S P R I N G 2 0 0 3 Upfront 7 News Politics and Policy Culture And

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upfront culture and economy environment 2 whitehall versus wales communications 40 rural survival strategy 62 making development analysing the way Westminster 33 gareth wyn jones and einir sustainable shares legislative power with ticking the box young say we should embrace kevin bishop and unpacking the Welsh 2001 Cardiff Bay robert hazell ‘Development Domains’ as a john farrar report on a census results denis balsom says Wales risks getting the central focus for economic new study to measure our finds subtle connections worst of both worlds policy in the Welsh countryside impact on the Welsh between the language and

cover story cover environment 7 news nationality 43 making us better off steve hill calls for the 64 mainstreaming theatre special Assembly Government to renewable energy politics and policy adopt a culture of evaluation peter jones says Wales 13 35 i) a stage for wales in its efforts to improve should move towards clear red water michael bogdanov says Welsh prosperity more sustainable ways of rhodri morgan describes the Cardiff and Swansea living distinctive policy approach should collaborate to developed by Cardiff Bay over science special produce the forerunner europe the past three years for a federal national 47 i) why we need a 15 red green theatre science strategy 66 team wales abroad eluned haf reports on the progressive politics 38 ii) modest venue – phil cooke charts Wales’ adam price speculates on melodramatic progress in venturing into new Welsh representation whether a coalition between debate the Knowledge Economy in Brussels Labour and Plaid Cymru is terry hands teases 51 i) networking 68 farming and the men possible out what we mean by in brussels ‘national’ in addressing the genes 16 our man in whitehall paul atkinson reports glyn davies describes his our north-south jessica mugaseth comes on a new genome encounters with the EU’s theatrical divide face to face with Peter Hain research centre at Cardiff Common Agricultural University Policy and sketches out its future first term special 52 ii) land of science 18 as well as song endpiece i) the devolution dividend rhodri griffiths says we kevin morgan asks whether the Assembly is worth having should learn to love our 72 peter stead 23 ii) art of conversation in the bay scientists interesting times david melding wonders whether Wales has become a more eloquent political entity since devolution social policy 26 iii) devolution’s colour code charlotte williams assesses the impact of the National 55 combating the Cover: Looking north as the Assembly on ethnic minorities Irish Ferry ‘Isle of Inishmore’ ’gender contract’ sails past the Chevron-Texaco 29 helen buhaenko reports on a jetty at Milford Haven. iv) trajectory of change project that is engaging with john osmond puts the Richard Commission on the Assembly’s deprivation in the Gellideg Photograph courtesy of Milford powers under the spotlight Haven Port Authority council estate in Merthyr upfront whitehall versus wales

analysing the way Westminster shares legislative power with Cardiff Bay robert hazell says Wales risks getting the worst of both worlds

he arrangements one in five of departmental bids managing to gain legislative for making primary slots. Slots are not awarded simply on merit: it is a rare legislation for Wales session when one of the bigger beasts in the Whitehall tare not working smoothly jungle, such as David Blunkett or John Prescott, does not get or delivering satisfactory at least one Bill into the programme. legislation for Wales. There are three The whole process is meant to be kept a tight secret until the fundamental difficulties Queen’s Speech is given and the contents of the new which cannot be ignored: session’s legislative programme are unveiled. In November • The Westminster 2002 the Blair government previewed most of the contents legislative programme in a carefully orchestrated series of announcements in the is chronically days before the Queen’s Speech that broke with all congested, so convention. Who said that for their second term New Labour that it is always were abandoning spin? hard to find space for ‘whitehall knows best’ Wales. • The UK government will always have competing priorities. Into this confidential process have to be inserted the bids for • Legislation is too often drafted or amended at the last primary legislation that come up from the National minute, leaving little time for Wales to be properly Assembly for Wales. Primary legislation is of fundamental consulted. importance to the Assembly, since it is entirely dependent on Acts of the Westminster Parliament for the legal The legislative programme for Westminster is prepared in framework within which it develops its own secondary legislation and administrative policies. Westminster defines an annual cycle culminating in the Queen’s Speech each the powers and functions of the Assembly in matters great November, when the government announces the and small. In the process it can reduce the Assembly’s programme for the coming parliamentary session. The powers – inadvertently or by design – as well as increase programme is planned and managed by the Legislative them. The Assembly has to be constantly alert to the Programme Cabinet Committee, chaired by the Leader of possibilities of new legislation from Westminster, in terms of the House and President of the Council, formerly Robin the opportunities it may present as well as the risks. Cook. At the beginning of each calendar year the Cabinet Office issues invitations to all departments to bid for space The Government of Wales Act provides a formal piece of in the legislative programme, and from Easter onwards it machinery whereby once a year the Secretary of State for begins to prioritise Bills into marshalled lists with four or Wales consults the Assembly about the UK legislative five different degrees of priority. programme, and attends an Assembly debate on the Queen’s Speech, after it has been announced at Westminster. In These range from bills to fulfil international obligations, and practice, by then it is usually far too late for the Assembly to Bills to preserve statutory powers about to expire, to gain any slots in the legislative programme for the new programme Bills promised in the manifesto. Bills with high session just beginning, so the debate is a bit of an empty 2 enough priority receive authorisation to be drafted by ritual. However, the Assembly Government is invited to Parliamentary Counsel over the summer. The rest languish submit bids well before that, in the spring of each year, at the or die. Competition to get into the legislative programme is same time as other Whitehall departments; and it is known extremely fierce, with typically only as few as one in four or what bids the Assembly Government has put forward.

spring 2003 upfront

So far the success rate of the Welsh Assembly Government has legislative action, geographically and figuratively, and are not been high. Rhodri Morgan claims a 500 per cent improvement heavily reliant on Whitehall goodwill to keep them in the picture. by comparison with the years pre-devolution, but the figures do not seem that encouraging. For the 2001-02 session the Assembly These fundamental weaknesses – the chronic legislative Government put forward four bids and got half a promise on one. logjam, Whitehall’s overriding priorities, and the rush in which For the 2002-03 session they put forward eight bids but didn’t Westminster legislation is prepared – lead in turn to a number improve their strike rate. This may be no higher than the success of undesirable consequences. Legislation for Wales is often rate of any other Whitehall department. But is it right, and in the fragmented and incomplete, because the Assembly needs to spirit of devolution, to rank the Assembly alongside any other grab every legislative opportunity it can. As a consequence Whitehall department? The contrast with Scotland is particularly primary legislation for Wales is hard to find and to understand, stark: the Scots have been passing a dozen bills a session in the because some of it is in patchwork installments in different Scottish Parliament (see Panel on page 5). statutes. Different statutes also treat the Assembly differently, depending on the approach of the individual draftsman. Whitehall guidance also makes it quite clear where Whitehall’s Finally, because the timetables of Westminster and the priorities lie: in supporting the interests of the UK Government, Assembly do not always coincide, legislation for Wales can fall not those of the National Assembly. Cabinet Office guidance between the two legislatures and be poorly scrutinised. on Post-Devolution Primary Legislation affecting Wales, states bluntly that, “The purpose of this guidance is to facilitate the The best known example of fragmentation lies in the only efficient conduct by the UK Government of its legislative Wales-only Bill so far passed by Westminster since devolution, business. Disagreements are an impediment to that .” the Children’s Commissioner for Wales Act 2001. Despite its title, the Act did not establish the Children’s Commissioner for The guidance goes on to enjoin departments to consult the Wales. That was done the previous year, in Part V of the Care Assembly Government at an early stage in the development Standards Act 2000. In his evidence to the Lords Constitution of legislative proposals, in particular those which confer new Committee when they came to Cardiff in May 2002 Rhodri functions on the Assembly or alter its existing functions. Morgan was quite candid about the reason why: Consultation will be in confidence and may constrain wider consultation by the Assembly Cabinet: “… in no “But even that was messy because they said, ‘If you circumstances will the Assembly Cabinet circulate or allude would like to have that a year earlier, we can include it to Bill material without the consent of the lead Department.” in an England and Wales Bill.’ That has become quite common. We bid for a bill, they say ‘Yes, okay, we will fragmented welsh legislation go with that but would you like to tag on the principle and get it established a year earlier than you could In the early days of devolution Whitehall consultation with the otherwise do?’ Obviously we grabbed that opportunity.” Assembly was sometimes perfunctory. The position has improved since, but there is no disguising the weakness of the So fragmented and so hard to find is the law relating to Wales Assembly’s position. Assembly officials are entirely dependent that Cardiff Law School has launched a new public information on Whitehall departments to make the first move in informing service, Wales Legislation on-line. It says something about the the Assembly Government about legislative proposals, and accessibility of primary legislation relating to Wales that this they are entirely dependent on departments keeping them in new service is essentially a private initiative, even though its the loop thereafter. Nor is it always possible for the Assembly prime mover is David Lambert, former Chief Legal Adviser to to negotiate a different policy solution for Wales: in at least the Welsh Office, and now the Legal Adviser to the Presiding one case that was not permitted by the Whitehall department Office of the National Assembly. because the difference between the two approaches would have been too glaring on the face of the Bill. The next undesirable consequence of dependency on Westminster for primary legislation is the extraordinary The other fundamental weakness lies in the long and indirect variation in how legislation for Wales is drafted, and in chain of communication between the Assembly Government in particular how new powers and functions are conferred on the Cardiff and those drafting the bill in London. Assembly Assembly. This was strongly brought out in the evidence to Government lawyers in Wales are not allowed to instruct the Welsh Affairs Committee and Lords Constitution Parliamentary Counsel. If a bill relating entirely to Wales is being Committee inquiries, from independent and official sources. drafted, the Assembly can second a skeleton bill team to the The Presiding Officer, Lord Elis-Thomas said in his evidence to Wales Office to help with the preparation of the Bill; and they the Lords Committee: “At present, there is no consistency of 3 have seconded individual officials to join bill teams in other practice and no clear convention on the drafting of Bills which departments where the Bill has a significant Welsh component. affect Wales – indeed, as the Constitution Unit has argued, In the main, however, they are kept a long way away from the each new Bill can be seen as re-inventing devolution.”

spring 2003 upfront

Government guidance on the making of primary legislation for such a Bill earlier this year and shows how the National affecting Wales is silent about any principles to be observed in Assembly and Westminster can work together for Wales.” determining the approach to devolving new powers. To fill the gap Professor Richard Rawlings proposed a set of principles, to What happened next illustrates very strongly how the Assembly ensure greater consistency of treatment and parity with powers is at the mercy of Whitehall when it comes to negotiating for conferred on English Ministers. These were adopted with minor legislative time. Within weeks the proposals for a separate NHS variations by the National Assembly Review of Procedure (Wales) Bill were dropped. Instead they were to be incorporated (chaired by Lord Elis-Thomas) which reported in February 2002. in an England and Wales Bill, which would provide a more The Review urged the First Minister to communicate the convenient legislative vehicle for the UK government. This ‘Rawlings principles’ to the UK Government, and to impress on meant the proposals went to Westminster before they had been Whitehall departments the importance of adopting the principles. debated in plenary in Cardiff. The results of the Assembly Government’s consultation on the proposals arrived in the There then ensued a long silence, for which there are several House of Commons Library on the morning of the Second possible explanations. Practice in Whitehall was starting to get Reading debate in November 2001. In the debate former Welsh better, so Welsh Ministers may have decided not to rock the Office Health Minister Jon Owen Jones was moved to say some boat. Some of the Assembly’s senior lawyers thought the strong words about how Welsh MPs were being bounced into principles were unworkable. The First Minister may have approving this particular piece of legislation: decided not to force the issue, recognising that UK Ministers were unlikely to agree to be bound in advance by an approach “The debate is an opportunity to test whether the to England and Wales issues which would unduly fetter their present constitutional settlement for Wales provides a discretion. But at the end of March 2003 the issue was forced means for adequate scrutiny of new Bills. The Welsh for him when, in its report on The Primary Legislative Process Assembly does not have primary legislation powers, as it Affects Wales, the Welsh Affairs Committee but if Parliament simply acts as a rubber stamp for recommended that the UK Government “take a view” on the Welsh matters brought to the House, we should Rawlings principles. Consequently the UK government will dispense with the charade and move towards giving have to indicate whether they are willing to abide by the the Welsh Assembly primary legislation powers.” principles, or whether they will prefer to continue to allocate powers to the Assembly on a case-by-case basis. the scottish example

The IWA’s comprehensive submission to the Lords Committee The solution offered by the UK government to the problems , made by Professor Keith Patchett, Emeritus Professor at of rushed timing and inadequate consultation is the Cardiff Law School, contains a powerful critique of the whole publication of more Bills in draft – as the NHS (Wales) Bill law making process in relation to Wales. The final criticism is was to have been. Draft Bills which are subject to pre- the inadequate scrutiny of primary legislation for Wales. This legislative scrutiny and evidence from outside bodies allow is compounded by the difficulties of integrating the operations for much more probing scrutiny, time for second thoughts of two sets of institutions that have different working by government, and make for better legislation. There have practices, priorities, resources and timetables. Most legislation been promises that in future more bills will be published in for Wales is contained in combined England and Wales Bills, draft. But because of the decentralised way in which but in practice parliamentary scrutiny at Westminster focuses legislative proposals are prepared in Whitehall, it is up to the overwhelmingly on the English arrangements. This is perhaps Cabinet how far in advance Bills might be drafted, and understandable given that England represents 85 per cent of whether that allows time for a draft Bill stage. All too often it the UK population, and Wales just 5 per cent. does not. The political imperative of getting the Bill through will almost always override the niceties of better legislative However, even in the rare case of a Wales-only Bill scrutiny, as it will override the separate needs of Wales. Westminster scrutiny can be seriously inadequate. An outstanding example is the NHS (Wales) Bill, announced in Wales gets short shrift under present arrangements. The June 2001 with proposals to radically restructure the health Assembly is dependent for all its primary legislation on service in Wales, replacing the five existing health authorities finding legislative time at Westminster. Yet it has little or no with 22 new local health boards. Health Minister Jane Hutt control on when that time will be found, in what legislative said in a press release in June 2001: vehicle, and with what degree of scrutiny.

4 “The intention is for the draft bill to be published in the To see how it might be otherwise it is instructive to look at Autumn and the Assembly will have a strong voice in the different practice in Scotland, where the Scottish discussing and debating the proposals before they reach Executive and Parliament now have over three years the House of Commons. This responds directly to our bid experience of making primary legislation for Scotland. In its

spring 2003 upfront

first three years the Scottish Parliament passed just over a dozen Bills each session. It might be expected that most of acts of the Scottish Parliament 1999-2002 these were on matters of Scots law, but in fact such Bills Category Year Title of Act were a minority. Most of the legislation passed by the Health 1999 Mental Health Scottish Parliament has been in social policy, in subject (Public Safety and Appeals) areas which are devolved to Wales in terms of executive Education 2000 Education and Training power, but not yet in terms of legislative power. Of the 44 2000 Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc Acts passed by the Scottish Parliament in its first three years 2001Education (to September 2002), 31 were on subjects which could be (Graduate Endowment and Student devolved to Wales. Seven were on matters of Scots private Support) law, and six were on Scottish criminal law. The full list is set 2002 School Education (Amendment) out in the panel alongside. 2002 Education (Disability Strategies and Pupils’ The categorisation is inevitably arbitrary. Several Acts could Educational Records) have appeared in one or more categories. But the list serves 2002 University of St Andrews to illustrate the range of matters on which the Scottish (Postgraduate Medical Degrees) Parliament has legislated, and how many of them might be Environment 2000 Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) of interest to the National Assembly, because they fall within 2001Salmon Conservation its executive competence. Three other matters are worth 2002 Protection of Wild Mammals noticing. First is how many are little Bills which are precisely 2002 Water Industry the kind which are so difficult to squeeze into the legislative 2002 Fur Farming (Prohibition) programme at Westminster. They included a small change to Finance 2000 Public Finance and Accountability the census (which the Welsh were denied, despite a specific 2000 Budget request); postgraduate medical degrees at St Andrews; and 2001Budget closing the loophole over Erskine Bridge Tolls. 2001Police and Fire Services (Finance) 2002 Budget Second, is the number of measures to improve governance Care/Social Services 2001Regulation of Care and accountability in Scotland, in the Public Finance and 2001Protection from Abuse Accountability Act, Ethical Standards in Public Life, Freedom 2002 Community Care and Health of Information Act, and creation of the Parliamentary Criminal/Judicial 2000 Bail, Judicial Appointments etc Standards Commissioner and Public Services Ombudsman. 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers The Scots have used their legislative freedom to raise 2000 Adults with Incapacity standards in the way Scotland is governed as well as in what 2001Convention Rights the Scottish government does. 2002 Criminal Procedure (Amendment) 2002 Sexual Offences The third matter worth noticing is not in the panel, but is (Procedure and Evidence) perhaps the most important. Westminster has also legislated Transport 2001Transport for Scotland, including on devolved matters. Under a procedure 2001Erskine Bridge (Tolls) known as ‘Sewel resolutions’ (named after Scottish Office Parliamentary/ 2000 Ethical Standards in Public Life junior Minister Lord Sewel, who first announced the convention Governmental 2000 Census in debate on the Scotland Bill) the Scottish Parliament can grant 2001Scottish Local Authorities consent to Westminster legislating on matters which are (Tendering) devolved to Scotland. Initially it was supposed that this 2002 Scottish Local Government Act procedure would be only rarely used. However, in the first three (Elections) years of devolution it became almost routine. In fact, there have 2002 Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner been almost as many Sewel motions – 34 to September 2002 – 2002 Freedom of Information as there have been Acts of the Scottish Parliament. In making 2002 Scottish Public Services Ombudsman primary legislation for Scotland, Westminster is still as Housing 2001 Leasehold Casualties important as the new legislature on the Mound in Edinburgh. 2001Housing 2001Mortgage Rights Why do the Scots allow Westminster so frequently to legislate Land Use 2000 Abolition of Feudal Tenure for them, when the Scottish Parliament could be doing the job 2000 National Parks 5 themselves? In evidence to the Lords Constitution Committee International Agreements 2001International Criminal Court Professor Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at the University Civil Law 2001Abolition of Poindings and Warrant Sales of Dundee identified four main reasons: 2002 Marriage

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1 First is the need for uniformity across the UK. Where the have been struck by some pretty stark comparisons. If Scots accept that a policy needs to be uniform, and Scotland seems to be getting the best of both worlds, is Westminster is legislating anyway, there is little point in Wales perhaps getting the worst? the Scottish Parliament spending time in passing separate legislation to achieve the same result. While the Scottish Parliament passed 44 Acts in the first 2 Second, it avoids disruption to the Scottish Executive’s three years of devolution, in the same period Wales own legislative programme. The Scottish Parliament has a managed to squeeze just one Wales-only statute out of more rigorous and expert process of legislative scrutiny Westminster. All other primary legislation for Wales was than the House of Commons, which limits the number of incorporated in England and Wales Bills. Even in the most Bills which its committees can consider. So the Executive benign of political circumstances, with a sympathetic finds it quite convenient to have an alternative legislative administration in London, the record in terms of primary channel, especially where its own legislation might be legislation for Wales is not exactly impressive. little different from that proposed by the UK government. 3 The third reason is when legislation is necessary to give The National Assembly’s policy wishes are generally effect to international or EU obligations. In these followed in these combined England and Wales Bills, but the circumstances the legislation has to be passed, and the Assembly has no control over how they are expressed by international obligation may leave little room for manoeuvre. the draftsman. Welsh interests always run the risk of being Westminster is legislating anyway, and the Scots are content subordinate to the policy interest of the lead Whitehall to be included in the Westminster legislation. department. If the government in London were 4 Finally there is legislation to close regulatory loopholes, what unsympathetic or hostile, Welsh interests could simply be Professor Page calls the risk of ‘regulatory arbitrage’ across ignored or overruled. Whitehall decides when and how the different jurisdictions of the UK. If boltholes are being much to consult with the relevant interests of the National closed, and they need to be closed in a way which prevents Assembly. Consultation has got much better, and more people exploiting any potential differences, it might as well be timely, but there will always be a risk of the Welsh input left to Westminster to enact the uniform regulatory regime. being too little, too late, especially where the Assembly committees are concerned. worst of both worlds for wales Whitehall sources admit that the complicated nature of the It was not originally expected to happen this way, and some devolution settlement in Wales causes them more problems in Scotland like the nationalists (and occasionally the than the cleaner break of the settlement with Scotland, and Conservatives) have been critical of how much the Scottish requires endless negotiation and consultation. Consultation Parliament has been willing to leave responsibility for about legislative proposals is confidential between Whitehall legislating on devolved matters to Westminster. But to the and the Welsh Assembly Government until the bill is more distant observer it seems the Scots may have got the published. Unless a Bill is published in draft, publication does best of both worlds. They legislate for themselves on the not take place until the Bill is introduced into the Westminster whole range of social and domestic policy matters which Parliament. This allows little time for Assembly committees would be of interest to Wales – health, education, social to look at Bills before Westminster itself engages with them. services, environment, transport, housing. They legislate on matters great and small. Although most of the Bills are small It is extraordinarily difficult to integrate scrutiny by two scale, a few – such as those on free long term care, and legislatures with separate priorities and timetables. These student tuition fees – have made big policy changes. And difficulties have proved hard to overcome between when it suits them they let Westminster legislate. But even sympathetic administrations; without goodwill they would then the Scots are not losing control. If the Westminster Bill be quite impossible. Looking at all the contingencies and is amended they are invited to re-affirm their approval of the complications in the existing arrangements, it is hard not to policy (which is why one Westminster Bill can be the subject conclude that Welsh interests will always risk being of more than one Sewel motion). And if subsequently they marginal in Whitehall’s and Westminster’s priorities, and do not like the way the legislation operates they are still free that under the present settlement Wales risks getting the to legislate themselves on the same subject matter. In this worst of both worlds. case the subsequent legislation by the Scottish Parliament would override the earlier Westminster legislation in which the Scottish Parliament had originally acquiesced. • Professor Robert Hazell is Director of the Constitution Unit at 6 University College, London. This is an edited version of his In February 2003 the Richard Commission visited Edinburgh contribution to the IWA volume Birth of Welsh Democracy: to see for themselves how the Scottish Parliament uses its The First Term of the National Assembly for Wales, powers of primary legislation. It will be hard for them not to published in March 2003.

spring 2003 news news

cardiff’s capital role in the 21st century

In early April the IWA Opera, the Millennium Centre, centenary as a city and fifty organised a three day event in and Cardiff 2008 as well as years as the Capital of Wales. which delegations from participating in a day-long In the event of Cardiff Tallinn, Bilbao, and Dublin seminar, hosted by the Wales winning the accolade of visited Cardiff to participate in Tourist Board. European Capital of Culture, a debate about the role of to be announced in June, the capital cities of small nations The event is planned to be programme will be taken in the 21st Century. They the start of a programme of forward to 2008. toured many arts venues in seminars, conferences and the city, including the National publications leading to 2005, As part of Cardiff’s Capital of Museum, Welsh National which marks Cardiff’s Culture 2008 bid the IWA is

Pictured visiting a ’New Young Europeans’ exhibition at Cardiff’s Old Library, headquarters of the Cardiff 2008 bid are (from left to right) Philip Maguire, Assistant City Manager, Dublin City Council; John Osmond, Director, IWA; Erik Terk, Director, Estonian Institute for Future Studies; Cristina Rivero, Research Director, Association for the Revitalisation of Metropolitan Bilbao; Silke Haarich, Consultant, Informacion y Desarrollo, Bilbao; and Helena Tedre, of the Tallinn Cultural Heritage Department. Missing from the photograph is Frank McDonald, Arts and 7 Culture Correspondent with the Irish Times, who joined the group later. The ’New Young Europeans’ project works through a developing photographic exhibition alongside seminars and publications dealing with asylum issues within each participating city. Other cities taking part include Brussels, Koln, Cork, Warsaw and Helsinki. The exhibition was shown at Cardiff during April.

spring 2003 news

leading an exploration of the cultural impact of cities. One no shortage of questions at swansea object is to identify partner cities across Europe that No-one fired the starting powers.” Not quite in the one- during which funds could be have relevant experiences to pistol but the campaign for legged duck category but reclaimed. share. In this respect the the 2003 elections to the getting there perhaps. three cities involved in the National Assembly for Wales Contrasting attitudes towards first event in April had highly effectively began on 27 More local issues were also the Assembly were also relevant messages to impart. March at an IWA question raised, including a claim that demonstrated. One questioner All have put cultural activities and answer session in the so-called free bus travel for asked whether or not it was at the heart of their strategies Esso lecture theatre at pensioners in Wales had been just a talking shop only to be for future development. University College, Swansea. bought at the expense of told rather tartly by the First higher council taxes. Coalition Minister that you could say Tallinn, the capital of Estonia All four party leaders – leaders were anxious to point the same of Westminster or and newly emerged from the Rhodri Morgan for Labour, out, however, that the cost of the US Congress or any other shadow of the Soviet Union, is investing in the medieval Ieuan Wyn Jones, Plaid these services had been fully democratic body as the job of centre of the city, building a Cymru, Mike German, Liberal funded by the Assembly. such organizations was to new National Art Gallery and Democrats and Nick Bourne, discuss matters and then refurbishing many of its Conservatives, were present Other questions sought to make decisions. Another traditional churches. Bilbao at the meeting, which drew garner the leaders’ views on rather more sympathetically has the Guggenheim an audience of approaching the over-centralization in wanted to know whether Museum which, like Cardiff’s 100, an impressive figure for Cardiff of Assembly activity individuals should not stop Millennium Centre, is but the a political meeting in and the effectiveness or asking what devolution should most obvious representation modern-day Wales. otherwise of the regional do for them but what they of a far wider programme of committees, the poor state of could achieve through redevelopment. Meanwhile, The leaders were asked to internal road and rail devolution. Shades of John F. Dublin has reinvented itself comment on a wide variety of communications in Wales, and Kennedy in Swansea Bay. as a mainstream European issues, with particular interest why the Welsh rugby team capital by projecting its being shown in education could not emulate the success Wales’s football team’s success many cultural attributes. and the controversial of its soccer counterparts. in defeating Azerbaijan in late question of top-up fees. What needs to be done, the March will have particularly A paper commissioned by Members of the audience questioner asked, so pleased Rhodri Morgan who the IWA from Professor Phil were keen to know not just expectations could be equal? stressed the importance in Cooke, Director of the Centre how school leavers in Wales answer to one question of of Advanced Studies at would support themselves Elwa’s problems were also qualification for next year’s Cardiff University, will but how the many mature raised, with members of the European cup finals in benchmark Cardiff’s cultural students now entering higher audience eager to know what Portugal. He claimed that, provision against these and a education would manage. could be done to achieve “The cultural renaissance in range of other European tighter control of funding on Ireland only started after they capitals. Together with There were the expected the one hand – and the qualified for the European cup contributions from Tallinn, questions too on the avoidance of underspending finals in 1992.” He added that Bilbao and Dublin, this will Assembly’s powers, including on the other. Seamus Heaney had then provide the core of an initial tax-raising, and it was this gone on to secure a Nobel study to be published by the issue that brought one of the Another topical issue raised Prize for Literature and Roddy IWA in July this year. In turn few sharp exchanges between was the loss of manufacturing Doyle, the Booker Prize, the this will signal a programme the leaders. Ieuan Wyn jobs in Wales. One questioner implication being the same of further work leading to Jones’s advocacy of greater asked “Is it not about time that would happen if our lads get 2005 and beyond. powers resulted in another of large corporations that leave to Lisbon. He could also have Rhodri Morgan’s somewhat Wales should pay back in full mentioned the Eurovision Later, they were the guests Delphic utterances. “Whatever any assistance paid to them by Song Contest, which Ireland 8 of Cardiff’s Lord Mayor, question you put to Ieuan I the National Assembly?” This has won twice in the past ten Russell Goodway, at a suspect he knits a few more did happen, Rhodri Morgan years, but perhaps fortunately, civic dinner in the city’s rows and then demands the explained, but there were rules Wales does not yet have a Mansion House. Assembly be given more governing the length of time separate entry.

