrow party interests then I believe the Welsh public will respond • Nick Bourne is Leader of the Welsh There is undoubtedly a need for the enthusiastically. They will be keen to Conservatives in the National prospect of a change in government in support both our policies and, Assembly. This is an edited excerpt Wales. Sadly, the only question seems to importantly, the Assembly as an from the Welsh Governance Centre St be whether Labour can rule alone or with institution. There are many areas where David’s Day annual lecture he gave at the help of the Liberal Democrats. Is the we can work together with other Cardiff University in March.

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spring 2005 politics and policy adam price says that with its permanent majority the Assembly is replicating Westminster’s ‘conformity of indivisible power’ democratic deficit

evolution was meant to be between ’the Governing power’, ’the the catalyst for a new politics. Legislative power’, and ’the Judicative It was meant to address the power’. democraticd deficit of falling turnouts and disillusionment with a Government What subsequently developed was a that was over-bearing and remote. It constitutional system, in which King was going to change the relationship and Parliament were limited by the between the government and the authority of the other, the system of governed. What is clear now is that checks and balances lauded by devolution has not transformed the Montesqieu and admired by the culture of politics. It has simply shown framers of the American constitution. up its weaknesses. However, with the growth of prime ministerial power the executive has The Assembly, like the Westminster increasingly dominated the legislature, Parliament, is largely powerless against and to some extent the judiciary, an unchecked executive. Elected because of its monopoly over the law- members see themselves as bound by making process. the party line, not as individual representatives following their So in slavishly adopting a conscience or the interests of their parliamentary model, the Assembly constituents. Centralism, spin and the has imported all the worst features of urge to control remain the hallmarks of the Westminster charade: the near- political style. complete concentration of power in the hands of the executive, with an The inclusivity which was meant to be Assembly symbolically important, but one of the design principles of the in reality increasingly irrelevant. Assembly has been long forgotten in the rush to the comforting familiarity of The most bitter betrayal of all of the the Westminster model. But instead of new politics we thought we were resulting in a separation of powers, as building must be the calculated attack is often argued, the result has been a we have seen on the idea of further concentration in the hands of proportional representation: "The the executive. absence of first-past-the-post in Wales and Scotland will by itself promote a To understand the confusion you have more pluralistic politics since it will be to go back into parliamentary history. less easy for a single party to secure an Separation of powers was first mooted overall majority, and so will encourage by Clement Walker, a member of the government by partnership." So said Long Parliament in 1648, as a the Secretary of State in 2000 about an guarantee against the kind of arbitrary, electoral system he now describes as tyrannical rule against which the fatally flawed. 27 governed had to be protected. The remedy he suggested lay in a For all the hopeful talk of plugging the separation of governmental functions democratic deficit, of building a

spring 2005 politics and policy

laboratory of democracy, we are still strong case for introducing a participatory and evaluate performance against the concentrating in the hands of the few element through electing the chairs of the public interest – as a sort of permanent all the short-term authority taken from local health boards. This is preferable to whistle-blower with privileged access the many. Instead of the radical the elections for foundation hospital to internal documents and discussions. experimentalism of a decentred trusts being trialled in England because In this way we might have avoided the democracy, with its overlapping and ordinary people don’t want a say in how communications breakdown that competing sovereignties, we have the hospitals are run. Their objective is that appeared to build up in the run-up to conformity and single-mindedness of the hospital delivers the goods and the WDA’s demise. This to my mind indivisible power and a permanent services they want. And it’s creating a would be a far better guarantee of majority. What I would call, half democratically elected body to plan transparency and accountability than jokingly, though only half, the services that’s key to that, rather than re- taking an agency inside Government. dictatorship of the Cabinet secretariat. establishing the pre-NHS voluntary hospital principle, or retaining the More radical still perhaps, would be the If I sound a little negative, it’s because I powerless community health councils idea of a Citizen’s Assembly: sixty think we are in a very negative phase in which were abolished in people, chosen randomly like a jury, to Welsh politics, when quangos are England. sit for a month as a committee of the abolished, New Labour nostrums entire nation, a radical revising roundly rejected, but nobody’s very chamber, representing every part of clear about what we’re going to put Wales, all walks of life. How would it in their place. The few policy work? Well, using the techniques of innovations of the Welsh Assembly deliberative democracy they could be Government – free prescriptions, free asked to decide whether to pass into breakfasts and free swimming lessons – law certain Assembly initiatives – no are, at best, very modest in their scope. more than one or two – which had been referred to them by a third of the As Rosa Luxemburg wrote in the directly elected Assembly members. It context of the Russian revolution, "The may seem a pretty bold idea. But, with negative, the tearing down can be the collapse in trust and popular decreed; the building up, the positive engagement, we need to start using cannot." Kafka, I think, captured the our imaginative faculties. same sense of dejection that many of us who campaigned for the Yes vote in We will soon have an empty debating 1997 now inevitably feel, "The chamber in Crickhowell House. Why revolution has evaporated and all that not use it to let the people in. I think it remains is the mud of a new would reconnect people to our bureaucracy.” democracy. People would identify with ordinary people weighing up So how can we reverse our own slide the pros and cons of difficult into bureaucratic centralism? First of all “If people doubt decisions in a ’big brother house’ of we could extend and deepen the ability of 60 ordinary democracy. And if people doubt the democracy throughout the public Welsh women and men they should read The ability of 60 ordinary Welsh women sphere, and adopt the American Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. Groups of ordinary people are smarter than individual and men they should read The Wisdom practice of directly electing a much experts, no matter how brilliant”. of Crowds by James Surowiecki. wider array of public officials. Groups of ordinary people are smarter American citizens elect virtually Where elections are not possible, we than individual experts, no matter how everyone, from the district attorney, to could consider appointing independent brilliant. They are better at solving the chief of police, the head of the fire public interest guardians to public problems, fostering innovation, coming department, and the local school bodies chosen by the relevant to wise decisions, and even predicting board. Coupled with the recall Assembly subject committee. On the the future. principle, this produces a much greater permanent staff, paid for and sense of real accountability. responsible only to the Assembly, they • Adam Price is Plaid Cymru MP for 28 would have the same right to Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. This is In the light of the appalling failures of information and presence as any other an edited excerpt from a lecture he representative democracy to get to grips member of the board. Their gave to the Regeneration Institute, with the crisis in the NHS, there is a responsibility would be to report on Cardiff University in January 2005.

spring 2005 politics and policy seats and votes

he Richard Commission made leading political party controls the pace three major recommendations of devolution – but does not allow any to improve the governance of single minority party to block its tWales: progress.

• A legislative Assembly with more Once the Commission’s proposals are powers – it judged the current on the statute book awaiting activation settlement to be “unsustainable”. by a two-thirds consensus in the • To raise the number of AMs to 80 – National Assembly, there will be no the current 60 being judged (already) need for more legislation. In particular, too few for effective scrutiny and for this will strengthen the hand of the the anticipated future extra duties. Assembly in the event of a future • To replace the unpopular AMS London government being electoral system by the Single unsympathetic to Welsh aspirations. Transferable Vote (STV). This legislative strategy could take These proposals were met with less much heat out of the current debate. than enthusiasm by Labour MPs at It would aid the passage of non- Westminster, though to be charitable, contentious legislative proposals by many of their reservations are about designating all contentious issues as the timing rather than the principles of requiring a two thirds majority before the changes. Assuming, as a working they can be activated. This ought to john cox argues for hypothesis, that their concerns are be politically acceptable to all but genuine and have merit, the challenge those implacably opposed to ‘enabling legislation’ is to legislate for the non-contentious devolution. proposals without foreclosing those to implement Richard that the MPs currently consider The number of AMs also could be premature. dealt with by ’enabling legislation’ – and says STV is key to leaving it at 60 for the next Assembly This could be done by ’enabling election but, empowering the National maximising turn out legislation’, to allow the National Assembly, when a two-thirds majority Assembly, at its leisure, to decide agree from their experience that more in Assembly elections when each provision is activated. are needed, to increase the number This would follow the precedent set up to 80. The alternative, freezing the for Scotland that enables their number at 60, could prove disastrous. Parliament to decide when or if to activate tax-varying powers without If, as the Commission suggests, a requiring further permission from National Assembly of 60 members Westminster. proves inadequate to cope with their extra duties and needs to ask In principle, a new Government of Westminster for legislation to raise the Wales Act could ’enable’ the National number, it could take two more terms Assembly to activate any section of the to enact. With the public less than Richard Commission’s impressed already by the National recommendations, with the proviso Assembly, delay could prove fatal to its that two thirds of the AMs must be in credibility. 29 favour. A two-thirds majority is a political statement disguised as a The low public esteem of politicians is, numerical hurdle. It ensures that the without doubt, why no-one dare call for

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more AMs in an election year – even existence of the National Assembly and Of the top ten seats for turnout, Labour though this proposal may prove a devolved Welsh government must won only two, Rhondda and Cardiff essential to help overcome the remain in doubt. The Richard North. In contrast, only two of the problem. The Commission identified Commission recommendation for STV bottom thirty constituencies were won the existing workload as a reason for is a pre-requisite for increased voting by the opposition, Cardiff Central and the AMs’ current under-performance turnout (though not itself a guarantee Wrexham. The inescapable conclusion, and it is improbable that any that it will materialise). Examining our unpalatable as it may be for the improvement is possible whilst they current voting systems the wonder is Opposition parties, is that the votes have to spread their talents over four that even a paltry 40 per cent bother to understate Labour’s true support. This to six subject committees. vote. is because, over most of Wales, its supporters have no incentive to vote. There is no impediment to having 80 In the recent General Election, as for While it is usual to blame our AMs elected by the current additional the National Assembly, the results disproportional voting system for member system (AMS) – but the were enevitable in all but (at the most) giving Labour too many seats, a fairer consequences would be unpalatable for eight constituencies, that is to say for criticism would be that it gives Labour the Labour Party. Unless their votes jump 80 per cent of the Welsh electorate. too few votes. What both Labour and from 38 to 48 per cent on the regional In the National Assembly elections in Welsh democracy needs, is a voting lists, Labour cannot hope to win an 2003 every regional vote for Labour system that encourages more people overall majority. It so happens, however, was wasted whilst, in the to vote, not only those fortunate that the adoption of STV would be constituencies, over 60 per cent voted enough to live in a marginal advantageous to Labour and, although for losing candidates. In short, over constituency. not a valid argument in favour of STV, it 80 per cent might just as well have is a pragmatic reason why Labour may stayed at home and, for those who did At the last Assembly election more prefer STV over the AMS alternative. vote, more than 60 per cent will be than 60 per cent voted for losing disappointed with the outcome. Our candidates. Not only that, we have In a nutshell, STV is likely to increase current voting systems might have an extraordinary outcome that the voting turnout. An unsung advantage been designed to discourage leading party is unrepresented of STV is that it ensures that the votes participation. across 70 per cent of the cast better represent the political will of geographical area of Wales. This is the electorate. In the context of Welsh STV addresses both these issues. It because Labour AMs are all politics, this will increase the voting ensures, for three-plus member constituency members and the party share of the Labour Party and has the constituencies, at least 75 per cent of has no representation on the List. In potential to improve its prospects of the voters will vote for a winning contrast, the Opposition members winning an overall majority. candidate and so take some comfort can cherry pick issues and target from the result. Moreover, it ensures constituencies for the next election, Low voting turn out is not a side-issue that there is a genuine contest in an injustice inherent in the flawed for devolution. It undermines its most every constituency, even in places like AMS voting system. compelling justification, to redress the Cynon Valley and Merthyr Tydfil democratic deficit from 18 years of and Rhymney. The fundamental defect of AMS is that rule by unpopular Westminster it creates two antagonistic types of governments. It is ironic that these It is no accident that, as shown in AM. To its detriment Labour has governments of the Thatcher era all Figure 1, the turnout in the 2003 become obsessed with the Clwyd West won 22-25 per cent of the Welsh Assembly election in the 24 safe anomaly, in which all four party electorate vote (29-31 per cent voted Labour seats was, on average, ten per candidates became AMs, since the Conservative in Wales on 76-80 per cent less than the 16 contested seats. three ’losers’ reappeared on the North cent turnouts), half as much again as The chart shows this by listing the Wales List. The result is that it seems the 16 per cent who voted for the Welsh constituencies in their content to stamp on this relatively current Welsh Assembly Government. sequence, from the lowest turnout, trivial nuisance and fail to grasp the In 2003 Labour won 42 per cent of the Alyn and Deeside, which was below 25 opportunity, afforded by the Richard vote on a 38 per cent turnout. per cent, to the highest, Ynys Môn, Commission, to scrap AMS above 50 per cent. The shaded completely. 30 By the criterion of popular mandate, horizontal bars (on the right) show Rhodri Morgan has even less which party won the seat and, only if Given that Labour failed to win an legitimacy than John Redwood. Unless the contest was close, the runner-up overall majority in 2003, even with this is addressed, the continued party (on the left). AMS and with the Opposition in

spring 2005 politics and policy

% voting turnout in May 2003

31

spring 2005 politics and policy

number of members per stv constituancy desired by the National Assembly (due to ’rounding’ errors), adjust the ratio STV constituencies based on local Electorate Number of AMs depending until it does. authority boundaries on size of Assembly Using this enabling legislation, the next Members National Assembly could be elected by 60 67 73 80 STV for any number of AMs between Newport 104,240 3 3 3 4 60 and 80 and would not require extra Torfaen and Monmouthshire 137,429 4 4 5 5 updated legislation whenever the Caerphilly 132,864 3 4 4 5 Boundary Commission alters a Merthyr and Blaenau Gwent 96,345 3 3 3 3 Westminster constituency. The table Rhondda, Cynon, Taff 162,323 4 5 5 6 illustrates what is feasible using the Cardiff 238,894 6 7* 8* 8* local authority boundaries if, in their Bridgende 101,675 3 3 3 4 wisdom, the National Assembly The Vale of Glamorgan 88,994 2e 3 3 3 decided to retain 60 AMs or increase Neath Port Talbot 107,566 3 3 4 4 the number to 67, 73 or 80. Once the Swansea 177,105 5 5 6 6 latest electoral rolls become available, Carmarthenshire 134,487 3 4 4 5 the allocation of AMs to each STV Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion 142,252 4 4 5 5 constituency may be calculated in Gwynedd and Ynys Mon 141,991 4 4 5 5 microseconds. Denbighshire and Conwy 154,899 4 5 5 6 Flintshire 114,932 3 4 4 4 The legislative process will be much Wrexham 96,835 3 3 3 3 simplified if, rather than rewriting the Powys 100,371 3 3 3 4 recommendations of the Richard Totals 2,233,202 60 67 73 80 Commission and second-guessing Notes: what may be a future consensus on * Cardiff has to be sub-divided when the entitlement exceeds 6 implementation priorities, the e The Vale of Glamorgan has to be paired with Bridgend if its entitlement is less than three. recommendations are all included in disarray, it is astonishing that the control of its implementation. To the new legislation for implementation party remains unconvinced of the simplify and speed up the process, any either immediately, or when by a two- advantages of STV. It eliminates every new legislation should specify that all thirds majority, the National Assembly anomaly of AMS, and not just its STV constituencies are to elect three to determines the time is right. This Clwyd West obsession. If STV were six members according to five simple approach could remove the bitterness adopted for the 2007 election for a 60- rules, to be administered by the of some recent debate and restore the member National Assembly it would National Assembly: remarkable unanimity achieved by the Richard Commission. be likely that Labour would win an 1 Divide the latest total Welsh overall majority. Certainly, the party electorate by the pre-determined The recent General Election was a has nothing to lose from STV, and the desired number of AMs to obtain the useful reminder that we cannot rely higher turn out it would produce average electorate/AM ratio. on all future Westminster would enhance both the credibility 2 Divide each local authority electorate governments being sympathetic to and legitimacy of the National by this ratio to obtain the entitlement Welsh aspirations. To ensure that Assembly itself. to AMs of each authority (’rounded’ Wales is able to control the pace of to the nearest whole number). further devolution, the Richard Sadly, to ensure unanimity, the 3 For authorities whose entitlement is Commission package, in its entirety, Commission fudged their above 6, sub-divide this authority needs to be placed on the statute recommendation in relation to its into two roughly equal book as “enabling legislation”. A two implementation. Rather than base the constituencies based on local ward thirds majority in the National STV constituencies on the local boundaries to return 3-6 AMs. Assembly should be all that is needed authority boundaries, and so allowing 4 For authorities whose entitlement is to implement each of its components. the National Assembly to decide the below 3, pair with a nearby local 32 timetable, they left open an alternative authority to create a single STV option of utilising obsolete constituency to return three to six AMs. • John Cox is a member of the Executive Westminster constituencies. This left 5 If the total number of AMs calculated Committee of the Parliament for Wales the unelected Boundary Commission in above does not match the number Campaign: www.parliamentforwales.net