spring 2003 news the politics of geography in wales

Rural areas in Wales need will increasingly be a 2002-2005 on the 142 poorest Aberystwyth, Sir Alfred facilities and entertainment part-time activity. Many communities in Wales, will Zimmern. This was still of the sort typically farmers and their not achieve its fullest evident in the voting associated with larger towns, partners already accrue potential, the report claims, patterns in the inaugural if young people are to stay in a significant part of because it is seen simply as Assembly elections in 1999. the area and be attracted their income – certainly back, according to Divided their cash income – In modern terms the three We Fall, a new IWA from work undertaken areas are Y Fro Gymraeg, Discussion Paper. off the farm in nearby the Welsh-speaking urban environments. heartlands; Welsh Wales – The report believes such an This type of activity will the south Wales valleys; approach can only come inevitably have to and British Wales, the areas about as a result of a new increase.” closest to England, plus strategy which identifies a Pembrokeshire. Significantly small number – perhaps half The report argues, however, in this last area – the parts of a dozen – key urban centres that a big problem in the Wales largely outside the and concentrates way of developing new Objective 1 status area – development on them. Other approaches is the division gross domestic product per parts of rural Wales would of responsibilities within head is 97 per cent of the EU form the hinterland for these the Assembly Cabinet: average, compared with an centres and have special all-Wales figure below 80 per relationship with them. In "The rural development cent. some case the key centres portfolio is occupied by will be interconnected but a Liberal Democrat, a programme to tackle The danger is of these three dispersed smaller Deputy First Minister, poverty and social exclusion. regions moving in different settlements, and in other Mike German. Instead, it should be a directions, with growing cases relatively large towns. Economic development, mainstream part of the divisions between rich and environment, transport, Assembly Government’s poor and rural and urban, The report admits there and planning and economic development accelerating this process. could be opposition from education fall under strategy. This would enable Unless these two divides centres not chosen as part of separate Labour-held the problem of low activity start to be bridged with such a strategy, but says a departments within the rates – the number of people measures of the sort growth pole approach would coalition. Somehow the of working age drawn into suggested, the hope of assist rural Wales as a Assembly Government work – to be tackled. Wales becoming a genuine whole. Locations with needs to get a Inactivity now approaches 35 community of communities natural advantages tend to crosscutting grip on the per cent in Merthyr Tydfil, will retreat. develop anyway, it says, rural crisis if an the local authority with the while if unplanned they imaginative policy most serious problem, and a remain unfocused and do approach is to confront further four counties have not develop to optimum this central issue." inactivity rates in excess of advantage. Other changes 30 per cent. are also needed, the Paper A change to more co- by IWA director, John ordinated action across The report argues that the Osmond, claims, in the way Assembly Government real division within Wales is • See Gareth Wyn Jones and the crisis in rural Wales is departments is also needed not north versus south but Einir Young in this issue on tackled, if much of what we if another gap – that between a much more complex A Strategy For Rural now know as Wales is not rich and poor in Wales – is three-way split, first Survival, page 40 Divided simply to disappear: not to widen to unacceptable identified in the 1920 by the We Fall: The Politics of 9 levels. The Communities inaugural professor of Geography in Wales is "If small family farming First initiative, which has international relations at available from the IWA at is to be sustainable it £83m to spend between University of Wales, £10 (half price to members).

spring 2003 news

welsh air links should be upgraded

Cardiff International Airport • Government funding. that if an additional West of England – its should be given every Cardiff would then become facility is contemplated costs and benefits – practical encouragement to the central hub for air the aim must be to needs to be considered develop services and services connecting a create the optimal seriously and facilities to its maximum number of centres facility for the whole exhaustively in the potential, the IWA has throughout Wales. sub-region on both sides interests of the whole of stated in its response to the • The report also calls for a of the Severn, taking full the dual region, and of UK Government’s PSO-backed feeder service account of the much the balanced consultation document on from Cardiff into Heathrow, greater economic development of the UK. the future of air services in London City, or Gatwick, development needs of Such a study must the UK giving Welsh travellers south Wales.The encompass a study of the Department of Transport future of surface links – cannot be allowed to road and rail – between keep Pilning in the frame all points in Wales to as if the impact on central London, Heathrow Cardiff International and Gatwick. It must also Airport and Wales’s have proper regard for competitive position the interests of current were outside its owners and investors in purview. In the context both Cardiff and Bristol of air transport the DoT airports as well as the has to take a UK view undoubtedly greater not an English view,” economic development the IWA response states. needs of Wales.” Cardiff International Airport

In a 27-page report, which • better access to the wide “We do not hold a brief On the question of new airport argues that the debate on air range of services available for either of the two capacity in the Southeast the transport should take place in from these airports. proposals for Severnside IWA comes out in favour of the context of a wholesale re- airports, or for the Pilning additional runways at either appraisal of regional policies, The report expresses concern option, but it is Heathrow or Gatwick: the IWA calls for Government that in the Government undeniable that support to take the form of: document relating to Wales, competing air transport “Wales would • Improvements in road the idea of a Severnside airport facilities in south Wales undoubtedly look less access, including at the is largely dismissed, while in and the West of England accessible to potential very least an upgrading of the West of England paper a will generate a less than investors if they had to the existing route from new airport at Pilning at the optimal service both for travel from Stansted (in Culverhouse Cross to the junction of the M4 and M5 is south Wales and for Essex) or from Cliffe (a airport, if it proves listed as a medium-term Bristol and the West of new site proposed in impossible to justify the option. The Department of England. However, the Kent) rather than cost of a wholly new road. Transport’s own analysis current Severnside airport Heathrow. The economic • Completion of a rail link to suggests that adoption of the proposals are far from development of Wales the airport to include Pilning option could result in fully worked out, in terms would be greatly seamless transfer facilities the long term loss of 1.5m of financial or harmed by any attempt between railhead and the passengers a year from Cardiff. environmental costs. In to shift the centre of airport itself. “The thinking is less joined up this situation it is gravity of air services in • Development of internal air than the regions themselves,” imperative that the London further east.” services for Wales backed says the IWA report. principle of a more 10 if necessary by EU- coherent, unified, long At the same time, the report approved Public Service “The Welsh Assembly term development of argues that urgent attention Obligation (PSO) status Government must take airports and air transport needs to be given to giving access to every step to ensure for south Wales and the improving existing links:

spring 2003 news

barbecue on everest

“There is currently a To mark the 50th anniversary returned on receipt of payment earliest years that he should clear perception that of the ascent of Everest the together with full details of have been born a girl: not economically vital links IWA’s North Wales Branch is how to reach the venue. homosexual but simply between Wales and organising a barbecue at the "wrongly equipped". London are either not Anglesey home of member Few have enjoyed a life as improving as they Richard Cuthbertson. The full or as colourful as IWA A teenage stint as a should be or as in the event is being held on member Jan Morris. Born a journalist for Bristol’s case of south Wales are Saturday 31 May, starting at man, he fathered five Western Daily News ended actually deteriorating. 6pm. There will be two children before having a sex- when he became an officer Rail services from north speakers at the event. The change operation in 1972. cadet at Sandhurst Military Wales are still under- first, Jan Morris took part in College. He spent the final developed and Mid- the 1953 expedition as years of World War Two in Wales roads are correspondent for the Times Palestine and Italy as an suffering increasing and claimed one of the 21st intelligence officer with the congestion as pressure Century's greatest scoops, 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers, on the M5/M6 and A49 announcing that the mountain an experience which he shifts north-south traffic had finally been conquered in greatly enjoyed. Following further west. In the time for Coronation Day 1953. demob in 1949 he went to south the M4 is Also appearing will be the Oxford University, where he increasingly congested, mountaineer and writer Jim combined his English studies with not infrequent Perrin, who will describe how with editing the student carriageway closures. the expedition trained in magazine, Cherwell. And although the Snowdonia before leaving for frequency of rail the Himalayas. Jan Morris – scoop of the century 1949 also saw his marriage services has improved to Elizabeth Tuckniss, the journey times are Richard Cuthbertson, daughter of a tea planter. lengthening rather than managing director of the She knew, and understood, reducing and there is Llanberis-based firm DMM his belief that he was a no current prospect of Mountaineering which woman and the couple had electrification of the manufactures specialist five children together, one of Great Western line.” equipment, is sponsoring the whom died aged two event by holding it at his Tudor months. Despite his sex The report also urges that a mansion house overlooking change, the couple still live feasibility study be the Menai Straits. It was the together extremely completed quickly on the birth place of Owain Tudur, harmoniously. James Morris development of internal air grandfather of Henry VII. moved seamlessly from services for Wales: Oxford to the Times. This promises to be a highly Jim Perrin – extreme rock climber “Internal services memorable event and tickets But journalism lost its grip would represent a will be sold on a first come first But, besides such headline- and, following a period on major step forward in served basis. Tickets at £10 grabbing details, she has the Guardian, he became a bringing Wales each, to include barbecue been at one time or another, full-time writer. His Pax together. We should not supper and drinks, can be an Oxford chorister, Welsh Britannica trilogy, which perpetuate a situation obtained by contacting the IWA bard, military intelligence he began as a man and where we are further at Tˆy Oldfield, officer, newspaper journalist finished as a woman, is a from each other than Llantrisant Road, Llandaf, and critically-acclaimed Gibbonesque look at the from the rest of the Cardiff, CF5 2YQ author. Born James rise and fall of the British world. For these Telephone 02920 575511 Humphrey Morris in Empire. James’s 11 reasons such internal Facsimile 02920 575701 or Somerset in 1926, he was transformation into Jan, services would merit through our website educated at Lancing College covered in her book public subsidy.” www.iwa.org.uk Tickets will be in Sussex. He knew from his Conundrum, took many

spring 2003 newsflash

news coming up…

• Intellectual Property and years, beginning with taking the political parties, it offers Copyright – Protection female hormones during the invaluable insights ahead of a ‘despite’ in the modern age early 1960s and culminating the elections due on May 1. Monday May 12th, 6pm in the final operation in 1972. Selling at culture University of Wales £19.99 in the Swansea This years IWA Eisteddfod Traveller and extreme rock bookshops it With Dai Davies, former lecture will be delivered by climber Jim Perrin is one of is available pop music promoter Professor Jane Aaron at Wales’s most popular outdoor at a special (including Dire Straits Meifod on 5 August on the writers. Alongside his price of £10 and the Sex Pistols), theme A ‘Despite’ Culture – published works, accounts of to IWA Elin Rhys, Teledu Aspects of Wales’s two his many adventures have members Telegap and Andrew linguistic cultures and their appeared in the Daily plus £1.50 post and package. Beale, Law Department, future prospects. Telegraph, the Guardian and Orders to [email protected] University of Wales various climbing magazines. or phone our order hotline at Swansea. Jane Aaron is a Professor in His many books on Wales 029 2057 3949. the School of Humanities at • Barbecue on Everest include Spirits of Place, a The 50th Anniversary of A strong programme of the University of Glamorgan. collection of essays evoking the mountain’s ascent events for IWA members and She is the places and people of the IWA North Wales Branch their guests for the rest of the author of A country, and River Map, an event year is now being put in Double account of a journey made on Saturday May 31st place. Apart from those Singleness: foot from the estuary of the 6pm – until late already mentioned in this Gender and Dee to its source in the remote With Jan Morris who section, other events include the Writings mountains of north Wales, reported from the a special seminar on of Charles both published by Gomer. His Himalayas on the Intellectual Property planned and Mary Lamb (Clarendon latest book, Travels with the Everest expedition in for Swansea on Monday 12 Press, 1991), and a Welsh- Flea (The Inpinn, 2002), brings 1953 and writer Jim May, and a strong lunch language book on together his best work from Perrin on the programme this autumn. nineteenth-century women’s venues as far apart as Snowdonia background Among the speakers who writing in Wales, Pur fel y Garhwal and Montana, Tickets £10 have already agreed to Dur: Y Gymraes yn Llên y Kirgizstan and the High Arctic, Includes food and wine Hungary and Cuba, not to address members are Neil Bedwaredd Ganrif ar mention walks with his dog Kinnock, vice president of the Bymtheg (University of Wales • The Blair Years Flea through Wales. European Commission, Clive Press, 1998), which won the IWA lunch Grace, the new director- Board of Celtic Studies’ Ellis June 10th 2003 Organised in association general of the Audit Griffith Prize and Mrs L.W. Hilton Hotel, Cardiff with Academi, the literature Commission in Wales, and Davies bequest in 1999. 12.00pm for 12.30pm promotions agency. Chris Smith, the former UK Professor Peter Hennessy Secretary of State for Culture. She also co-edited the Queen Mary University, volumes Out of the Margins: London The two lunches held so far Women's Studies in the Tickets £30 busy programme this year both attracted full Nineties (Falmer Press, £27.50 IWA members houses. Tony Davis, managing 1991), and Our Sisters’ Land: £225 table for ten ahead for the iwa director, of bmibaby spoke The Changing Identities of about regional air services in Women in Wales (University The IWA’s review of the south Wales and the plans his of Wales Press, 1994), and just published… National Assembly’s first airline has for developing its prepared an anthology of • Birth of Welsh Democracy four-year term, Birth of services from Cardiff. He was Welsh women’s short stories, The First Four Years of Welsh Democracy, is proving followed in March by Professor A View across the Valley: the National Assembly a big hit, with a stream of Kumar Bhattacharyya, director Short Stories from Women in For Wales £19.99 new orders reaching the of the Warwick Manufacturing Wales 1850-1950 (Honno offices in Llandaf every Group, whose stout defence Press, 1999). She is currently • Dragon Debates Its 12 week. Running to 350 pages, of the importance to the UK working on an English- Future with sections on the new of a strong manufacturing language book on Monitoring the National constitution now emerging, sector can be found on the nineteenth-century Welsh Assembly December the policy process and on IWA website, www.iwa.org.uk women’s writings. 2002 to March 2003 £10

spring 2003 more information: www.iwa.org.uk politics and policy clear red water

On the other hand, has been the has been determined to ensure a approach that motivated the Thatcher continuing stake in social welfare governments of the 1980s and 1990s, services for the widest possible range which sought to reduce state services of our citizens. Universal services to a residual, safety-net role, helping mean that we all have a reason for only those who demonstrate failure to making such services as good as be able to help themselves – a pauper possible. Free access to social welfare service. The National Health Service services means that they become reforms in the late 1980s started off genuinely available to the full range of down that road but ran into the buffers people in Wales, not simply those able of public resistance and there are hints to afford them. of its return now in the official opposition health policy in In a second Assembly term, we will Westminster. look to maintain this principle and to carry it further forward. We hope, for The actions of the Welsh Assembly example, to be able to come to an Government clearly owe more to the agreement with local authorities on traditions of Titmus, Tawney, Beveridge free access by children to swimming and Bevan than those of Hayek and pools in local authority leisure Friedman. The creation of a new set of centres. citizenship rights has been a key theme rhodri morgan in the first four years of the Assembly – Turning now to the tension between and a set of rights, which are, as far as choice and equality, we begin from a describes the possible: fundamental commitment to the pursuit • Free at the point of use of equality. We are determined to a distinctive policy • Universal build a Wales in which people have • Unconditional access to the services and support they approach developed need, wherever they happen to live, While there will be other new and whatever their income, ability, by Cardiff Bay over provisions which are means-tested, family circumstances, language or such as Assembly Learning Grants, community background. Equality of the past three years free services do bind a society together provision must be underpinned by and make everyone feel that they are equality of access, and equality of stakeholders in it. Here are just five opportunity. But most importantly of here were always going to be quick examples: all, we match the emphasis on those ideological fault-lines in • Free school milk for youngest opportunity with what has been the approaches to social welfare children. described as the fundamentally socialist int post-war social policy in Britain – • A free nursery place for every three aim of equality of outcome. universalism against means-testing year old. and the pursuit of equity against • Free prescriptions for young people Both elements are, of course, pursuit of consumer choice. The great in the age range 16-25. essential. Our Sure Start programme reforms of the Labour Government of • Free entry to museums and galleries aims to provide children who happen 1945 – 51 were by and large for all our citizens. to be born in disadvantaged families universalist – education for all and • Free local bus travel for pensioners with the sort of start in stimulating higher education opportunities for all, a and disabled people. life-chances which other, more National Health Service, full fortunate, youngsters are able to take 13 employment, family allowances, Services which are reserved for the for granted. At the same time, the security in old age through an poor very quickly become poor whole thrust of the Townsend Report adequate state pension. services. That is why my administration into dealing with health inequalities

spring 2003 politics and policy

in Wales, is upon bearing down upon Approaches which prioritise choice those factors which cause ill health – over equality of outcome rest, in the poor housing, environmental end, upon a market approach to public degradation and so on – as well as services, in which individual economic improving ways in which we respond actors pursue their own best interests to illness and disease once it has with little regard for wider taken hold. considerations. The Assembly Government attaches a positive value The thread which links these, and all both to diversity and innovation and our other, social policy efforts also to responsiveness to the needs of together is a belief that a complex users of public services. We firmly modern society such as ours can only believe, however, that such receptivity operate effectively when held is best achieved through strengthening Rhodri Morgan works out and checks on his vital statistics. together by a powerful glue of social the collective voice of the citizen – as, solidarity. Indeed, our commitment to for example, in our decision to retain market place looking for the piece of equality leads directly to a model of and strengthen Community Health education policy or health care which the relationship between the Councils in Wales – rather than basing best meets their individual needs. government and the individual which our services on a model of the user of regards that individual as a citizen public services as some sort of serial I want to suggest to you that the theory rather than as a consumer. shopper, forever out there in the of marketisation, when applied to social welfare, turns out to be badly flawed. My objection to the idea of Foundation Hospitals within the NHS is not simply ten pledges for the May 2003 that they will be accessed by those public service consumers who are Assembly election already the most articulate and advantaged, and who can specify where they want to be treated, but that the experiment will end, not with patients 1 Abolition of prescription charges, costing £30 million. No-one to wait more choosing hospitals, but with hospitals than 24 hours to see a GP or other primary care team specialist. £550 million choosing patients. The well-resourced to modernise GP surgeries and hospitals. Two new clinical training schools producer will be choosing the well- for doctors, one in south east Wales and one in north Wales. resourced consumer as the kind of patient they want – the grammar school 2 Free breakfast for primary school children, costing £16 million. £560 million equivalent in hospitals. to improve school buildings. Extend the 20 mph zone and safe routes to schools schemes In other words, in welfare markets, 3 No top-up fees at Welsh Universities for the next four years. producer-choice, rather than consumer- choice is too likely to be the outcome. 4 Scrapping of home care charges for disabled people, costing £12 million. That is why the comprehensive school 5 Creation of £100 million crime fighting fund. era is not coming to an end in Wales. Selection of pupils by new specialist or 6 Continue the scheme of free bus travel for over 60s and disabled people, faith schools is not the path we intend to and provision of half-price travel for 16-18 year olds, costing £33 million. encourage. It fails a test which we try to 7 Broadband internet access to be made available to 67,000 extra businesses apply to all our policy development at in Wales. £25m for innovation grants to boost new-technology businesses the Welsh Assembly Government, of plus establishing a knowledge bank for entrepreneurs. meeting the wider public interest.

8 Trunk road improvements worth £175 million, including dualling of the • Rhodri Morgan is First Minister in the Heads of the Valleys road. Welsh Assembly Government. This is an 14 9 Commissioner for Older People and free access to swimming pools for extract from his ’Clear Red Water over 60s. Speech’ delivered to the National Centre for Public Policy, University of Swansea, 10 A target of 25 per cent of all waste to be recycled. in November 2002.

spring 2003 politics and policy adam price speculates on whether a coalition between Labour and Plaid Cymru is possible red green progressive politics

With the worst waiting lists anywhere in most vulnerable on its left flank. If my Western Europe, devolutionary Wales is party sustains its onward march of the certainly no Utopia. But what we lack in last fifteen years then come the May almost every deprivation indicator you elections Labour will have no hope of care to mention, we are beginning to forming a majority administration. make up for with what Raymond Williams used to call the “resources of If Labour fails yet again to win that hope”. And an important part of that is a outright majority, as most of the new political culture that reflects our own pollsters predict, then it will again have “ideals of democracy” rather than the to choose a coalition partner – the same reheated Thatcherism of the “lap-dogs dilemma which will face my own party if with lap-tops” as one old wag described it emerges as the largest, but still Blair’s dwindling Welsh phalanx. minority group. The most likely party to respond positively to a radical Which is why First Minister Rhodri programme of government based on Morgan’s speech ditching New Labour socialist principles would undoubtedly n 1918, in a brief progressive and declaring henceforth that there be Plaid whose principal aim, as proudly moment in the aftermath of war, would be “clear red water” between enshrined in our Constitution, is the Arthur Henderson, first General Cardiff Bay and Downing Street is establishment of “a democratic Welsh iSecretary of the Labour Party, famously massively significant. Not just for Welsh state based on socialist principles”. declared that a self-governing Wales politics, but for all of us who believe in restoring democratic socialism as the But, just as in Scotland, and despite his “might establish itself as a modern animating principle of the Left. In the new recommitment to founding Labour Utopia, …(developing) its own speech Rhodri claimed that the values, Rhodri Morgan has made clear institutions, its own culture, its own cornerstone of a Labour-led second that his preferred partner remains the ideals of democracy in politics, administration in the Assembly would be Liberal Democrats. Indeed, at the industry and social life, as an “the fundamentally socialist aim of Labour Party conference he went as far example and an inspiration to the equality of outcome”. Services would be as to say that he might choose to rest of the world.” free at the point of use, universal and continue with the Lib-Lab coalition unconditional. Community values not even with a Labour majority, which What he forgot to mention is that it consumer choice would be the consistent understandably caused uproar among would take 81 years from Labour’s first theme in policy making and delivery. Labour AMs, MPs and activists. manifesto commitment to home rule to Foundation hospitals, specialist schools the establishment of a Scottish and the privatisation of public services Rhodri Morgan may be no New Labour Parliament and a Welsh Assembly. will continue to be rejected in Wales. cheerleader, but his contribution to the Henderson’s speech in retrospect was a realisation of ’The Project’ – of coalition- fairly cynical piece of electioneering, Comrades in my own party were quick then-merger with the Liberals to end the and the policy was quietly dropped for to dismiss the First Minister’s speech twentieth century cleavage and re-form the next fifty years. No surprises there as empty Henderson-like posturing, a a single non-socialist party of the British – Henderson was the original nervous reaction to the recent NOP poll centre-left – promises to be even greater opportunist. But eighty years on his which put Plaid just one per cent than that of the late Lord Jenkins of 15 words sound strangely prophetic as the behind Labour on the second ’party Hillhead. The Liberal Democrats are Welsh and Scottish Governments list’ vote. Certainly, the Labour machine weather-vanes in Wales as everywhere increasingly dare to be different. in Wales is well aware that is at its else – but these aren’t radicals in the

spring 2003 politics and policy

tradition of Lloyd George, they’re neo- liberals, opposed to Government support for the coal industry, nimbyists on wind farms, supporters of a modified our man in PFI, and viciously opportunistic opponents of the Fire-fighters’ union. It’s not surprising then that the Liberal leader in the Assembly, Deputy First whitehall Minister Mike German, condemned his boss’s comments as ’out dated’ and ’neither desirable nor achievable’. jessica mugaseth comes face to face The new vocabulary of political dialogue in Wales is complex and rich with with Peter Hain potential, but the geometry strikes me as fairly simple. There are two anti-socialist groupings in the National Assembly, and two avowedly socialist parties, divided on the National Question, but united, at face value at least, in their opposition to New Labour’s market driven approach. As we face down that common enemy, then what unites us is for the moment far more important than anything that divides us. An “historic compromise” between the two great currents of the Welsh Left, a radical red-green platform of progressive politics would, in my view, be as powerfully renewing as the first red-green Government in Germany twenty years ago.

Entering the Wales Office on his first day as Secretary of State for Wales, Hain holds aloft a statue But, for now, Rhodri’s “clear red water” of his hero Aneurin Bevan. retains a distinctly yellowish tinge. His opposition to law-making powers for eter Hain’s appointment as strong roots in Wales.” He is also the Assembly and his silence on Iraq Secretary of State in October clear where the old-style Labour make many people suspect this is 2002 was welcomed as putting party failed in its ideology: “The p a convinced devolutionist in left went historically wrong by socialism-in-one-soundbite, rather than in one country. But I for one am glad Whitehall. But how will he square this concentrating on statism where that a new front has been opened in the with his British Cabinet role of everything should be run from the battle against Blairism. How fitting that representing Whitehall in Wales? centre, with nationalisation and the Welsh Assembly Government, in the Already he has achieved a profile as a bureaucratic central government – first piece of independent Welsh foreign government spokesperson on issues the Whitehall knows best policy since the days of Owain Glyndwr, way beyond his Welsh brief, with some syndrome. I think that’s one of the has signed an educational partnership regarding him as merely a ’house- reasons why the Labour party ran agreement with Cuba – no doubt, on the trained lefty’ providing a ’socialist’ into sands in the late 1970s and lessons of living with a large and gloss for the Prime Minister. why we stayed out of power for powerful right-wing neighbour. Hasta la so long.” vittoria, as Che would say, and Rhodri “I’ve never attached a New maybe mutters in his sleep. Labour label to myself and I don’t Hain believes in “encouraging local regard myself as being Old or activity, local self-government and local 16 • Adam Price is Plaid Cymru MP for New,” was his response to this initiative.” This is why he campaigned Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. This accusation. “As far as I’m for devolution. If he was starting his article originally appeared in Tribune in concerned I’m part of a radical political life over again, he says, he January 2003. Labour tradition which has very would aim to stand for the Assembly:

spring 2003 politics and policy

“You can really make a difference in Cardiff Bay. It’s not so easy to make a the CV difference at Westminster. There are Born: February 1950, Nairobi 650 MPs there and a lot of other Education: Pretoria Boys High, South Africa constraints.” Emmanuel School, London Queen Mary College, London University His commitment to decentralisation led Sussex University Hain to endorse Rhodri Morgan’s ’Clear Work: Head of Research, Communication Workers Union 1976-91 Red Water’ speech despite the risk of Health Authority Member 1981-87 breaching UK Cabinet collective Political Career: Led the Stop the (South African Cricket Team) Seventies Tour campaign 1970 responsibility on backing policies Member of the Young Liberals 1970-77 divergent from those in Westminster. He Joined the Labour Party 1977 acknowledges that his relationship with MP for Neath since 1991 the First Minister is crucial in making the Opposition Foreign Affairs whip 1995-97 devolution settlement work and denies Shadow Employment Minister 1996-97 the fact that his former role as campaign Welsh Office Minister 1997-99 manager for Alun Michael in the bitter Minister of state, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 1999-01 leadership battle has left no long lasting Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe 2001 divisions: “It was a family argument. It Minister for Europe 2001-02 was pretty fierce and harsh but families Secretary of State for Wales 2002 stay together in the end. We picked up Member of CND, GMB union, Friends of the Earth, Anti-Nazi League where we started off long before that.” and former chairman of Tribune.