spring 2005 politics and policy swimming in clear red water david morris explains why Welsh Labour activists have formed a new ‘grassroots’ organisation

the baleful influence of spin doctors, problems such as NHS waiting times the Assembly has too often become (they are slower to link it to obviously fixated on trivia, rather than on ideas popular policies like free bus travel). and initiatives that might materially In that 2002 speech, however, Rhodri improve people’s lives. Against this did what no-one else in the post- background, Rhodri Morgan’s famous devolution period has done He ’clear red water’ speech, delivered at articulated a general vision of what Swansea University in December 2002, the substance of Welsh politics – stands out as an attempt to raise the rather than its governmental form – level of political debate. It was an should be. effort to present a coherent political philosophy as the basis of Welsh The ’clear red water’ speech also Labour’s governmental programme: a provided a spur to the creation of a democratic socialist agenda built on new centre-left activists’ network Welsh popular traditions of social within the Wales Labour Party, Welsh solidarity. Labour Grassroots. Starting from a low base, it now has members in a As concrete examples of this agenda, dozen constituency Labour parties, Rhodri pointed to the number of from Cardiff to Carmarthen to Conwy, public services made free at the point and has held a number of successful of use by his government – bus travel meetings, which have been for pensioners and the disabled, addressed by speakers such as he establishment of the access to museums and galleries, Edwina Hart AM, John Griffiths AM, Assembly in 1999 did more than free prescriptions for those under 25 Christine Chapman AM, and Martin construct a new tier of or over 60, as well as to the Caton MP. Two of our members are tgovernment: it created a space in scrapping of league tables and SATs on the Welsh Labour Executive which a distinctive Welsh politics for seven-year-olds, the Committee. Our starting-point is that could develop. It represented not just ’Communities First’ social inclusion the ’clear red water’ agenda of Welsh a decentralisation of decision- agenda, and so on. It is significant Labour is something to be welcomed making, but an opportunity to design that Rhodri was immediately attacked and actively supported, to the extent policies and structures that suited in vitriolic terms by both Nick Bourne that it embraces the progressive the needs and interests of Wales and and Ieuan Wyn Jones – the former traditions of the Welsh labour its people. seeing an identifiable ideological movement, and thereby distances enemy, the latter no doubt fearing a itself from the ’New Labour’ politics However, in many respects the path of loss of his party’s appeal to of Tony Blair. devolved politics since 1999 has disillusioned Labour voters. More 33 diverged too little from the worst of recently, ’clear red water’ has been The obvious question is, if the Welsh Westminster. Through a combination of derided by Labour’s opponents as an Labour leadership is seeking to pursue limited powers, meagre ambitions and ideological obstacle to the solution of policies with which we broadly agree,

spring 2005 politics and policy

why bother establishing an activists’ Such issues mean that the supporters Welsh Labour Grassroots aims to act network, independent of the party’s of the ’clear red water’ agenda cannot as a critical friend to our elected official channels? Why not simply be agnostic on the need for a representatives: loyally supportive become the most loyal foot-soldiers strengthening of the devolution when they deliver sound policies, but in the party’s ranks? There are a settlement. Only when the Assembly unafraid to speak up – and to promote number of reasons why an has primary law-making powers (and our own alternatives – when they do organised, grassroots centre-left is preferably tax-raising powers) will it be not. In any case, the model of still needed – indeed, now more able to pass ’made in Wales’ progressive policies being handed than ever. legislation to deliver its ’made in down from above by an enlightened Wales’ policies. Rhodri Morgan and his leadership is neither a very democratic The first reason is simply that, as colleagues may have accepted a nor ultimately a very realistic one. The British citizens and Labour party ideas and aspirations that have driven members, we are subject not only to real social progress have always the decisions of Rhodri Morgan and emerged from impassioned debate his colleagues, but to those of Tony within the labour movement and Blair. And, while New Labour at popular organisations, proceeding from Westminster has introduced many the bottom up. Such debate has been progressive policies, such as the lacking within the party in the Blair national minimum wage, the period – partly due to the departure of ’Fairness at Work’ legislation, reform many long standing activists, partly to (however limited) of the House of the way that political debate has been Lords, and of course, the introduction displaced by focus group politics. There of Scottish and Welsh devolution, is a need for open and unconstrained these have increasingly been policy debate that engages members at outweighed by measures that have all levels of the party. dismayed party members and supporters. These include PFI, This leads to the final reason for Welsh foundation hospitals, university top- Labour Grassroot’s existence. If there up fees and – worst of all – Britain’s is to be a real debate, then the active and uncritical participation in structures of the party need to become the US ’war on terrorism’. In common more open, accessible and with activists in England and Edwina Hart, Social Justice Minister in the Welsh transparent. The Policy Forum process Scotland, we refuse to accept that Assembly Government, “concedes that she can do – the official channel through which no more than petition Gordon Brown to relax Blair has any right to use our party as rules that are set in Westminster.” party bodies are given an input into a vehicle for his right-wing policies, policy-making – allows for discussion which have contributed to a collapse tactical pause in the devolution on only a limited set of questions. It is in party membership from 405,000 to process, but grassroots party activists also subject to a predetermined 190,000 since 1997. need to be ready to push things timetable, which sees the Assembly forward when the opportunity arises. manifesto gradually developed over a The second reason has to do with the four year period. limits of the devolution settlement, and The third reason for a grassroots the consequent ability of the British centre-left, is that ordinary party Discussion of the Forum documents Labour leadership to curtail the members cannot afford to rely too dominates the annual conference Assembly Government’s freedom of heavily on their leaders. Even the agenda, allowing only limited space manoeuvre. To take just one example: best-intentioned and clearest-thinking for debate over resolutions from Edwina Hart, as Assembly minister of them can be diverted. Moreover, constituency parties and affiliates on responsible for housing, has expressed the Welsh leadership are under the pressing issues of the day. Welsh her personal support for local constant pressure from Westminster Labour Grassroots wants to authorities to be able to borrow money to follow a more orthodox ’New encourage a more inclusive and to improve housing stock, on the same Labour’ line. Activists who support the animated debate, extending to issues terms as housing associations. principle of ’clear red water’ need to that currently fall through the holes in 34 However, she concedes that she can do be able to apply countervailing the party’s agenda. In the first no more than petition Gordon Brown pressure from below, to try and instance, we want to see better use to relax rules that are set in ensure that Welsh Labour keeps to its made of the existing forums for Westminster. chosen path. debate. In some areas we are pushing

spring 2005 politics and policy

In his ’Clear Red Water’ speech Rhodri Morgan “did what no-one else in the post-devolution period has done. He articulated a general vision of what the substance of Welsh politics – rather than its governmental form – should be.”

for a relaxation of rules that can stifle The positive response we have agenda. People who prefer the Welsh free discussion – for example, a received from longstanding Labour agenda but don’t know how they fit in widening of the scope for debate at activists in all parts of Wales has made to Labour at the UK level. We can offer Welsh conference, to allow non- us increasingly confident about our a positive reason for staying in the devolved matters to be discussed ability to put our ideas and concerns party. where they clearly affect Wales. on the political agenda. We have also been pursuing specific concerns over The role that Welsh Labour Grassroots issues like housing stock transfer, has chosen for itself involves being defence of public services, challenging part of a British-wide Labour the BNP and improving the political opposition to Blairism, while representation of black and Asian • Dai Morris, a former Welsh Labour MEP, simultaneously providing a voice in people. is Chair of Welsh Labour Grassroots. support of the ’clear red water’ agenda To contact the organisation e-mail in Wales. We want to contribute to a We may not win all the battles, but we [email protected], rejuvenation of participatory will at least ensure that a clear socialist write or telephone: 35 democracy within the Labour party and voice is heard. And in so doing, we 2 Wellington Mews, Wellington Street the development of a radical socialist believe we can offer something to Cardiff, CF11 9BE policy programme. Labour activists who oppose the Blair 02920 221943.

spring 2005 communications broadcasting barricades

n February, Ofcom concluded the Ofcom as the regulator, to require the most radical investigation of TV same amount of PSB programme services for Wales, Scotland and hours as previously. Consequently, iNorthern Ireland since devolution. As Ofcom’s role has been to balance the the year-long review progressed, the needs of audiences with the status of the devolved nations diminishing commercial value of assumed increasing significance. In analogue licences and the relative particular, the review brought sharply costs to ITV plc of providing obligatory, into focus non-news regional ’must carry’ public service programming broadcast by ITV1 Wales, programmes, including non-news Scottish Media Group (SMG) and regional programming for each of its Ulster Television (UTV). 12 licence areas.

Historically, ITV franchises were To resolve these tensions Ofcom awarded primarily on the basis of the proposed an immediate halving of geography that determined the pattern ITV’s obligation for non-news regional of analogue transmission. In exchange programming for the English regions sue balsom on for once scarce broadcast spectrum, – three hours per week down to one and the right to exploit it and a half. However, for the nations, Ofcom’s medium commercially, ITV franchisees pay the the final report recommended Government substantial licence fees. retaining four hours of non-news term rescue package As part of this compact, each licence programming – that is, just 30 also requires an agreed number of minutes per week less than at present for ITV1 Wales ’must carry’ hours of public service – reducing to three hours as digital content for local audiences. Other switchover kicks in. regulated public service content for the ITV network includes agreed minimum In all this, it should be noted that hours of news, current affairs, Ofcom never proposed a reduction in children’s, arts and religious ITV1 Wales’s five and a half hours of programming. local news. Indeed this continued requirement has been written into ITV’s The previous patchwork of independent new digital licence until 2014. TV companies has now been largely consolidated into ITV plc, including HTV Elsewhere on the news front, Ofcom Wales, which is the only national received an innovative proposal from franchise within the company’s the Scottish Media group to insert structure. Scotland and Northern Scottish items in the main 10.30pm UK Ireland have separate companies, as news programme. As part of the does Channel (Islands) TV. current, third, phase of its consultation, Ofcom has now asked whether similar 36 The advent of digital television and its provision for Wales and Northern rapid take-up has dramatically altered Ireland would be welcomed and the future value of analogue ITV responses from Wales are awaited with licences and with it, the potential of interest.

spring 2005 communications

Understandably, during the public independents and to source more Commercial success by independents service broadcasting review attention network productions (in-house or could also be the trigger for new public in Wales focused on likely reductions independents) from the nations, service programme services for Wales, by ITV1 Wales. Following the final including BBC Wales. following digital switch-over in 2008. report, as long as the analogue provision continues, viewers will At the same time, ITV is also setting up Ofcom’s research has revealed a hopefully enjoy well resourced English a £9 million development fund for the surprising strength of feeling language non-news ITV programming next three years to help ’new to concerning the lack of representation for Wales. However, by far the more network’ independents. This money of Wales, Welsh people and Welsh challenging question is, who will will seed-fund projects and pilot culture in UK network programmes. deliver such programmes in the longer term and what future regulatory measures will need to be deployed to ensure Wales’s local public service broadcasting needs? Ofcom wants to ensure competition to deliver quality in public service content for Wales, as well as on the UK networks.

BBC Wales is already developing an exciting range of local television, red button and new media services. Arguably the debate should also now shift to the viability of new commercial models for additional, innovative digital programme content, and whether these new models could ITV 1 Wales Waterfront political team – licensed to continue entertaining us on Sunday mornings. operate at an all-Wales, as well as a very local level. programmes, plus skills training and Interestingly, for some this was as mentoring. A further priority is to important, if not more so, than the The cost of creating new digital return network production in the availability of local programmes. commercial TV channels is falling nations to levels of the late 1990s, that Accordingly, Ofcom is calling for this rapidly and the potential for associated is an estimated 8 per cent of total ITV issue to be addressed by network broadband broadcast is huge. Ofcom network spend. In 2003, only 2 per cent programme commissioners. Their plans to scope new local television of total network programme spending response will be taken into account possibilities in a report later this year, went to the three nations combined – when measuring overall public service but the sooner players in Wales can and almost all of that was in Scotland. broadcasting performance. start thinking beyond current provision, the better. Wales has developed an important, diverse TV production base, largely Meanwhile, Ofcom’s third consultation thanks to S4C. As bilingual companies, report also included a host of other strong and creative Welsh recommendations that have been independents are in a good position to welcomed in Wales, especially by capitalise on the new English language • Sue Balsom is Managing Director of independent TV production companies. network openings. FBA, the Aberystwyth design, For example, Ofcom has required ITV marketing and communications plc to increase the amount of out-of A number of Welsh TV production company. She represents Wales on the London production and budgets to 50 companies are already in business Content Board of Ofcom and is also per cent of the whole. Some £17 expansion mode and there are moves Welsh Woman of the Year. million will therefore immediately shift for increased commercial cooperation All Ofcom’s proposals for Wales, to non-metropolitan production and consolidation. Driven by Economic including an on-going discussion about companies this year, rising to around Development Minister Andrew Davies, future options for S4C, can be found in 37 £40 million in 2006. The BBC is also the Assembly Government’s new £7m the final report and the consultation being encouraged to increase the Creative Industries Fund will document about nations and regions on percentage of programmes from undoubtedly help fuel this trend. Ofcom’s website www.ofcom.org.uk.

spring 2005 communications

tomos grace looks at the role of the Internet in reinforcing Welsh identity blogging futures

Yet in many ways, the Internet can and several in other languages; the is being harnessed to support the National Library of Wales publishes a Welsh language. The advantages to list of Welsh biographies in Welsh; and smaller languages come from the Google, the largest search engine in medium’s unique cost structure. the world, operates a Welsh language Publishing costs online are much lower version. than offline, so it is much cheaper to publish a web page than a page of Another group of sites exploits the physical newsprint. And even this open nature of the Internet to create smaller cost can be shared between Welsh language services which might multiple users. The open nature of the be uneconomic offline. Wikipedia is the Internet allows users, with the author’s first Welsh language encyclopaedia to permission, to add to or amend online be published in over a hundred years. material. At the same time, distribution The service is free and relies entirely costs are close to zero, with the added on the contributions of users. There are advantage that the potential market now 3,000 entries, on subjects as runs to hundreds of millions. diverse as Cyngor Cefn Gwlad Cymru to Pol Pot, which can be consulted, Newcomers to the Welsh language are amended and added-to by any other s in the offline world, Llanfair amongst those benefiting most from users. Cynghanedd.com follows the PG lays claim to the world’s the Internet. Learning Welsh is cheaper same principle for the writing of longest name on the Internet. and easier now than ever before. cynghanedd, or strict-metre poetry. The Dozensa of Ioan Gruffudd sites enable Learning materials which previously first line of the cynghanedd will be fans all over the world to express their came in the form of CD-Roms, published and anyone can contribute adoration. And after a couple of English cassettes and books can now be subsequent lines. Straeon.com enables defeats in the 6 Nations, email is used accessed for free on sites such as aspiring writers to publish extracts of by Welsh fans to explain the initials of Coleg Digidol, e-wlpan and the BBC. stories online for other users to England sponsors 02. But in other less These sites provide links to comment on and make suggestions. eye-catching ways, the Internet is also a programmes for learners on S4C, On a slightly lighter note, the Internet powerful tool for reinforcing aspects of details of language courses and even a has also enabled the first ever Welsh identity, notably the Welsh mutation checker. Acen provides a free dictionary of Welsh swear words at language and Welsh communities. online radio station for learners, which rhegiadur.com. This very funny site is considerably easier than in the lists over 500 entries, again relying on It may seem surprising that the Welsh offline world of limited and expensive contributions from the online language can benefit from the Internet. frequencies. And the ubiquitous, on- community. After all, an estimated 80 per cent of all demand nature of the Internet means web sites are in English, often that anyone, anywhere in the world can The second major contribution of the including the newest and most start learning the language, and do so Internet is in building and sustaining innovative content. The growth of at their own pace. Welsh communities. One example of English-dominated new technology, such a community is the Welsh living with the Internet as an integral part, Other online tools apply to Welsh outside of Wales, 38 per cent of whom has undoubtedly contributed to a speakers and learners alike. Some are graduates compared to the 10 per deterioration of Welsh grammar. The simply exploit the low distribution cent inside the country. If Wales is to 38 growth of the typed word means that costs of the Internet to make Welsh have a chance of attracting this the use of characters not found in the language services freely and community back to Wales, these ex- English alphabet such as ’ô’ is almost universally available. There are three pats must be enabled to retain links certainly in decline. online English-Welsh dictionaries and with Wales and with other Welsh

spring 2005 communications people. The Internet greatly facilitates likeminded blogs and sites. Some and provide links to related sites. More this process. Whether they are based in political blogs in the US have AMs should do so. It is an easy way to London or Lilongwe, the web and the enormous clout and have become a communicate with local and national use of email helps the Welsh abroad to source of news and comment to rival constituencies, to react to news stories identify fellow Welsh people and join the traditional news media. Matt and to generate feedback from the Welsh organisations. They can stay in Drudge’s blog, the Drudge Report, electorate. Representatives of the touch with Welsh news and events broke the Monica Lewinsky affair and Assembly, an institution which prides through sites such as icwales and the bloggers have more recently been itself on having the most open BBC, and listen to good quality credited with forcing the resignation of government in the western world, are streamed versions of Radio Wales and CNN’s chief news executive and missing a trick by denying constituents Radio Cymru. several senior reporters at CBS. the opportunity to get to know their Companies too are having to take AMs and develop a dialogue with The one area where media services are note: Microsoft employs a blogger to them through their blogs. not satisfactorily replicated online is in comment on its products as part of the video content. S4C’s site has a minimal company’s PR department. Welsh language blogs provide amount of video content and the BBC’s evidence of the potential of political is of such low quality (having been blogs. Several offer punchy encoded at a ridiculously low bit-rate) welsh website selection commentary on subjects ranging from as to be virtually unwatchable. But the Middle East peace process to the • Welsh language learning: video encoding and storage costs are future of ITV Wales. They also benefit www.dysgu.cd/ (Coleg Digidol) falling rapidly and Internet access from greater cohesion: at least 50 exist www.swan.ac.uk/dace/e-wlpan speeds in many countries are and virtually all are linked to each other www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learnwelsh increasing exponentially. Peer-to-peer and to maes-e, thus reinforcing the /www.radioacen.fm technologies such as BitTorrent can community effect. • Welsh language tools: reduce these costs even further. For the www.geiriadur.net benefit of the Welsh in Wales and The blogs that exist in English are www.yba.llgc.org.uk/ (Biographies) abroad, the case for providing a quality often personal journals and these, www.google.com/intl/cy video offer, whether paid or unpaid, is quite naturally, have little to say about www.cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafan almost irresistible. the weightier subjects facing Wales. www.cynghanedd.com But even they can provide interesting www.straeon.com Internet chat forums are another insights into the character of the www.rhegiadur.com example of Welsh communities being nation. The blog ’Baddly Dubbed Boy’, • Communities: created online. Welsh rugby fans are for example, recounts the difficulties of www.bbc.co.uk/wales/scrumv well represented on the BBC’s Scrum V a Welshman of Asian origin in www.maes-e.com forum with over 15,000 messages affirming his Welshness on rugby day, • Blog examples: listed, more than for any other nation. whilst ’A Life In Wales’ describes the www.peterblack.blogspot.com It is impossible to imagine such a blogger’s enjoyment in simply www.leightonandrews.blogspot.com volume of informed rugby debate (and watching the Welsh rain. banter) in the offline world. The maes-e www.daviddaviesam.blogspot.com www.gwleidydd.blogspot.com/ site plays the same role for the Welsh Our dreary weather; an in depth www.blemaergath.blogspot.com language community. The site is well discussion of Ryan Giggs’ hairstyle; structured and the forums contain eleven variations on ’fart’ in Welsh; and 150,000 messages posted by over 1,300 Welsh blogs are not there yet. Given a Welsh-Fresian dictionary already registered users, covering all aspects of the limits of the Welsh media, a niche merit an online presence. It is time our Welsh life. exists for political and satirical blogs political system also is given greater on Welsh life and politics, yet the online expression. Our leaders in Wales Perhaps the greatest potential for the English language blogs are must assume this responsibility. growth of Welsh online communities surprisingly silent. Part of the reason lies in Web Logs or ’Blogs’. These are for this may be the limited example personal web sites on which being set by our political individuals post their thoughts, representatives. Only three AMs have feelings or views, depending on the their own blogs. Liberal Democrat • Tomos Grace is a Strategy and 39 nature of the Blog. They reinforce a Peter Black, Labour’s Leighton Business Development manager at the community effect by enabling Andrews and Conservative David French pay-TV company Canal+ feedback and providing links to Davies regularly publish their thoughts [email protected]

spring 2005 communications digital divide

evelopments over the last few connection? According to data from the years have brought faster NS Omnibus Survey published in June internet access within reach 2004, fewer than 50 per cent of the ofd more than 80 per cent of Wales’s Welsh population had used the internet population. But to what extent are we in the previous three months – a figure making best use of the internet? A well below the UK average. short time ago even places like Outer Furthermore, the 2001 Census found Mongolia had better internet that only 44 per cent possessed a infrastructure. Many places we home computer. perceive to be backward are already ahead of us in this respect. In a world The Welsh Assembly Government is of rapid globalisation and outsourcing, putting in place a marketing campaign this is a critical matter. Decisions on to address this issue. There is no doubt business location are largely influenced that ’pull’ marketing works and by infrastructure and skills. The inevitably numbers will increase. internet is the 21st century equivalent Today’s reachable prices will also make of the canals, railways and motorways a huge difference. However, two major of the past. questions remain: 1 How do we persuade people to wil thomas says Yet the skill levels of those who are maximise their use of technology, already on broadband, essentially the using a greater range of applications computers should be IT literate amongst us, are and tools? surprisingly modest. I say this on the 2 How do we reach those who consider located somewhere basis of hearing countless tales of computers to be an alien form? woe from people who have difficulties between the blender arising from poor computer Overcoming these barriers becomes a maintenance. This may have nothing very important issue for the economy and the microwave to do with broadband supply, but since the use of computers and the nevertheless it is an issue that comes internet at home inevitably spills over up every day. to the workplace. If social and environmental considerations are taken If basic computer maintenance is an into account then addressing these issue, what does that tell us about the questions becomes even more range of applications that people use? compelling. These were some Even among those that are responses from a group of people I sufficiently IT literate to want faster surveyed recently on why they did not internet, insufficient use is being make use of the internet: made of the technology’s capability. • I wouldn’t make enough use of the A few years ago a global study found internet to justify the cost. that we were making under 10 per • Only the son (or daughter) knows cent use of the technology’s potential. how to use it in our household. Considering all that broadband can • I would not know where to start to now offer us, this percentage is use a computer. probably much lower today. People’s perceptions of what the 40 If this is the case with the IT literate, internet entails is preventing them how much more are those losing out from embracing a tool that could have who do not have broadband, or are an enormously positive effect on their without any form of internet lives. For too many people, Information

spring 2005 Broadband offers great opportunities but only 44 per cent of us have a computer at home.

Technology is not relevant to their Such a project would stimulate cheap two way broadband will still not everyday lives. They are on the wrong demand, heighten usage, and make IT be possible by the time ADSL will have side of the ’Digital Divide’ because they relevant. To achieve in this arena we completed its roll out across Wales this lack Information Technology skills. need more than the pull marketing summer. that the Welsh Assembly Government I would like to see computers located is doing. This works for people who The Digital Divide is a reality today. It in peoples’ kitchens, somewhere are already on the platform waiting for could become an even bigger reality in between the blender and the the train. But what if they are not on the near future. Addressing it must be microwave, and used just as often. the platform as is the case so much of a central part of overcoming social and But we need to go much further, with the time? economic disadvantage. As ever, the an E-Communities project aimed at answers are in front of our noses. All changing Wales’s digital landscape. We should replace some of the we need to do is act on them. This would involve initiatives such as: advertising with education in places • Community websites replacing where people congregate, such as newspapers as the source of local pubs and clubs and not just in schools news and information. and colleges. This should be motivated • Low price distribution of computers by people with experience of • Wil Thomas is Managing Director of and internet connections for socially community capacity building Deudraeth Cyf, a not-for-profit company disadvantaged groups in order to based in Penrhyndeudraeth, Gwynedd. stimulate greater use Nor should we slacken our efforts in This provides a wireless broadband • Skills development for people making cheap broadband available to service to local towns where market already using IT as well as basic all. ADSL is wonderfully widespread, initiatives would take several years to training but does not give anything like implement. This article is based on a • Community broadcasting such as universal coverage. For many of our presentation he gave to the IWA’s 41 village events, church services, and rural dwellers – arguably those most in Future of Broadband Communications community council meetings relayed need of broadband in order to reduce conference, held at Llancaiaich Fawr via broadband. isolation from markets and customers – Manor, Caerphilly, in November 2004.

spring 2005 communications y filter sqwar

aled rowlands reports on an experiment measuring Welsh inter-connectivity

lmost all of us have had the considered the leaders in this field in experience of it being ’a small the UK. The first step was to pick our world’: meeting an old friend own target person. We needed ina an unusual place or finding a mutual someone quite ’normal’ who would be acquaintance when talking with a well known in their own community stranger. But are these just freak but not outside. We identified minister occurrences or should we expect it to of religion Gareth Rowlands, a self- happen as we are all part of a shrinking confessed ’fairly normal north Walian’ world? Is Wales the apocryphal “land now living in Caerphilly. We put of the twitching curtain” or is that just together a “pack” which included another myth? details about Gareth, instructions and ten stamped envelopes. At the Forty years ago a social psychologist beginning of September 2004 our from Harvard University, Professor letters went to 100 people throughout Stanley Millgram was considering the Wales, 25 in each quarter of the same problem and devised a neat country. Then all we could do was to experiment. He sent 300 letters to people wait and hope that some would find across America with the description of their way into our target’s letterbox in one person, whom he called the ’target Caerphilly person’. Instructions asked the recipient to forward the letter to the target person, We were hoping for ten letters to get but only if they knew him on a first through to the end. In the original name basis. If, as was more likely, they experiment 27 per cent of the chains didn’t know him, they should post it to a were completed. However, we were person who was closer to him, perhaps concerned that because of the someone living in the same area, doing explosion in junk mail many of our the same type of job, or who had gone letters would end up in the bin. Would to the same university. The plan was for the more fractured society produced in the letters to jump closer and closer until Wales over the past 40 years mean that they finally reached the target person. we were more or less connected? Our Before the experiment began, Millgram expert advisors guessed that ten to 15 guessed it would take about a hundred letters would get through to the end jumps to get from the original person to and the degrees of separation would the target. However, on average it only be around five. That is to say, each took six. From this it was said that letter would take five jumps to get to America had “six degrees of the target. separation”. The results were not as predicted. My plan was to undertake a BBC Wales Firstly, 22 letters arrived at the target. 42 radio series to repeat Millgram’s This in itself is a measure that Wales is experiment. To ensure its scientific a very connected country. However, the veracity, I brought in the University of result that surprised us most was that, Glamorgan where researchers are of those completed chains, on average

spring 2005 communications it only took 3.22 jumps. This is much in the north west, north east and south the people are proud of their region of lower than Millgram’s original west, while seven were completed in Wales, our results indicate that there experiment and lower than predicted. the south east. This indicates that the are very strong personal connections north is as well connected as the south from north to south. The results threw up some Welsh quirks. west. But the results indicate that we The ’north-south divide’ is a much used have quicker connections north to Previous experiments have shown that term describing the terrible transport south than we do east to west, as the the work connections of the ’target links and differing attitudes of the people average degrees from the south west person’ has been critical in getting the of Wales, but it didn’t show itself in the was 4, compared to 3.2 from both the letters through. Yet it was still experiment. As shown in the graphic north east and north west. So, even somewhat of a surprise that 16 of our below, five letters were completed though the transport links are bad and letters, on their final jump, passed though the hands of a person who inter-regional connections knew our target through his work as a religious minister.

What was even more surprising was that all 22 of the final links in the completed chains were Welsh speakers. Our target, Gareth is a Welsh speaker, but that information wasn’t given out in the letter. Somehow, at the final stage all the letters found a Welsh North West North East language path and got through. 5 Completed 5 Completed Our partners at the University of 3.2 degrees 3.2 degrees Glamorgan think there are a number of possible reasons why the experiment was successful in achieving so many completed chains and for the degrees of separation to be so few. Although our target person, Gareth Rowlands is a self-confessed ’normal type of guy’ the most plausible explanation is that he stands in the middle of two very well connected groups in Wales, the religious and Welsh language communities.

Although Wales has changed over the past 20 years from being one of the most religious to one of the most secular countries in Europe, it seems South West South East that most people still know their local vicar or minister, or if not they know 5 Completed 7 Completed someone who does. There is already 4 degrees 2.7 degrees clear evidence that religion in any country is a ’connector’ and that was played out loud and clear in this experiment. One person, Denzil John, received and passed on five letters to the target. As he explained, he has three things in common with the target 43 that made him an obvious choice – “I’m known as ’the Welsh Minister from Caerphilly’”.

spring 2005 communications

The project’s ‘target’, Rev. Gareth Rowlands – a self-confessed ‘fairly normal north Walian’ now living in Caerphilly – clutches some of the letters that competed the chain after a lower than predicted average of 3.22 jumps.