He remains committed to a partnership diverse as Iraq, the railways dispute “You can really rather than a separatist approach to and Clare Short’s relationship with the devolution. As he puts it, “The Cabinet, Hain has given the office of economic and political ties that link Secretary of State for Wales a rare high make a Wales with the rest of the United profile. Inevitably it has led to Kingdom are not chains but a network speculation that he is merely using it difference in of veins and arteries through which as a stepping stone to the next stage in resources flow.” At the same time, in his career, perhaps as the standard his inaugural address to the Assembly, bearer for the left in a future leadership Cardiff Bay. he also said, “I will do all that I can to election. support the Assembly and back Welsh It’s not so easy government … I am determined that His response? “I have never had a Wales’s voice is heeded as the career plan. Politicians are either seen government develops policy.” as ambitious or on the way out. I have at Westminster.” one watchword, which is to make a Hain’s appointment as Secretary of difference.” State should give greater depth to the Assuming the Richard Commission relationship between Wales and the recommends extending the Assembly’s EU, as he is continuing as the UK’s powers, Hain will be critical in making representative on the Convention on the case in Whitehall. So far he has the Future of Europe. He insists that been cautious, telling the Commission this additional role has enabled him to that he is not in favour of “further put Welsh interests at the heart of constitutional reform for its own sake”. Europe: “I want to make the European Although he stopped short of Union more relevant to the people of advocating a second referendum in the Wales, to make sure it unites rather event of further powers he said: “The than divides countries, and that it current devolution settlement for Wales creates stability and prosperity.” followed a manifesto commitment in a 17 general election and a referendum, so Combining his Welsh and European any major change would have to have a roles, together with acting as Blair’s • Jessica Mugaseth is the IWA’s democratic mandate.” media trouble-shooter on issues as Research Officer.

spring 2003 politics and policy

first term special i the devolution dividend

kevin morgan asks whether the Assembly is worth having

he febrile atmosphere of an with scare stories about impending question worth asking is whether it election campaign is hardly the administrative chaos. We were warned made a difference? This was the time to expect a dispassionate that businesses would decamp to other question which Geoff Mungham and I taudit of the Assembly’s first term. parts of the UK. We were told that a posed in our book Redesigning Perhaps a truly judicious assessment Welsh-speaking cultural elite would Democracy: The Making of the Welsh will only emerge when future dominate public life. And Tim Williams, Assembly (Seren, 2000). In the final historians, with the benefits of time the most articulate No campaigner, chapter we identified three tests which and distance, have a better offered the memorable prediction that could be used to assess whether the understanding of the protean world of a Yes vote would condemn Wales to Assembly was actually making a Welsh politics between July 1999, the status of ’a banana republic without difference. when the Assembly assumed its the bananas’. powers, and May 2003, when the The first test is whether the Assembly second election was held. That none of these things happened is constitutes a new mode of governance. a tribute to the people who were In other words a mode of governing It sometimes feels as if the Assembly directly responsible for making the which is open, transparent and was born under a bad sign, as the old transition from administrative to interactive – both internally in its own blues singers might have said, because democratic devolution as smooth a affairs and externally in its dealings the first election was over-shadowed process as it was – and here pride of with its partners. There can be little by the Alun Michael affair, while the place must go to the civil servants, the doubt that the Assembly does indeed second election is being usurped by an politicians and the wide array of signal a new mode of governance and altogether more terrifying spectacle – support staff. If the transition appeared in this respect it represents a major the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. smoother than the reality, this was due advance on the Welsh Office in terms Time was when the Welsh Labour was to some ’furious paddling below the of openness, transparency and merely concerned about voter turnout; water’ as one insider described the receptivity. now it’s more concerned about a first term. possible electoral backlash against an Though manifestly a good thing in unpopular war. Although it would be three key tests itself, a more open and transparent nice to think that the forthcoming system of governance puts more election could be a Welsh general New democratic institutions are not pressure on politicians to manage their election as it were, delivering a verdict born overnight, and governance skills affairs more effectively. A good on the work of the National Assembly, don’t come ready-made like TV example here is the problem of under- it could just as easily become an dinners, so there’s a steep learning spend. Budget under-spending opinion poll on Tony Blair’s ill-judged curve for everyone involved in making occurred in the Welsh Office era too, alliance with George W. Bush. democracy work. If this is principally a but then it was an internal matter so it challenge for the politicians and their rarely surfaced as a public issue. The Whatever our view of the first term, civil servants, it is also a challenge for transparency, visibility and immediacy this is a timely moment to remind the rest of us because, as voters and associated with democratic devolution ourselves of the dire predictions of the citizens, we get the Assembly we means that politicians cannot conceal 18 No Campaign during the 1997 deserve not the Assembly we desire. these problems as they did in the past. referendum as to what would befall Wales if it voted for an Assembly. As we begin to reflect on the A more open and transparent Among other things we were regaled Assembly’s first term perhaps the only governance system also means that

spring 2003 politics and policy problems in quangos (or Assembly and re-locations like Panasonic. The • Creating an expectation of life-long Sponsored Public Bodies as they are longer term challenge is to act learning by substantially increasing called nowadays) surface quicker than strategically by raising the quality of the number of apprenticeships in they did under the more secretive inward investment projects and giving Wales, which had risen from 9000 Welsh Office regime. The financial greater priority to indigenous three years ago to 12,500 currently. irregularities at ELWa, though development. The conventional • Investing in broadband technology, regrettable, pale into insignificance wisdom in Wales, and this is repeated with £115 million already committed. compared to the crises that rocked the like a mantra by the Assembly and the • Developing the knowledge economy WDA in the early 1990s. Although the WDA, is that the Welsh economy will by building bridges between Assembly cannot prevent managerial adjust to lower cost competition by universities and business through problems from occurring in public moving ’up market’ into the realms of new initiatives like the Technium bodies like ELWa (not least because the knowledge-based economy. This model and the Knowledge employees, managers and the board may indeed be the future, but one Exploitation Fund. are rightly the first line of defence wonders how we get from here to • Encouraging innovation and against malpractice), it can help to root there when one in four of the enterprise through the Wales for them out earlier than in the past. population is functionally illiterate and Innovation initiative and the two in five functionally non-numerate. Entrepreneurship Action Plan. The second test is whether the • Maximising the use of Regional Assembly can be said to have made a Selective Assistance to encourage discernable impact on economic well- the highest quality of investment in being, which was always thought to be Wales. the biggest and most difficult challenge of all. It is only fair to say that the Laudable and important as these Assembly faced a baptism of fire on initiatives may be, we should not the economic front because, from day confuse means and ends. The above one, it had to deal with one crisis after list consists largely of inputs that may another – the agricultural crisis, the at some point induce positive steel crisis, the Objective 1 crisis, the outcomes – but they are not positive foot and mouth crisis and so on. outcomes in themselves. Indeed, many of the above initiatives have yet to It retrospect the economic challenge prove themselves. For example the boils down to this: how to strike a Entrepreneurship Action Plan had a judicious balance between fire-fighting failure rate of more than 60 per cent in (to offer a sane and sensitive response to 2001-02 in terms of its targets for an immediate economic crisis) and supporting new business ventures. strategic thinking (to chart new and more innovative trajectories of development). Similarly, the First Minister referred to To illustrate this dilemma we need look “the powerful Technium model” in his no further than the foreign-owned Cardiff University lecture, but this manufacturing sector, which directly incubator model is still in the process employed over 72,000 employees in of being rolled out across Wales and 2000, representing some six per cent of therefore it has yet to prove itself. Even total employment in Wales. It is now in Swansea, where the model was clear that the international niche which launched, there were only 110 jobs at Wales has occupied for the past few In a lecture called the end of last year and it had already decades – as a low skill and low wage Delivering for Wales at Cardiff University lost its most prestigious occupant, the production location for commodity in March 2003, Rhodri Morgan gave a semiconductor research subsidiary of products – is no longer a viable option robust defence of the Assembly’s the US company Agilent Technologies. for the future because the new member economic achievements. Although he states in central and eastern Europe can was honest enough to say that the Welsh The most insidious part of the debate perform this role more cost effectively. Assembly Government could not claim on the ’knowledge economy’ is that all the credit for low unemployment and economic development tends to be 19 In the short-term the challenge here is higher activity rates – because these tend conceived in narrow ’high-tech’ terms. to hold what we have: that means fire- to be UK-wide trends – he did want to Yet one of the most promising sectors fighting to prevent closures like Hitachi claim credit for the following: for job creation in Wales today is the

spring 2003 politics and policy

construction industry and it’s not at all of the first term is that the jury is still important skill of all is a facility to be clear if the Assembly fully appreciates out because there’s clearly no self-critical, to be able to monitor and its own role in this process. Perhaps automatic economic dividend attached evaluate work in progress and to adjust the most important thing the Assembly to political devolution. the process in the light of constructive has done here is to establish the Welsh criticism. But criticism tends to be met Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) as The third test is whether the Assembly with knee-jerk responses to assure us part of a new vision that states that “all is able to enhance civic capacity in that all is well, as though the Assembly households in Wales shall have the Wales. A civic society in which citizens is fearful of admitting mistakes. opportunity to live in good quality and organisations are well-informed, homes that are in a good state of where they expect high standards of But problems cannot be redressed if repair, safe and secure, adequately behaviour of themselves and of there is a refusal to acknowledge them heated, fuel efficient and well government, and where they are in the first place. A mature political insulated.” disposed to collaborate for mutually culture can accommodate constructive beneficial ends is perhaps the most criticism because it is perceived to be The WHQS sets highly demanding important ingredient in the recipe for part of a process of collective learning. targets for local authorities to meet by good governance. And at the heart of a To misconstrue criticism as ’talking 2012 for the social housing sector. But vibrant civic society is the ability to Wales down’ is insidious because it the WHQS constitutes an equally offer, and accept, constructive criticism. fosters loyalty for its own sake and this demanding regulatory environment for is the kiss of death for democracy and the construction industry in Wales. But development alike. For this reason the the industry does not seem to be fate of the Objective 1 programme will ’tooled up’ for the challenge, not least be a barometer of our political culture because the WHQS comes at the same as well as a measure of our time as a number of major construction regeneration capacity. projects are coming on stream. Between now and 2006 more than 17,000 newly trained workers will be highs and lows of the required to meet this forthcoming first term demand. Yet 65 per cent of construction companies in Wales Everyone will have their own particular reported difficulty in recruiting skilled list of the highs and lows of the first term, workers in 2002, with bricklayers and the areas where the Assembly succeeded carpenters being the worst affected and where it failed to deliver, and this occupations. assessment will be influenced by age, gender, occupation and postcode etc. The This construction story needs to be most comprehensive assessment of the highlighted because it provides a first term to date is undoubtedly the IWA’s practical illustration of the potential of recently published Birth of Welsh localisation – a strategy of using local, Democracy (edited by John Osmond and indigenous resources, a strategy which Barry Jones), which will be a standard allows the Assembly to promote It may be asking too much of politicians reference on the Assembly’s early years economic renewal whilst at the same to expect them to believe that it’s in for some time to come. Aled Edwards has time helping it to meet its duty to their own enlightened self-interest to also made a heroic effort to identify the foster sustainable development. have robust and well-informed ’top twenty’ differences which he believes interlocutors. But time and again it the Assembly has made to the quality of It is one of the great disappointments appears that the Welsh Assembly life in Wales, with political accountability of the first term that the potential of Government is wont to misconstrue coming top, closely followed by open localisation has not been recognised constructive criticism as ’talking Wales government (From Protest to Process – and tapped when so many of the down’. As an illustration we need only Stories from The National Assembly for ingredients lie within the control of the think of the debate as to whether the Wales, Cyhoeddiadau’r Gair, 2003). Assembly and these could have a Objective 1 regeneration programme is 20 tangible impact sooner than some of working. Although this is a steep I freely concede that my own list may the more ambitious ’high tech’ learning curve for everyone involved, not be to everyone’s taste, perhaps strategies. On the economic front the and the skills to make it a success are confirming that each person’s list will most charitable thing to say at the end not readily available, the most be somewhat idiosyncratic.

spring 2003 politics and policy

Nevertheless, one of the high points of manoeuvre than it thought in this area. regions. Creative public procurement, in the first term for me was the genuine Take the example of school food. The other words, is the most powerful tool way in which the Assembly sought to humble and much derided ’school for fostering the localisation strategy meet its statutory duty (under section dinner’ has become a litmus test of the that I referred to earlier, and this needs 121 of the Government of Wales Act) to capacity of the public realm to promote to be given much more prominence in promote sustainable development. joined-up sustainable development. In a the second term if the Assembly wants Signalling a new way of viewing and recent report Re-localising the Food to practise what it preaches in terms of valuing economy, society and nature, Chain: The Role of Creative Public sustainable development. the Assembly’s sustainable development Procurement, Adrian Morley and I strategy was enshrined in an showed that public procurement could Turning from the highs to the lows I find aspirational document called Learning to deliver what we called a multiple it impossible to choose the most Live Differently. dividend: it could deliver a health disappointing part of the first term dividend by enhancing the nutrient because it’s a close call between health One hopes that this will provide the quality of school food; it could deliver an and transport. In assessing the strategic framework for the Assembly’s economic dividend by creating local Assembly’s record on health it is only fair strategies on economic development markets for local farmers and producers; to make two points clear at the outset. and health and well-being because and it could deliver an environmental Firstly, the problems are awesome sustainable development is the one dividend by reducing food miles. because Wales has some of the highest truly big idea that the Assembly has rates of chronic disease in the EU and come to symbolise, and here it has the this is largely due to the noxious cocktail unique status of being the only of poverty, lifestyle and diet. Secondly, a government in the EU with a legal duty good deal of progress has been made to promote sustainability. The during the first term to shift the Assembly is beginning to be emphasis from an illness service geared recognised for its pioneering role in to treatment to a health and well-being this field because Wales was given the service geared to prevention. job of co-ordinating a EU network of regions which had a common interest The health record may be mixed but it in promoting sustainable development. does have its share of highs and these include a children’s commissioner, a This commitment to sustainable second medical school at Swansea, development is a good example of the widening the eligibility for free eye Assembly acting in a strategic manner tests, a national diabetic retinopathy to chart a new trajectory of screening programme, freezing development. This is the context in prescription charges and extending which the Welsh Assembly free prescriptions in a population Government sought to explore the where 89 per cent of all prescriptions potential of public procurement – the are free today. sleeping giant of Welsh economic Cover photograph from Aled Edwards’s book, policy. One of the most important From Protest to Process. Despite these very real achievements exercises undertaken during the first there have been two desperately term – and this attracted almost no The Welsh Procurement Initiative, disappointing lows: publicity – was the Better Value Wales which aims to promote more creative • In 1999 the Welsh Assembly review of public procurement. One of procurement practices across the public Government promised that no one the many significant findings of this sector in Wales, could be the single in Wales would have to wait more review was that the total value of the most important vehicle through which than six months to see a consultant public procurement market in Wales the Assembly persuades its suppliers to in out-patients for the first time. In was put at £3 billion per annum – that adopt more innovative forms of May 1999, when the promise was is £1 billion more than it was behaviour. If EU regulations are not the made, the waiting list figure stood commonly thought to be. insurmountable barriers they are widely at 21,000 – but in January 2003 it thought to be, procurement managers was a staggering 82,000 and in Although public procurement has to must nevertheless be up to the task of February 2003 it was still 76,000. 21 operate within a tightly regulated system designing contracts which have a What is the equivalent waiting list of EU rules, the Assembly is beginning bigger local spin-off, which is what figure in the whole of England? It is to discover that it has more room for happens in the more innovative EU just 500.

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• The Welsh Assembly Government even more serious by the fact that the we have the beginnings of a also promised that once patients had Assembly has been forced to use its devolution dividend. The bad news is seen a consultant no one would have own budget to fund rail improvements that very few people have noticed. to wait more than 18 months to have when rail is not even part of its The biggest achievements of the the surgery they needed. But the statutory duty! At a time when other Assembly’s first term – notably the number of people awaiting surgery regions and countries are building a creation of an open and today is 5,000 and rising. What is the high-speed rail infrastructure in the accountable system of governance equivalent waiting list figure in the name of economic efficiency, social and the design of a new trajectory whole of England? It is zero. equity and environmental integrity, of sustainable development – are Wales is fast becoming the opposite – not self-evident to the general It is right and proper for politicians to the ’banana republic’ of a UK rail public in Wales. To this extent claim credit for the highs, and they network which is ever more exercised devolution remains a minority clearly need no encouragement to do by the problems of the over-congested sport in Wales and the so. But I cannot remember anyone in South East of England. Assembly needs to do far Cabinet saying that they have more to re-connect to what manifestly failed to hit these two crucial the First Minister has called waiting list targets. The underlying ’the street level’. cause of these problems is capacity – or I cannot rather the lack of it – and this means The Introduction to Birth of beds, nurses, doctors. At a time when remember Welsh Democracy puts it more capacity is the number one issue in the bluntly when it says “the verdict Welsh health service, one wonders anyone in from the polls is that the what will be achieved by the creation of Assembly has made very little 22 new local health boards, the sixth impact on the lives of ordinary restructuring in Wales in thirteen years. Cabinet saying people and there has been disappointment at its record, I understand Jane Hutt’s arguments that they whether it be in health, education or about the need to create a community- economic development.” Yet, as it also based health service in Wales rather notes, the paradoxical response of the than a hospital service, which is the have manifestly polls is not a rejection of devolution main focus in England. Devolution, we but, rather, a shift in favour of greater are told, involves diversity, doing things failed to hit these powers for the Assembly: “The differently to England. This may be sentiment appears to be: if we are to true, but the guts of devolution has got have an Assembly then let’s give it the to be delivery – and delivery is the one two crucial powers to do the job”. and only thing that can justify diversity. waiting list I can think of no better way of One cannot discuss the lows of the first characterising the Assembly’s first term term without mentioning public than by drawing on the words which transport and the railways in particular. targets. Martin Luther King used to describe the Public transport is arguably the biggest mixed progress of the civil rights and most serious policy failure of New movement in the US. We’re not where Labour. The Assembly is unable to Rail is the lowest of the lows of the first we want to be. We’re not where we pursue an integrated transport policy term, though this is nothing to do with should be. But by God we’re not where for two reasons: it lacks the power the Assembly. What it does mean is that we were. (because this power rests with the UK new powers over rail ought to be at the government) and it lacks the resources top of the list when the Richard (because the budget is managed by the Commission reports on what new Strategic Rail Authority in London). powers the Assembly needs to do its job.

As things stand the Assembly is the devolution dividend • Kevin Morgan is Professor of European 22 thought to be the only ’regional Regional Development at Cardiff government’ in the EU without powers The good news is that the Assembly University and was Chair of the over its railways. This wholly has done enough to prove that it is an Yes Campaign during the 1997 unsustainable situation is rendered investment and not just a cost, hence Referendum.

spring 2003 politics and policy first term special ii art of conversation in the bay

he National Assembly was the I would suggest an alternative product of much argument and a definition of ’consensus politics’. It little conversation. It is now the should be a political process that tvisible evidence of a great truth: Wales encourages the art of conversation and has become a political nation. We can allows political parties to agree when no longer limit Welshness to a cultural they agree (at least half of the time) identity (although it remains that in and disagree when points of difference part). A much stronger civil association genuinely exist. It is the ’game’ exists in Wales and we must all learn element of politics that puts many to converse with each other more people off and is driving down turnout clearly. I can hear the popular refrain at elections. The electorate is too “All they do is talk, talk, talk!” But do sophisticated to be fooled by feigned we talk well in the National Assembly, arguments and pretended differences. or are ours “the babblings of men who When political parties concentrate on speak, but do not speak the same authentic points of disagreement, they language” (the Conservative sharpen political discourse and present philosopher, Michael Oakeshott)? It is real alternatives to the electorate. This only through coherent conversation can be done without damaging the david melding that sound policies can be adduced and stock of policies that behind the scenes tested by reasonable scrutiny. And it is receive all-party support. wonders whether not only AMs who are responsible for this political discourse within the I would say that the National Assembly Wales has become a Assembly, but rather the whole of has made some limited progress in society. The electorate is not struck promoting a more coherent political more eloquent mute by the act of voting. discourse. The voices of all four major political parties are heard loud and political entity since The result of coherent conversation is clear in the Assembly. This was not not ’consensus politics’, at least not inevitable. The Assembly could have devolution as that rum notion is usually become a monologue for the Labour understood. To the winning party in Party. We can thank Ron Davies for an election, ’consensus politics’ anticipating just how destructive such a means the acceptance by the losing soliloquy would have been in a party of their fallen state. Here the fledging institution. politically lost gain redemption by acquiescence to the general will (the The regional list system ensured that there Holy Ghost of rationalist thought). It is was a Conservative group of nine not merely bad manners for the lost members, not one or two, for instance. to question the victor’s manifesto, it is Acts of grace by governing parties are very 23 positively wicked. Not only must party rare indeed; the Labour Party deserves X accept that party Y won, it must sincere praise for the decision to use an repent and greet the victor’s gospel. element of proportional representation in

spring 2003 politics and policy

the Assembly’s elections. Not only has this were better for him that a millstone were people interviewed all of the applicants resulted in an Assembly that reflects the hanged about his neck, and that he were for the post of Commissioner and then major strands of political thought in Wales, drowned in the depth of the sea” (18.6). made a report to the selection panel it has helped the Conservative Party accept (both the conference and the selection the immutability of devolution in all Yet such indignation can be a self- panel reached the same conclusion). foreseeable circumstances short of serving attempt to atone for past The Assembly is rightly proud of this constitutional breakdown. To have left the silence. Those in care did speak, but on innovation, even if it was born of the Conservative Party without an effective the rare occasions they were heard, most dreadful circumstances. voice would have damaged both the they were not believed. Now all children Assembly and the emerging Welsh in Wales have a voice in the form of a Conversation can get too cosy. It needs Conservative Party. Children’s Commissioner, the first in the some edge to be stimulating. Those of UK. Devolution has allowed us in Wales us who represent minority parties must If proportional representation has to make an articulate response to a occasionally answer back in civil tones. ensured that the Assembly is a benign grave crisis. It is to be hoped that the Political options exist in all mature and even harmonious Tower of Babel all-party consensus that called for a democracies and it is the duty of (with a translation unit thrown in), the Children’s Commissioner represents an minority parties to present alternative internal business of the institution has acceptance that social care should be at programmes of government. The 2003 been shaped by another act of political the top of the political agenda. Assembly elections will test the generosity. The Business Committee is robustness of both Plaid Cymru and made up of one member from each the Welsh Conservative Party in this political party represented in the respect. The election manifestos will be Assembly. So the dark and deep currents Conversation can a key test to determine whether the of Westminster’s ’usual channels’ do not political parties can speak clearly to the run through the Assembly; instead a get too cosy. Welsh electorate. Any manifesto that is more pellucid process determines the a mere wish list will surely be greeted political agenda. with derision. If several coherent It needs some programmes for government are The coalition government remains by offered to the Welsh electorate, then far the strongest force, but the voices of edge to be the quality of political conversation will the minority parties cannot be silenced. be high. The National Assembly would It should be noted that very little have succeeded in strengthening disruption has occurred in the stimulating. political parties in Wales; and this Assembly and all parties have been would be good for the future health of content to avoid obstruction and a new-born political nation. spoiling tactics. Although I dislike the The Health and Social Services phrase, the label ’inclusive politics’ has Committee worked in close collaboration Public attitudes to the National Assembly some validity in describing the conduct with the Minister and helped shape policy. are wise and instructive. A clear (and of Assembly business. The same can be Generally speaking, the Committee growing) majority accept devolution. The said of the public appointments process sought to make the post of Children’s fact that Wales is now a political nation is which has been considerably improved Commissioner as independent as possible broadly welcomed. Assembly members by the inclusion of representatives from and the Minister accepted the need for seem closer to the people they represent, each party on the selection panels. complete impartiality. Although the and access to decision-makers is easier. Assembly appoints the Commissioner, the More scepticism is expressed about the I have concentrated on processes rather term is a long one (seven years) and particular actions of the Assembly’s than outcomes. However, in many of the cannot be extended or repeated. This government. This is the most Assembly’s actions the voice of authentic ensures that the Commissioner does not encouraging indication of health in our consensus can be heard. The have one eye on reappointment. There is new body politic. A clear distinction is Waterhouse Report threw light on deeds no incentive to pull punches. being made between the Assembly and of unspeakable darkness. Those who the Assembly’s government (still read the report were deeply affected by The appointment process also broke constitutionally Siamese twins, but the catalogue of abuse inflicted on some new ground. Probably for the first time formal separation is inevitable). 24 of the most vulnerable children in anywhere, young people were central society. The words of St. Matthew ring to the process and sat on the selection The National Assembly has gained a high true: “But whoso shall offend one of panel. A special representative level of acceptance and therefore these little ones which believe in me, it conference was also held where young legitimacy. I would regard this as a

spring 2003 politics and policy commonplace observation, but this outcome was in no way assured. There is a rock lurking beneath these calm constitutional waters. Turnout in the second round of Assembly elections is predicted to be very low. Nevertheless, turnout is only one measure of political participation. There is ample evidence of the success of consultation exercises between the Assembly and the public and sectors like business and voluntary organisations. The Assembly has a Voluntary Sector Partnership Council (and there are Councils for Local Government and the Business Sector). Regional Committees meet in every part of Wales and hold “open microphone” sessions to allow the public to question AMs and ministers. In these forums, which are still underdeveloped, conversations are unpredictable and cannot be easily anticipated or controlled by the government.

The art of conversation is key to the success of any free political association. Good conversation leads to sound judgement and the likelihood of successful policy decisions. When conversation is coherent, many voices mingle, some grow fainter others stronger, and the tenses of many generations are present. According to Hobbes, without speech and conversation there can be no In the appointment of a Children’s Commissioner, the first in the UK, ‘devolution has allowed us to make an articulate response to a grave crisis’. The Commissioner Peter Clarke (pictured above in “commonwealth nor society nor his Swansea office) is photographed below engaging with his large constituency at the National contract nor peace”. Political Eisteddfodd in Denbigh last year. conversation must be open to all and never made the preserve of politicians. Conversation is not true or false (as arguments claim to be) but more or less coherent, clear or confused, delightful or dull. The people of Wales are yet to decide whether they think the Assembly delightful or dull, but they want to continue the conversation.

• David Melding is Conservative AM for South Wales Central and his party’s spokesman for health and social services. This article is an edited version of his chapter in Aled Edwards 25 (Ed) From Protest to Process, Stories from the National Assembly for Wales, Cyhoeddiadau’r Gair, 2003.