And it’s undoubtedly the Welsh Welsh speaker through their friends decisions because all the “players” language that created the biggest and family. The conversation usually know each other is at the heart of that impact. Many people in Wales will starts with the school or university the vision. So not only does this research have experienced how difficult it is to two people went to, then if that doesn’t indicate that we’re a nation of gossips try and walk 100 metres around the work an attempt to track back through but it could also influence a new form National Eisteddfod maes without family or social activities. This all of Welsh structure. meeting someone they know. makes for a well connected society. Anecdotally, while conducting the interviews for the radio series, I found In the last edition of Agenda, Rhodri 44 that Welsh speakers have an Morgan was setting out his vision for unconscious game they play whereby the way the civil service in Wales they try and draw a connection should work. Being a well connected • Aled Rowlands is a producer with BBC between themselves and another country and being able to make quick Wales’s Political Unit.

spring 2005 communications anthony beresford examines the arguments surrounding the proposed M4 relief road south of Newport build it but don’t toll it

The first thing to be said in examining A fourth alternative to widen the these arguments is the existing M4 existing motorway was considered but around Newport is at best a rejected on the following grounds: compromise and at worst completely • Need to demolish around 340 houses inadequate for modern transport mainly in High Cross and St. Julian’s requirements. It was designed largely areas. as a distributor road through the • Construction noise, vibration, dust, northern suburbs of Newport and only traffic, access. special dispensation, for instance • Poor economic performance dropping certain design criteria, compared with southern options for allowed it to be built as a motorway. As a fresh road. it stands it should be classified as a dual carriageway, for the following A fifth option, combining some widening reasons: and some new road, was also rejected • Excessive number of five junctions because of its environmental impact, and access points cost and relatively poor value for money. • Over-tight curve radii • Steep gradients The current scheme for the new M4 route • Intermittent hard shoulders is considered to be an improvement on • Two-lane section at its busiest point all the earlier alternatives. In particular, its he Assembly Government’s • Narrow tunnels environmental impact will be less announcement, last December, • Major interchanges at Coldra and St. because its new alignment is partially on that Newport is to have its long- Julian’s Llanwern Steelworks land rather than the tawaited M4 relief toll road polarised Magor Marsh and Redwick and Welsh opinion into two distinct camps. The proposal for a relief motorway Llandevenny Sites of Special Scientific around Newport is far from new. In Interest. The ’commercialists’, comprising early 1989, a South Wales Area Traffic hauliers, local businesses, professional Study concluded that an M4 Relief Good for Wales as this new M4 route travellers and others applaud the Road was necessary partly to ease around Newport undoubtedly will be, announcement, seeing the road as congestion around Newport and partly a number of issues question the absolutely necessary and long overdue. to gain full value from the Second commercial logic underpinning the The second camp, the Severn Crossing which was then under scheme: ’environmentalists’, believe that the true discussion. The Route Selection Study • Is the transport environment around cost of the road is simply too high for and Public Consultation ran from 1992 Newport sufficiently similar to that the scheme to be justified. They point to to 1994, and a construction start date around Birmingham for the M6 Toll loss of green space and wildlife habitat, of 1999-2000 was envisaged. to act as a model for the Newport increased traffic noise and pollution, and scheme? probable encouragement of yet more More than 2,000 route variations were • Will enough road-users benefit from road-based mobility. Between these considered and mathematically the road? camps sits a third group of observers modelled. As usual with major building • Should the Newport relief road be who question the proportionate value of projects, a short-list of three possible tolled and, if so, at what level? 45 committing £360 million to a road which alignments was drawn-up and could well prove to be severely under- evaluated in terms of their economic, In order to examine these questions, it utilised for perhaps 20 hours each day. environmental and safety implications. is useful to first consider the

spring 2005 communications

morphology of the West Midlands lend themselves to switching to the This leads to a third consideration: motorways which have been under new motorway. In particular, journeys time-savings over the 15 mile route intolerable pressure for at least 30 between south west Wales, Cardiff and from Magor to Castleton are derived years. Indeed, the M5/M6 interchange the West Midlands, currently from speed differentials between the was officially branded the country’s undertaken via Monmouth and the present and proposed roads. If M4 car worst bottleneck in 2002 for the M50, will gain no benefit from the average speeds are, say, 40 mph and persistence, regularity and Newport relief road. Similarly, for relief route speeds are 60 mph, the predictability of the traffic hold-ups that eastbound traffic, all destinations time savings would be only three every day brought at least ten miles of between Castleton and Magor will be minutes using the new road. If speeds the network to a standstill. Twenty better served by the existing M4. differ by 10 mph, time savings become miles of stationary traffic were not Conversely, all westbound movements only 1.5 minutes. So, even if a speed uncommon prior to the opening of the originating in the Newport area will restriction were placed on the existing tolled alternative. route perfectly satisfactorily via the A48 M4 Newport section, the time benefit or the existing M4. of using the new route would only be a Although traffic jams around Newport few minutes. are bad, and probably the worst in This leaves only journeys from west Wales, they are not of the same Wales and Cardiff to Bristol and Interestingly, the Severn Bridges cost magnitude, frequency or persistence as London, as the potential ’market’ for only £2.40 (current one-way car rate) to those seen around the Birmingham the Newport relief route. Although this produce a time-saving of around an box prior to the M6 Toll. Consequently, may well constitute the major share of hour over the alternative route via the analogy with Birmingham which is the overall flow, for most of the time, Gloucester. Up to £5 of fuel is also often drawn by Welsh planners and perhaps 20 out of 24 hours each day, saved by using the direct route into commentators should be questioned. It the existing M4 is perfectly able to and out of Wales, so the Bridge is simply wrong to see the M6 Toll as cope with traffic volumes. Moreover, actually offers good value for east-west necessarily the ’model solution’ for the M4 relief road will not be movements. Newport. particularly attractive even for these potential users as it will offer time In contrast, for 80 per cent of the time, the Secondly, by no means all of the trips savings over the old route which will benefit of using the new M4 relief road undertaken in the Newport area will be only marginal. over the existing road will be virtually zero

46

The two lane motorway at the Brynglas Tunnels on the edge of Newport causes a bottle neck that makes the case for the relief road, but only in the rush hours.

spring 2005 Map showing the proposed Newport relief road. as average speeds will be approximately existing M4 uncongested. As a result it accumulated toll revenues) if a the same. It should, therefore, be priced at would then offer a service to users dispensation was made for those ’in a zero. If it is not, then users will have no virtually as good as the new route, thus hurry’. That is to say, the only way for time saving incentive to use it, but rather removing the incentive to use it. users to derive significant benefit from only a disincentive in the form of the toll – the new road would be to remove the envisaged to be £2 for cars at current In the parlance of economics parlance 70mph national speed limit from it so prices. there will be insufficient product that time-savings between Magor and differentiation between the existing M4 Castleton could be achieved to the Furthermore, as has been observed in and the new route to leave room for a value of roughly the cost of the toll. Of the West Midlands, even at peak times charge on one but not the other. For course, such a measure would be when congestion is most likely, a perhaps 20 hours per day, therefore, inconsistent will all other aspects of relatively small – perhaps 20 per cent – the toll will have to be zero: only for traffic management and road safety in diversion of traffic on to the new route around four hours per day could a toll the UK. Nonetheless, this line of leaves the original road uncongested. be applied. Otherwise, motorists will argument leads to a clear and simple Translating this to conditions in south simply ignore the tolled route for most message: build the Newport relief road, east Wales at peak times, roughly 7- of the time. but don’t toll it. 9am and 5-7pm, perhaps 20 per cent of the traffic will re-route via the M4 relief There is an interesting implication of road, expressing willingness to pay £2 this thesis. A theoretical opportunity to for the probable time savings of “segment the market” will arise with 47 several minutes upwards. However, the the completion of the new motorway. • Dr Anthony Beresford works in removal of this critical 20 per cent, the More vehicles could be tempted onto Logistics and Operations Management ’congestion flow’, will leave the the road (and hence pay for it via the at Cardiff Business School.

spring 2005 europe creu cyfle – cultural explosion

The accession of ten new member some politicians, have resulted in states to the EU last May has opened widespread misunderstanding. There is important doors for Wales and her scepticism and mistrust about EU culture. The enlargement of the EU enlargement in Wales as elsewhere in from 15 to 25 Member states also the UK. What the tabloids fail to mention presents a challenge to the Union to is that these ’Eastern invaders’ are show that political integration does not coming to Wales to do many of the jobs lead to cultural uniformity. Forced that we refuse to do and in turn give a uniformity, after all, is a past vital boost to many of our key sectors. experience the majority of the new member states consciously left behind Creu Cyfle–Cultural Explosion, a project when the iron curtain lifted in 1989. funded by the EU and led by the IWA, will bridge the cultures of Wales and the As a ’world nation’ within the UK and a new Europe through dance, literature, dynamic region within an enlarged EU, music, visual art and new media. It will Wales now has the opportunity to bring together Academi – the Welsh share with our newest EU neighbours literary promotion agency, Dawns i our distinctive experiences – whether Bawb, Gwynedd Council, S4C, and the they are linguistic, cultural, sporting, William Mathias Music Centre. It has eluned haf outlines economic, political or constitutional. also secured support from the Arts These are experiences that make Wales Council of Wales, Cultural Enterprise, the a project promoting highly relevant to the new member National Eisteddfod, the Welsh states. During the UK presidency of the Development Agency, the Wales links between Wales EU all the eyes of Europe will be on the European Centre, Wales Tourist Board, UK. It is an opportunity for Wales to the British Council, Scotland Europa, and the ten EU put itself back on the European map. Chwarae Teg, Wales Baltic Society, and Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen. The project, Accession States Europe’s new member states have a rich which lasts from August 2005 through to cultural heritage and a colourful tapestry February 2006, has five main activities: of lesser used languages. Their cultural 1 Creu Cyflu–Cultural Explosion Song ow much do you know about industries will be of major importance to Overseen by the William Mathias the culture of Slovakia or their economic and social integration Music Centre, the specially Hungary? You may have a within the EU. Cultural industries are commissioned Cultural Explosion song hdistant relative who immigrated to also the fastest growing sector in Wales will depict themes from the Baltic Wales from Poland or you may have and throughout the UK. They have now freedom song celebrating the coming tasted some of the delicious wines of overtaken agriculture in terms of of democracy in 1989. The song will be Slovenia but know little more about old employment. By their very nature the rehearsed and performed by Gwynedd Europe’s eastern bloc. The culture of cultural industries are all-embracing and youth choir, Gwynedd Brass band and Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, reach people who otherwise might not a harp group. A series of enlargement Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, interact with Europe. workshops will be arranged for 48 Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia are children attending Noddfa playgroup flourishing. Yet how much do we really Scare stories about illegal immigration, who will perform the song together know about the new members of the job losses and a loss of identity, with Doniau Cudd, the local percussion European Union? generated by the British media and group for people with disabilities.

spring 2005 2 Poetry and Literature Competition This will be an all-Wales creative writing competition for young people to be launched at the Eisteddfod by Academi. The competition theme will be EU enlargement and an information kit will be available on the web and sent to schools and students in Wales. 3 Dance A specially commissioned Enlargement dance based on influences from the new member states will be produced by a Hungarian choreographer. The Enlargement Dance will be rehearsed and performed by the community Welsh dance group, Dawns i Bawb. 4 Video Shorts S4C will co-ordinate the production of five video shorts based on five different EU enlargement themes. The video shorts will be created by five young video producers in the media industry. After Catrin Finch will be artistic director of the Creu Cyfle – Culture Explosion Gala Concert at the Galeri the Eisteddfod premiers, the videos theatre and arts centre in Caernarfon in February 2006. will be broadcasted during a Cultural Explosion Project week on S4C. A Gala Celebration, held on 19 February The Creu Cyflu–Cultural Explosion 5 Mosaic in the Victoria Dock The 2006 will be a culmination of all the Directory listing cultural practitioners enlargement mosaic will be inspired activities carried out throughout the and potential partners in Wales and in by the results of a popular project. Held in the newly opened the new member states will be questionnaire to the people of Galeri theatre and arts centre in produced and distributed. A chapter Gwynedd about their views of the Caernarfon, it will be hosted by will be dedicated to each of the enlarged EU. This will be internationally renowned harpist Catrin countries and one section will identify undertaken through the local media, Finch. The following day an sources of funding and best practices. schools and other community international Creu Cyflu–Cultural The directory will be given to each networks. The mosaic will be Explosion Conference will bring delegate to the conference. positioned in Caernarfon’s new together ideas, partnerships and multi million pound Victoria Dock projects related to the enlarged EU’s The objective of Creu Cyflu–Cultural development. It will be a permanent cultural industries. It will be a unique Explosion is to create sustainable feature to remind the people of opportunity for cultural operators in linkages of mutual benefit which will Wales and tourists of the new Wales to meet their counterparts in the continue for many years to come. It is Europe, celebrating Wales’ role in industries of the new member states intended to generate a series of its creative future. and to identify policy themes, funding aftershocks, breaking into new sectors, opportunities and links. crossing new boundaries and bringing Creu Cyflu–Cultural Explosion will be the rest of Europe closer to Wales. launched at this year’s National The conference will facilitate new Eisteddfod in Caernarfon. Amongst the cultural partnerships, involving plethora of activities around the field, practitioners, artists, academics, the annual IWA – Eisteddfod lecture politicians and the media from all over will this year be delivered by Lord Elis- Europe. Representatives from the new • Eluned Haf is Managing Director of Una: Thomas, Presiding Officer of the member states will convey the needs www.una-europa.com / 07834 458 501. National Assembly, who will highlight of the cultural industries in their For more information about the 49 the opportunities for a partnership countries as well as learning from the Creu Cyflu–Cultural Explosion project, between Wales and the ten new Welsh experience. Workshops will be contact Creu Cyflu–Cultural member states. dedicated to best practice. [email protected]

spring 2005 europe promoting cohesion

he most categoric and practical constitutional Treaty which is no argument for Wales to support more than a book of operational the firmest attainable rules that does not imply that the EU tengagement with the European Union is will become any kind of super state. that 155,000 Welsh jobs and 60 per cent of Welsh trade are dependent upon it. For euro neurotics the constitutional Treaty is the culmination of decades of These bread and butter realities are continental trickery by devious reinforced by the social dimension of foreigners producing a political union the EU. The Social Chapter and other which is monstrously different from the relevant legislation have brought economic agreement that Ted Heath hugely improved workplace standards signed in 1973 and the Referendum and rights, including maternity leave, endorsed in 1975. pro rata protection for part-time workers, working time regulation, This is complete rubbish and it deserves holiday rights, the European Works to be treated as such. The idea of a Council and much more. European Union has always been manifestly political as well as economic. The new Constitutional Treaty As one Prime Minister put it: "The represents a victory for those of us paramount case for being ’in’ is the who want the European Union to be an political case for peace and security." Its enduring legal association of not often that I quote Margaret Thatcher glenys kinnock argues democracies that retain sovereignty. It with approval, but even a broken clock is a fundamental rebuttal of the hard- is right twice in every 24 hours, and the the EU is about line federalists who argue for that lady who subsequently turned on this European nation which keeps John issue was certainly right on that pooling sovereignty Redwood awake at nights, but for occasion. The EU is not a one-way which there is as little real appetite larceny of sovereignty, it is a pooling of for mutual benefit amongst many of our neighbours as sovereignty for collective security and there is in our country. collective gain by each Member State.

The simple reality is that the Union The euro sceptics argue that Norway is a will function more effectively with 25 more independent, more sovereign member states with a body of nation than the UK, because it is not a modern rules than it can with the member of the EU. And yet Norway is Treaty established in the 1950s for compelled, by its voluntary membership six member states and periodically of the European Economic Area, to modified since. Under the new implement EU directives in order to Treaty, most of the power stays with maintain the advantages of its trading member states. On the basic issues relationship with EU Member States. of sovereignty – tax, foreign and The Norwegians refer to this as their defence policy and changes in the "fax democracy" because that is how Treaty – the conclusive authority of they receive the body of laws which they the national veto remains with the can play no part in making or changing. UK and every other member state. 50 There can be no overruling on those Recognising the opportunities and basics and everything that depends benefits of EU membership, together upon them. That is why, rationally, with recognition of the disadvantages there should be no problem with a of detachment can, and I believe will,

spring 2005 europe produce a Yes majority in the coming Six Member States – including the UK – Inside the original EU15, west Wales referendum. which are net contributors to the EU and the Valleys would still be below budget, argue that the budget the 75 per cent GDP figure that is used The next 12 months will be crucial in settlement for 2007-13 proposed by the to determine which regions require deciding the future of EU regional Commission is too ambitious and that most financial support. Inside the EU25 policy. By the end of 2005 there will be Cohesion Funding is one element that we could fall outside because the an agreement between EU needs to be cut. In the European averages per capita income will drop Governments on the financial Council meetings this year the resulting as a result of the admission to the perspectives and structural funds debate will be of crucial significance to Union of ten new relatively low income regulations to 2013 and, consequently, Wales since we are a part of the EU states. Left to itself, that ’statistical we will know what kind of funding which continues to have justified need effect’ could have grave implications support Wales will receive after 2006. for Structural Fund support. for Wales.

spring 2005 europe

Certainly, it would be mitigated if as is an understandable concern that There are still a number of issues to the result of change the government many projects have a limited life be resolved here. The Welsh fulfilled its guarantees that Wales span, and, in an ideal world there Development Agency thinks that would not be cut off from all support. would of course be longer duration identifying Assisted Areas at the The promise is that a re-nationalised of funding. But, even with time NUTS2 level would seem to be the regional policy would be flexible and limited spending the investment most logical method, as suggested by sustainable, and would meet the given to communities is a basis for the European Commission. Obviously need of our communities. That is a sustainable, individual and that has support from some local strong commitment and it is cumulative economic advance. authorities in Wales. However, the UK welcome. government believes that by using A project may have to close in 2006, the NUTS3 level we could better take However, it should not obscure the fact but that will not take away a young into account pockets of deprivation. that European funding of development mother’s computer qualification. It In Wales this would mean that has been materially better than any will not take away the confidence Swansea and Bridgend would be preceding commitment from given to a former steel worker after unlikely to be assisted areas beyond successive UK governments in starting his own new business. It will 2006. amounts, in focussed quality, and not reverse the collective pride and because of a seven year spending confidence generated in our Our economy will obviously continue schedule. communities that are making the to be faced by many challenges over transition to modern opportunities the coming years, but we have already European funding has helped create and occupations. Those are the come a long way. The drive towards 47,000 new jobs in Wales and realities which must prompt support full employment is nothing short of a safeguard 40,000 more. Nearly a for the Budget framework presented revolution in Wales with 120,000 more quarter of a million Welsh people by the last European Commission and people in work in our country than in have attended, or are currently sustained by the new European 1997. Our main focus must now be on attending training courses, partly or Commission. bringing better jobs, and on engaging wholly supported by EU resources. or re-engaging the 150,000 Some 39,000 people have attained a The Socialist Group and the European economically inactive people in Wales qualification – for some their only Parliament more generally have a who want a job. formal qualification – because proud and consistent record of courses have received sustained EU supporting the Commission’s In a century in which there are no support. Cohesion Policy, and we will be doing longer jobs for life, we must create in so again in 2005. The negotiations Wales a situation where there is In the years in which Wales has had will continue, and whilst the UK does employability for life. A growing Objective 1 status, there has so far have support from five other member Europe provides us with more been direct investment of over £900 states in its proposal for cutting the opportunities. Already over 600 Welsh million in the communities where it budget, only the Dutch apparently companies export to the EU each is needed most. What even these support the UK position. The rest are month, and trade with the EU brings in impressive figures do not tell, is the split by what they want to hold onto £4.5 billion a year. There is scope to human story behind each job found, and what they want to ditch. The build on that. each qualification achieved. Too natural assumption is that we will end often those sniping from the up with a compromise position, sidelines choose to ignore those which, whilst not ideal, would still see realities. funding come to Wales from a central European ’pot’. Over the last four years I have seen countless people who I know would Meanwhile, there is a broad agreement have joined the ranks of the between the European Commission, economically inactive, the depressed, the UK Government, local government the long-term claimants – but for and the Welsh Assembly that the projects supported by the EU. levels of state aid need to be brought • Glenys Kinnock is Labour MEP for 52 down in order to better develop Wales. This is an edited excerpt from a These are the reasons that an competition in the EU, whilst still lecture she gave to the Regeneration extension of European funding is allowing sufficient scope for assisting Institute at Cardiff University in something worth fighting for. There poorer areas. February 2005.

spring 2005 social policy profit and loss in rural wales harold carter argues that the economic imperatives that drive commercial decisions should not be applied to sparsely populated areas

he provision of services in sustain a service. This can be sparsely populated areas is a illustrated by the varying population fundamental problem facing required to maintain successively a trural Wales. A history of objection and district nurse, a primary health care protest accompanies the closure of centre, a general hospital and a cottage hospitals, the lack of specialised eye hospital or one carrying specialisms in regional hospitals, the out transplant operations or a closure of primary schools, village specialised children’s hospital. police stations, and post offices, and the reorganisation of magistrates To evaluate these minima is, however, courts and job centres. a much more difficult task. As an illustration, it has often been However, there has been very little proposed that to sustain a general attempt either by the authorities hospital a population of 250,000 is concerned or by objectors to develop a needed. Yet the fraught nature of such more general understanding of these estimates can be seen in the field of issues. Should they be seen in isolation primary education. It can be argued or are they all simply aspects of the that in order to have a sufficient same condition? expertise amongst a range of teachers and to supply the ever more elaborate Critical to the situation is central place equipment which a primary school theory which was initiated by Walther needs, then a threshold of at least 100 Christaller in Germany in the 1930s and which was extensively elaborated children is essential. Against this it during the latter half of the last century. can be maintained that with smaller At its simplest level the theory numbers a more intimate relation attempts to define and measure between teacher and pupil can be centrality, or the degree to which a developed and a more effective link to town serves its surrounding area, or community established. Thresholds hinterland, in terms of the goods and are, therefore, difficult to establish. In services offered. commercial terms, however, there is one overriding measure and that is Two fundamental controls are profit: the presence of sufficient responsible for the creation of the demand, another expression of a 53 hierarchy of settlements that occurs. threshold population, for the The first is the threshold population or operation to return a profit to its the minimum population required to owners.

spring 2005 social policy

Service is claimed to provide a service free at the point of delivery. It is difficult to ascertain what precisely is meant by ’at the point of delivery’. But palpably it can be interpreted in a rural context. If that is so then the complete provision is no longer free, but more importantly, nor is it equal. If a person lives a hundred miles away from a hospital, from the point of delivery, then willy-nilly a cost is involved in gaining access to the service point. If transport is provided that cost might not be measured in financial terms, but it certainly operates in time and convenience. In the extreme, if somewhat melodramatic, case the lack of immediate access could result in the loss of life and a measure of disadvantage very far in excess of the merely financial.

Here then is the crux of a universal problem which faces all societies where some socialist principles are The second control in central place power, that is population multiplied by presumed to operate. To what degree theory is termed the range of a good. the average wage. In 1998 Penny and should the demands of threshold be This is the maximum distance over Broom outlined ’The Tesco approach to modified by the exigencies of a which people will travel to purchase a store location’ (in N. Wrigley, Ed., Store tyrannical distance? In more direct good or derive a service offered at a Choice, Store Location and Market terms, to what extent in its operation of central place. Here it is not the Analysis, Routledge) which at the root social services has the Welsh Assembly population of the settlement which depends on the twin notions of Government allowed the inescapable constitutes the threshold but that of the threshold and range. A simple problem of range to modify the settlement plus hinterland. At some illustration can be derived from the demands of working to a minimum range from the centre inconvenience of location of Marks and Spencer stores in threshold? The answer to this would travel measured in time, cost and Wales. There is only one which can be appear to be very little indeed. trouble will outweigh the value or need considered to be within rural Wales of the good, or another nearer centre and that is at Carmarthen which can It is informative to review the general becomes available. Some might be draw on population from as far a field attitude by the consideration of a willing to make the effort but the as Aberystwyth and Pembroke. general letter which was sent in numbers will be insufficient to create Elsewhere, presumably, the necessary January 2005 to those who joined a the necessary threshold and the good threshold cannot be assembled within protest at the closure of Jobcentre Plus or service will not be offered: it has a tolerable range because of the thinly and Social Security offices in been outranged. This is how the distributed population. Aberystwyth and Newtown. The letter, hinterland of a town is determined. from the District Manager of the West This situation and the hierarchy of Wales Jobcentre Plus, reads: It is now apparent that the presence of settlements which results, a commercial operation will depend on conventionally or intuitively identified “Jobcentre Plus is modernising the interaction of these two controls. as metropolis, city, town, village, the way in which it delivers its That is certainly a simplification and hamlet, has long been accepted. services. Through a significant much more sophisticated procedures However, considerable problems arise investment in the modernisation 54 were elaborated by retail chains to when all these controls are transferred of our office network and better identify store sites. Thus, for a retail to the social services provided by the use of IT, we are dramatically store it is not the direct population state. The crucial issue can be made in changing the way we help people numbers which matter but spending simple terms. The National Health of working age, giving a real work

spring 2005 social policy

focus for customers claiming the usual gesture to the north. and the administered seek benefit. In light of this However, the whole of rural Wales is convenience. environment, it is vitally ignored. Here surely was an important that the Department opportunity to inject some economic It is true that to offset a barrage of and our processes are as efficient boost to the heart of rural Wales. criticism of the concentration of as possible. The decision economic development in the south- Jobcentre Plus has taken to If the hospital services in Dyfed are east that there are promises of the centralise its benefit processes at examined similar tendencies can be devolution of government a smaller number of Benefit identified. There is a constant implicit departments, especially the moving of Processing Centres will help to stress that it would be to the good for all major sections of the Assembly’s improve our service to customers higher level procedures to be centralised farming and rural affairs operation to and contribute to the 30,000 at Glangwili in Carmarthen, with the Aberystwyth, where the former Welsh headcount reduction that the consequent downgrading of services at Office agriculture department was Department needs to make Bronglais Hospital at Aberystwyth: a sort based until 1995. However, this is a between now and 2008. This of ’Marks and Spencer’ response. restoration rather than an innovation, move will also allow our staff to Bronglais is under constant pressure. It and no other centre in rural Wales is to develop their benefit knowledge was only with difficulty and after a long benefit. and experience and focus on the struggle that kidney dialysis facilities more complex cases. It will also were set up at Bronglais, saving patients It would be manifestly unfair to argue reduce costs, for example in a hundred mile round journey to unreservedly for the rights of those in management and other Carmarthen. A similar struggle is under thinly peopled rural areas for complete overheads and make better use of way to develop full cardiology services. equality of access, since the impact of our estates and offices. Half of the costs has to be recognised. But it is processing teams operate with The administrator, sitting in his urban perhaps ironic that a committed fewer than 10 staff. This is not the office and under pressure from socialist Assembly Government, which most efficient use of taxpayer’s government both central and devolved, proposes clear red lines as bounding money and it is not the most lays stress on financial savings, on its policies, consistently adopts the efficient way to process benefits to economies of scale, and therefore on capitalist basis of cost, or profit to use the timescales we set. …In threshold populations. The people who the commercial term, in the provision selecting the number of sites and wish to access services, and residing in of services and consistently renounces their locations the following factors remoter rural locations, lay stress on the socialist principle of equal access. have been taken into account. Size- range and on the most immediate Benefit Processing Centres should possible access. There results a ideally accommodate between 250 constant tension between the two • Harold Carter is Emeritus Professor of and 600 processors, with a which inevitably erupts from time to Geography at the University of Wales, minimum of 100 staff ... And in time as administrators seek savings Aberystwyth. Wales, benefit processing will be undertaken at our offices in Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil, Llanelli, Newport and Wrexham.”

A critical examination of this statement will reveal that in spite of the disclaimers over operating a more efficient service, the real driving force is not to minimise range or to help a scattered rural population, but to optimise a threshold deemed proper, indeed one explicitly set out. It is an unequivocal statement of the economies of scale as it operates in the business world. It is also interesting to 55 note the locations prescribed for benefit processing. They are A harbinger of things to come? Hermon Primary School in Pembrokeshire failed in its bid to resist closure. predominantly in south Wales but with

spring 2005 social policy

james foreman-peck finds that Welsh secondary schools should not grow any bigger size matters

obtained from variation in catchment figure 1: scatter diagram of area house prices, on the grounds that school exam performance these reflect the access to a school against school size 2002 which is not itself priced. Another more difficult measure to approximate is the addition to pupils’ lifetime earnings consequent upon the schooling.

Whatever measure is used it must be admitted that education authority cost per pupil cannot be the sole index of efficiency or school performance. A school delivering a better education may be more expensive than another, but it is not necessarily less efficient. It may be worthwhile incurring higher costs for a ’better’ school. Conversely it is not necessarily fair simply if all state n their 2002 report Trading Places schools incur the same costs per pupil. A Update: A Review of Progress on pupil may receive different standards of the student’s exam performance at an Supply and Allocation of School education depending on the state school iPlaces the Audit Commission argued earlier stage in their career. School attended. that large schools are more efficient ’value added’ performance can be obtained by including exam scores at because they have lower costs per A commonly used partial indicator of age 14 (Key Stage 3). There will pupil. This follows because they can school output is exam performance. probably be a secondary school effect spread the fixed costs of specialised Among exam performance measures that influences the score as an output teachers and buildings over a greater for secondary schools the proportion of of three years of education in the number of students. However, it should pupils gaining five or more A*-C GCSEs school, but this should not bias the not be forgotten that schools have has been widely discussed. Large judgment about the performance over more objectives than simply schools might achieve better exam the following two years. A scatter minimising costs per pupil. results as well as lower costs per pupil. diagram of the ’value added’ measure In this case, accepting the premise that What should schools do? Until we only exam results matter for the sake of agree on the answer school efficiency argument, there is no problem with figure 2: scatter diagram of or performance remains a problematic moving to larger schools: we gain lower school value-added against idea. Even if broad agreement is costs and better education. A scatter school size achieved, parents, teachers and diagram for Welsh schools in 2002 education authorities must decide on appears consistent with this contention the relative importance of the various (Figure 1). Larger schools show some

aspects of the education their schools tendency to have better GCSE results. added value are supplying. They might all exercise different judgements. Alternatively But schools work with different types 56 market weights could be used derived of pupils and this influences what they from parental ’willingness to pay’. The can achieve. One way of attempting to valuations of school outputs might be address the problem is to control for school size

spring 2005 social policy against school size shows no tendancy for other influences on performance, the the detriment of younger pupils. An for performance to improve with size effects of which might otherwise be indication of such concern may be (Figure 2). Rather, value added falls incorrectly attributed to size. School the Welsh Assembly Government slightly. characteristics include ’type’(see Box 1), proposed closing down of sixth forms class size and whether teaching is of poorly performing secondary Apart from resource usage and available for the 16-18 year old group, schools. Yet if 16-18 year old availability why might school size that is to say whether there is there is a education were complementary to affect exam performance? Because the sixth form. In principle, large schools that of 11-16 year olds, such a policy wider school environment influences could have small classes, or small could exacerbate the plight of poorly what goes on in the classroom. schools might have large classes. performing schools. Endemic bullying, hooliganism and theft in a school make learning and It is sometimes maintained that a A statistical exercise that attempts to teaching more difficult. How effective a large sixth form is necessary to control for a large number of Welsh teacher can be depends not only on attract and retain high-quality school level factors between 1996 and their personal qualities and those of teachers for the whole range of 2002, including whether or not the students, but also on the attitudes teaching – a sixth form is schools have sixth forms, will be and concerns of pupils. In turn these complementary to good performance published next year by the author in will be influenced by their peers in the lower age ranges. An the US journal Economics of Education outside the classroom. A school that is association between good Review. The estimates for the size not adequately controlled, like a state performance in the exams at 16 and performance relationship found are without law and order, will find numbers staying on to study over the shown in Table 1. The optimum size performing well more difficult. age of 16 could alternatively stem school is 560 pupils with the 16-18 simply from the inspirational impact year old group and 480 without them. Of course, what comprises school of good teaching encouraging staying In the short run the optimum sizes are control will always contain elements of on. Continuing schooling beyond the higher respectively 660 and 630. The controversy and depend upon compulsory age is often used as a reason is that the average school in individual management styles and measure of school output. On the the sample is too large and has been cultures. But for our present concern other hand a school with a sixth form designed to operate at or near their we do not need to define control, would as a consequence be larger, present size, and the short run merely assert that beyond a certain size with corresponding control problems. contributors to their performance, of school, control becomes more Possibly resources may even be such as site and buildings, were not difficult and that this control loss can diverted towards the over 16 group to measured in the present exercise. be measured by school performance. The economic significance of control is that typically as size increases, it tends school categories in Wales to offset the advantages of teacher Welsh school categories are Voluntary Controlled (0.8% of the sample), specialisation and curriculum variety. Voluntary Aided (6.2%) Foundation (3.7%), and Community (the base case). In these last the Education Authority employs school staff, owns the school lands If we want to understand the relationship and buildings and decides the arrangements for admitting pupils. In Foundation between size and performance such as schools the governing body employs the school staff and has primary illustrated in Figure 3, we need to control responsibility for admissions. The school land and buildings are owned by the governing body or a charitable foundation as is normally also the case for the figure 3: school size and following two categories. Voluntary Controlled schools are almost always school performance church (Roman Catholic or Anglican) schools. The Education Authority employs the school staff and is responsible for admissions. Many Voluntary Aided schools are church schools. The governing body employs the staff and decides admission arrangements.