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first term special iii devolution’s colour code

Devolution was always going to be a risky black candidates by the Labour party in business for black and minority ethnic particular. In a country with one of the groups. Its identification with the oldest black communities in Europe it nationalist project would be bound to was clear that there could be no foster suspicion and mistrust amongst greater signal of institutional malaise. these communities. Prior to devolution Wales expressed itself primarily as a nation The issue of descriptive representation based on cultural distinctiveness and not will doubtless command considerable as a political state. Those in the minority attention in the forthcoming elections communities had little idea, therefore, of and several of the political parties have what kind of state Wales would produce if taken steps to avoid accusations of it were to be self governing. failing to engage with diversity. There is a strong case for visible One of the early challenges to the representation. If only a symbolic Assembly was to change this gesture it can act as a strong counter to preconception and align itself with the apathy and alienation which civic rather than ethnic, indeed characterises the experience of black ethnically exclusive, notions of and ethnic minorities throughout identity. At the outset there were many Britain in relation to mainstream declarations by the parties that they political processes. would appeal to the inclusive and civic instincts of the Welsh people. But However, as a mechanism for there is a big difference between an addressing minority interests and for appeal and action. The first rebuff to acting as what Shamit Saggar has charlotte williams such inclusive notions came with the called a “colour coded check and failure to elect a single Assembly balance” on policy outputs, the assesses the impact of member from the ranks of the minority election of one AM of ethnic minority ethnic population. origin will achieve nothing. Neither will the National Assembly it address the wider challenge of This might be old news now but it increasing investments in national on ethnic minorities remains highly significant to minority identity amongst ethnic minorities. communities. Trevor Phillips, Chair of the London Assembly and of the Most people from ethnic minority review of the impacts of the Commission for Racial Equality, communities remain decidedly cool first four years of Welsh declared the new democratic bodies about Welsh identity. As one prominent devolution on ethnic minorities ’ethnically cleansed’. In this respect the community activist said at the Foreign cana certainly be said to reveal both Assembly mirrored the majority of Policy Centre conference addressed by positive and negative effects. One area democratic institutions right across Rhodri Morgan, “I was born and bred of scrutiny is the extent to which the Europe. Prior to the Scottish here, I’ve worked all my life here and Assembly Government has ’deepened parliamentary elections the head of the I’m growing old here, but I don’t feel democracy’ and delivered on its Commission for Racial Equality Welsh.” This type of statement clearly promises of inclusive governance. Scotland referred to the “distasteful reflects an aspiration to be seen as 26 Given the historical marginalisation of spectacle of black people being Welsh, yet few people from minority minority ethnic groups in Wales it could paraded in unwinnable seats.” Similar groups feel a sufficient sense of be argued that anything was going to outrage was expressed in Wales with inclusion to confidently claim a Welsh be better than nothing. Or was it? allegations of orchestrated sidelining of identity. People are more often

spring 2003 politics and policy prepared to commit to a specific locale – pioneering structures to ensure progressively, the Assembly, in “I’m from Butetown” – offering little engagement with minority interests contrast to Scotland, base their targets disruption to dominant notions of who is across the range of its functions. In on the travel-to-work area populations and who isn’t ’proper Welsh’. It is particular, there are a number of new as opposed to the national average, certainly the case that people from ethnic organisational mechanisms to ensure thus reflecting the urban minorities have, until very recently, multiple points of entry to the corridors concentrations of minorities. There are, demanded very little from the nation. of power. It is now possible for members therefore, some tangible impacts – not Dialogues on national identity have more of minority ethnic communities to have least the development of a statistical usually been focussed on Welsh/English direct access to key civil servants in a base in most policy areas from which or more specifically Welsh way never before possible. to monitor and evaluate change. speaking/English speaking dimensions All this is new and it is and on the wider issue as yet early days to offer of Britishness. Writers a thoroughgoing in the three Celtic assessment of policy nations have pointed impacts. Nonetheless, to the de-politicisation the development of a and marginalisation of ’race’ sensitive public issues of racial policy that is at least diversity in debates on attempting to nationalism in these mainstream equality countries. One of the issues and involve unequivocal impacts members of minority of devolution has ethnic communities can been to reverse this clearly be marked as trend and to make post 1999. This is an these nations at least unequivocal good. more self conscious of their minorities. Democracy was never going to be easy and, However, the current whether we asked for it preoccupation with or not, close to home identity should not governance comes with mask the key issues of a price. Devolution is redistribution, and will be very representation, demanding of black and security and presence ethnic minorities. Power that continue to be to the people implies concerns amongst heavy responsibilities. black and minority There are now acres of ethnic communities. mahogany board tables Identity is something to sit round in ones and these individuals are twos in tokenistic if not well versed at substantive presence. negotiating and Devolved government multiple identifications Children from the Rainbow Club, Butetown, Cardiff, 1957. Courtesy of the Butetown implies voting in greater History and Arts Centre, the picture provides the cover photograph of A Tolerant Nation? best describe the Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Wales, co-edited by Charlotte Williams, Neil Evans and numbers than at experience of most. It Paul O’Leary, University of Wales Press, 2003. present; giving up a is when citizenship suspicion of the electoral rights become embedded that identity Considerable efforts are being made to register, of political parties and learning investments increase. promote diversity in public to trust. appointments amongst Assembly staff, 27 At this level there is some cause for and to promote racial equality within Yet the minority communities have optimism in post-devolution Wales. The key organisations such as the NHS and started from a very weak political base Assembly has introduced some local government in Wales. Very and from a very marginalised position to

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the extent that the desire for inclusion is Assembly Government many minority to lift the voice and influence of ethnic frustrated by a number of inhibiting ethnic groups have become politically minorities. factors. The dispersal and diversity of the ’ethnicised’ when they were just not black and minority ethnic population, the ’ethnic’ before. Suddenly groups that Progressive politics does not necessarily fragile black voluntary sector, the heavy were purely social and cultural in lead to a participatory culture or to a burden of consultation, the drain of black nature have been activated by the new society that is truly multicultural. The élites, the problem of tokenism and the consultation mechanisms and the test for the Assembly in engaging with legacy of the passive role of political possibility of funding, status and power. ethnic minorities involves issues of parties all take their toll. These factors trust, legitimacy, image and the effective militate against effective engagement. This is a political mobilisation based in no transfer of power. These cannot be small measure on antagonism and resolved overnight. A long hard look at the political profile as conflict as groups fight amongst we enter the next elections indicates the themselves for the white limelight. Now The tests the minority communities situation starkly. There are no black MPs rivalry, allegations of racism, nepotism themselves face in the new Wales are in Wales and no AMs. Of the 800 public and sleaze cripple the newly emerging increasingly complex, often appointments just 16 (2 per cent) are from ’ethnic’ lobby. Critical movers and contradictory and perhaps lie beyond ethnic minority backgrounds. There are shakers have been deposed in very public the remit of formal politics. They involve 1,257 councillors in Welsh local authorities tribal wars, resulting in the dissipation of the dynamic between nationality and and 13 (1 per cent) are from an ethnic élites. In addition, individuals are citizenship, between investments in minority group. A ’guestimate’ suggests increasingly being forced into somewhat notions of shared cultural identity and no more than half-a-dozen community artificial ethnic categories for the purpose investments in the issue of rights – and town councillors from a potential of policy intervention, especially in areas political identity. In terms of the former, pool of 8,000. Black groups comprise just where there are dispersed minorities as dominant imaginings of Welsh identity 1 per cent of all voluntary groups in opposed to the urban concentrations. as largely ethnocultural, white and/or Wales. The Assembly government itself, Welsh speaking continue to exclude the after vigorous recruitment strategies, now But what if ethnic just isn’t ethnic at all? majority of the black and ethnic minority has just 38 (1 per cent) ethnic minority What if such individuals have found population. At the level of day to day employees out of a total 3,800 staff. This ways of associating and articulating interactions ethnic minorities still face situation cannot simply be a reflection of needs beyond what Paul Hirst calls the all kinds of scrutiny of their credentials availability pools when the ethnic minority “communities of fate”? What if, perish and their commitment or allegiance population of areas like Cardiff parallel the the thought, it is the Assembly itself that before they can partake fully in Welsh UK percentage. is creating ’the problem of ethnicity’ as social, economic and political life. opposed to reflecting and responding to If there were some reluctance to invest an ethnically diverse society? One only Attachment to Welsh identity is at this level on the part of ethnic needs to consider the way in which the necessarily ambivalent for most and minorities this would be English have been newly ethnicised in may turn out to be more a product of a understandable. All the evidence post-devolution Wales to grasp the shared anti-British sentiment (as suggests that participation has its risks. principle of this thought. Britishness is associated with a certain Routine access does not equal power type of Englishness) than any strong sharing. Ingress comes at the expense It is therefore critical to ask on the eve restatement of Welshness. In the new of critical distance. Collaboration easily of a newly elected Assembly whether Wales, however, where assertions of translates into incorporation wherein these new paradigms of inclusion can Welsh identity gain ground over challenge and dissent is muffled in the and will work for the benefit of minority identifications with Britishness, many desire to work with easy partners. communities. Are the old assumptive people from ethnic minorities are taking Channels of communication become worlds indeed being challenged or is a the opportunities to engage more fully managed by a cadre of ethnic brokers, curious tag-on multiculturalism being in redefining the national imagining. carefully selected not to rock the boat. institutionalised instead? Are we ’Good blacks’ are readily recruited as witnessing processes of adaptation and opposed to the awkward squad. Top- real active engagement or increased • Charlotte Williams is a lecturer at the down smokescreen politics replaces the apathy and alienation? Most likely, in University of Wales, Bangor. She is currently fire of bottom up grassroots activism. line with the general population of involved in an ESRC funded project on Social 28 Wales, the Assembly is seen by Capital and the Participation of Minority Herein lies the possibility of the ’harm’ minorities to have had little immediate Groups in Government. that the First Minister rejected. In this impact on their everyday lives. It is the Her biography Sugar and Slate was new relationship with the Welsh few who are capitalising on its potential published by Planet Books in 2002.

spring 2003 politics and policy first term special iv trajectory of change john osmond puts the Richard Commission on the Assembly’s powers under the spotlight

eft to its own devices there is little determined that the 2003 Wales personalities of Welsh politics was likelihood that Labour would have General Election should be about rather distant when he took on the embarked on opening up a these things – the economy, public task, which arguably provided him with ldebate on Wales’ constitutional future services, regeneration – and not the required sense of detachment. at this juncture. The Richard about the Welsh constitution … our Announcing his appointment in April Commission on the Assembly’s powers forthcoming Wales General last year Rhodri Morgan described him and electoral arrangements, which Election is not about the Richard as being “… halfway between being began work last September, was Commission.” 100 per cent Labour Government established as part of the coalition deal loyalist, never departing from the party at the behest of the Liberal Democrats. The result of the Commission’s report line, and an independent who is will be judged as much by the extent it outside the party. He is the right kind of Labour’s unease is reflected in the fact that will wield influence in Westminster as person in terms of having clout in it has put off making its own submission its contents. And in that regard the Whitehall and Westminster.” to the Commission until after the May influence of the Chairman, the Labour election. At the same time the peer Lord Richard of Ammanford, will Four members of the Commission Commission has proved useful to Labour be important. He certainly has what were nominated by each of the political in putting the constitutional issue on hold might be termed ’bottom’. He was an parties, and five public appointments until then. It was written into the early member of the Tony Blair’s were made following advertisement Partnership Agreement that the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal and Leader and interviews (see Panel). It could not Commission would not report until the of the House of Lords, between 1997- be argued that the political nominees end of this year. In this year’s Welsh 98. However, he fell out with the Lord were chosen from the front rank of the Governance Centre annual lecture in Chancellor Lord Irvine and left front parties. And neither did the public March, First Minister Rhodri Morgan made line politics at that point. appointments produce any high profile a virtue of the fact that, so far as he was personalities. The overall sense was of concerned, the Richard Commission had It is difficult to assess what influence a low key commission, with only taken the question of Wales’ constitutional he might have in Whitehall these days. perhaps half the members initially future out of the forthcoming election: Certainly his grasp of the detail and having great insight into the constitutional and “The people of Lord Richard of Ammanford, political intricacies Wales require with which they had an experience chair of the commission to grapple. of Welsh politics that is Previously MP for Barons Court (London) 1964-74, Lord The nominations of about delivering Richard was the UK Permanent Representative at the Ted Rowlands and and deliberating United Nations, 1974-79, Chair of the Rhodesia Conference Laura McAllister say on the things in 1976, a former European Commissioner between 1981- something about the that improve 84, and a member of the Shadow Cabinet as Leader of the respective attitudes 29 the quality of House of Lords between 1992-97. Lord Privy Seal and of the parties that their lives. I Leader of the House of Lords, between 1997-98. nominated them. His have been scepticism of

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has been in favour of extending the Assembly’s powers. Intellectually, a strong case can be marshalled to argue that the Government of Wales Act established an inherently unstable constitutional arrangement that needs further development. The changes in the Assembly’s own architecture, with the creation of the independent Presiding Office on the one hand and the emergence of the Welsh Assembly Government on the other, certainly points in this direction.

In addition, survey evidence that the Commission has heard indicates a strong public shift in favour of extending the Assembly’s powers. Since the referendum those favouring a Parliament with law-making and tax raising powers along Scottish lines has nearly doubled, while those opting for Stormont: The Commission is anxious to discover whether the operation of primary powers in Northern Ireland might have greater application to Welsh circumstances. no elected body has fallen substantially (see the table below). devolution owes a good deal to his dimensions of their agenda. The vehement opposition to PR, which will commission has visited Westminster, At the same time, a number of ensure that this question does not get the Scottish Parliament and has plans Assembly Ministers, including an easy ride in the Commission. As for to visit Stormont in Belfast. It is Economic Development Minister Laura McAllister she is is not a anxious to discover whether the Andrew Davies and Education Minister member of Plaid Cymru these days, operation of primary powers in Jane Davidson, have presented though has been a candidate in the Northern Ireland might have greater evidence to the effect that they have past. Her semi-detached position may application to Welsh circumstances not been hampered by any be convenient for the party if it wishes than the Scottish example. The visit to constitutional constrictions in pursuing to distance itself from any consensus Scotland convinced many Commission their policy agendas. On the other that emerges. members that there is no ’one-size-fits- hand, however, in her evidence to the all’ solution to devolution in a Commission, Finance Minister, Edwina The Commission has its own constitutionally asymmetric UK. Hart, attacked the Home Office for secretariat, headed by Carys Evans, refusing to collaborate with the previously a civil servant working in the On the other hand, the balance of the Assembly Government. She implied Assembly Government’s Strategic arguments the Commission has heard, that, in contrast with its attitude to the Policy Unit, and before that in certainly from the academic direction, Scottish Parliament, the Home Office Whitehall, serving for a time as personal private secretary to John constitutional preferences (%) in Wales, 1997, 1999 and 2001 Major when he was at the Treasury. She brings a grasp of detail and acumen to Constitutional Preference 1997 1999 2001 the job and will undoubtedly be Wales should become Independent 14% 10% 12% influential in being the main hand in Wales should remain part of the UK, drafting the eventual report. with its own elected parliament which has its law-making and taxation powers 20% 30% 39% So far the Commission has received Wales should remain part of the UK around 40 written responses to its with its own elected assembly which has limited 30 consultation and has heard more than law-making powers only 27% 35% 26% 50 witnesses give oral evidence. They Wales should remain part of the UK have organised three seminars, on the without an elected parliament 40% 25% 24% constitutional, legal and electoral Source: Institute of Welsh Politics, University of Wales Aberystwyth.

spring 2003 politics and policy did not take the Assembly seriously, implying that this was because it did membership of the Richard Commission not have the same powers. political nominees public appointments In February the Liberal Democrats, • Labour: • Eira Davies is the Plaid Cymru, and the Welsh Ted Rowlands, Managing Director of Conservatives all made submissions. In former Merthyr MP a web publishing the process the Commission became (1972-2001) and business. Member of the focus for an intensifying debate on Welsh Office the Board of S4C and the Assembly’s future. Though he said Minister 1969-70 and of Coleg Llandrillo that no fundamental changes should 1974-75. Cymru. Lives in be made to the Assembly “at this • Though pro-devolution in the 1960s • Wrexham. stage”, Conservative leader Nick and 1970s he swung to opposing an Bourne, argued that its powers should Assembly in 1997. Brought a good • Vivienne Sugar be tested. As he put it: deal of scepticism to the notion of Local Government extending the Assembly’s powers. consultant, former “We have suggested, for example, Lives in Carmarthenshire. Chief Executive of the paying hardship grants to Welsh City and County of students of the amount they are • Conservative: Swansea from 1995 obliged to pay in tuition fees to Paul Valerio, first until July 2002. universities in the United Kingdom. Lord Mayor of • Now appointed Chair of the Welsh I would term this as muscular Swansea in 1982. Consumer Council. Lives in Swansea. devolution. However, the Councillor, City of Administration has wrung its Swansea. Retired • Tom Jones is a farmer hands and said that it has no from family business from Welshpool, power to abandon tuition fees in • in the amusement industry. Lives in Powys. Chair of Wales Wales. A sensible approach to the Gower. Council for Voluntary ascertaining the precise powers of Action, and a the National Assembly would be to • Liberal Democrat: member of the have a dedicated policy unit within Peter Price, a Countryside Council the institution, setting out the solicitor and former • for Wales and Chair of the existing powers and policy options Conservative Millennium Stadium Charitable for the government of Wales.” Member of European Trust. Parliament (1979 – The Liberal Democrats made the most 1994); joined • Huw Thomas from comprehensive submission, calling for a • the Liberal Democrats in the mid- Clowyn Bay. Director Welsh Senedd with primary legislation 1990s. Member of the National of Taro Consultancy, and tax varying powers in the context of Assembly Standing Orders and a former Chief a federal United Kingdom. Plaid Commission. Lives in Cardiff. Executive of Cymru’s submission was more Denbighshire County measured in tone, delineating in some • Plaid Cymru: Council from 1995 to detail how evolutionary steps could be Laura McAllister, a • 2001 and before of Gwynedd County taken to improve the current settlement. Senior Lecturer in Council. RNID Trustee for Wales. At the same time, like the Liberal Politics at the Democrats, Plaid called for an 80 Institute of Public • Sir Michael Wheeler- member Assembly, elections by STV, a Administration and Booth was Clerk of national public service for Wales, and a Management, the Parliaments at review of the Barnett formula. Although • University of Liverpool, author of Westminster. it reiterated its adherence to “full Plaid Cymru: The Emergence of a Member of the Royal national status” for Wales within the Political Party (Seren, 2001). From Commission on House EU, equivalent to Ireland or Denmark, Bridgend, lives in Liverpool. of Lords Reform and of Plaid argued that, “We wish to make it • National Assembly Standing Orders 31 clear that we do not regard legislative Commission. Special lecturer devolution as a mere staging post to full Magdalen College, Oxford. national status.”

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Last December the Assembly’s leading • (the Assembly in Cardiff Bay), and greater proportionality than presently lawyer, Counsel General Winston the abandonment of the ’corporate applies, but with no specific Roddick QC told the Richard body’, be acknowledged de jure in recommendation. Commission that Wales should have legislation at Westminster. the same law making powers as the • The Assembly gradually acquires A key issue will be whether the Scottish Parliament. As he put it, primary powers over defined Commission will recommend a further “There is no point holding high office functional areas, beginning probably referendum before such changes are in the church if you do not believe in with education and culture, and put in place. If it supports the idea that it.” He argued that the current developing to include health and movement towards legislative powers devolution settlement does not have aspects of environmental and rural should be a gradual process over time, “an enduring quality” for two main policy. A mechanism might be then this should reduce the pressure reasons: devised for drawing down such for a referendum. On the other hand, • The corporate body established by powers over time with the Wales Welsh MPs at Westminster are likely to the Government of Wales Act has, in Office negotiating deals piecemeal call for one if they see their number practice evolved into a parliamentary with successive Whitehall being reduced. body and needs fresh legislation to departments. formalise this development • A likely rejection of tax varying Following publication of the • The present structures rely on an powers for the Assembly, though this Commission’s report, probably in early arbitrary difference between primary issue has yet to be fully explored. 2004, the timetable will be dictated by and secondary legislation – that is to • An increase in the size of the Westminster. Rhodri Morgan himself say on what the Westminster Assembly from the present 60 to 80, told the Assembly when the Parliament decides, measure by with a corresponding decrease in the Commission was established that any measure, shall be provided through number of Westminster MPs from 40 recommendations requiring primary primary and secondary legislation. to the low 30s. Some point in the • legislation would have to appear in Assembly’s acquisition of primary manifestos at the time of the next And in his evidence to the Commission legislative powers may need to be Westminster general election in 2005 the Permanent Secretary Sir Jon identified to trigger this change if a or 2006. He also said that the timing of Shortridge made it clear that the civil gradualist route is adopted. the 2004 Intergovernmental service, as it had developed during the • Options put forward for a change in Conference, which will be considering first term, could cope with primary the electoral system to embrace a a major revision to the EU’s Treaties, legislative powers: was important. winston roddick QC “... compared with the changes What Rhodri Morgan appears to have that have already taken place, the “There is no in mind is that separate arguments acquisition of further powers, point holding made at the Welsh and European Union including those of primary levels will reinforce one another in high office in helping persuade a Westminster legislation, would represent a the church if manageable progression, not a government to give ground on major step change, in terms of you do not extending primary legislative powers to the demands made upon us.” believe in it.” the National Assembly, perhaps by 2007. The likelihood is that events will Large determinants on the approach either accelerate this timetable, or adopted by the Commission will be the sir jon shortridge conspire to set it back by five to ten outcome of the forthcoming Assembly years. Either way, we are on a trajectory election, and subsequently the evidence “…the of change in a devolutionary direction. presented by the Welsh Labour Party. acquisition Both are likely to be highly influential. of further However, it seems reasonably clear that powers, there is potential for a consensus to be achieved within the Commission on the including • John Osmond is Director of the IWA. following propositions: those of This article is based on a Paper 32 • The de facto separation of powers primary delivered to an Economic and Social within the Assembly, between the legislation, would represent Research Council conference in Cardiff executive (the Assembly Government a manageable progression” in March 2003 on The Dynamics of in Cathays Park) and the legislature Devolution in Wales.

spring 2003 culture and communications ticking the box

o a general sigh of relief the long event, the response to the call for a awaited Welsh language statistics boycott was modest and is claimed to from the 2001 Census found that have had a statistically insignificant tthe number of Welsh speakers has impact upon the validity of the Census increased, reversing nearly a century as a whole. Within Wales, however, it of decline. The new Census found seems likely that a disproportionate 576,000 Welsh speakers aged 3 and number of the protesters were over, that is 21 per cent overall and a probably Welsh speakers and thus, two per cent increase on the conceivably, the published data may equivalent number in 1991. slightly under-report the total numbers of literate Welsh language users. Whilst these data are comparable Notwithstanding this confusion over with past Censuses, the 2001 survey nationality, the Census has chosen to also asked people whether or not they publish details of those who did ’understood’ Welsh. A further 138,000 identify themselves as Welsh, even claimed to understand, but not speak though the statistical validity of such Welsh. And an additional 84,000 gave data is far weaker than we have the some combination of positive right to expect from the Office of responses that was imprecise, making National Statistics. it difficult to work out whether they could understand, speak, read or unpacking the Welsh write Welsh. The Census was therefore able to publish a figure in The innate 2001 census results excess of 750,000, or 28 per cent of people, who had reported one or Welshness denis balsom finds more skills in the Welsh language. At last, it appears as if our official subtle connections statisticians are taking some account of Blaenau of the complexity of the language between the language situation in Wales. This involves Gwent is not recognizing that, in a bilingual and nationality community, the apparently straightforward question ’Do you undermined speak Welsh’ cannot be fully answered with a simple Yes or No. by its lack of

The 2001 Census is also recalled for the furore over the ’tick box’. A Welsh question that allowed the Scots and Irish to state their perception of speakers. nationality was not carried in Wales, denying the Welsh the opportunity to assert their sense of separate identity. The new official figures on the Welsh As a consequence, a boycott of the speaking population will be universally whole Census was demanded by used to define a key social cleavage some, whilst the statisticians with Wales. The contemporary 33 suggested that, for those who felt sociology of Wales, however, has strongly, Welsh could be written in identified that a more subjective sense under the category ’other’. In the of national identity is equally

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significant in explaining voting and can be considered statistically looking to support the party that best behaviour and other social mores in robust (see Table below). Interestingly, complements their constituency choice. the population of Wales. There is a it confirms that the rank order The logic of recent coalition politics in close correlation to, between these correlation between the geography of the Assembly suggests that, for Labour factors and place of birth. It is striking, language and identity is fairly low. This voters, this should be the Liberal for example, the high percentages of is not to deny that Welsh speakers are Democrats. However, persistent those born in Wales in the Valleys is not fervent Welsh identifiers, but rather political research has shown that accompanied by high proportions of that today’s communities in Wales have Labour voters, especially in traditional the population giving their civic a rather more complex composition. south Wales, are likely to consider Plaid nationality as Welsh. It is the The innate Welshness of Blaenau Cymru as their next preferred party, interaction between these three social Gwent, for example, is not undermined especially amongst those who have a attributes – language, Welsh birth, and by its lack of Welsh speakers. strong sense of Welsh national identity. identity – that characterises modern Wales where a common sense of Both these characteristics have been It is an apparent paradox of Welsh Welshness is a force for unity, rather shown to impact upon voting patterns politics that while Labour and Plaid than language appearing to divide. and loyalties. At the coming elections to Cymru are most at odds as parties, the National Assembly, a key decision their supporters share so much in Whilst the Welsh identity data from the for most voters will be the allocation of common. However, a glance at the Census is flawed, fortunately a recent, their second, regional list, ballot. In statistics provides many explanations major, labour force survey also asked regions with strong Labour why this is the case. questions concerning identity and representation from the constituencies perceived identity. This study drew the likelihood of Labour being awarded • Denis Balsom is Editor of The Wales upon a sample of over 20,000, was additional seats from the list is slight. In Yearbook and a political consultant with published by the National Assembly these seats, perceptive electors will be HTV Wales. welsh speakers, welsh born, and welsh identifiers

County 2001 Census 1991 Census Change from % born % Giving national % Speaking Welsh % Speaking Welsh 1991 in Wales 1 identity as Welsh 2 Gwynedd 69 72 -3 71.8 69.9 Ynys Mon 60 62 -2 67.7 60.1 Ceredigion 52 59 -7 64.2 62.2 Carmarthen 50 55 -5 81.8 76 Conwy 29 31-2 53.5 49.5 Denbighshire 26 27 -157.3 40.9 Pembroke 22 18 4 69.7 42.8 Powys 2121 0 60.3 56.2 Neath Port Talbot 18 18 0 90.4 82.7 Wrexham 18 18 0 73.6 67.1 Flintshire 14 13 +1 53.0 43.3 Swansea 13 13 0 84.1 73.0 Rhondda Cynon Taf 12 9 +3 91.1 84.3 Vale of Glam 11 7 +4 75.8 69.9 Caerphilly 11 6 +5 90.4 82.5 Torfaen 11 3 +8 85.1 75.8 Cardiff 11 7 +4 79.1 44.2 Bridgend 11 8 +3 85.2 79.1 Merthyr Tydfil 10 8 +2 92.0 87.0 Newport 10 2 +8 81.1 66.5 Blaenau Gwent 9 2 +7 92.5 85.2 34 Monmouth 9 2 +7 62.154.3 Wales 21 19+2 75.5 69.2 1 Column 4: Assembly Government estimates based on the 1991 census . 2 Column 5: Assembly Government Wales Labour Force Survey 2001 / 02.

spring 2003 culture and communications theatre special i a stage for wales michael bogdanov says Cardiff and Swansea should collaborate to produce the forerunner for a federal national theatre The auditorium at Swansea Grand Theatre – “The best conversion of an existing venue in the British Isles”. ardiff is the only European capital city that does not It is widely recognised that such College all coming on stream in the next possess a single major adult shortcomings have economic as well few years. A new building therefore cproducing theatre or company. Indeed, as cultural consequences. The must remain the long term goal. there is no such company in the whole Committee that drew up the short list of south Wales where the majority of for the European Capital of Culture In the short term, taking advantage of 2008 identified the palpable lack of the population live. In any other available spaces, we should play to our theatre as the main weakness of comparable conurbation of two million strengths and think in the first instance of Cardiff’s bid. It is therefore axiomatic people in the UK the populace have combining the facilities of Swansea with that if Cardiff is to have a chance of access to at least three, sometimes six, Cardiff. Not only would this bring into winning it must possess its own major major producing houses with a contention complementary venues, but it producing theatre company, its work plethora of smaller companies within a would maximise the potential audience an acknowledged benchmark of radius of thirty miles. and put in place the foundation for a truly national and international excellence, national theatre for the whole of Wales. reflecting the multicultural and What activity there is in Cardiff is bilingual make-up of Wales as a whole. confined to the sporadic output of a No less than Cardiff, Swansea’s facilities and cultural history should be couple of small groups and the How should this challenge be deployed in this effort. In the Grand Sherman Theatre, which has a brief to addressed? Obviously the best solution cater for children and young people. would be a custom built multi-flexible Theatre Swansea possesses the best Yet Wales possesses some of the theatre or, at the very least, the conversion of an existing venue in the greatest wealth of young acting talent conversion of an existing building to British Isles. The addition of superb currently on display, apart from a house an 850 seat and a 350 seat front of house facilities, a studio number of international icons. The auditorium. However, there is neither the theatre, rehearsal room and restaurant tragedy is that this talent all trained political will nor the finance available to make an ideal location from which to outside Wales and is to be seen on the embark on another new building project launch a national theatre company. 35 stages of London and New York, or with the Millennium Centre, the new Cardiff has a thriving receiving and starring in films made in Hollywood Richard Rogers Assembly, and the presenting venue in the New Theatre, and Pinewood. redevelopment of the Royal Welsh home for so long to Welsh National