table one: optimum school size (number of students) for exam results at 16* 57 With 16-18 year olds Without 16-18 year olds Long run when all inputs are variable 560 480 Short run – with existing buildings etc. 660 630

spring 2005 social policy

table two: explaining change in percentage of pupils gaining at Education is more than passing exams, least 5 A*-C GCSE by school 1996-2002 in Wales* however important they are. The central point is simply that we cannot Variable Change in Induced change judge whether public expenditure on explanatory in school education is efficient independently of variable results what we want from education. The (%point unless lowest cost solution could also yield indicated) the lowest quality. Key Stage 3 achievement two years earlier 10.7 7.3 Efficiency gain (Time index) 6 points 1.6 The exercise outlined here Deprivation (Free School Meals eligibility) -3.5 1.1 demonstrates that, with the simplest of Non-attendance -1 0.8 output measures, the relationship Sixth form 3.6 -0.1 between school size and performance Special Educational Needs student proportion 0.2 -0.1 is not what it might seem. Since only School size 7.2 -0.2 two years of what is usually a five year Class size (students per class) 1.0 student -0.3 course is captured by the exam Total estimated induced changes 10.1 measure employed, it is reasonable to Actual change 10.0 suppose that stronger results will emerge when the whole period of These estimates control for the rather more than one third of the ’value education is covered. variables listed in Table 2 and others added’ change over the period. such as school type. Yet other variables Contrary to the official view for England added no explanation and so were The one per cent improvement in of the public expenditure watchdog, the excluded. The pupil-teacher ratio for attendance between 1996 and 2002 Audit Commission, there is no reason to instance is unnecessary when class more than offsets the adverse impact suppose that, even on the present crude size is included in the estimating of rising class size on the chosen exam definition, educationally efficient schools equation. Table 2 uses the estimated performance measure. Increasing should be larger than the present equation to explain the historical school size has the opposite effect. But average size for Wales. Rather, the changes between 1996 and 2002. Table 2 shows that the total effect of opposite is the case. Reducing very large increased school size in these years schools to, at the most 600 pupils Since Key Stage 3 scores rose so much was small, a mere 0.2 of a percentage including the 16-18 year old group, and over the period (10.7 percentage points), point reduction in the exam score. at the most 500 for schools restricted to they were an important reason for better education between the ages of 11 and school GCSE results (10 percentage On the other hand radical changes in 16, in the long run could yield significant points) as shown in Table 2. Less than policy towards school size could have a gains in exam performance at 16, both one third of the improvement in exam substantial impact. If school average directly and through improved results at 16 in one sense is left size was reduced to 600 the exam attendance. Even in the short run the unexplained when exam scores at 14 are score would rise by 3.5. Moreover the optimum size is under 700 students, taken into account – though there were, gains would be much larger for bigger including sixth formers (compared with of course, changes tending to cause schools. A school of 1,200 cut down to an average for 2002 of 936). deterioration in results at 16 as well. 600 would increase its score by 7.4. If non-attendance could be lowered from Those not achieving any qualifications Table 2 shows that half of the ’value 10 to 5, this would push up scores by at age 16 also benefit from smaller added’ increase between 1996 and 4.2. Reducing class size by 5, yields a schools. Smaller class sizes contribute 2002 can be attributed to ’time’. This score increase of only 1.3. to better results independently as well. time effect can be interpreted as But what goes on in school outside the increasing ’teaching to the exam’ or These points matter. For example, in classroom influences matters as much targeting, as well as simply 2001 Swansea closed four schools, of as class size, where current variations improvement in teaching. The next which one was too small according to in exam performance are concerned. largest historical impact on ’value the present analysis, and replaced them added’ comes from a variable beyond with two schools, one of which is too 58 the control of the education system, large. The net effect of the reorganisation • Professor James Foreman-Peck is deprivation. Reduced proportions on exam performance, considered purely Director of the Welsh Institute for eligible for free school meals improved from the viewpoint of school size, will Research in Economics and results by 1.1 percentage points or have been slightly adverse. Development, Cardiff Business School.

spring 2005 social policy health performance marcus longley and These are questions to which citizens England, Scotland or Wales, 64 per in Wales might like to know the cent chose Wales. tony beddow answer. Presumably, Dr Brian Gibbons, the new Minister for Health and Social Looking to the future, most respondents examine what health Care, and AMs more generally, would were fairly confident that the re-shaping also like to know what their key of services called for by Wanless and the managers think of current policies. Audit Commission – changing the roles professionals really of many hospitals, providing more care In the last two months of 2004 the outside hospital – would be well on the think about the authors conducted a confidential postal way to being achieved by the next survey of 250 of the leaders of health Assembly election in 2007. Welsh NHS and social care and the voluntary sector in Wales. It was distributed to the Chairs, At the same time, however, there were Chief Executives, Medical and Nursing more areas where people felt that policy here is never any shortage of Directors of all NHS Trusts and Local was not heading in the right direction. debate or controversy about the Health Boards, the Directors and Cabinet NHS Wales has been re-organised many National Health Service in Members for Social Services, and the times in the past 20 years, the most tWales. In addition to reports generated Chief Officers of Community Health recent only coming into force in 2003. from within the service, there have also Councils and County Voluntary Councils. Each time the organisations are been several comprehensive reports from Ten health professional organisations changed, many months of effort goes distinguished outsiders, such as the Audit into making the new model work. were also included – the Medical Royal Commission, the Auditor General for Unfortunately, it would appear that we Colleges in Wales, the Royal College of Wales, and former-banker and adviser to still have not got it right. Nursing, and others. There was a good Gordon Brown, Derek Wanless (see Panel response rate – 137 overall, 53 per cent, 1). With remarkable consistency, they The key body responsible for driving including 108 out of 174 (62 per cent) have pointed to the many deep-seated forward the changes which everyone from the health service respondents. problems and advised on solutions. acknowledges are necessary at the local level is the Local Health Board (LHB). There In some respects the results were are 22 in Wales, coterminous with the local But the quality of public debate is rather reassuring. For example, there was a authorities with whom they are charged to limited, focusing alternately on waiting reasonable measure of consensus on times, and the latest service blunder. the relative priorities of various national While both these phenomena are policies. In general, respondents key reports on important, they are more a symptom of thought the Assembly Government was underlying malaise than its cause. giving the right priority to issues such NHS Wales as waiting times, improving people’s • Access and Excellence: What many people would like to know is health, strengthening GP-led services, Acute Health Services in Wales what those in the NHS in Wales (and its and giving patients and the public more NHS Cymru Wales, 2000 partner organisations) really think? If you influence over services. • The Review of Health could have a chat with them over a drink and Social Care in Wales: in your local, what would they tell you? Partnership working has been a strong The Report of the Project Team What do they believe is happening to theme over recent years, in particular advised by Derek Wanless, Welsh the service for which they are the need for the NHS to work much Assembly Government, 2003 responsible? Most importantly, do they more closely with social services and • Transforming health think that health services (and their the voluntary sector. Most respondents and social care in Wales: partners in local government and the thought that reasonable progress was Aligning the levers of change voluntary sector) are making progress being achieved in this area. People also Audit Commission in Wales, 2004 59 on the reform agenda? Will everything reported that they enjoyed working in • NHS Waiting Times in Wales be starting to come right by the time of Wales. When given a choice over Auditor General for Wales, 2005 the next Assembly election in May 2007? whether they would prefer to work in

spring 2005 social policy

table 1: local health boards

Total LHB Trust CHC Prof Social Orgs. Servs What do you think of the following? Median scores: 1=strongly agree, 2=tend to agree, 3=tend to disagree, 4=strongly disagree a Many Local Health Boards have too small a population base to be effective 2 2 1 2 1 2 b Local Health Boards will never bring about major improvements in health 2 3 2 3 1 3 services with their current strengths and expertise c Local Health Boards are well-placed to improve the health status of their 2 2 3 2 3 2 local population

table 2: performance management

Total LHB Trust CHC Prof Social Orgs. Servs What do you think of the following? Median scores: 1=strongly agree, 2=tend to agree, 3=tend to disagree, 4=strongly disagree a Welsh Assembly Government is good 3 3 3 3 3 3 at performance management b There are unacceptably large 2 2 1 2 1 2 differences in regional performance within NHS Wales

table 3: national policies

Total LHB Trust CHC Prof Social Orgs. Servs What do you think of the following? Median scores: 1=strongly agree, 2=tend to agree, 3=tend to disagree, 4=strongly disagree a There are too many policy initiatives 2 1 2 2 1/2* 1 relating to NHS Wales b Welsh Assembly Government health 2 2 2 2 3 2 policies are inconsistent * The median value fell between these two scores

work in close partnership. While most For some time there has been concern Wales?’, 53 per cent responded yes, 36 respondents thought that the LHBs were that national policy is being formulated per cent no, with 8 per cent don’t knows. well placed to improve the health of their with insufficient regard to the capacity local populations, they also had little of the NHS to implement it. This was While it is worrying that these opinions confidence that they were going to change echoed by the respondents to this are commonly held, many of the the way services were provided. The LHBs survey, who also felt that policies were problems are not new. Derek Wanless were felt to be too small, and lacking in not even always consistent (Table 3). and others have highlighted them often resources and expertise (see Table 1). in the past. What is new in this survey is One of the biggest differences between the view of the future held by the One important role for the Welsh health policy in England and Wales has leaders of the services. They were asked Assembly Government is to manage the been the rapid expansion of private to assess the likelihood of current performance of NHS Wales, to ensure sector involvement in England. Many policies being well on the way to being that resources are available where they foreign commercial organisations have achieved by 2007 (see Table 4). In each are needed, and that they are being used been contracted by the English NHS to case, with the exception of progress on effectively. Few believed that it was provide diagnosis and treatment for re-shaping services (a) and the voluntary discharging this task adequately (Table 2). patients where waiting lists are longest, sector (i), a majority of respondents Some parts of Wales, for example the with quite spectacular results. Wales has thought that it was unlikely that they south east, seemed to be performing consistently eschewed such an would be well on the way to being 60 markedly less well than others, for approach. When asked the question achieved by 2007. Even on the crucial example, the north. This finding was ’should the private sector provide an item (a), a majority of Trust, CHC and echoed in the recent report on Waiting increasing share of diagnostic services professional organisation responders times from the Auditor General for Wales. and elective operations for the people of thought that such progress was unlikely.

spring 2005 social policy

When faced with a difficult decision, figure 1: if you could chose, example, they support the priority patients often ask: ’What would you do, on which health care system given in Wales to improving people’s doctor?’ So we posed two similar would you choose to rely for health, rather than just treating ill questions to our respondents: the care of a loved one? health. Moreover, they distrust the • Which health care system would you abrasive, target-driven and unforgiving want to rely for the care of a loved one? managerial climate which they perceive • In which health care system would in the English NHS. you want to work? What this may be calling for is a new Only a third (31 per cent) would choose Welsh way. The leaders of services in to rely on Wales for the care of a loved Wales want to be able to match the one (Figure 1), but two thirds (64 per performance of the English NHS on cent) would prefer to work in Wales waiting times and other issues, but (Figure 2). they also want a regime which is close figure 2: if you could choose, to the front line of service delivery, There has been much speculation in in which health care system which understands and values local the press about what these results would you want to work? diversity, and which achieves a balance might mean. We suspect that the between short term performance and choice of system for the care of a loved long term, sustainable progress in one probably reflects the time it takes improving the nation’s health. to get into Welsh hospitals, the length of waiting times here compared with England. No-one is suggesting that the quality of care in Wales is any different from the rest of the UK. However, given a choice, would you rather wait more than 12 months to see a consultant, or people and know how the system less than 4 months? If the latter, then works. But perhaps it is also saying Wales is not an attractive option. something more important. Many managers and clinicians, while • Marcus Longley is Senior Fellow and As to where people would prefer to recognising the achievements of the Associate Director, and Tony Beddow work, the popularity of Wales might English NHS, do not want to ape it in Senior Fellow at the Welsh Institute for partly be explained by familiarity. Most every respect. They value much of the Health and Social Care, University of would rather be where they know ’Welsh approach’ to health policy. For Glamorgan.

table 4: will current objectives be well on the way to being achieved by May 2007?

Total LHB Trust CHC Prof Social Orgs. Servs What do you think of the following? Median scores: 1=strongly agree, 2=tend to agree, 3=tend to disagree, 4=strongly disagree a The re-shaping of health and care services in Wales along the 2 2 3 3 3/4* 2 lines suggested by Derek Wanless b No-one in Wales will be waiting more than 6 months for in-patient treatment 3 3 3 3 3 3 c Welsh orthopaedic waiting times in line with those of England 3 3 3 3 3 3 d The Welsh NHS Information Technology strategy on target 3 3 3 3 4 3 e Recruitment and retention will be such that no service failures occur 3 3/4* 3 3 4 3 because of human resource shortfalls f The reported performance of all Welsh Social Services Authorities will be 3 3 3 3 3 3 satisfactory or higher g No NHS Trusts will be in financial recovery (having to deal with deficits) 3 3 3 3 3 3 h LHBs will generally be regarded as effective commissioners 3 2 3 3 3 2 i The NHS and the voluntary sector will have forged an effective partnership 2 2 2/3* 2 2 3 61 j Public and patient involvement in service planning and monitoring will be 3 3 3 3 3 3 having a major impact *The median value fell between these two scores

spring 2005 social policy a programme that answers back

ommunities First, the Welsh • partnerships are not yet sufficiently Assembly Government’s strong, the ongoing building of their flagship programme to combat capacity is necessary to ensure that csocial exclusion which has been the programme has a sound running for three years, has won wide- organisational base. ranging support. One academic • Resources, policies and relationships recently described it as the “most must be aligned to focus on the most daring in Western Europe”, while an deprived areas. While there was observer from the private sector said much to be done from a standing that the process at the heart of the start, there is evidence that this is programme was ’outstanding’. beginning to happen with mainstream policies, programmes The principles upon which it was and spending within the Welsh established – a long term, non- Assembly Government, local prescriptive, ’bottom up’ approach, authorities, and ASPBs focussing in with a heavy emphasis on on designated areas. Assembly alun burge reports on communities identifying priorities, still policies are being harmonised to underpins its operation. It focuses on support Communities First areas. By progress with the 100 most deprived wards in Wales, way of a pilot, detailed work is together with 32 sub ward areas and underway between Assembly Communities First ten ’Communities of Interest’. Divisions and Merthyr Borough Council to look at how policy and However, the adoption of such an practice knit together on the ground innovative approach is providing in the Communities First area of considerable challenges to all involved, Gurnos. Lessons learned there will including local government, the inform practice elsewhere. voluntary sector, and the Assembly • More challenging than the focussing Government itself. It is not a simple of policies and funding, is the nature grant scheme. It is live and organic and of the relationship between the capable of answering back. For the service provider and the community. programme to continue to succeed, a While a local authority housing number of interlocking factors need to department may be concentrating be successfully addressed: much of its spending on its • Communities First partnerships must Communities First areas, the quality become strong enough to assume of the dialogue on what and how the responsibilities within the resources are used is as important as programme. A small number of the use of the resources themselves. partnerships are already at a stage of Some local authorities are embracing maturity where they can manage this agenda of cultural change, and large resources, engage with service the police service too has been 62 providers, and, for example, enter convinced by the benefits of such an into a dialogue with the Assembly approach. However, for some it has Government on the impact of policies been more difficult to embrace. Both on the ground. As the majority of members and officers in authorities

spring 2005 Mixing the mood music during a ‘Family Fun Day’ at Pencoedtre Park, Gibbonsdown, Vale of Glamorgan. The event was jointly organised by a group consisting of representatives from the Communities First Partnership, residents, the Police and Fire Service.

• can feel challenged by the shifts necessary because previous policies, the ground, are collaborating to necessary to move from traditional which have a lineage going back anticipate, and engage with, problems ways of working. In a recent meeting seventy years, have not succeeded in before they arise. of the Social Justice and grappling with the complexity of issues Regeneration Committee, Huw Lewis, that comprise social exclusion. The size of Wales, and its capacity to the Deputy Minister said that have close working relationships authorities have to learn to ’let go’. The priorities identified by local across institutions and sectors, also • Good practice needs to be catalogued communities, whether health issues, allows concentrated attention to be and shared. The diffuse nature of the such as diabetes amongst young people, paid to specific issues as they emerge, programme, where what happens in or economic inactivity, can be expected whether they be the quality of local one area might be quite different from to change as partnerships develop and relationships, the stance of a local body any other, means that it is both mature. The more developed or getting an ASPB to engage with the essential and difficult to transfer partnerships are already asking larger programme. Finally, serious and learning. However, the Communities questions and posing challenges for the regular reflection takes place on the Directorate, the Welsh Local Assembly Government and local feedback that comes back from a Government Association and the authorities to address. variety of sources, which in turn Communities First Support Network are informs and shapes the future direction working together to achieve just that. The long term nature of the of travel of the programme. programme, which is seeking to All these are long term areas of work. address deep rooted problems, will in Thus far Communities First has retained The strengthening of local community itself provide a challenge. By its nature, support because it has been seen to capacity, the tying in of policies and lasting change will be incremental and, succeed in getting local people to resources, the changing of the balance at times, slow to build. Managing engage in the issues that concern them. in local relationships in favour of the multiple expectations will always be an A solid platform exists upon which to people in the communities and the area that requires close attention. A build. The challenge now is to maintain sharing of good practice will require a number of mechanisms already exist that dynamic in the coming years. dogged persistence to achieve. that can contribute. An independent However, the generational nature of the evaluation which provides regular and programme means that over time detailed feedback, an Assembly • Alun Burge is Head of the Communities 63 these can combine to address the deep Directorate which is committed to First Programme in the Social Justice rooted issues that underpin being open and accessible, and staff and Regeneration Department, Welsh deprivation. Such an approach is who increasingly are working close to Assembly Government.

spring 2005 environment haunt of the horse

Defence, Powys County Council, the charles de winton Countryside Council for Wales and the Welsh Development Agency. Between reports on Wales’ them they have appointed an Epynt Way Development Officer and prepared latest long distance detailed plans for opening and footpath, managing the footpath. The project represents a first for the the Epynt Way Army Training Estate, since it is a permissive route that will remain open to the general public for the reation of the Epynt Way long- majority of the time, although it may distance footpath, encircling need to be closed occasionally for 30,000 acres of training land military training. It will provide cowned by the Ministry of Defence in opportunities for walkers, horse riders south Powys near Sennybridge is now and mountain bikers as well as the well underway. It involves a 90 less energetic who can utilise viewing kilometre circular route following the boundary of the training area. It aims points, picnic areas and the to link all the existing rights of way, conservation centre. It will link into many of which currently stop at the numerous public rights of way that range boundary. Around 40,000 lead on to the training area. soldiers pass through the Epynt ranges each year and many of the exercises The Epynt Way is located in what has involve live bullets and ammunition. been recognised as a blank spot in This has meant that until now the terms of mid Wales and routes north public has been banned from large and south. However, it links to the Wye areas for safety reasons. and Usk Valley walks and is also close to the Three Rivers Ride. Recently Nine sections of the route have been launched by the British Horse Society, identified, between access points this runs from Herefordshire to the reached by public roads. The first Mountain Centre at Libanus, near section, named Disgwylfa Brecon. (’Watchtower’) was launched last October. It runs from the conservation The Disgwylfa phase has provided a centre, near Sennybridge (Grid Ref SN pilot for the whole project. For walkers 993438), around the north-east of the it has proved to be an exhilarating four area to the Garth Road viewing point and a half hour experience with plenty (Grid Ref SN964466). The course then of variety in views and terrain. Some proceeds in an anti-clockwise direction would prefer a shorter circular walk 64 around the edge of the Training Area. and the feeder public rights of way provide this opportunity. There have The project is the result of been two problems for horse riders collaboration between the Ministry of with several boggy patches and some

spring 2005 environment steep ravines. An alternative route has businesses. The Epynt Way also offers maintenance but there will be an been provided around one ravine and a further facility just outside the Brecon ongoing need for bi-annual path another is to be improved. Work is also Beacons National Park, which it is topping and maintenance as well as in hand to drain the worst bog holes. hoped will take some of the pressure repair of damaged surfaces. However, a third potential user group, off the heavily used areas of the mountain bikers have not found this Brecon Beacons and surrounding Thought is also being given to phase to their liking. areas. Interest has also been expressed promoting the path with guides and from local people and businesses souvenirs. A distinctive logo designed In planning the project great attention involved with horses. In addition to the by Powys County Council staff has has been paid to the fragile Epynt bed and breakfast businesses, it is been registered as a trademark for use environment with its unique ecology hoped that additional businesses will on correspondence and merchandise. and Sites of Special Scientific Interest emerge that cater for putting up not This is based on the traditional local as well as its many historical and only people but horses. description of Mynydd Epynt as the archaeological sites. Because it has ’haunt of the horse’ – until the been unharmed by modern farming Establishing the remaining eight compulsory purchase in 1940, many practices for more than 40 years the phases of the project lies ahead. The horses roamed the hill but, unlike the area is an important conservation area. four phases along the southern edge sheep, their presence proved It is an internationally important site for of the Sennybridge Training Area all incompatible with the military activity. wax cap fungi, and home to a rare involve river crossings, which Welsh and English language websites orchid and moss. require the construction of bridges are also under development with up to or fords. Substantial parking date information including maps and It is anticipated that the project will be facilities are required for horseboxes descriptions. a boost to the local economy. For at the major access points and some instance, local farmers and bunk house shelters and refuges from the owners plan to use the Epynt Way to elements are also envisaged. The • Charles de Winton is Estate Advisor expand their bed and breakfast path is designed to be low with the Army Training Estate, Wales.

Members of Powys County Council’s Rights of Way Team inspecting the first ‘Disgwylfa’ section of the Epynt Way. The route of the path can be seen in the middle ground of the picture.

65 environment

alan knight says retailers should work with government in producing environmental impact assessments for the products they sell greening consumption

retail-friendly solutions. Sustainable This commitment to develop a strategy consumption is a huge debate, one we is welcome, but it is only a start. are only just beginning to scratch the Sustainable consumption is a vast topic. surface of, but one that retailers must No Government can yet boast a engage with fully if meaningful sustainable consumption policy that decisions are to be made. addresses the deeper psychological drivers behind consumption. It is a huge Consumer products – from the laptop uncomfortable debate, which will take a I’m writing this article on to the chair long time to turn into robust policy. you are sitting in to read it – form the unspoken agenda for sustainability. A brief example outside my own direct While issues like global warming or sphere of influence is to look at the water supply are given massive marketing of food products. In reality prominence, we rarely connect the we should have only a very small goods around us with this debate. proportion of fatty and sugary foods in our diet, with fruit, vegetables, and But we should. According to the World dairy products forming the largest part. Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report However, TV and other media published last year, the global average marketing has this proportion reversed: or a global retailer like of consumption of natural resources – nearly 90 per cent of all food adverts Kingfisher, with over 600 home what’s known as our ecological are for fatty and sugary foods. What improvement stores in 12 footprint – is 2.3 hectares per person. this tells us is that there are many fcountries and sales last year of over £7 However, in the developed economies drivers of consumption other than billion, actively promoting of Western Europe this figure rises to necessity or indeed what it best for us. consumption is what we do. We need around 5 hectares. As a result, the Simply assuming that consumption to ensure the forward progression and WWF estimated that “if everyone levels and habits more generally will growth of the business, and that means around the world consumed natural change, or even that legislation will persuading more people to go into resources and generated carbon have a meaningful immediate impact, is more of our shops and buy more dioxide at the rate that we currently do not going to be a satisfactory answer. products, more often. in the UK, we would need three planets to support us”. Instead we need to provide opportunities So an acknowledgement that present for consumption to occur within a rates of consumption, both globally The italics are mine. But the impact of sustainable framework that proves and in particular the developed this assessment should come as a attractive to consumers, not forcing them Western World, need to slow down – wake up call to everyone. The 2003 into an unwanted change in their buying even decrease – if we are to sustain our Johannesburg World Summit on habits. One clear step along this path available natural resources, does not Sustainable Development increased the would be to consider how we can all immediately sit easily with a business pressure for more radical initiatives to work to make our everyday products like ours. bring about a step change to enable ’greener’. Let me delve into my own life economic growth without a moment to explain what I mean. A paradox facing responsible retailers environmental degradation. The UK 66 is how to continue to promote Government’s response was to put I live in Hythe where, according to the consumption while also promoting forward its plans for a Strategy for marketing brochure, ’the New Forest sustainability. It is crucial that we face Sustainable Consumption and meets the sea.’ Everyday from my back up to it and seek to find workable and Production. garden I can see huge container ships

spring 2005 environment chug up and down Southampton Greening products is a sophisticated about the trade off between job Water. Each one carries upwards of business, and like most jobs it needs a creation and nature conservation. And four thousand 40-foot containers variety of tools if it is to be done the tool that the debate revolved stuffed full of products from every properly. With so many different issues around was an Environmental Impact corner of the world, ready to be picked and products a one-size-fits-all Assessment on the proposed port. The up and carried onwards by rail or road approach is not going to work. We result was that the site was declined. to their final destination. need a variety of solutions that can This was an important decision, but in drive environmental improvements in recognising it, I am prompted to ask a Who am I to complain – after all, further question: has anyone the products in these containers done an equivalent exercise on pay my wages. B&Q, which the products that this port will Kingfisher owns, imports more handle? Such as the several consumer product containers million loo seats a year that than most companies in the UK. require over 3,000 containers, Consequently, I have a selfish lots of wood and packaging, interest in this trade. The not to mention the energy prosperity of factories and expended in the making and supply chains around both the distribution of them? developed and developing world is also heavily dependent This example may seem trivial. on it (as is my home town of But if we extend this idea to a course). myriad of other everyday products, such as cars, I also rely on this trade in a household equipment or food, more basic way. The things then the overall impacts under crammed into those containers Getting into the swing of consumerism. scrutiny would be huge. In a contribute to my overall quality of life. nutshell, if we are going to be serious Things would be a little less products: a policy ’toolbox’ where the about sustainable consumption and comfortable without my £10 pine toilet more sophisticated the job, the more remove the hypothetical need for three seat made in China, and I could not specialised the tool needs to be. planets to sustain us in the future, then have installed it without my £2 the Government and retailers must screwdriver from Taiwan. In some cases, the driver is the customer, together demonstrate some real but in others it is the manufacturer or the commitment to greening everyday So, we all need products. The buying retailer. It may mean developing a products. As always, there is no silver and selling of things fuels our quality ’family’ of graded labels for homes, cars bullet solution. No perfect eco-label or of life and our prosperity. But when I and domestic equipment, which are the tax technique can ever do more than a see the container ships I am awestruck main end-user products contributing to fraction of the job. by one thing. We are consuming vast climate change. But it is not just about amounts of raw materials and energy labelling. Retail procurement policy, even But I firmly believe that by embracing and creating masses of potential waste new laws, are part of the equation. No the ’toolbox’ approach to policy, and in the process. This cannot be one group is solely responsible, nor are adopting the principle of sustainable and we need to do any absolved from responsibility. Environmental Impact Assessments for something to start making it so. products, we can make radical One strong example of what I mean progress. These ideas are only part of Which is where the ’greening’ of would be to produce an ’Environmental what a sustainable consumption products comes in. It will take a lot to Impact Assessments’ for products. Let agenda should be. But they are a start. make my Chinese loo seat truly me take you back to my house. As our sustainable, but (for example) using prosperity grows so does our drive to timber certified by the Forest buy more products, with the end result Stewardship Council, ensuring the that we need to import more. I see this factory in China looks after its impact directly – a new container port • Alan Knight is Head of Social employees and strips out over- is now required in Southampton. Responsibility at Kingfisher plc. This 67 packaging, will make a difference. article is based on a presentation he Given the sheer volume of loo seats One site considered was an important gave to a BRASS seminar at Cardiff sold each year in the UK that adds up. wildlife habitat which started a debate University during 2004.

spring 2005 culture cafeteria catholicism

harri pritchard jones assesses the impact of Benedict XVI on a church that punches above its weight in Wales