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Opera. However, the New Theatre has the enormous amount of touring of Wales and beyond. We would then no production facilities, no wing or product available. The Sherman have in place a genuine National backstage space, and its stage lacks Theatre, its infrastructure sadly Theatre, operating federally from the depth and width. As a result it is neglected over a period of thirty years, major urban centres of the country unsuitable in its present form to be a has enormous potential to expand producing house upward and outward to provide The administrative model would be excellent production facilities. that of the Welsh National Opera, with Nevertheless, when the WNO relocates offices in Swansea and Cardiff. The to the Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay The Swansea Grand, and Cardiff’s New company – working title The Wales the New Theatre will still have an and Sherman Theatres should Theatre Company (WTC) – would tour important role in the cultural life of therefore become the dual home of a south Wales before embarking on a Cardiff. Arguably, the Millennium major new producing company larger tour of the rest of Wales and Centre, built for receiving and staging reflecting the language culture of the Britain. It would produce both large large lyrical theatre presentations, will nation by working in both Welsh and and medium scale work with be too big to house the majority of English. The company should link with associated educational and community touring productions. In these Theatre Clwyd Cymru in the north and programmes, in conjunction with the circumstances the New Theatre will the predicated Welsh Language Sherman, whose brief should be remain the only venue able to receive National Theatre to embrace the whole extended to encompass a full time

36

Swansea’s jewel.

spring 2003 culture and communications output of Young People’s work, Though almost upon us, these two coal in the winding shed in Tonypandy, specially commissioned and devised productions, touring as they will steel in the steel works in Port Talbot. for children. It would form an throughout Wales and the UK, could association with Script Cymru and the serve as a unofficial launch of the The output would increase annually until, newly created Welsh Language company in the late Autumn 2003. It by 2008, its repertoire would consist of National Theatre to create productions would continue its programme of work approximately some eighteen pieces of of new and existing work in Welsh. into 2004, offering large and medium work. The aim should be to establish a scale productions of new plays and company of international reputation in The WTC would be interactive, classics in both languages plus an the Welsh and English languages, but instigating co-productions and sharing educational and community output of with its roots inextricably linked to the production facilities with theatres in devised projects. communities in which it is based – an other parts of Wales, Britain and umbilical cord to the culture that gives it Europe – in particular with the middle- birth. As W. B. Yeats put it, describing the scale venues and Theatr Clwyd Cymru, mission of the Abbey National Theatre whose residencies at the New Theatre It is significant he founded in Dublin in the early part of should continue and form an important the last century, its purpose was “to part of the overall profile. It is also that other cities bring to the stage the deeper thoughts imperative that the WTC’s eclectic and emotions of Ireland.” programme of work originates from unconventional spaces as well as on the shortlist It is significant that other cities on the orthodox performance venues. shortlist for the 2008 Cultural Capital of for the 2008 Europe – Liverpool, Newcastle/ The company would comprise, at any Gateshead, Birmingham, Bristol – have a one time, between twenty and fifty long tradition of theatre provision. actors – inviting back many of the self- Cultural Capital Liverpool has injected an annual revenue exiled, high-profile, world class Welsh budget of £2 million pounds and rising actors, directors, designers etc. to take of Europe … have into its consortium of four producing part, thus ensuring a further life for theatres in preparation for its bid. each project, for example a season in Newcastle/Gateshead have converted the London and International Festivals. a long tradition of Baltic Flour Mills into spectacular performance and gallery spaces and are October/November 2003 marks two theatre provision. investing a further £1 million a year into important moments in the Welsh live theatre. Birmingham and Glasgow (a literary calendar – the 50th previous holder of the title and still a anniversaries of the death of Dylan 2005 marks the centenary of Cardiff as a benchmark for achievement) have been Thomas and the first stage capital and the WTC should celebrate this revitalised as theatre centres. performance, in America, of Under Milk with a specially commissioned large- Wood. During the year the eyes of the scale community project involving The effect has been to provide a quality literary, dramatic and cinematic world professional artists and the people of the of life that encourages the development will be focused on Thomas and Wales. city. The project would be an exploration and relocation of business and A high profile production of Under Milk of the social and industrial highs and industries, and increase these cities’ Wood is planned for the Grand Theatre lows of Cardiff’s development before appeal as attractive residential locations. November 2003, followed by a specially emerging as the dynamic modern We could expect a similar impact to commissioned new adaptation of A cultural and political powerhouse that it occur in Wales as a result of investment Child’s Christmas in Wales for children is now becoming. There would be in our theatre, in conjunction with an in Welsh and English. Both productions particular emphasis on the multi-cultural increase in the provision for other art- will tour Wales and the UK after a aspect of Cardiff’s life, particularly on forms. It is ironic that we can sing, dance season in Cardiff, followed, for Under those communities whose profile is all and play nationally but we still have no Milk Wood, by a season in London and but invisible. Cardiff 2005 would form means to express ourselves on stage. It in New York. This would be made part of a series of south Wales’ is time to fill in this embarrassing hole in possible by attracting actors with an community projects exploring for our cultural garden. international profile to take part. There example, the heritage of coal and steel. 37 would be an educational programme in These performances would take place in Welsh and English about Dylan Thomas unconventional spaces in the midst of • Michael Bogdanov is a free-lance to tour schools. the communities involved – for instance, theatre and film director.

spring 2003 culture and communications

theatre special ii modest venue – melodramatic debate

Quality had to be the key. We needed At the end of our first season in 1998 to set standards of production and we won the Barclays/TMA Award for performance that at least equalled Theatre of the Year. At the end of our anything to be seen on the other side second in 1999 we were designated a of the border. Which meant forming a Welsh National Performing Arts company. One-off productions rarely Company. Clwyd Theatr Cymru was attain the levels that ensembles can now officially ’The Nearest Thing to a achieve. And the company had to be National Theatre of Wales’. We still did Welsh. It was not easy. So many Welsh not reinstate the Sunday Times board. actors, without producing theatres in The problem was the word ’national’. their own country had left to work in England and they were hesitant to It is used a great deal in Wales. We have return. It was understandable. They a national stadium, a national opera, a had seen too many false dawns. national orchestra. I even saw a sign in Front elevation plans for Ebeneser Chapel, Charles Street, Cardiff. Cardiff recently for a Welsh National Eventually we put together a company Body Piercing Centre … All these titles of 45 actors, 80 per cent Welsh – half of provoke little comment, but when we terry hands teases out them Welsh speaking – in a repertoire come to theatre then the debate is of modern classics and new writing waged with a ferocity matched only by what we mean by and kept them together for nine the debaters’ previous inertia. Most ’national’ in months. This first company would form theories centre on touring – either large- the core of future ensembles and the scale or fleets of coracles – despite the addressing our north- numbers would grow to over 70 a proof in other countries that you need season. flagships for quality and ’homes’ for south theatrical divide audience development. Touring as a We needed to develop a new audience raison d’etre is largely a management so we tripled our Theatre in Education concept and like most management here used to be a sign hanging in work – enlarging both the repertoire concepts it usually leads to less art and the foyer of the old Theatr Clwyd. and the outreach. We needed to raise more management. But committees It read: “The nearest our national profile so we quadrupled can’t build National Theatres nor can thingt to a National Theatre of Wales – our touring, introducing a residency in they run them – witness the recent The Sunday Times”. When I became Cardiff (six shows in the first year) and failures in Scotland – nor can theatres be Director in 1997 I took it down. For a the Mobile Theatre. This latter was and invented overnight. They need to evolve. start the theatre was not Welsh, nor did is our most successful touring it have a national remit. And what could initiative to date. By taking everything For too long in Wales administrators, be a National theatre in a country with – stage, sets, lights, even seats we bureaucrats, expert advisers and neither a mainstream theatre tradition could create a complete theatre in a committees had been constructing 38 nor a producing-house infrastructure? leisure centre or school-hall, maintain expensive management haystacks in the Still, the compliment was well-meant production values and introduce a new mistaken belief that they were thereby and worth having. My associate Tim socially-inclusive audience to the best creating artistic needles. And it hadn’t Baker and I set out to earn it. we had to offer. worked. Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth

spring 2003 Owen Teal plays Macbeth in Clwyd Theatre Cymru’s production in 1999. for instance should have had their own The second problem was greater. be less than half those of a stand-alone producing houses long ago. But this was There is no suitable venue. Chapter operation. The whole scheme is the ’old’ Wales – the Wales of the Welsh promotes experiment and new writing conceived as one organisation with Office and the quangos. Perhaps the while the Sherman is a dedicated two homes: Clwyd and Cardiff. Four new Assembly would make a difference. young people’s theatre and a link in productions would begin in Cardiff and the mid-scale receiving-house chain. then travel north; four productions It has. Whatever party divisions may The New Theatre is a No. 1 touring would begin in the north and then affect other fields, culture has received house. All are necessary. It would be travel south. There are advantages to constant cross-party support. The pointless to compromise one to Clwyd Theatre Cymru, both financial benefits of flagships have been provide for another. and artistic, in extending the life of a recognised and there are now homes play. There are advantages to Cardiff in planned for opera, music, dance and So in December 2001 we went to the workshops and facilities of Mold, contemporary art. Even the Assembly Cardiff’s Lord Mayor, Russell Goodway, the extended touring and education, all itself has seen the need to move from its and asked for his help in finding a new well established and all potentially present office-block to a real home – the venue. This he gave and after a three available 52 weeks of the year in the masterpiece proposed by Richard Rogers. month search we settled on the capital. It is, of course, not dissimilar to Here in the north we had long wanted a Ebeneser Chapel in Charles Street just the Stratford/London axis operated by second home in the capital. This was a behind Marks and Spencers. In the the old Royal Shakespeare Company. declared aim from ’97 onwards – partly to autumn of 2002 – again with the help of Our aim would be to create a national fill a vacuum, partly to confirm our the city – we commissioned a feasibility organisation linking north and south. national remit. Now we also wanted to be study from Michael Reardon, resident part of the new Wales. We didn’t re-hang architect for Hereford Cathedral and So would we then be able to put up our board but we did change our name to creator of the award-winning Swan our Sunday Times board? Well – Theatr Cymru. We waited for an Theatre in Stratford upon Avon. probably not – for the reasons opportunity to put our case. previously given and in any case there The new venue could provide a stage is a National Theatre already proposed, It came with Cardiff’s decision to bid seven metres wide by 15 metres deep based in the north and working in the for Capital of Culture 2008. Clearly any for an audience of approximately 450. Welsh language. However, if that such bid would need a mainstream It is an epic space, but the proximity of initiative grew to realise its full year-round producing house. Perhaps the audience would also allow for potential and if that led (as it would) to that could be us. There would of intimacy. It would be a people’s theatre a need for a metropolitan base and if course be problems. First was Cardiff in a people-space. It is modest we could provide that link, then – itself. There are those who have proposal, but it could develop an perhaps – yes, we could drop the word difficulty with the idea of capital cities audience of 65,000 in the first year. ’national’ and re-hang our board. “The in general and Cardiff in particular. nearest thing to a Theatre of Wales”. Which is silly. Cardiff has been the The costs of conversion would be low – We’d be happy with that. 39 capital for nearly fifty years and a city certainly less than building from for nearly a hundred. It is also the city scratch or humanising the New. More • Terry Hands is Director of Clwyd making the bid. importantly, the running costs would Theatr Cymru.

spring 2003 economy

gareth wyn jones and einir young say we should embrace ’Development Domains’ as a central focus for economic policy in the Welsh countryside rural survival strategy

ecognising the declining role of Wales from making full use of EU likely to be insufficient to ensure the agriculture in rural economic initiatives, for example agri- economic future of rural Wales. development the Minister, environment diversification which Michaelr German, has symbolically would assist rural areas but which It is expected that basic food commodity taken the title of Minister of Rural would impact on the Fontainebleau prices will continue to decline and, as Affairs in what was once the Assembly abatement to the UK Treasury. agriculture’s contribution to GDP also Government’s Agriculture Department. Nevertheless, but for our membership declines, economic and political power In thinking through his new portfolio of the EU and the infamous Common will be increasingly concentrated in he will necessarily have had to Agriculture Policy, and indeed the urban centres. Consequently, if the confront some other crucial realities. militancy of French farmers, the small family farm is to be sustainable, position would be much worse. which is Assembly Government policy, The rural economy tends historically to it will increasingly be a part-time activity be equated with a dependence on the While agriculture and the family farm, within a wider socio-economic land-use disciplines: agriculture and hopefully supported by woodland spectrum. To a significant extent it forestry with associated businesses expansion (mainly hardwoods) and already is. Many farmers or their augmented by cultural or green tourism. better environmental management and partners already secure a significant Yet, even in Powys, the least ’urbanised’ much greater local added-value through part of their cash income from work region of Wales, agriculture and forestry the Agri-Food Initiative and niche undertaken off the farm often in a make only a modest 15-20 per cent marketing are vitally important, they are nearby ’urbanised’ centre. contribution to the economy which, throughout rural Wales, is heavily dependent on public sector employment. potential development domains

The problems currently affecting in rural wales farming and rural communities are not confined to Wales, the UK or the EU. medium development smaller development They are found all over the world, partly due to the revolution in agricultural domains domains production technology, partly to the low • Y Fenai: comprising all • Glannau Ceredigion: Aberystwyth to internalised costs of transport, partly to communities on either side of the Aberaeron and adjacent villages. changing patterns of retailing and to the Menai and adjacent small towns • Tywi: Caerfyrddin and adjacent rise of ’agribusiness’, and partly due to and villages. villages to Llandeilo. changing lifestyles and expectations. • Llanelli: including Burry Port, • Glannau Madog: Porthmadog, Most are affected by the catch-all of Felinfoel to Pontardulais. Penrhyndeudreath, Blaenau globalisation. • Aberconwy: comprising Llandudno, Ffestiniog Cricieth to Pwllheli. Colwyn Bay and the lower end on • Hafren: Welshpool/Y Trallwng to The position in rural Wales has been the Conwy valley. Newtown/Y Drenewydd. exacerbated by BSE, CJD, the high • Dyffryn Clwyd: comprising Rhyl, • Daugleddau: Milford Haven, £/Euro exchange rate and by 40 Prestatyn, Dyserth, Rhuddlan to Haverfordwest and Pembroke. Westminster policy, under both Llanelwy/St Asaph. • Gwy: Builth/Llanfair ym Muallt to Conservative and Labour Llandrindod administrations. This has prevented

spring 2003 economy

If young people are to stay in rural In sum diversification Wales or be attracted back, lifestyle is now not just a issues are as important as income alone. matter for the The kind of facilities and entertainment individual farm typically associated with ’urban’ economy, but for the communities needs to be enhanced and whole of the so- made more readily accessible. called ’rural economy’. In this Taken together these realities point to a sense there is little to new policy context for considering the separate rural and problems of rural Wales: urban problems. We • A new approach is needed for are dealing with a economic and social development need for sustainable which is, to a significant extent not development for the dependent on the land-use based whole country and sectors, but builds upon the we must recognise strengths and potentials of the larger, that the work profile albeit dispersed population centres. in so-called rural • In such a context, even the term areas will have many ’rural Wales’ may be misleading and similarities to that unhelpful, with its implication of found in urban areas. homogeneity although in reality There is an increasing covering regions and areas with very recognition of the different problems and potentials, for need to help local Map 1 – Bus flows though Wales. example Tregaron, Bangor, Rhyl, companies grow and of the potential Cross Hands, Carmarthen, and power of activity clusters – linking Tudweiliog in Penllyn. Despite their somewhat dispersed research, development, skills and • Instead of emphasising the rather populations they are already economic growth. It is also clear from artificial differences between ’rural’ significant centres for development data on population and traffic flows and ’urban’, which have little basis in containing a range of social and (see, for example, the accompanying Welsh social and industrial history, cultural facilities. The argument for the map on bus usage), that nascent there is a need to develop a emphasising already existing trends is centres for growth already exist. Given comprehensive ’economic and social that public investment needs to be that resources are limited and that development strategy’ which caters targeted if it is to be effective. We expectations are high, we believe the recognise the vital importance of the for all parts of Wales. only way forward is to identify a small main urban centres in Wales: Cardiff • Typically ’urban’ problems exist in so- number of key centres, distributed and its ancillary communities; called rural areas, for example west strategically through rural Wales – what Swansea Bay comprising Swansea, Rhyl, and ’rural’ issues are important we termed ’Development Domains’ – Neath and their associated villages in so-called urban areas, for example and concentrate on their potential. and towns; the central valleys; Gower, Maelor, and the Vale of Bridgend/Ogwr; Newport and the Glamorgan. Social exclusion and Despite their somewhat dispersed eastern valleys; and Wrexham/ deprivation are found in all areas. populations they are already significant Deeside. They can be also viewed as • A comprehensive development centres for development containing a potential ’Development Domains’ strategy should not be limited to range of social and cultural facilities. covering the bulk of the population. purely economic concerns but should The argument for emphasising already However, the ten domains described also cover education, training, existing trends is that public here focus on what can be loosely research, communications, transport, investment needs to be targeted if it is classified as ’rural Wales’ the large culture, leisure facilities, housing, to be effective. Ten potential proportion of which is within 10 to 20 health provision, planning, and ’Development Domains’, are listed in miles of them (see Map 2). shopping. It should also have a the accompanying panel, divided into strong environmental component, four medium-sized domains and six These rural Development Domains 41 for example waste management smaller ones. Taken together the great proposals mirror, in part, the established and minimisation, and energy use bulk of the population of rural Wales is concept of nodal point development but efficiency. within easy reach of them. with three significant modifications.

spring 2003 economy

1 Development domains are wider areas While the change in Mike German’s title relatively low in the Agency’s hierarchy. rather than the more narrowly drawn shows that the shift from agriculture to Moreover, the WDA is answerable to the population centres typical of nodal wider rural developmental issues is Minister for Economic Development and point strategies. They allow for a being recognised, it also highlights the most of its GDP targets are more readily broader population and resource base political and administrative problems. met in the populous east of Wales. Some and acknowledge the greater mobility How can the Minister of Rural Affairs have advocated the resurrection of the old of modern society. For example, generate a comprehensive policy for Development Board for Rural Wales with instead of thinking of Bangor or ’rural development’ when many of the a greater geographical cover. However, Caernarfon or Beaumaris, it is crucial issues come under other that would be both politically impossible suggested that the ’domain’ should be departments: economic development is and administratively undesirable. all the communities on either side of in one Ministry, environment, transport the Menai Straits combining to give a and planning in another, while The political and administrative answer total population of around 50,000. education and housing are in yet others. lies in the Assembly Government 2 The policy context should insisting on a new policy comprise social as well as vision through which all the purely economic factors various departments and ensuring that livelihood and agencies, especially the WDA aspirational issues are fully and ELWa, together with local addressed. government, would embrace. 3 Environmental factors must This could only happen if a be a part of Development consensus were to emerge Domain planning including that such a policy must be integrated transport, efficient pursued to stop the continuing local energy use, and waste erosion of rural Wales. management. Taken together these would produce a true The policy approach suggested response to the sustainable here is one in which we development challenge. address the problems of all our communities without creating It could be argued that the an artificial barrier between Development Domain focus urban and rural Wales. By advocated here will deprive others recognising the growth of investment and will not address potential of certain areas, the many of the issues arising from Development Domain concept low population densities, from the would allow indigenous crisis in agriculture and from the sustainable economic growth lack of affordable housing. We combined with good social would argue that strategically facilities to provide Welsh dispersed through Wales and Map 2 – The ten Development Domains in rural Wales, with their 10 people with a high and and 20 mile radius’s illustrated. taking full advantage of existing sustainable standard of living. economic assets and social and cultural strengths, Development Domains One hypothetical solution might be for are a necessary condition for dispersing “Rural Affairs” to have charge of all high and sustained living standards these issues in rural Wales. The result throughout the country. would be that the Minister, in this case • Professor Gareth Wyn Jones is Chair of Mike German, would run most of Wales the Wales Rural Forum. He and Dr Einir There are significant definitional, leaving the First Minister, Rhodri Morgan Young work on rural development in administrative and political challenges in and the rest of his cabinet the urban developing countries at the Centre for these suggestions. We are in fact rump. Of course, this would be a political Arid Zones Studies, University of referring to some 70 to 80 per cent of the absurdity. It would also be illogical given Wales, Bangor. The themes of this land area and up to 35 per cent of the the intermingling of the rural and the article are developed in A Bright Future 42 population of Wales – all that live urban issues discussed earlier. for ’Rural’ Wales, Centre for outside the urban centres of Cardiff, Environment and Regional Newport, the Valleys, Swansea Bay, The WDA has just one a small rural unit, Development, University of Wales, Bridgend, Deeside and Wrexham. based in Newtown, which appears Bangor, April 2003.

spring 2003 economy making us better off

hile it may be premature to Economic Development does give the judge whether the appearance of having moved up the Assembly Government has policy agenda, not least through the wmade Wales better-off, it is not too early National Economic Development to develop an evaluative framework to Strategy and the complex policy- assess the its success in promoting making that accompanies the balanced economic development. This application of European Structural should be used not only to judge the Funds. While relative increases in economic benefits that have been economic development funding may produced but, more importantly, to be more planned than realised, and enhance positive impacts and minimise while the accompanying definition of negative ones. In addressing how the funds for economic development may Assembly can influence prosperity at be generously wide, the Assembly least four questions arise: Government has been assiduous in not 1 How do its economic development using European Structural Funds as a policies differ from pre-Assembly substitute for its own economic policies? development activities – a 2 Does its policy process capture local characteristic more difficult to apply to knowledge in a policy relevant way? other levels of UK governance. 3 Has economic development moved up the policy agenda with increased The search for universal solutions to steve hill calls for resources being applied? the problems of regional development 4 What is the influence of European has been both long and generally the Assembly Structural Funding on the regional fruitless. What has become generally development agenda? acknowledged is the deficiency of Government to adopt policies that (i) offer grants to incoming The first question may be less easy to firms on the basis of the jobs they a culture of evaluation answer than it looks, largely because of generate; and (ii) restricts support to the relative obscurity of the details of those firms that can demonstrate that in its efforts to economic development policy pre- they wouldn’t have come without the Assembly, with public pronouncements grant. Taken together these simply improve Welsh generally limited to Ministerial wishful encourage labour intensive, subsidy- thinking. One obvious beneficial impact of dependent incomers. Economic prosperity the Assembly is transparency. However development strategies seeking to tortuously derived and painfully develop the knowledge economy must consensual, the Assembly Government’s be smarter and more subtle, 2002 economic development strategy A recognising the role of place in the Winning Wales, is fully published and location decisions of successful people disseminated. The over-riding policy shift and firms. Factors such as culture, has been the increased emphasis on environment, and education – long enterprise development, although, given recognised as important in a general parallel shifts in other UK regions, this way – are now the focus of more may or may not be attributable to systematic promotion. devolution. Similarly the operation of the Assembly’s Economic Development One important set of lessons comes Committee provides plenty of opportunity from the recent research study 43 for the capture of local knowledge, with Competing with the World published the Committee proving keen to listen to by the Institute of Welsh Affairs in 2002 relevant expertise and interests. in association with Barclays, the WDA

spring 2003 economy

and OneNorthEast, the northern proposals and analysis, it is difficult to can be judgmental, conducted in haste England development agency. This argue that the Assembly has failed to as an after-thought, poorly resourced looked at the characteristics and address the right issues. and aimed at substantiating prior, often experiences of sixteen of the world’s political, convictions. most successful regions in terms of There are inevitably multiple economic development, and sought to definitions and interpretations of Nowhere is this range of possibilities draw lessons for less successful being ’better off’, including the more relevant than in the area of regions. The lessons learned from the intrinsic qualities of higher degrees of regional development, where the study boil down to three main issues: autonomy and involvement in relationship between cause and effect 1 It is vital to apply consistently over decision-making processes. The can be complex and where specific an extended period a strategy based specification of well-being involves policies can be overwhelmed by the on rigorous economic analysis. the full range of social, economic, wider context. Industrial clusters, for 2 Higher and further education cultural and environmental example, have been judged successful institutions and schools have a considerations. The Assembly not because of specific policy central role in economic Government does recognise the interventions but largely because of their regeneration. importance of reliable and emergence in areas with dense networks 3 The SME sector is the main source contemporary indicators, and is and particular forms of local linkage and of economic vigour. putting some resources into association. Apparently spontaneous improving the quality of available industrial successes are difficult to information in Wales – one important replicate unless the social and economic positive impact. preconditions are in place.

Even if the latest figures showed a The central and obvious point is that substantial boost to the Welsh there are multiple determinants of the economy, it would take a leap of faith relative success of regions and nations. to ascribe this to the Assembly. These include the endowment of Similarly, a dismal Welsh economic history, the structure of industry, performance could be despite the attitudes towards enterprise, levels of substantial positive impacts of the competitiveness, local institutional Assembly. That is to say, economic capacity, the accidents of performance could have been much agglomeration or whatever, according worse without the Assembly. Assessing to the politics and predilections of the the difference is the task of an observer. Interventions by national or evaluative framework which should regional government usually rely on a include the following activities: rationale of market failure, whereby the • The prior appraisal of policies or absence of factors such as information, actions before implementation – that knowledge, competition, or affordable is, what if analysis, drawing on premises provides the context for previous experience or the policy actions aimed at increasing expectations of theory. prosperity, however defined. Assessing • Co-terminus monitoring to facilitate the efficacy of these interventions is on-going policy development. made difficult by two problems: • Reflective evaluation, looking back • The lack of a direct link between These three conclusions have a over measured experience in order to cause and effect, with other particular resonance in Wales, given learn for the future. influences (such as changes in the the publication of the National macroeconomic framework, or Economic Development Strategy and At its best, evaluation becomes a shocks to the system such as a fall in its accompanying economic analysis, learning process developing an the world price of steel or a fire- the recent Assembly Government’s evidence base to allow policy-makers fighters strike) can be far more Review of Higher Education and to avoid the mistakes of the past. important. Within the field of regional emphasis on its significance for Changing circumstances should be development this lack of clarity is 44 economic development, and finally the recognised in defining the policy compounded by economic and social recent Review of Business Support and context and allowing objective inter-relationships and the the Enterprise Action Plan for Wales. assessment of how resources may be multiplicity of policies (and their Whatever the quality of the final better deployed. At its worst evaluation multiple effects).

spring 2003 economy

• As importantly, the impacts of regional (or even national or federal) governments are at best indirect. A Winning Wales may call for 135,000 jobs, or higher relative GDP, but it is not actually the Assembly that delivers jobs and prosperity. This occurs as a result of the actions of firms, organisations and individuals, operating in markets that are complex and often capricious. Hence the Assembly Government and its Agencies must seek to influence the behaviour of others. In the end its success must be assessed in relation to these indirect impacts. evidence-sharing culture. Within this The objective of evaluation is to answer These difficulties have led to a variety region, processes of evaluation provide the question of what difference does (or, of approaches to assessing the the systematic link between policy perhaps will) the Assembly Government economic effects of regional policy, actions and policy analysis, between make to improving the prosperity of including the Scottish Output needs assessments and effective Wales, acknowledging the practical and Measurement Framework which seeks actions to meet those needs, within a conceptual difficulties of so doing. The to provide comparators for disparate learning and supportive environment search for precision can perhaps be policies and actions around a data-set that encourages evidence capture and replaced by the development of a of consistent evaluations, and the organisational learning. learning evaluative framework that Industrial Development Board of encourages policy change to reflect Northern Ireland, which monitors the principles of an assessed evidence. Such a framework performance of IDB client companies should embody principles designed to without explicitly claiming any evaluative framework ensure that it is difference, rather than responsibility for changes in those activity, that is assessed, as outlined in performances. One common for regional the chart on the left: characteristic is the need for appropriate and timely data, suitably development An Assembly Government evaluation analysed to provide policy guidance, framework consistent with these principles can provide for monitoring often without reference to any 1 Evaluative process should be and policy development within a fundamental philosophy or guiding open, transparent and simple learning process that will enhance theory. 2 Assessment should look forward desirable outcomes. This framework as well as back. must acknowledge the indirect nature Ideally the policy development process 3 Process should distinguish of Assembly impacts on prosperity. It is would move from the identification of between activities, results and business activity that determines needs and opportunities to the design impacts or outcomes prosperity, rather than the direct and delivery of policies to address 4 Impacts should be assessed in actions of policy-makers, and it is the them. This would operate within a terms of objectives Assembly’s impact on business monitoring framework that continually 5 Framework should allow performance that must be assessed. assesses both the relevance of comparison of different actions changing needs and the impacts of and policies policy upon meeting those needs, in a Given the indirect nature of influence, 6 Performance should be compared feedback loop that becomes an appropriate information must be with and without action, policy or iterative process driven simply by collected on a number of levels. The institution what works. first is the level of the firm, that is the 7 Minimum indicators should be direct recipients of Assembly policy adopted compatible with In this conception the ’learning region’ actions, whether in the form of grant objectives 45 is one that successfully fosters the assistance, training allowances, 8 Framework should drive actions in development of institutions and innovation subsidies, or consultancy pursuit of priorities. information networks within an advice. Given the objective of

spring 2003 economy

improving prosperity via business impact, the absence of such improvements and the dissemination of performance, it is firm-level data, such evidence would be a serious obstacle best practice. Finally, and crucially, the as output or sales revenue, to hypothesised positive impact. development and interpretation of this employment, and total wage bill that evidence base should allow the definition must be collected in a consistent and Indeed, such a notion is implicit in of performance benchmarks. These timely manner. Aggregate firm level the Assembly Government’s target would identify high impact activities and data for those organisations in direct of narrowing the per capita GDP those recipients most likely to gain receipt of Assembly actions can then gap with the UK average. However maximum benefit from intervention. be compared with relevant business imperfect a measure, GDP does performance outside of the Assembly’s have universal currency, and can Developing an appropriate framework sphere of influence – either in the form be closely related to indicators of for evaluating the impact of the of non-recipients of Assembly business performance such as Assembly Government upon prosperity resources, or from outside the region. productivity, wage levels and is a complex but crucial task, and not total revenue. Hence, policies only for maximising the beneficial that have the impact of effects of the Assembly itself. Politics in increasing these business Wales, as elsewhere, is facing a crisis of …GDP does have performance indicators are perceived relevance, with low election likely to have positive effects turnout and a general cynicism towards universal currency, on Welsh GDP. Moreover, political institutions. The development whilst aggregate regional of an evaluative framework that has data on employment, public confidence can play a significant and can be wages and value-added are part in the long process of establishing normally available only the credibility and relevance of the closely related to after some time-lag, and Assembly, quite apart from positive hence may be poor effects on resource allocation. indicators in a responsive indicators of learning framework, business The Assembly Government is a turnover or sales revenue may powerful institution, not least in its business be a useful proxy, with a ability to direct the expenditure of significant relationship to these substantial sums of public money. other indicators. Hence even raw Hence it must be held to account for performance data on business turnover, the difference it makes to prosperity as preferably combined with well as its other, complementary such as employment (to assess productivity) objectives. The Assembly Government can be a leading indicator for likely can help make Wales better-off, with prosperity changes. prosperity impacts joining other productivity, benefits of inclusion, participation and A careful programme of individual transparency. The Assembly evaluations can complement the firm Government’s recent creation of a wage levels and and regional levels, looking at the effects Research and Evaluation Unit should of particular actions or particular policies. play an important part in delivering total revenue. Together these can build up a strong these beneficial impacts. That said, it case history of previous interventions will be more difficult to achieve so long and their effects that can be used to as the Unit remains within the confines The second level of data is the region inform future actions. Analysis of this of the Assembly itself, raising itself, enabling the comparison of Wales case set should address the nature of questions about its perceived policy as a whole with similar regions individual interventions and the independence and ability to challenge. elsewhere. An obvious example would mechanisms by which Assembly be comparing GDP per head in Wales Government actions are translated into • Stephen Hill is Professor of Economic with both the UK average and the changing business performance. Once Development at the University of relevant figures for comparable regions. more the emphasis is on consistent and, Glamorgan. This is a summary of an 46 Whilst a level of Welsh economic as far as possible, objective, evaluations inaugural lecture given at the University performance consistently above that of that contribute to the development of an of Glamorgan in December 2002, the comparator regions is not in itself evidence base and its application and full text of which is available from evidence of Assembly Government use in policy formulation, policy [email protected].

spring 2003 economy science special i why we need a science strategy

These are computing, places it outside. Finally, as we shall phil cooke charts telecommunications, software, see, Wales has above average health biotechnology and aerospace, on the and education employment. Wales’ progress in one hand, and research, media, financial services, health and education These statistics are misleading if anyone venturing into the services, on the other. wishes to draw comfort from our location in the higher reaches of the Knowledge Knowledge Economy According to Table 1, some 43 per cent Economy league table. Since those 1998 of EU regions have 40 per cent or more data were published, the Welsh economy of their workforce within the knowledge has experienced a unique turnaround. ew pressures on economy sector. It will be seen that in Ironically, the positions of the two Welsh competitiveness have been this table Wales does relatively well, at a regions will have remained much the caused by global economic similar level to Rhône Alpes and Ireland. same despite the loss, shown in Table 3, nrecession experienced in European One reason why this happens is that the of 44,000 private, manufacturing jobs regions and elsewhere. In the UK we UK is a far less manufacturing intensive, between November 1998 and the same have the added burden of an overvalued more services-based economy than all month in 2002. This is because of the currency that has helped devastate our but Sweden in the EU. Another reason simultaneous rise of 67,000 public manufacturing industry. So much so, that is that the EU statistics office, Eurostat, administration jobs, overwhelmingly in for England the Department of Trade and includes automotives in the ’high health and education. Industry has raised its ’bail-out’ fund from technology manufacturing’ category, £2 billion to £6 billion. This is a sign of the incidentally boosting Wales, whereas Wales is becoming more ’knowledge corpse of ’Old Labour’ stirring at the flight the Organisation for Economic Co- intensive’ in statistical terms, unusually of manufacturing jobs to developing operation and Development formula through rapid expansion of public countries with low labour costs, and recognition of the pain of both the death throes of the ’Industrial Age’ and the birth table1: selected regions from knowledge economy index, pangs of the ’Knowledge Economy’. 1998 data Selected Regions with more than 40% of Selected Regions with less than 40% of For it remains UK government policy to of workforce in Knowledge Economy of workforce in Knowledge Economy deliver a knowledge-driven economy, EU Position EU Position something to which the recent Wales for Stockholm 58.65 (1) Gelderland 39.99 (87) Innovation plan also aspires. Comparing London 57.73 (2) Northern Ireland 37.31(97) Wales with Scotland, we seem to be Helsinki 51.5 (11) Sachsen 35.97 (109) taking the low and boggy road while the Paris 50.17 (16) Upper Austria 34.28 (123) Scots are taking the high road as we Stuttgart 48.84 (19) Athens 33.79 (125) shall demonstrate later. S.W. Scotland 47.59 (24) Navarre 32.06 (135) East Wales 43.91(53) Auvergne 31.82 (137) A definition of the Knowledge Economy W. Wales & Valleys 42.87 (60) Calabria 31.29 (141) is one ’in which more than 40 per cent Rhône-Alpes 42.22 (67) Alentejo 18.63 (179) 47 of workers are employed in high S. & E. Ireland 40.18 (86) Aegean Islands 12.70 (188) technology manufacturing and Sources: Eurostat Regions, Yearbook, 2001; Cooke and De Laurentis, EU Knowledge Economy knowledge-intensive services’. Index, Cardiff, Centre for Advanced Studies, Cardiff University,2002.

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administration. Most economics table 2: manufacturing employment change in great britain, textbooks are silent on the propulsive 1991-2001 (march) role of public sector employment in a Region 2001 (%) 1998 (%) 1991 (%) %Change %Change %Change world of globalisation, competitiveness 91-01 91-98 98-01 and technological innovation. E. Midlands 20.5 21.5 26.7 -6.2 -1.2 -1.0 Conventional, monetarist economists Eastern 14.5 17.1 19.7 -5.2 -2.6 -2.6 see a ’bloated’ public sector ’crowding London 6.4 7.8 10.0 -3.6 -2.2 -1.4 out’ competitive, innovative and North East 16.5 21.1 21.6 -5.1 -0.5 -4.6 entrepreneurial spirits. Unlike Scotland, North West 16.4 20.2 22.1 -5.7 -1.9 -3.8 where a strong emphasis has been South East 11.2 13.9 15.5 -4.3 -1.6 -2.7 placed on science-based industry, the South West 14.2 13.9 15.5 -3.2 -0.7 -2.5 policy approach to the knowledge W. Midlands 19.9 25.7 28.0 -8.1 -2.3 -5.8 economy in Wales seems to have Yorks. & Humberside 17.8 21.3 23.0 -5.2 -1.7 -3.5 brought forth a new model of job- Scotland 12.8 15.4 17.6 -4.8 -2.2 -2.6 generation, the nearest predecessor of Wales 17.1 21.7 21.6 -4.5 +0.1 -4.6 which may be that practised by GB 14.1 17.4 19.3 -5.2 -1.9 -3.3 Gosplan, the Soviet Union’s economic Source: Office of National Statistics. development agency. But such a judgement may warrant partial revision, as will be suggested later. table 3: regional manufacturing employment change, 1994-2002 (november) The question needing investigation is Region (000s) 2002 (%) 2001 (%) 2000 (%) 1998 (%) 1994 (%) what happened and why to reverse the E. Midlands 434 (21.0) 453 (21.9) 455 (22.6) 481 (24.1) 494 (26.4) upward trajectory of Welsh Eastern 430 (15.5) 460 (16.6) 444 (16.2) 465 (17.6) 475 (19.0) manufacturing. In Table 2 comparative London 287 (8.0) 284 (8.0) 282 (8.1) 319 (9.4) 310 (10.1) statistics of manufacturing job change North East 194 (17.6) 210 (19.1) 220 (19.9) 233 (21.7) 205 (19.6) 1991-2001 reveal Wales until 1998 as North West 557 (17.4) 569 (18.2) 594 (19.1) 622 (20.4) 665 (22.6) the UK’s only increasing source of Scotland 336 (13.9) 337 (14.1) 368 (15.3) 375 (16.1) 380 (16.7) manufacturing employment. South East 569 (13.6) 582 (14.0) 567 (13.8) 656 (16.3) 600 (16.2) South West 366 (14.7) 364 (14.8) 385 (15.8) 378 (16.2) 377 (17.1) Table 3 then shows what happened Wales 206 (15.8) 220 (17.4) 223 (17.7) 250 (20.4) 237 (19.9) until November 2002, the last date for W. Midlands 563 (22.5) 572 (22.8) 567 (23.2) 639 (25.8) 629 (26.7) which Labour Force Survey statistics Yorks. & Humberside 444 (18.7) 440 (18.7) 479 (20.3) 477 (20.8) 471 (21.3) are available at the time of writing. GB 4,386 (15.7) 4,491 (16.2) 4,584 (16.7) 4,893 (18.2) 4,843 (19.1) Briefly, this table shows three relevant Source: Office of National Statistics. things. First, note the growth in Welsh manufacturing. Second, note the higher than average percentage job loss in manufacturing 1998-2001 (which table 4: regional public administration employment change, nevertheless translated into a relatively 1994-2002 (november) modest 9,287 jobs). Accordingly, third, Region (000s) 2002 (%) 2001 (%) 2000 (%) 1998 (%) 1994 (%) we see Wales’ slippage from third to E Midlands 502 24.3 488 23.6 467 23.2 438 21.9 400 21.4 fourth in regional manufacturing Eastern 640 23.1 633 22.9 637 23.2 570 21.6 475 19.0 employment share in Britain. London 850 23.8 851 24.0 771 22.1 769 22.7 731 23.7 North East 326 29.6 327 29.7 301 27.3 283 26.4 263 25.2 In the UK, large firms accounted for North West 874 27.4 856 27.4 853 27.4 756 24.8 720 24.5 two-thirds of the losses and Wales is Scotland 690 28.6 671 28.1 649 27.0 635 27.2 583 25.6 unlikely to be much different. Next the South East 1,004 24.0 974 23.4 987 24.0 960 23.8 864 23.3 analysis takes us up to November 2002, South West 653 26.1626 25.4 642 26.4 588 as25.2 shown 564 in Table25.6 3. This table reveals Wales 415 31.8 368 29.1 368 29.2 348 28.4 311 26.1 three important features for the 1998- 48 W. Midlands 606 24.2 621 24.8 568 23.2 559 22.5 516 21.9 2002 period. First, although not the Yorks. & Humberside 634 26.7 592 25.2 604 25.6 552 largest24.1513 magnitude23.1 in absolute GB 7,193 25.7 7,008 25.3 6,846 24.9 6,459 24.1 5,964 23.5 numbers, the Welsh percentage decline Source: Office of National Statistics. in manufacturing was, at 4.6 per cent,

spring 2003 economy the steepest. Second, the two-to-one • ’talent’ base more ’sticky’, and Institutes that will take basic research ratio of large firm to SME job loss augment it by stimulating a more from universities, patent it as suggests that large firms accounted for cosmopolitan image. appropriate, transform it into near- approximately 30,000 of the 44,000 market innovations and commercialise jobs lost from 1998-2002. Third, Wales Three examples of each are summarised it by licence, sale or new spinout. I recall slipped from fourth to sixth in regional in what follows. First, foreign-owned hearing new WDA board member manufacturing employment share in firms planning to leave are targeted to Simon Gibson, founder of Ubiquity approximately one year. encourage them to replace production Software, proposing that idea to then jobs with Research and Development. Economic Development Minister Mike Moving on, Table 4 shows how fast This has resulted in some success, one German’s Economic Futures advisory employment in ’public administration’ reason being that Scotland’s science group in 2001, but to no avail. In has grown in Wales of late. Wales now base is excellent, producing 28 per cent Scotland, three of these in Life has the highest percentage public of UK biotechnologists and 20 per cent Sciences, ICT and Energy are planned. administration in the land. Reflecting of medical doctors with only 9 per cent back on the 1998-2002 period that saw of the UK population. At 17.5 per cent, Finally, to enhance knowledge inputs a major downturn in the manufacturing pharmaceuticals firms spend twice the and outputs, an extranet linking the labour market, the 67,000 rise in public amount on Research and Development Scottish business diaspora has been administration employment more than that other sectors average, hence constructed, is functioning successfully made up for the 44,000 manufacturing knowledge linkage around healthcare and will be expanded externally and jobs lost in that period. makes sense. adapted as an internal knowledge management system first for all Scottish Returning to Table 3, we see Scotland’s Enterprise staff and then for the Scottish new de-industrialisation hit earlier so ’knowledge economy’. This is one idea that although it lost a lot of Scotland’s new the WDA has copied, commissioning manufacturing jobs 1998-2002, its share IWA to find the expatriates. was lower and less were lost than in de-industrialisation Wales. Nevertheless, the situation In Wales, building a knowledge caused the Scottish Parliament to economy has proven to be a hard nut commission Scotland’s Science Strategy. hit earlier so that to crack. Assessments of performance This reviewed basic scientific research, regarding initiatives such as the costed it, assessed it in relation to world- although it Entrepreneurship Action Plan, the class benchmarks, and prioritised three Knowledge Exploitation Fund, fields for which extra resources and and Finance Wales are seldom attention would be forthcoming. The lost a lot of published. However, official fields were Biosciences, Medical Science statistics reported in the Western and E-Science. Activities to develop Mail on 16 January showed that closer networking among public and manufacturing for the financial year 2001-02, in private research laboratories, to return for an average £80 stimulate technology transfer from the jobs 1998-2002, million per year expenditure in Scottish health system and to promote a its first three years, the science-based economy were begun. Entrepreneurship Action Plan its share was was set a target of providing Regarding the last, the Scottish support to 4,600 new business Executive, then produced an economic lower and less ventures. In fact it only assisted strategy document charging Scottish 1,800: a deficit of 2,800. For 2002- Enterprise and economic actors 3 the Action Plan was set a goal of generally, to espouse their vision of a were lost than supporting 6,300 start-up Smart, Successful Scotland. This made businesses, and 4,000 start-ups reference to the Knowledge Economy in Wales were assisted by the WDA from and proposed actions to: April 2002. • Enhance knowledge inputs and outputs among global businesses in A second example, concerning spinout Part of this expenditure is on 49 or relevant to Scotland. firms, is the ambition to enhance an entrepreneurship modules in • Hasten the rate of spin-outs from already successful cluster programme colleges. A report on the Knowledge scientific research; making Scotland’s by establishing new Technology Exploitation Fund’s own website

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shows that despite budgets of well over education institutions, half are from research team from Cambridge. A new £20 million per year being spent, only outside Wales. Each is worth, notionally, Biosciences Centre has been built to five per cent more entrepreneurship £15,000 per year to the economy, or house the new School of Biosciences. modules were being taught in £112.5 million in total, which over a An existing Medipark in the medical universities and other higher education typical three-year degree course is an school houses some thirty biotechnology institutes, although 25 per cent more ’export’ value of £337.5 million. If to that start-up businesses and these will move were taught in further education are added the Welsh students, the figure as they grow on to the Gene Park. colleges. But 75 per cent of the latter doubles to £675 million, and adding in had no or few mechanisms for the salaries of employees, the sum is In other words there is the seed crystal of technology transfer, while the statistic over £1 billion, (though the ’export’ value a possible biosciences cluster for which for universities was 25 per cent. It can remains at a third of that). the healthcare demand and the education be concluded that there is a significant disconnect in this particular part of the entrepreneurship-driven renewal of the regional innovation system in Wales.

Finance Wales, is a vehicle designed to supply venture capital to innovative SMEs and start-up businesses because of a perceived market failure in private provision. However, the number of businesses coming forward for equity investment are so few that its venture capitalists are being re-deployed to co-fund grant packages. Further administrative expediency and risk aversion has resulted in equity now being tied to Cardiff University invested substantially in attracting the ’star’ scientist in stem cell research, accessing Regional Selective Lasker Prize-winning Welshman Martin Evans, and his research team from Cambridge. Assistance, thus incentivising entrepreneurs to becoming ’grant In 2003, the Welsh healthcare budget is and research supply are crucial junkies’ rather than weaning them off £3.4 billion and healthcare has even components. Government support in grant-dependence as modern greater innovation potential because of and beyond Wales assisted all features investment theory advocates. the central role of life sciences, in this development, but mainly through pharmaceuticals and biotechnology in research and infrastructure funding. Thus we come to a hint of a silver scientific and technical support. In 2002, Augmentation of the pharmaceuticals lining, surprisingly, in the 67,000 new a Cardiff-based academic consortium sector is desirable, given that Amersham jobs created from the Welsh won £4 million from the UK government and Bayer are the principal global Assembly Government’s own block and Welsh Assembly Government representatives of the sector in Wales grant. The breakdown between (through the Knowledge Exploitation since Parke-Davis and Warner Lambert health, education and public Fund) to build a Gene Park. Eventually, joined the manufacturing exodus years administration between June 1999 this will be built in Cardiff’s waterfront ago. This is a task in which the WDA and June 2002 was 22,000, 18, 000 district linked virtually to other ought to be the key source of expertise. and 3,000. Both health and education University of Wales biosciences centres. But in the absence of a ’knowledge contribute to innovation, the first in economy’ strategy comparable to that patient treatment, and the second in Ambitious plans, being realised in operating in Scotland, such a possibility producing talent. But, as services, 2003, will merge Cardiff University and remains unrealised. they are frequently seen as parasitic University of Wales Medical School, on the real economy. Research creating a new institution. In support of • Professor Phil Cooke is Director of the conducted by the Centre for Advanced the biosciences capability that Centre for Advanced Studies, Cardiff Studies for ELWa shows Wales underpins the merger, Cardiff University, and adviser to Lord 50 performs a valuable export function University invested substantially in Sainsbury’s UK Innovation Review Panel. for the Welsh economy at university attracting the ’star’ scientist in stem cell He advised OECD on Scotland’s ’Regional level. Of the roughly 15,000 graduates research, Lasker Prize-winning Knowledge Laboratory’ approach to produced each year by the thirteen higher Welshman Martin Evans, and his economic development in 2002.

spring 2003 economy science special ii networking the genes paul atkinson reports on a new genome research centre at Cardiff University

he recent announcement of the The new Genome Centre will be looking first draft of the map of the at the development of biotechnology human genome, followed by the clusters, not just in Cardiff Bay, but tmouse genome and the rice genome, globally. Researchers will be examining and the fiftieth anniversary of the the UK biotechnology innovation system discovery of the structure of DNA by to trace the linkages between scientific Crick, Watson, Wilkins and Franklin, discoveries and the commercialisation of have given renewed prominence to the products. This research will examine the significance of genomic science. Now a innovation strategies pursued in new genome centre at Cardiff different national contexts. In particular University will provide an important it will look at what impediments to rapid impetus for collaborative research innovation might exist within the UK. A between different disciplines and research teams and the practitioners number of possible barriers to different higher education institutions. even closer together. innovation will be examined, including: • NHS procurement policy. The Centre for Social and Economic The Genomics collaboration builds on a • The relationship between Aspects of Genomics is a joint venture number of research projects in recent fundamental research in the public between groups of social scientists and years. A Cardiff Research Centre for sector and commercialisation by ethicists at Cardiff and Lancaster Genetics and Society was established private-sector firms. Universities. It has received over £4 on the basis of £0.5 million funding • A relative reluctance of top UK million for the first five years of a from the Wellcome Trust for work on scientists to set up in business. planned ten-year programme of research social and personal aspects of genetic • Possible lack of adequate venture and publications. This is part of a major medicine. The new Centre extends these capital. national investment by the Economic collaborations to new research areas. and Social Research Council, which has In itself the mapping and sequencing of set up a UK-wide Genomics Network, The wider research environment in Wales the human genome tells us relatively with other Centres established at the is also providing a good setting for the little about the complex biology of Universities of Exeter and Edinburgh. venture. The Wales Gene Park founded in growth and development. The 2002, brings together university scientists, proteome is the next frontier in the Cardiff is especially well placed to host medical geneticists, Techniquest, the molecular biology of the post-genome the new Centre. There has been a long- Welsh Development Agency, social era. Genes regulate protein synthesis. standing research collaboration scientists, lawyers and others. The Gene Scientists now need to map the array between social scientists, language Park is a ’virtual’ Research Centre at the of proteins in order to take further the experts and lawyers at Cardiff moment, though there are plans to give it lessons of the genome. Under University and geneticists and a physical location in Cardiff Bay. The Professor Peter Glasner the Cardiff clinicians at the University of Wales vision for ’Biotech in the Bay’ is an Genome Centre will be looking at the College of Medicine. The projected important development for Wales. It will emergence and trajectory of this new 51 merger of these institutions, which has support strategic research and generate scientific specialism. As well as the now been agreed and due to be an environment for biotechnology spin- work of the Wales Gene Park, the completed in 2004, will bring the out and breeder units. research will examine research

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underway at San Francisco’s biotech bay and at the ’genome fen’ science special ii development outside Cambridge.

From a very different perspective, research leaders Ian Welsh and Robert Evans will be looking at emerging land of science patterns of political debate and protest surrounding the use of genomic techniques, and the new technologies of stem cell science. The use of embryonic as well as song stem cells is but one high-profile area of scientific work that raises important ethical and legal questions. The Centre will be documenting these processes of rhodri griffiths says hile our singers, actors and public discourse. The research will poets are famous across concentrate on the manipulation and use the world, it is little known we should learn to wthat Wales is also a land of science. In of human material. In the process it will complement the much larger volume of love our scientists the biosciences, mathematics, physics, social research that has documented the geography, engineering and numerous extensive protest and direct action other disciplines Welsh scientific directed at GM crops and foods. achievements have had a huge impact on the world. It is time that we began Genetic science is already having to promote this little regarded part of significant impact on medical practice. In our culture. another of the Centre’s research priorities, Professors Angus Clarke and Wales has historically excelled in the Srikant Sarangi will be looking at the biosciences, no doubt due to our impact of genetic medicine and genetic special flora and landscape. Several of counselling on the self-perceptions of the historic giants of botany travelled individuals and families who are to Wales to study our plants. The first identified as having genetically- was Thomas Johnson (1605-1644) transmitted conditions, or as being at risk visiting to study the plants of of contracting them. Genetic medicine Snowdonia in 1658. John Ray – the can have significant consequences for most eminent botanist of the 17th people’s sense of identity, their century visited in 1658. Significantly, perceptions of the future, and their Wales is mentioned almost as insurance status. These will form a major frequently as the Galapagos Islands in theme in the research work of the Centre. Charles Darwin’s – Origin of Species.