Britain in 1982 he chose to go from antipathy to the Roman Catholic England to Scotland and then to Wales, Church. At the same time it is not easy kissing the ground of the three countries, to find out what the general feelings in speaking some Welsh, having only the Wales are about the new Pope himself. Welsh flag flying together with the Papal Most people of good will wish him well flag, and leaving Britain for Rome from and tend to suspend judgment for the Cardiff airport. present. It is true that the Welsh Roman Catholic community and Church are These gestures had a profound effect more cohesive than in England or in on many Catholics in Wales. They the Anglican world. There is little began to become Welsh Catholics since support for abortion, though the even the Pope of Rome considered Church does approve of the removal of Wales to be a country and a nation. In a cancerous womb, for instance, even recent years Roman Catholicism has if it holds a live baby, acting according been growing in Wales The growth of to the principle of double effect. For the Church in Wales in recent decades many that is simply casuistry, but it is a may now be seen as a growth of Welsh fundamental principle for the Catholic Catholicism more so than of Catholics Church that it is the intention that t is some comfort that Benedict in Wales. The Catholic community is counts, whatever the side effects. And XVI bears the name of the pope gradually taking up Saunders Lewis’s that is not equivalent to saying the end who gave us our own independent challenge to see themselves as part of justifies the means. The same principle churchi nearly ninety years ago. Writing the tradition originating in the days of of double effect is involved in the in 1916, the year of the Irish Rising, Dewi Sant and the Age of Saints, rather allowing of people to die in a dignified Pope Benedict XV declared: “Wales, a than being Irish or Italian or English way, but never to deliberately kill. The nation of Celtic origin, differs from so Catholics who happen to live in Wales. new Archbishop of Cardiff, a trained much of the rest of England in lawyer, has been to the front in language, traditions and ancient About 150,000 Welsh people identify elucidating these issues to customs, that it would seem in the themselves as Catholic, with many parliamentarians and the media. ecclesiastic order also to call for keeping some sort of contact with the separation from the other churches and Church. It is reckoned that some 37,000 The issues of married priests and for the possession of its own hierarchy.” regularly attend Sunday Mass. This contraception are less fundamental. compares with the Anglican Church in The first is a matter of Church In theory Wales has its own hierarchy, but Wales, the largest body of Welsh discipline rather than doctrine, and the with just three dioceses it is considered Christians, which has some 75,000 Church does have married male priests too small to act on its own. As a result it Easter communicants. These two in various sections of it, including one joins with England in a Bishops’ Episcopalian churches are now the two in this country. The principle of family Conference of the two countries. On the largest denominations, while the sad, planning has also been agreed and other hand Scotland is totally steady decline in the Nonconformist accepted during this last generation, independent in the Roman Catholic order. numbers continues. and it is the methods used that are at 68 Nevertheless, the late Pope John Paul II issue. Ideally, no one would wish to stressed Wales’s separateness with The response to the death and burial of have to use condoms or the various repeated encouragement for the use of the late Pope John Paul II showed that pills or devices fitted in the vagina or Welsh in the liturgy. When he visited the Welsh in general have lost their old womb in order to prevent conception,

spring 2005 culture and surely medical science will whilst dealing with human frailty and matters. In the 1960s it united with the succeed before long in producing a fault in its pastoral work. other churches to produce the new relatively inexpensive method which is translation of the Bible into Welsh in effective and respects human dignity. On the question of divorce, many the 1960s. Later it joined what is now The use of condoms to prevent the Welsh Catholics would favour a CYTUN as a full member before that passage of the HIV virus is not totally practice akin to that of the Orthodox happened in the rest of the UK or condemned by the teaching authorities, Churches, which allow limited divorce, Ireland, and more recently it has joined and is a matter of debate at present. and it is reliably reported that as in enthusiastically in the Welsh Inter- Alas, it is unlikely that males in the Cardinal Ratzinger, the present Pope faith Council. third world will choose to use them, has moved recently towards allowing and, as usual, it is the women who the ’innocent’ parties in divorces to In many ways, the Catholic team leads suffer. receive Holy Communion, which is a the way on many issues because it is step in that direction. more coherent and cohesive, without Talking about women, it is rumoured being monolithic. Welsh Catholics are that it was the present Pope, as Certainly, very many Welsh Catholics, welcome to contribute to almost all cardinal, who tried to give the late like their fellows in the West, are to Welsh papers and magazines in both Pope’s statement that the question of some degree or other ’cafeteria languages, and the profile of the ordaining women was out of bounds Catholics’, in that they pick and choose contributors is prominent and the status of an infallible what doctrines they obey or follow. acceptable. The Church does punch pronouncement. What we, who This is not always a sign of weakness, above its weight in Wales, but it support the ordination of women, as but a way of showing what the sensus increasingly suffers from that ’cafeteria’ well as more collegiality (devolution to fideii is, namely what the believing mentality. local hierarchies) within the Church, community of Catholics feel is right; call ourselves is ’the loyal opposition’, and it is an important element in the Benedict XVI may change this. On the and this movement has become way the Church learns how to develops basis of his track record he may try to stronger in the Welsh Church. its doctrines and practices. eliminate all pick and choose loyalty, as he has silenced theologians who did Sometimes, what is upsetting is a In all this, ecumenical relations are not meet with his approval. However, matter of wording. Too often the Latin central, and the Church has to reiterate as Pope he will have to tread gently if mal is rendered into English as ’evil’ its belief that there is good in all he is to recover a profile of the Church rather than ’wrong’ or ’disordered’. religions and in all people of good will, that is appealing and loving and This has been very obvious in whilst still asserting that the totality of tolerant in the eyes of Europeans, statements about homosexuality. Most the Christian Faith resides in the including the Welsh. Welsh Catholics would not be Roman Catholic Church. The new Pope homophobic. On the other hand, they seems to be moving towards would not support acknowledging acceptance of this in his sermons since homosexual partnerships as marriages. he was elected. The Catholic Church in • Harri Prichard Jones is a Catholic writer The Church always preaches an ideal Wales has been a pioneer in these and co-chair of Yr Academi Cymreig.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “a simple, humble, worker in the vineyard of the Lord”, achknowledges the crowds’ ecstatic reception from a balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica following his election as Pope Benedict XVI in April. culture glanmor williams 1920 – 2005

he Welsh have been writing a matchless grasp of the literary history, theirs and other evidence and remarkable empathy for people’s, from Giraldus in the the Catholic faith from a Welsh Baptist. ttwelfth century to Gwyn Alf in the Dom David Knowles, the Cambridge twentieth. But I believe that Glanmor grandmaster, hailed it as a Williams, who died in Swansea on 24 masterpiece. His volume on the years, February 2005, was the most important 1415 – 1642 in the ’Oxford History of of them all. He was not only a Wales’ series (1987) dealt with total remarkable historian in his own right: authority on the varied torments of his he made the history of Wales over two people from the aftermath of Glyndwr’s millennia a project, a discipline, a craft rising to the coming of the civil war. for scholars, and a key to the national The Act of Union in 1536 is handled identity for the ordinary man and with calm authority, quite without woman. polemic. And in 1997, forty-seven years after he began his research, his The son of a Dowlais miner in the hard culminating study of Wales and the years and going to Cyfarthfa school, he Reformation finally appeared. But over drew inspiration from his native six decades a mighty torrent of other kenneth o morgan on community, movingly expressed when work appeared, much of it ranging over he received the freedom of Merthyr in the whole of Welsh history on themes the founder of the 2002. He was a brilliant student at such as language, literacy, religion and Aberystwyth: his lifelong devotion to nationality, and the interface between 20th Century school the ’college by the sea’ was abundantly culture and social change. clear when he became its vice- of Welsh historians president when I was its Vice Secondly, he was a great strategist, Chancellor in the 1990s. And in director, editor, almost impresario. He Swansea, he made his department as was the first editor of the Welsh History productive of gifted young talent as Review in 1960; he laboured was the legendary fly-half factory in the indefatigably to bring to completion world of rugby. In this diminutive man, the edited six volumes on the Wales has lost its biggest historian and Glamorgan County History; he was the one of its greatest sons. natural choice to be editor of the ’Oxford History of Wales’, still sadly His achievement lay in four main areas. incomplete. His interests in the First, as a writing historian, his legacy industrial period also became was immense. Specialising in Tudor important, notably in his leadership of history, he wrote three massive works, the south Wales coalfield project after each of them a classic. The Welsh 1972. Glan always led from the front. Church from Conquest to Reformation As long-term chairman of the Board of (1962) began life as Chapter One of a Celtic Studies, on the Commission on 70 study of the Reformation in Wales. It Ancient Monuments, in the worlds of ended up as an extraordinary synoptic libraries, archives and local history, he survey of Welsh religious, cultural and was omnipresent and inspirational. social life in the medieval period, with Indeed, he turned these talents beyond

spring 2005 culture the world of history, serving as a There was a wonderful older colleague that my eight years with Glan were the staunch governor and chairman of the in Glan’s contemporary and close most fulfilling of my professional life, BBC in Wales in the later sixties, friend, Ieuan Gwynedd Jones, and that this man had huge reserves standing up to the bullying of George colleagues like David Walker, Muriel not only of intellect but of character, Thomas at the time, and ensuring, Chamberlain and Neville Masterman spirit and soul. while serving on the Hughes-Parry who worked on both Welsh and committee in 1965, that the Welsh English themes, and always Glan Glan’s values and idealism were the language gained ’equal validity’, legally himself for intellectual leadership, key to him. Some of this emerges in and morally, with English. bright as a button, deeply human. His his charming little memoir published in department breathed fraternity. He 2002. He cared deeply for his Third he was a matchless teacher, taught us Wales had an important, colleagues, and spurred on their often not only for his students in Swansea coherent past. Some people even faltering search for truth with his and in other universities, but in concluded it had a future, too. Out of insight and wit. Cheerfulness was academic events like the John Rhys our dispassionate scholarship, perhaps, always breaking through; he was lecture to the British Academy, a came the green shoots of devolution. bubbling and outgoing equally in bravura performance which I heard. Welsh and English. He and Fay, his He was also a tireless contributor to wife and partner for over half a century extra-mural and part-time teaching, were devoted to each other (early on, to local history societies and the he supervised his wife’s thesis, not an WEA. Glan believed passionately in easy task as I know from my own all this: it was a gospel of citizenship. experience!). Beyond his family, he And he retained all his skills to the was a selfless public servant on end. The last time I met him was commissions, as a magistrate, in the when we had dinner after what Welsh Baptist Union. He educated turned out to be his last lecture, in Wales in understanding its collective the Schools in Oxford on 7 February. memory and sense of identity. For An account of Sir Edward Carne, a myself, I feel I have lost the most leading Welsh official under Henry influential man in my life other than VIII and Mary, it was full of life as my father, someone who taught me well as learning, with all Glan’s grasp how to be an historian, why it mattered of detail, power of communication so desperately. Even more than my and sheer fun well on display. Sadly, other mentor, David Williams in it may have been just a bridge too Aberystwyth (Glan’s teacher too), he far for the strength of a man of articulated my core values, with an nearly 85. A portrait of Glan Williams taken in 1962 from his overlay of valleys socialism, innate autobiography Glanmor Williams – A Life, published by the University of Wales Press in 2002. democracy, and love of nation and And finally he was unique in the way language. Robert Blatchford, the he encouraged and inspired younger He was a deeply civilized man, too, socialist editor of Clarion, wrote of colleagues. I joined his department in passionate for art and opera and Italy, William Morris, ’Strike at him where Swansea in 1958, initially as Research an enthusiastic companion at rugby you would, he rang true’. So it was Fellow in Welsh Social History at a internationals, agile wicket-keeper for with Glan and his truth goes marching stipend of just £600 a year. But in the staff cricket team (I succeeded him). on. intellectual stimulation and scholarly During my year in New York in 1962 – comradeship, I was as rich as Croesus. 3, busy though he was, he sent a How could I not be when soon after stream of messages on matters of the Glan himself brought in historians of mind (and sometimes the heart). His Wales like Rees Davies, Ralph Griffiths, sheer decency never emerged more Prys Morgan, John Davies and the late movingly than when I told him in 1966 • Lord Kenneth O. Morgan was a lecturer Bill Greenway amongst my colleagues, I was leaving for Oxford. It made him at the University of Wales, Swansea, with Dai Smith, David Jones, David sad – and I realised that I was sad too 1958 – 66, and became an honorary Howell, Peter Stead, Gareth Elwyn and wanted to stay at Swansea. Yet, he fellow there in 1985. His Rebirth of a Jones and Hywel Francis (the last still advised me to move on to Oxford, Nation: Wales 1880 – 1980 (1981) was 71 three, like Geraint Jenkins, another just because he thought it would be the first volume to be published in the Swansea product, all pupils of Glan’s better for me in the long run. Nearly 40 Oxford History of Wales series edited and mine)? years later, I still wonder. But I do know by Glanmor Williams.

spring 2005 the last word winners lose out

as if in response to my new had rarely been seen in plethora of leadership feeling of political freedom Swansea, the extent to which contests will make that clear. and curiosity, my any of the eight could claim to There were no real issues in constituency served up no be Swansea Jacks was not the Election of 2005 and less than eight candidates. going to be an issue. But what I perhaps it is the case that Fortunately I did not meet liked about the Cannabis man issues will always be any of these worthies and I from Norfolk (does it grow mediated by personality, must warmly thank them for better there?) was his sense of whether that of politicians or not darkening my doorstep. history ('Cannabis has been broadcasters. Of course, the Undisturbed I could settle used as a therapeutic herb for real stars of the election were down to read their rather hundreds of years') and his Paxman, Marr, Mair and desultory literature, once it emphasis on his own 'special Humphrys. But they were not had been separated from the interest in Welsh traditions and the people's tribunes as they peter stead manifestoes of Tesco, mythologies and their links fondly imagined themselves Somerfield, the Co-op and with the history of Ancient to be. Rather they were rival Dominos Pizza. Britain'. Wales, however, was entertainers distancing us hardly a clear issue in this from serious debate to the s always I greatly I appreciated the novelty of Election - 'You're Plaid aren't same extent as the politicians enjoyed the Election. In the an open mind and found you?' I asked my greengrocer. they struggled to nail down. absencea of the Olympics and reasons for warming to every 'No. I'm a Welsh Nationalist,' any sporting World Cup, it is one of the solicitous eight. he casually declared. The next General Election will always comforting to know The fact that the UKIP be won by a good-looking that at 10pm every evening candidate was the son of my Ultimately and inevitably it man in his late forties you do not have to worry all-time soccer hero was became a British presidential wearing a blue shirt with whether there will be anything almost sufficient to gain my election and, like most other alternatively a red or blue tie. interesting on television. I love support until I realised that he people, I duly voted against He will almost certainly be a the transmissions of the daily had not mentioned this in his the incumbent, aImost Tory. No party can now afford banter, so long as the leaflet. The Green entirely on the basis of his to select as leader a mere participating politicians do not representative had been one integrity. The vote on 5 May worthy. What could the Lib get bogged down in the of my more interesting and delivered almost precisely the Dems have achieved in 2005 issues. In the words of the assiduous students and I had result that most traditional if they had found a leader woman in one of Matt’s rather liked the way that he Labour supporters wanted. who looked as if he was incomparable cartoons, “I like had returned one of my Essentially the President had enjoying himself? In Wales, the negative personal attacks, books by post some ten years been defeated. Graphically too, this election highlighted but all the policy stuff turns after he had borrowed it. the television close-ups told it the need for politicians who me off”. all. No loser has ever looked can communicate, listen and In the new political so happy, no so-called winner sparkle a little. Meanwhile, let People kept on about the dispensation I was prepared to so gutted. Hopefully, the real us hope that able young proceedings being boring but give Plaid serious consideration winner will be a House of people realise that politics is I was being better but at that stage I was diverted Commons that now quite more worthwhile than entertained than in any of the by the literature of the Legalise urgently needs to use what is broadcasting. Plaid urgently fourteen elections I recall. For Cannabis candidate. He essentially an interregnum to needs a man in a blue shirt. the first time I felt under no confessed to being ‘not local’ rediscover its integrity, vitality Now just imagine the future obligation to vote for the and ‘from Norfolk’ but as other and constitutional identity. reaction of the Wales Labour party to which I had thought candidates hailed from camp, under their new 72 myself committed for life. I ‘Oxford’, ‘Surrey’ ‘Middlesex Nevertheless, we all have to woman leader, when it is had been given the novel and France’, and the core of the accept the undoubted fact that announced that Huw opportunity of inspecting all Socialist Alternative candidate’s our politics will remain Edwards is to lead Plaid the runners and riders and, case was that the Labour man presidential. The imminent Cymru.

spring 2005