At the same time our colleagues at It is undisputed that 1858 was a Lancaster will be pursuing bio-prospecting landmark year in the history of and the appropriation of genetic resources religion and science. On the 1 July, in the Amazon region, the ethics of Charles Darwin presented the paper – information held in genetic databanks, the The Origin of Species by Natural new science of plant genomics and Selection to a meeting of The Linnean proteomics. It is an important new Society of London. The great debate investment in Welsh social research, which It is believed that the of science with religion had begun. in turn supports other research initiatives Welshman Alfred However, it is often overlooked that Russel Wallace (1823 – in biology and medicine. 1913), from Caerleon, Darwin presented two papers at the concluded the theory meeting –his own and one by Alfred • Paul Atkinson is Associate Director at of evalution in advance Russel Wallace (1823-1913), On the 52 of Darwin. the Centre for Economic and Social tendency of varieties to depart Aspects of Genomics, Cardiff University: indefinitely from the original type. website www.cesagen.lancs.ac.uk Some claim Wallace, a Welshman

spring 2003 economy from Caerleon, Newport, had We need only think of Sir Terry industry, biotechnology companies and concluded the theory of evolution in Matthews (telecommunications) and academia worldwide. An emerging advance of Darwin. His lack of fame is Sir Chris Evans (biotechnology). company is the IGER spinout, probably due to a conspiracy conjured Molecular Nature Ltd. Formed in June by Darwin’s colleagues and Wallace’s Wales continues to have world-class 1999, the company which specialises in own reluctance for the limelight. How expertise in both its academic and the discovery of novel chemicals from unfortunate that the Welshman from industrial base. Within the University of plants has attracted significant Gwent does not enjoy equal Wales Aberystwyth, Bangor, Swansea, investment and employs 25 scientists. recognition with Darwin, probably the Cardiff University, University of Wales most famous scientist of all. College of Medicine and Institute for Wales has under performed the UK in Grassland and Environmental Research the growth of GDP. Under Pioneering scientific work continues in there are world-renowned research representation in high growth Wales. We have centres and institutions groups. Some 8,000 students study life industries is one of the significant that are world famous in their specialist science related subjects and reasons for this low GDP. A key field of research. We excel in energy, approximately 230 research staff within indicator is that business research and engineering, pest management, the university are A or A* rated. development in Wales is only 0.7 per medical genetics, the environment, cent of GDP compared to 1.4 per cent wound healing, mechatronics, for the UK (this being printing, advanced materials, significantly lower than the electronics and opto-electronics majority of other EU countries, to list only a few. The world- Japan and US). This is a class reputation of the significant shortfall and one University of Wales and that is well recognised by the research organisations such as Welsh Assembly Government. the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research has Globally, biotechnology has long been established. entered a stage of exponential growth. By 2005 the We can justly be proud of many biotechnology market is individuals including Michael expected to grow to $0.5 Disney, Professor of Astronomy trillion. The global at Cardiff University. He has pharmaceutical market alone is close links with the space in excess of $400 billion telescope “Hubble” being one of growing at 7 per cent per a select group chosen to design annum. and operate the telescope. One A leading authority on climate change, Dyserth-born Sir John Houghton has been described as “the most important man on the planet”. of the world’s leading authorities In the past the sector has been on the origin and early evolution dominated by large of plants is Professor Dianne Edwards, According to Welsh Development pharmaceutical companies (8 of which also of Cardiff and Interim Director of Agency statistics, there are 224 are in the top 25 most valuable The National Botanic Garden of Wales. bioscience companies in Wales companies in the world) but is Probably, Sir Bernard Knight is the distributed into 98 biotechnology, 10 experiencing change with greater world’s leading forensic pathologist. pharmaceutical and 116 medical opportunities for smaller biotechnology Professor Phil Williams, himself a world- devices companies, employing some companies. This led to a sharp increase renowned space physicist at the 9,000 people. Wales is home to some in the number of biotechnology start- University of Wales, Aberystwyth, once multinational and other emerging ups from 1998 onwards although 2003 described Sir John Houghton to me as biotechnology companies. For has seen a decline. Small the most important man on the planet. example, Amersham plc is a company biotechnology companies such as Born in Dyserth, north Wales he is an based in Cardiff employing some 450 Amgen, Chiron and Genetech became expert on atmospheric physics and the people with a turnover of £70 million. billion dollar companies in relatively leading authority on climate change Initially, a supplier of radioactive short time. acting as advisor to several materials for diagnostic kits and 53 governments. Others have taken radiotherapy it now supplies leading This is an industry which exhibits high advantage of their scientific background edge innovative and enabling systems, value-added which is generally higher to accumulate vast wealth. which are used by the pharmaceutical than for the economy in general with

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growth rates which can be faster. It can some welsh science achievements be small scale and localised. Surely, this is a sector that Wales if it is to • The equal sign (=) was invented by • Donald Davies, born in change its economy to knowledge- Robert Recorde, born in Tenby. Treorchy devised the based, high-tech should consider technology, which lies investing within? behind the Internet • William Jones (1675-1749) originally Despite our strengths the global from Anglesey was a co-worker of growth in biotechnology is not no less than Isaac Newton when • Britannia bridge was the first iron reflected in Wales. Recently, the Welsh calculus was invented. rail bridge in the world. Development Agency commissioned Ernst and Young to develop a Strategy • Links between the tin for BioScience in Wales. This identified plate industry and Felinfoel inherent weaknesses including a lack of Brewery led to the first ever focus, a skill shortage and notably a beer can in Europe. lack of investment finance. The sector was characterised as fragile with low levels of new company formation and a • The work of the bone-setting poor national and international profile. physicians of Anglesey continued for almost two centuries leading to Ernst and Young identified that Wales the establishment of a world • Richard has the potential and opportunity (for a famous orthopaedic clinic in Trevithick rail limited time) to develop a meaningful Liverpool and the invention of the locomotive biotechnology cluster that could Thomas calliper, which saved made its first significantly contribute to the economy. thousands of limbs during the First journey on Substantial, long term commitment World War. the Merthyr and co-operation from industry, Tramroad. government and academia is identified • Cardiff born Brian Josephson won as key if Wales is to succeed. the Nobel Prize for Physics for his Investment in both research base and • Two of the most important research into superconductivity in innovation and commercialisation geological ages (Silurian and 1973. activities is highlighted. Action is Ordovician) are named after ancient required urgently. Many are calling for Welsh tribes the appointment of a Minister for • The Denbigh born Isaac Roberts Science for Wales. However, as yet (1829-1904) took the first picture of • The copper-zinc science is not devolved to the Welsh an extra-galactic object, the alloy (muntz Assembly Government. Andromeda nebula. metal) was invented in a Some initiatives are underway Swansea copper including the Wales Gene Park and works. Its use in naval ships was a BioTechnium. Wales is starting later significant factor in the dominance than many other regions. Clusters have of the British Empire. been established elsewhere and competition is fierce. If we are to keep up we will have to have to run faster. • Sir Brynmor Jones (1903-1989) pioneered use of liquid crystal display.

• The first • Charles Wynn-Williams (1903-1979) transmission invented the “scale of two” particle of radio waves • Rhodri Griffiths is Managing Director of 54 counter which became the basis for was in Wales the Science Department at the National virtually all computers and digital by Marconi Botanic Garden of Wales. This article is equipment. (1897). based on a presentation he gave to the IWA’s West Wales Branch during 2002.

spring 2003 social helen buhaenko reports on a project that is engaging with deprivation in the Gellideg council estate in Merthyr combating the ‘gender contract’

he story of the Merthyr estate to the Valleys in 1999, the Foundation Foundation approached Oxfam Cymru Gellideg is of how a group of began to ask some fundamental for advice and support on how it could people in a deprived area, with questions about life chances in work with the community to identify area,t with few resources and little formal Gellideg: barriers to development and education, came to build a real • What was needed to bring about opportunities for change. Together the community. They have their own change and tackle issues such as low two organisations devised a scheme to organisation, the Gellideg Foundation, self esteem, debt, drug abuse and undertake a gender needs assessment which has raised more than £700,000 over economic inactivity? of the most marginalised men and the past three years and how has a staff • How did the men and women living women on the estate. The process of thirteen. With these resources they in Gellideg experience poverty? took four months during 2001. The have provided job training, restored and • How could they become more subsequent analysis of interviews with equipped community buildings, created involved in improving their more than 70 people on the estate was an outdoor sports area, a café, a crèche, situation? used to create a programme to and employed their own community regenerate the estate, a programme workers. In the process they have The second of these questions brought that was targeted to address the analysed the power structures within the the most revealing answers. The different needs of men and women. estate and the world beyond and come to understand some of the problems that panel 1: have been holding them back. gellideg’s The Gellideg Foundation was founded by six mothers living on the estate in vital statistics 1998. Their co-ordinator, Colette Watkins who has lived on the estate all her life, recalled that they met on a course about how children learn at school: • The estate was built by the council between 1948 and 1963. “We got talking about the • It consists of mainly houses with seven blocks of flats at the centre. problems on the estate. There • Today’s population of 3,500 live in 1,200 households, was no community spirit. Nobody • The large majority of the houses are council-owned with less than 20 per cent talked to each other about the owner-occupied problems or what to do about • The estate has a post office, general store, butchers and fruit and vegetable them. So we thought we’d have a shops go and see if we could do • One of the largest buildings on the site is the Social Club which has gone something for ourselves.” through a series of bankruptcies and is currently closed. The Gellideg 55 Foundation is planning to renovate the building and open a community Prompted by the funding opportunities business to underpin the sustainability of the organisation. as a result of Objective 1 status given

spring 2003 social

panel 2: merthyr poverty statistics

Gellideg will at least ’share’ these statistics. In most cases the estate’s position will be significantly more extreme

• 66 per cent of households have an income of less than £10,000. Source: Assembly Government, Mapping Social Exclusion in Wales, 1999 • 48.6 per cent are in employment. Source: census 2001 • 4 per cent of the population are unemployed. Source: census 2001 • 28.2 per cent of the population are in ’real unemployment’ in the UK. Source: Beatty, Fothergill, Gore and Green, The Real Level of Unemployment, Members of the Gellideg Youth Group painting the back of the shop on the estate. Sheffield Hallam University, October 2002. Official unemployment figures do not The assessment led to a successful bid and face similar problems, their outlook take into consideration the ’hidden’ for nearly £500,000 of Objective 1 is different (see Panel 4, summarising the unemployment of men and women who have been diverted onto sickness-related funding, out of a total of £721,000 that findings from the Gellideg survey). The benefits and those who are looking for has been raised over the past two years. researchers found that Gellideg has its work and are available for work but not As important as the money was the own, all-pervasive, ’gender contract’. claiming benefit. generation of a new community spirit in This is an unwritten – and often • 28 per cent of households are in Gellideg. Colette Watkins explained: unspoken – arrangement between the receipt of housing benefit. sexes that it is a woman’s job to be the Source: Assembly Government, Mapping Social Exclusion in Wales, 1999 “At first it was difficult to get carer in the family, while man’s is to be people to believe that things could the breadwinner. One Foundation • 29 per cent per cent of housing is change. But now they are starting member, who has four sons and is now local authority or housing to believe something can be done.” taking a university degree, described the association owned. contract in the following terms: Source: Assembly Government, Mapping Social Exclusion in Wales, 1999 Karen, another resident on the estate, added: “I think most Welsh women get a • 13.6 per of households are bad deal. Welsh men are living in occupied by lone parents “We thought the Foundation the Stone Age. They think women Source: census 2001 would just be a flash in the pan, should do as they’re told. It’s still • 12.5 per cent of homes are ’not fit but it’s getting better all the time. very much the women’s role to do for habitation’. Now people are seeing that the housework and look after the Source: Assembly Government, Mapping Social Exclusion in Wales, 1999 something can be done. Fifty kids. It’s not like that for everyone voices are better than one.” but it’s like that for women on this • 44 per cent aged between 16 and estate.” 60 have no qualifications. The Foundation was clear that to achieve Source: 2001 census a deeper understanding of the complex Failure to apply a gender perspective, 56 • 30 per cent suffer from limiting relationships that underpin Gellideg’s being in effect ’gender–blind’, means long-term illness. community, a gender perspective had to that policy interventions can Source: 2001 census be central to their survey. Although unconsciously reinforce gender stereo- women and men have similar concerns typing. So, for example, pre-school

spring 2003 social provision becomes in practice a mother and toddler group, thereby excluding panel 3: interview assessment tools men. Gender stereo-typing limits the life choices available to both men and • Problem wall and Solution Tree • asking what it means to be Ok or women and can reinforce inequalities. A basic warm-up exercise to get not Ok, and where they would place Being aware of the distinctive needs of people talking about the problems themselves / their community along men and women, and acting on this they have and their initial take on this line. awareness, means that poverty can be the solutions. • Managing Wheel addressed more effectively. • Time Trends Analysis A tool to be used with individuals or Nevertheless, stereotyping continues to Interviewees talk about the estate’s households whereby a circle is drawn be a powerful influence. The ’gender history and the problems that it has and divided into seven sections, contract’ still shapes the self-image of encountered over the decades. representing the days of a week. men and women in the Valleys guiding their aspirations and expectations. • Mobility Mapping Participants use this to show when how Establishes what facilities people they obtain and spend their income. This was why the Gellideg Foundation use on the estate and where they • Impact and Flow Diagrams have to go to obtain services have described their survey of the needs A spider diagram exercise used to unavailable there. of their community a gender assessment. explore how one issue leads to They were also insistent that the exercise • OK / Not OK Line another, for instance establishing would fail unless it belonged to the people Explores people’s perceptions of linkages between education, of Gellideg, acknowledging that they were poverty and survival strategies, by training, and employment. the poverty experts. Trainers from Oxfam worked alongside the Foundation’s Watkins. Interviewees were approached men and women, unemployed people, co-ordinator and its two youth workers. personally to be involved, rather than ethnic minorities and drug users. In They adapted tools that are used routinely randomly selected. As a result the addition, care was taken to ensure that in the developing world to ensure that interviewees did not represent a cross- there was balance between the number regeneration initiatives are led and owned section of the estate. Instead, they were of men and women interviewed, and by people experiencing poverty. chosen to represent a sample of the that young, middle and older aged most marginalised within Gellideg. This people of both sexes were included. In-depth interviews, on a one-to-one was established by checking their profile basis, some lasting up to three hours, against the groups identified in the The two youth workers who carried out with 73 residents were carried out by Objective 1 guidance notes as the most the survey were at first concerned that two youth workers managed by Colette marginalised: single parents, disabled people would be reluctant to talk about their lives and the problems they faced. However, whilst people were reluctant to attend meetings, or even drop-in to evening classes for fear of ’showing themselves up’, interviewing them at home was much more productive. Confidentiality was important since many of the discussions were highly personal. About 90 per cent of the interviews were carried out using the diagrammatic tools itemised in Panel 3, with three or four different tools being used in each interview. As Mark Connelly, one of the youth workers involved, recalled:

“The tools were useful as a starter. They helped to find a way into the discussion, to get it going. We didn’t write 57 anything down during the interviews, otherwise it would Residents from Gellideg pointing to the derelict Social Club they plan to renovate in the future. set a barrier straight away.

spring 2003 social

We went out and wrote things down immediately afterwards. The exercise enlightened us as to the needs of the people on the estate. It was a real eye opener. People’s needs vary a lot. Some people don’t need anything, and have lots of support from friends and family. Others have very little. It gave me an insight into the estate that I hadn’t had before.”

Men and women of different ages often face similar issues but with different perspectives and so can be affected differently. The information gathered was analysed into three categories- structural, social and personal (see Panel 4). Together they provide a picture of the complex set of constraints on people trying to tackle their marginalisation. It is A number of the abandoned houses in Gellideg. noteworthy that gender stereotyping run • In addition, there needs to be a It was not easy for the people of through all categories. longer-term vision than just the Gellideg to question their assumptions ’assessment’. This should consider about other people on the estate – the The Gellideg Foundation believes that how the project will continue to work attitudes of men to women, the young gender analysis should be a with interviewees to take forward the people to the old, and older people to requirement of project development for issues they have raised. the young. Nor was sticking to the first all agencies involved in tackling social principle that for the initiative to exclusion in situations such as are • Three further conditions are required succeed, it had to belong to, and be found on the Gellideg estate. It also for a successful participatory process: shaped by, the residents themselves strongly recommends that the people (i) the involvement of men and rather than by outsiders. Nevertheless, who actually experience poverty women across different age groups; in the process they have improved should be actively involved in the (ii) an understanding of the different their confidence in themselves, the design of projects and the formulation needs of different groups; and (iii) an shape of their community, and the of policies to counter-act it. In addition: analysis that looks at the relationship • To be effective, needs assessment and quality of many of their lives. policy analysis should be participatory, between the sexes. involving all sectors of the community, including the most marginalised. Of course, societal and structural barriers • When addressing issues that are very remain which are beyond the scope and much at the personal and household power of a community groups to • Helen Buhaenko is Programme levels, it is important to ensure that overcome by themselves. Much frustration Development Officer for the UK interviews or meetings are held in continues on the Gellideg estate, despite Poverty Programme in Oxfam Cymru. circumstances that are considered to the efforts that have been made. As one of Its report, Fifty Voices Are Better Than be ’safe’ by interviewees. the residents, Karen, put it: One: Combating Social Exclusion and • Confidentiality is important, and Gender Stereotyping in Gellideg in the therefore there needs to be trust and “Tony Blair should come to places South Wales Valleys, co-written by the rapport between the interviewees, like this and see what’s Foundation and Oxfam, was published interviewers and their organisation happening. It maddens me a bit. in April 2003 and is available from and an understanding within the We keep coming up against a Oxfam Cymru, Market Buildings, 58 community of what the process is brick wall. The authorities should St Mary Street, Cardiff, CF10 1AT. about and aiming to achieve. take responsibility for this estate. The Gellideg Gender and Participation • This type of work cannot be done • We shouldn’t always have to get Toolkit will be available from Oxfam quickly. Gaining trust can take time. the Foundation to help us.” Cymru in September 2003.

spring 2003 social panel 4: findings from the gellideg survey structural barriers employment perception is that the computer-literate There is no crèche on Gellideg, so this young get the chances, and that their role is usually fulfilled by a Men have a good overview of the own plentiful experience in both formal grandmother or close female family local job market, and assess it from and informal employment is not valued friend. It is rarely the domain of the the standpoint of what they consider in the job market. father of the child/children. Many is their role – to bring home enough mothers are very dependent on their wages to provide long-term security. Women need to find employment family networks. But government Being able to secure the bare that fits around the needs of their initiatives only provide childcare minimum needed to cover their own children. On the whole men do not expenses for registered childminders – and their family’s requirements does take a part in childcare something that most grandmothers not encourage them into work. Lack responsibilities. Women caring for are not. of employment, ’jobs for the boys’, children look for job opportunities agency and temporary work do not that fit around school hours – these social conditions offer security. jobs are invariably low-paid and part- time and do not make going to work Women mention a range of other Unemployment for men is seen as the pay. To access a better paid, full-time barriers that are not highlighted by norm. It makes economic sense for job, women require the right men, including the poor standard of men and women to combine state qualifications and appropriate housing on the estate, the apathy of benefits with formal and informal childcare. Young women feel that the the council towards their needs, and employment in order to make a joint lack of sound advice is preventing the lack of information on benefits, livelihood. them from accessing training, training, credit, and the lack of support education and employment facilities such as doctors, solicitors and Many younger men show a strong opportunities. credit unions. desire to start their own business. When explored further, this desire With these restrictions in place, the Men are concerned for the wellbeing often comes from a fear of being likelihood of women finding and future of their children and worried unemployable by others, sometimes employment that provides a good about the levels of drug abuse and because of the stigma of being an ex- income and fits around the family’s crime on the estate. offender. Lack of business experience timetable is nigh on impossible. It is and little knowledge of finances are felt by all groups that everyone is the primary obstacles to pursing this struggling to survive. People focus on interest. Young men also feel that themselves because life is hard. One factories are likely to take on women woman said: “When everything has ahead of men because women are been paid out on the household I have cheaper to employ. about £20 a fortnight left. When food or other necessities are short I just go Older men have a stereotypical view without.” of men’s work – manual labour and heavy industrial jobs – that are either children and childcare not available today or are not suitable for their standard of health. This Many women view life through the notion of what is ’man’s work’ and lens of childcare responsibilities, and what is ’woman’s work’ is limiting paid work is an additional rather than a their life options. central concern for many. The most significant support required by women Older men feel on the margins of the is childcare. Apart from being economy, believing that there is little prohibitively expensive, most women 59 point in retraining and that it would distrust childminders and would only be humiliating to do so. Their consider a crèche as an option.

spring 2003 social

social barriers People moving to the estate from disincentive to looking for work, elsewhere have no opportunities to get however minor the offence – for to know new people. There is example, fines for non-payment of the social capital agreement that newcomers must feel TV licence fee. Many young ex- Women in general comment on the especially isolated because there is a offenders consider themselves lack of ’social capital’ on the estate, generally prejudiced view against unemployable because of their status. which means that people, both women outsiders coming to the estate. and men, do not support each other. Public transport is another issue, being stigma The women also talk about ’cliques’ too infrequent, too expensive and too who only interact within themselves, Women feel the stigma of using limited. Women are particularly affected and about conflict between the cliques. outside agencies, particularly Social by the physical environment of their There is a lack of sharing of Services, and feel stigmatised by these area. They tend to walk around the information and a lack of good quality agencies when they are dealing with estate more, visiting the shops, the advice. People are mistrustful of each them. They feel outsiders have a school, standing at the bus stop, going other for fear of being ’shopped’ for negative attitude towards people from to the post office. The built environment being on benefits to which they are not Gellideg. Women feel their social impacts on their wellbeing and can be entitled. standing is low. Men between 25 and threatening, especially at night. 50 also mention the stigma associated Women’s dependency on an inadequate Older men and women blame social with being unemployed that they feel public transport system limits their problems on the young. Older men say from outside agencies. They say being ability to leave the estate to access the young ’do not want to work and unemployed saps their self-esteem and different facilities and to interact beyond just take drugs all day’. Both groups undermines their confidence. There is the community in the immediate street. say that the parents are partly to little opportunity for them to interact blame, as they do not control their with others outside the family circle children and have handed down the crime and this compounds their feelings of isolation and depression. values of not working for a living, Women between 25 and 50 say that being on benefits and drinking. different levels of crime are accepted Women between 25 and 50 are and acceptable. Crime, such as theft, concerned that they have no control over Both younger and older women feel against a family member or close friend the type of residents who are introduced that some young women are ’breeding is not acceptable. But theft from a public into the estate, which is at the discretion for money’ – that they have children in place may be viewed differently. Women of the local authority. When problem order to get extra benefits. are aware that crime inhibits progress in families, ex-offenders, and others are the area and prevents opportunities housed on the estate, the women are In general, although men have strong from developing. However, there is a concerned about the perceived threat to views on some issues such as crime real fear of repercussions from reporting their families from drugs, increases in and parenting, they make little crime to the police. Crime breeds fear crime and other illegal activities. Young comment on how social attitudes on and increases isolation and women are women said they are affected by anti- Gellideg affect them. This may be aware that they are more vulnerable social behaviour. Speeding drivers, for because relationships are not their top than men. Many feel intimidated by the example, make roads unsafe. Vandalism priority. They see their way out as fear of crime. is also an issue with existing facilities, getting away from the estate, either already inadequate, being repeatedly temporarily or permanently. Women over 50 report that they are broken and covered in graffiti. The often too afraid to leave their homes general shabby and run-down nature of poor environment because of crime. Some older people the estate is depressing and gives the are thinking of moving because of the area a bad name. Lack of facilities is mentioned by all fear of crime – mostly from youth age groups. Old age pensioners and nuisance. They say crime levels have Young men say the estate itself is not young men say there is nothing to do. escalated over the decades. Young men considered attractive – “this place is a Younger men find it hard to penetrate say they fear theft of their possessions dump.” Consequently they do not the social barriers that prevent them and property, and are more likely to value it and it becomes vulnerable to 60 realising their potential. They do not stay indoors to protect their things, abuse. Cars are dumped in the streets blame anyone else for their problems, although this leads to boredom and and bus stops are vandalised as a and do not suggest many solutions. isolation. A criminal record is also a matter of course.

spring 2003 social personal barriers and are self-conscious about their low self-esteem levels of educational achievement. Men, and young men in particular, are training Women focus on the practical poor at finding support from others. They Men are very clear that any training difficulties in accessing training and are more vulnerable to isolation, and to has to be work-related. They fear that automatically accept responsibility for feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness. sickness benefit will stop if they want childcare. The cost of materials and Young men are struggling to find their to take up training opportunities. transport as well as course fees, role and purpose in today’s world. This Merthyr Tydfil was criticised as having combined with lack of flexibilty around low self-esteem and low self-confidence a limited choice of training activities. school hours, childcare and part time prevents many from achieving their The cash incentives to take up training work, prevents them from taking up potential and seizing life opportunities training. Women’s barriers to training in the first place are also criticised as that could come their way. Generally, also include low educational being too low. Another important society expects little from them and this achievement that creates low self- barrier to accessing training was the undermines their self-worth. A general esteem and confidence levels in a lack of motivation and ambition fear of mixing with men from other classroom environment. Many women characterises many young men. areas. Bullying, rivalry and conflict are drawn to stereotypical training were mentioned as consequences of opportunities in catering or childcare as Women report that the vicious circle of putting men from different areas on a they are seen as safe, non-threatening getting into high interest debt, and then course together. options. However, these training not taking up employment because of opportunities increased repayments when off benefits, often perpetuate impacts on their self esteem. Women the status quo by with young children can quickly find the leading women framework of their lives shrinking to the into low paid, confines of their home and immediate part-time work. surroundings. This also applies to older women and those looking after disabled relatives. One older woman in this family situation said: “I haven’t been to Merthyr Family is the town centre for two and a half years.” centre of women’s world A lack of confidence, coupled with high and their levels of boredom, can sometimes lead horizons are to drug and/or alcohol dependency. determined by the boundaries of health Older men see no point in changing the estate. Women are often stressed career when they feel they face age and exhausted by juggling the roles of A significant number of women discrimination. Many older men have mother and provider. However, these between 25 and 50 suffer from ill literacy and numeracy problems that roles also give them a purpose in life. health, including back, respiratory, they do not want exposed in a public Women between 25 and 50 welcomed mobility and coronary problems, training environment. the opportunity to talk about the overweight and lack of general fitness. circumstances of their lives and the Some, but by no means all, are on Many young men are not thinking for barriers and opportunities that affect sickness benefits. Older men face major the long term but for the here and now, them. They understood that they had problems with disability and illness and so if a job comes up half way adopted a caring role that was with many having mobility, respiratory through a training scheme, the training preventing them from realising their and coronary problems. Women over is dropped and the qualification is full potential. They felt that many 50 also suffer from lack of mobility sacrificed, as cash now is a more demands were made on them, as from the house and immediate attractive option. Many feel that there mothers, grandmothers and wives. environment of the estate, for a variety is little point in bettering themselves in However, the family was the focus of of reasons, including: caring the first place, because of the general their attention and they knew their role responsibilities for grandchildren and 61 lack of jobs on offer. Young men also was important in keeping the family others, own illness and disability fear losing benefits if taking up training together. problems, and fear of crime and theft.

spring 2003 environment making development sustainable

kevin bishop and john farrar report on a new study to

COVER STORY COVER measure our impact on the Welsh environment

oots trampling on the land is a like those of London then we would need reports have been left to languish on powerful image, and one that is even more space. Remember, too, that shelves. In the language of integral to the concept of the the 5.25 hectares (equivalent to 13 acres) footprinting, they have trod very lightly becological footprint. How much land is not hectares of Wales as such: it is on the minds of policy makers. does it take to support one person in hectares of hypothetical land with the fullness of their lifestyle? How much productivity (growth of plants and The importance of the messages that land does it take to support the three animals) equivalent to the world average. can come out of such studies is shown million people of Wales? Obviously if in the Table which indicates the main that land area is less than the area of The 2000 study relied upon estimated components of Wales’s ecological Wales, we are sustainable. If it is larger data in key areas of transport, energy and footprint as we currently understand we are not, forgetting for the moment waste. However, more sophisticated data them. It shows, for instance, that waste trans-boundary movements of goods. collection and analysis is required so that is the biggest contributor to our policy makers can feel more confident in footprint, followed by food. Wales’ poor There has already been one ecological the results. A new footprinting project, record on managing waste is well footprint study carried out for Wales, beginning this Spring, will will improve known but here we can see how waste by the Oxford-based environmental the quality of data for Wales as a whole compares to other issues. We gain an Consultancy Best Foot Forward. This and recalculate Wales’ footprint. take the indication of how important it is going to found that in 2000 Wales’ footprint was concept further in Wales. be for the Assembly Government, local 5.25 hectares per person. The key authorities, the waste management components found by this study As important as the accuracy of the industry and ourselves to seriously contributing to Wales’ footprint are data, is to ensure that it is used by tackle waste if Wales is to move to a shown in the Table. With any footprint policy makers. Many previous footprint more sustainable trajectory. it is always important to put the studies have found it difficult to engage information in context. Provided similar with them once the study has been The latest Welsh footprinting study methods of data collection and analysis completed. Technically sophisticated marks a significant departure from are used, one of its advantages is that it provides an easy comparator. main components of Wales’ ecological footprint The global average – ‘earthshare’ is the Main Components All-Wales Footprint per person jargon – is 1.92 hectares per person. thousand area units (area units) Compare that with London, which is Electricity 1,630 0.55 6.63 hectares per person. The average Gas and oil 3,342 1.13 resident of Wales is using 2.75 times the Transport 1,882 0.64 global average earthshare. From this we Food 5,248 1.78 can deduce that if everyone consumed Waste 6,8312.32 62 the same as the average inhabitant of Water, built land 247 0.08 Wales we would need nearly two extra Total 15,469 5.25 planets to support them. Of course, if Source: The Footprint of Wales, a report to National Assembly by WWF; research by Best Foot Forward. our consumption patterns were more Units are hectares of average productive land. The area of Wales is just over 2 million hectares.

spring 2003 environment many that have gone before by working with key actors from the outset. The project is a partnership based approach both to the data collection and the communication of the findings. As well as WWF Cymru the other partners in the project are the Environment Agency Wales, the Welsh Development Agency, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Countryside Council for Wales, the Institute of Welsh Affairs, Cardiff University, Bangor University, Cardiff intend to engage in scenario building that Wales has a smaller footprint than County Council, Gwynedd County exercises with relevant actors so that London may just be due to its lower GDP. Council and the Stockholm practicable and sustainable policy Consequently, a low footprint itself may Environment Institute (based in York). recommendations emerge. The belief is be no comfort: we want a low footprint that people who have been involved in in a strong economy. A major feature of the project is to data collection and have a critical acquire and analyse detailed data for two awareness of the assumptions within the Secondly, the footprint completely excludes contrasting urban and rural areas, Cardiff footprinting model will be more willing ‘nasties’ like pollution, and has no way of and Gwynedd. We expect the comparison to sign up to realistic scenario planning incorporating hazards like nuclear waste. to shed light on the differing needs and exercises. For example, how much could Such environmental hazards may have pressures of urban and rural areas and to waste production be reduced in Cardiff thresholds for human toxicity, and certainly inform local policy accordingly. In each and Gwynedd? What are the possibilities have legislation that works on threshold case the project involves close concentrations and doses; none of this is collaboration with the councils involved. for promoting local foods? And what are reflected in the footprint. Within the footprint This will enable them to build their own the implications of such decisions for calculations, the bio-capacity is very crude capacity so that they can undertake future both the local and the all Wales and different means of addressing the footprinting exercises themselves. footprints? It is the prospect of working question of how much food we can produce Council staff will thus play a part in the with those who design and implement would yield much better answers. And the data collection and analysis. policies that provides the very real hope that the Wales footprint will help to horrible jargon – bio-capacity, earthshare, eco-index – is the enemy of clear At the all-Wales level we can expect the establish local and national priorities to communication of the core issues. production of a more sophisticated take us on a more sustainable route. Welsh ecological footprint to have four The calculation of a footprint for Wales main impacts: It would be a delight if the ecological must not be the end of the study but a 1 To communicate more effectively the footprint were the single measure needed starting point for involving those who link between local actions and their of our environmental impact. It is no need to take action on its results. The global environmental impacts. surprise that it is not. The footprint is a development of a standard footprint 2 To enable comparisons to be made single measure of how our use of the land methodology for Wales along with the between different types of policies matches its ability to support us. It tells us experiences of councils in north and such as transport, waste, and energy nothing about the economic or social south Wales should encourage other so their impact on the environment elements of sustainability, and compresses can be measured the environmental element into just one councils to participate in footprinting. 3 To enable policy makers to prioritise figure. Its simplicity is both its greatest their actions in a more informed and strength, in terms of communicating its integrated manner. message, and its greatest weakness – for • Kevin Bishop is Head of Environment 4 To enable the Assembly Government two main reasons. and Regeneration at the Welsh Local to pursue its commitment to making Government Association. Professor John the ecological footprint one of its all- First, any conversion of such a complex Farrar is Director of the Institute of Wales quality of life indicators. range of things from energy to food and Environmental Science, University of waste to a single unit is going to produce Wales, Bangor. Their study is funded by 63 Exploring the implications of the findings problems. With our present patterns of the waste management company BIFFA, of the latest study offers particularly consumption, poverty produces a small utilising the landfill tax credit scheme, exciting possibilities. The project team footprint and wealth a large one. The fact and co-ordinated by WWF Cymru.

spring 2003 environment mainstreaming renewable energy

ustainable development is still society. Those directly involved are peter jones says very much a professional convinced of the human causes of activity for a range of groups climate change and of the Wales should move ands interests, with renewable energy consequential need for alternatives to technologies being one such interest. If fossil fuels. Too often, however, the towards more Wales is truly to develop as a public debate through the media is sustainable society – and to deliver on conducted in terms of the limited sustainable ways the sustainable development obligation concept of on-shore wind farms and set out in section 121 of the Government concerns about the visual impact. of living of Wales Act – we need to move out These, it should be said, are real from the professional interests and issues, genuinely felt and expressed. ’experts’ and into the wider community, However, climate change, and how to in order to mainstream sustainable slow down and limit its effects, should thought and behaviour. be at the heart of the debate. People need to understand the concerns about The IWA’s conference on The Welsh climate change and the urgency of Potential for Renewable Energy, held at acting to control it. Llanberis last September was a welcome contribution to this process. Sustainable development, including exciting, comprehensive in its coverage. renewable technologies, must be It was well attended by more than 100 brought to the very core of everyday delegates drawn from a broad thinking and behaviour. Professionals background of public bodies, private have reached the point of knowing companies, and NGOs. Presentations what needs to be done, at least in addressed the principal renewable some fields of policy and certainly with technologies, notably on- and off-shore regard to energy generation. Moving wind turbines, tidal energy schemes, forward on a sufficiently large scale, biomass and photovoltaic solar energy, however, requires public knowledge together with the future potential of and acceptance. How can this be hydrogen-fuelled technologies. created? Planning issues, community energy initiatives and the respective roles of Political leadership must play its part the Assembly Government and the but, to do so, requires new thinking by Welsh Development Agency were also those in the conventional mainstream discussed. about social priorities and their policy consequences. It has been suggested The limited public debate in Wales that sustainable development involves about renewable technologies is finding ways of doing more with less. reflected by the gulf in understanding Beyond this, it has even been that currently exists between those suggested that we must learn to do 64 who recognise the urgent need to less with less. High consumption move forward with renewable energy societies, such as the one we have in and a clear and unambiguous Wales, must learn to address the acknowledgement of this in wider question of levels of resource use, set

spring 2003 environment in the context of the capacity of the the campaign will need to be planet and the competing demands of intensive in its use of the media and low consumption societies elsewhere. sustained over a number of years; this Currently, for example, the UK will require significant levels of Government strategy for sustainable funding. It has been suggested that development includes a firm the Assembly Government should commitment to continued economic establish a fund to support climate growth as an essential component. change mitigation measures. Such a Yet no explanation is thought fund could be used, in part, to fund necessary: it is there as a political research and development in given. Similarly, the Assembly renewable energy technologies but Government is committed to raising also small-scale pilot projects with Welsh GDP per capita from 80 to 90 which households and communities per cent of the UK average by 2010. can engage. There is also a need to Whilst understandable in terms of fund a campaign to promotea broader traditional economic thinking, how understanding and support of does this equate with sustainable measures to promote sustainable development? development in Wales.

Currently, the media both create and The newly created Sustainable reinforce mainstream, non-sustainable Development Forum for Wales could thinking. Transport use is a good energy developments, provided the play a prominent role in this process, example. People are encouraged to context and need for them is providing a Welsh focus, not only for regard car driving as the norm and, explained – and perhaps most researching sustainable development therefore, desirable. Too often, importantly, that people can connect issues but also, crucially, for promoting reportage implies that other modes of the benefits with their own daily lives them in the community. The Forum is travel, including the physical effort and needs.The mainstreaming of independent of the Assembly involved with walking and cycling, are sustainable development into daily Government and able to act without to be avoided and are in some way life can learn from this experience. needing constantly to consider the inferior. Of course, many journalists Priorities for sustainable short-term politically adverse reactions and editors themselves share these development must connect with there might sometimes be to its ideas beliefs. So how can we break these public thinking so that in time it can and proposals. modes of thinking, opinion forming become majority thinking. and daily reinforcement of belief and Wales and the rest of the high behaviour? One step would be to hold Possible ways forward in Wales are consuming ’developed’ world needs to seminars with representatives of the being explored under the aegis of the move towards more sustainable ways news media to change the way they recently formed voluntary sector Welsh of living. To achieve this will require think and what they write. Climate Change Communications fundamental culture change, away from Programme. This is a grouping of a narrow consumption, status and Small community energy projects interested individuals, drawn from a power led way of thinking and acting offer a way into an active connection number of leading NGOs active in the towards a more environmentally aware between people’s everyday lives and environmental field. The focus is on and responsible sense of our place as a more sustainable ways of living. Yet, climate change, its causes and species. Sustainable development is the number of people involved is mitigating measures, and changes that not just a set of policies to be bolted on limited and wider public knowledge people can make in their daily lives. to others – it has a fundamentally and awareness is largely untouched The problem is how to reach people, different ideological starting point, from by any media reporting. The evidence and keep on reaching people. which everything else should flow. seems to be that communities in physical proximity to renewable The Programme envisages an energy projects – and who have been advertising campaign that will focus – informed about the general and possibly month by month – on • Peter Jones is Environmental Policy particular benefits of such schemes – specific issues. For example, the more Officer for RSPB Cymru. The IWA’s 65 are content and, indeed, enthusiastic efficient use of energy in domestic 114-page report The Welsh Potential in their support. There appears to be households, to link to the popular for Renewable Energy, is available at a public receptiveness to renewable agenda of cost saving. To be effective, £30 (half-price to members).

spring 2003 europe team wales abroad

ales’ representation in What was unfortunate was the impact eluned haf reports on Europe is having a face lift. of last year’s announcement by Rhodri Henceforth, the Welsh Morgan that the Assembly and its the new Welsh wAssembly Government will be at the £189,000 annual contribution was helm, with the controversial Wales pulling out of the partnership. For representation in European Centre (the WEC) taking a whatever reason, the then chief Brussels backseat in a new structure dubbed Ty executive of the Centre was caught off- Cymru. Leaving aside the many guard, as were many on the board of arguments around the desirability of directors. No one quite understood the this change, one thing is certain. If the rationale for the timing of the new structure to succeed, merely announcement, just a few weeks leaving it in the hands of a handful of a before the publication of a report on few well meaning civil servants in the working of the Centre by Sir John Brussels will not be enough. Our Gray. Soon gossip was spreading engagement with the European Union around the regional offices that Wales will have to change, not just in was in trouble. There is no way of Brussels but in Wales as well. measuring the effect this may have had on the image of Wales in Europe. For the Welsh living in Brussels and Regional offices have become the life particularly for the competent staff of and soul of Brussels over the last the Centre, many of whom have since fifteen years. By now there are at been made redundant, it was soul least 170, of all shape and sizes, each destroying. Yet again it seemed that having different interests and ways of the people Wales could not work working as well as differing relations together and that backstabbing and with the governments of the unfortunate personality clashes countries they represent. The Wales prevented ’Team Wales’ from playing European Centre, set up in 1992 by together effectively. the Welsh Development Agency and the Welsh Local Government At the same time the upheaval Association, is just one. During the provided an opportunity for a much 1990s membership of the mini- needed new start. The European embassy grew to include more than Union itself is going through a time of 70 Welsh organisations. reflection in terms of how it carries out its work. The European However, with the advent of the Convention, the body that has been National Assembly things changed. created to map out the future of the Although the Assembly quickly joined EU, is currently drafting a so called the Centre, it was inevitable and constitution to replace the many desirable that soon it would need its Treaties that have until now been own representation. After all, this is controlling the Union’s deliberations. how the other large legislative regions With the Secretary of State for Wales, like Scotland are represented in Peter Hain, as the UK government’s Europe. Scotland Europa, the representative on the 210-member equivalent of the WEC in Brussels, is a body, we should be in a good position 66 separate entity from the Scottish to carve out a new role. Executive though they are both based Des Clifford, Head of the new Assembly Government office in Brussels, pictured outside in Scotland House and work together The new Ty Cymru needs to learn to the Wales European Centre at 20 Rue Joseph II. when desirable. share information and pool resources.

spring 2003 europe

Although the Assembly, the Wales Des Clifford, the Head of the Assembly are practical, relatively easy things European Centre and the Welsh Local Government Office in Brussels, is Ty Cymru can do to improve team Government Association will remain in optimistic about the future. He says work, such as organising regular the same building, they will work that since his office opened in Brussels meetings with other players like the independently. The Assembly in 2000, it has had to deal with five Welsh Euro-MPS. Scotland House Government has just appointed six immediate priorities such as reform of provides monthly video–links for the new policy officers to deal with the Common Agricultural Policy, and Scottish Euro-MPs to participate in the European concerns within its remit. the progress of the structural funds. He Scottish Parliament’s European These include agriculture; now wants to broaden and deepen the Committee meetings. There is no environment; education, culture and level of Welsh engagement with the EU reason why Ty Cymru cannot do the youth; research, innovation and institutions. At the same time he warns same. energy; economic and regional against unrealistic expectations. development including state aid issues; In the long run the success of Ty health and social affairs, and EU “Whilst the Brussels office will Cymru will depend on the extent to general and constitutional affairs. The provide the arms, legs and eyes– which Welsh people embrace the EU. Assembly Government sees itself as there is now a need to make sure Of course, we need to be realistic in the leader of Wales in Europe. WEC, that they are well connected to our expectations which makes it ever which has been demoted from that the body back in Wales. We must more necessary that we take a strategic role, is reduced in size and will now ensure that Brussels and Wales approach. Wales currently has just one only work for its remaining members. It has an effective communication per cent of the EU’s population. After will be less involved in lobbying and system and that any work in enlargement it will be even smaller, influencing policy. Brussels is well rooted in the making it even more necessary that we body of the National Assembly punch above our weight. Assembly Sponsored Public Bodies back at home. We must be clever such as the WDA or ELWa, may find in the way we place ourselves in themselves operating as a bridge as the future Union to maximise our they will belong to both. In the past, impact. We must use our position the ASPBs may have been able to act as a UK nation and a European independently on the European stage. region to pull all the strings at our Henceforth, they are expected to tow disposal. These include increasing the Assembly Government line in our direct contact with the Europe as well as in Wales. On the European Commission and the other hand, WEC will remain in UK government machinery, while charge of networking opportunities for collaborating effectively with • Previously a journalist with the BBC in the ASPBs with similar bodies other EU regions.” Cardiff, Reuters in London and at the elsewhere in the EU, responsible for European Parliament, Eluned Haf is co-ordinating the increasing number Wales must look to herself and similar currently setting up a Welsh European of visits paid to Brussels by Welsh nations and regions rather than project and communications officials. Brussels or London for answers. There management business.

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spring 2003 europe farming and the men in brussels

first encountered the CAP in 1973 time I had become Chairman of the when Britain first joined the Development Board for Rural Wales, a European Economic specialist rural development agency iCommunity which by then had already covering the whole of mid Wales. I was been in existence for about 20 years. I fortunate to meet, get to know and was a very junior partner in the family have a number of discussions with a farm business that I still run today. predecessor of today’s Agriculture Commissioner, Franz Fischler: a The CAP offered the business a new visionary Irish cattleman from Sligo economic environment. It extended the named Ray MacSharry. system of market support that already operated in the six original Treaty of I think of Commissioner MacSharry as Rome signatory countries, the main being the first EU politician willing to objective of which was to increase the grasp the deeply unpopular nettle of supply of food and support the incomes trying to reform the CAP into a system of millions of farmers across Europe by more related to the market. He was not glyn davies describes keeping food prices high. prepared to continue an existing market support system based on such his encounters with At that time there was no reference blatant protectionism. whatsoever to the environment. For the EU’s Common many years I took decisions to plough The language of the CAP changed. We and re-seed every accessible corner of began to hear about different coloured Agricultural Policy the farm (and some corners that were boxes into which payments supporting not accessible), to bulldoze out of agriculture would fall. Pillar 2 became and sketches out its existence miles of hedges and to drain part of EU speak. The environment every square inch of damp land – all began to play a role in all CAP future without the slightest regard for the discussions. environmental consequences. My personal interest in the environment Even though the MacSharry reforms had not yet been awakened and I was were fundamental they were also responding to Government stimulus. rather modest in financial terms. More importantly I did not have to However, at the time they were seen as have much regard for the market. The revolutionary. They were resisted in CAP was our great protector. many quarters, as fundamental change usually is. Commissioner MacSharry It was no surprise that the CAP became was unpopular, as visionary people synonymous with butter mountains, usually are. with wine lakes, with over-production, and not least, a massive waste of I was once flying over mid Wales with public money. Things simply could not him in a helicopter when the door 68 go on as it was. suddenly flew open when we were still some 200ft above the ground. It was a My next contact with the CAP was in frightening experience for both of us. the late 1980s and early 1990s. By this But when relating the story of this

spring 2003 europe close call to the Permanent Secretary at appreciate was a decision to reclassify two other global pressures: the Welsh Office a few days later, Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances • It is necessary to enable the EU to pointing out that Commissioner (or Tir Mynydd as it is now known) as meet World Trade Organisation MacSharry could very easily have Pillar II rather than Pillar I. This means demands at the next major meeting fallen to his death, I was told that, “I that ’modulation’ does not apply to Tir in the Doha round of negotiations in had missed a glorious opportunity to Mynydd payments, a position of September 2003 be of service to my country”. significant importance to Wales where • There is a requirement to respond to livestock farming is dominant. the sustainable development agenda The MacSharry reforms were Modulation is the term applied to the agreed at Gothenburg in 2001 and underpinned by fundamental top slicing of a percentage from reinforced at the Johannesburg objectives which responded to several agriculture support payments (Pillar I) Summit in 2002. pressures, both internal and external. for transfer to specific Pillar II payments. The World Trade Organisation was It is difficult to take up a firm position demanding an end to EU protectionism Agenda 2000 was a particularly difficult on issues relating to the Mid Term in its efforts to reduce market distortion negotiation and not every major issue Review because we do not yet have throughout the world. There was an was finalised. It was therefore decided enough definite information to go on. obvious need to end the scandal of to put off some decisions until a Mid But one thing we do know is that it is over production and there was a Term Review in 2003. And that is where important. When the Assembly’s growing awareness of the need for we are today. Agriculture and Rural Development diversification of the rural economy. Committee first considered the Fischler There are several reasons for the ideas paper last July it decided that I, A key part of the reforms was a change current Mid Term Review. There is the as Chair, should seek to recall the to direct payments for farmers rather need to resolve matters relating to the Committee during recess if more than the old discredited market support dairy sector, the cereals sector and the detailed proposals became available. mechanisms that had encouraged over- sugarbeet sector. It has already been production. This was an essential first decided to introduce a Dairy Premium Further proposals were published in step that we are revisiting today as part from 2005 but there is much more January 2003 but still with many of the ’decoupling’ agenda (of which decision making to be done. It is fundamental questions unanswered. more later). necessary to create a CAP that can The intention is that there should be accommodate ten new countries agreement by the end of the Greek During the period from 1992 until joining the EU in 2004. Left alone, the Presidency at the end of June in good Agenda 2000 was agreed in 1999 there CAP as it stands would be bankrupted time for the Doha round Summit in was not much money transferred into within months. In addition there are September. rural development to reinforce the MacSharry reforms. However, the future agenda was set. Where we are today is a logical development of what MacSharry started in the early 1990s.

The next major step forward in reform of the CAP was Agenda 2000 agreed in Berlin and setting programmes to take us forward to 2006. Agenda 2000 built on the MacSharry reforms. There was now formal recognition of the environment. There was radical reform to the Rural Development Regulation. There was reinforcement and expansion of rural development, or Pillar 2 as it became known. There was further reduction of the pre-1992 market support system. 69 One important change worth “It is necessary to create a CAP that can accommodate the ten new countries joining the EU in mentioning included in Agenda 2000 2004 [shown in the dark tone on the map]. Left alone, the CAP as it stands would be bankrupted and one that Welsh farmers will within months”.

spring 2003 europe

Glyn Davies discusses a point on Penybryn Farm in Kerry, near Newtown.

However there are three main latest proposals also introduce 2006 and then by an increase of 1per principles underlying Fischler’s ideas ’degressivity’ which like ’modulation’ cent per year until 2013. It seems that that we do know about and can top slices support payments – but to Pillar II payments are not covered by this consider in principle now. pay for new demands on the CAP agreement so there will remain plenty of 1 Firstly there is a commitment to such as the Dairy Premium. scope for argument. further reduce the trade distorting market support measures. And here The one major factor hovering in the The arrangements by which accession the changes to the dairy sector will background behind all of these countries will be brought into the CAP have a significant impact on Wales discussions is the overall budget were also agreed. This was vital while changes to other sectors will available to finance the CAP. This is the because the full cost of accession on have no more than a minimal issue that was recently decided at last current production based payments impact. November’s Brussels Summit and which would be hopelessly unaffordable. For 2 Secondly there is a commitment to led to the Prime Minister’s tantrums and example it has been calculated that ’decouple’ direct payments to lack of ’politeness’ towards President Poland would consume 50 per cent of farmers from trade distorting Chirac. The budget up until 2013 was the entire CAP budget under present production incentives. This agreed between France and Germany arrangements. movement of payments from one with no reference to other states. ’box’ to another is essential to meet Agenda 2000 had already introduced a What has been agreed is that the ten World Trade Organisation demands. ceiling on the cost of the CAP for the accession countries should receive 3 And thirdly there are the proposals first time. However, the Brussels Summit support at 25 per cent of the rate for ’modulation’ whereby Pillar 1 agreed a ceiling on expenditure right up available to existing EU member states 70 payments are top-sliced at an until 2013 in much more controversial when they join in 2004, rising by 10 per increasing rate and transferred to circumstances. It was agreed that the cent per year until 100 per cent is non-trade distorting, rural current Agenda 2000 ceiling should reached – all of this within a development payments. Fischler’s continue to increase by inflation until ’decoupled’ CAP.

spring 2003 europe

The situation is not as bad as it seems farmers receive all of the 3 per cent they do not tell anyone until the deal is as long as ’decoupling’ goes ahead modulated at present. The Fischler done. However I have absolutely no doubt fully. The total cost of financing the ten proposals suggest that top-sliced that the trends we have seen since likely accession countries in a reformed monies are retained by the EU and MacSharry and the radical changes begun CAP is likely to amount to a touch over distributed from Brussels. by MacSharry will continue. 10 per cent of the total. The British record of accessing rural The old market support system will There was a great deal of confusion development money is not good. The disappear completely. There will be an following the totally unexpected Franco- basis of concern is that the current increasing focus on cross-compliance German deal. Many, including myself, formula for redistributing money under in the future. I am sure some of this thought the Fischler ideas paper was the Rural Development Regulation will seem unreasonable to farmers but dead and buried and there were press disadvantages Britain very seriously. The regard for the environment and animal reports suggesting that he thought so root of the problem is that the British welfare will become ever more too. However it turned out that this was Government through the 1990s did not important whether they like it or not. I no more than wishful thinking by the claim anything like its ’share’ of this do not believe that farmers should French. I am told it was just that the money – based on population. I do not object to this trend as long as it is French Government was ’first out with know whether this was because of a within reason. It is very important that its press release’. It seems that ’spin’ general desire to restrain public spending the taxpayer feels that their money is continues to be alive and well in France. or whether it was in response to the buying ’goods’ that they value. discouragement to claim EU funds It is now clear that Commissioner inherent in the ’British rebate’ mechanism I do not think there can be much doubt Fischler does not see the Brussels agreed in the 1980s. Whatever, the fact is that direct payments will be ’decoupled’ agreement as having any effect on his that Britain claimed about 3.5 per cent of from production. We do not know how proposals at all. In fact he sees the the budget rather than the 12 per cent quickly this process will progress but I agreement as increasing the that her population would suggest was expect to see significant reform agreed momentum. So ’decoupling’ and more appropriate. Unfortunately when by June. I believe ’modulation’ is here compulsory ’modulation’ are still very Agenda 2000 was agreed it was decided to stay and will become a EU wide much on the table. There are two other to use a distribution formula based on measure. It is worth noting that if we important issues: historic payments. It is no surprise that are going to make a success of the 1 The first is the importance of co- British farmers are nervous. programmes already in place in Wales, financing, or what we usually think an increased level of CAP resource of as match funding. At present However under Commissioner Fischler’s redirection must happen. For example ’modulation’ is voluntary within the current redistribution proposals a new the Assembly Government is currently EU. In fact Britain is the only EU formula would be used. There would be operating an all Wales agri-environment state which currently has a scheme, three factors based on land area, labour scheme, Tir Gofal, as a flagship policy involving ’modulation’ rising to 4.5 force and some form of prosperity on a hopelessly inadequate budget. per cent by 2006. The French also indicator. At present it is thought that introduced a scheme but abandoned the 3.5 per cent historic payment based There will be some reduction in the it because it was too complicated formula is to be abandoned. payments to Britain, including Wales of and unpopular. The absolutely course, over the next few years. The crucial point about the current EU Of course, things are unlikely to be that agreement of a cost ceiling until 2013 voluntary scheme is that it is co- straightforward. There will always be coupled with the introduction of the financing , making it acceptable to the issue of whether countries which Dairy Premium in 2005 and other the farming industry. At present would lose out hugely as a result of changes, notably the costs associated there is no reference to co-financing this change of formula would be with an EU of 25 countries rather than in the Fischler proposals. If prepared to accept it. Will there be 15 make this inevitable. ’modulation’ is not match funded it some horse trading when an will not be a welcomed scheme. agreement is being hammered out? We Over the next few months there is 2 The second issue is the British share must be hopeful that our negotiators much to decide on in what is likely to of the rural development Pillar 2 will be strong on this point. be a fundamental reform of how the budget. There are two points to CAP operates. make. Firstly, the monies presently Looking ahead is a hazardous business 71 ’siphoned off’ CAP payments when discussing the CAP. The only people through ’modulation’ are recycled who seem to know anything about what • Glyn Davies is Conservative AM for within the member state. British is going to happen are the French and Mid and West Wales.

spring 2003 endpiece interesting times

thus allowing scheduled features in the paper as they five MPs to Westminster. services to run as advertised. were now content with the Eventually they would be This particular initiative pictures. At the same time elected by a first-past-the- follows a bold and amazingly BBC Wales has announced post nationwide election. successful experiment on the that they are dispensing with However, in the first instance service between Neath and the services of all Mr Moffett has been asked by Swansea where nobody has professional radio the political parties in Wales actually bought a ticket since broadcasters. All radio to nominate his five favoured 1990. programmes will now take candidates. Already there has the form of phone-ins. A been some west Wales The other parties have been spokesman pointed out that disquiet at the sweeping quick to applaud these as people now take their nature of these proposals, but proposals. Plaid pointed out news off the internet, all that such is the admiration in the peter stead that they had first suggested was needed in scheduled capital at the way that this them in their Pontlottyn programmes was opinion, ruthless and realistic reformer Conference in 1998, whilst the both public and popular. has dealt in the past with one olicy statements are Liberal Democrats hoped that deeply-entrenched, financially coming thick and this was only a prelude to an t is now generally inept and patently confused fast from the announcement that all conceded that David oligarchy that it is willingly p Government of charges would be abolished Moffett is the most clear conceded that he is the Wales, and there seems to be and that everything would be -sightedi and original thinker obvious man to save us from warm approval of the latest free in Wales. The Tory Party that we have had in Wales our civil servants and dramatic proposals. All in Wales concurred, arguing since the days of the great politicians. satellite and digital that the considerable savings coal-owners such as Lord programmes, including every made by all families would Rhondda and Lord Merthyr. It Meanwhile, back at the WRU Sky package, are to be immediately be invested in is good news, then, that he is there has again been support provided free in Wales and all stocks and shares; to be given a fuller role in for its chief executive’s notion rail travel is to be free, as are consequently, small Welsh life. He is joining the that for next season the Welsh mobile phones and the calls businesses and free Welsh Government as Chief national team and Llanelli made on them. A Labour enterprise would be liberated. Executive with would swap places. Wales Party spokesman pointed out plenipotentiary powers. In (who would be called ‘the that these policies had long here has been conversation he revealed Black Shorts’) will play at been part of Labour’s vision general approval of some of his ideas. The Stradey Park and fulfil that for Wales and that only legal the Western Mail’s Cabinet will be reduced to club’s league and cup fixtures, details had delayed their tannouncement that, just three positions so that whilst Llanelli (to be referred announcement to this time following the huge success European-like quality can be to unambiguously as ‘the immediately prior to the of its recent revamp, it is guaranteed. The three Scar-lets’) would take up the Election. Access to satellite now to do away with words ministers would be based in international commitments. programmes would greatly altogether and rely entirely Ebbw Vale, Kidwelly and enrich the cultural life of on photographs. Apparently Rhosllanerchrugog. Similarly Mr Moffet also confirmed Wales and more phone calls the public has really taken to there would only be 40 AMs, that there would be no more could only boost the the way the paper now with proportional canned singing at the economy. Meanwhile free rail skilfully deploys the national representation being Millennium Stadium and that travel would allow the release colours of Wales (red and consigned, as he put it, “to only Swansea Male Choirs of rail employees currently green) in all its illustrations. the dustbin of failed Welsh would be asked to lead the 72 working in office, platform, Research indicated that romanticism.” The whole of pre-match singing. For the booking office and inspection readers had virtually Wales would be reconstituted first time in years one can duties; these people could abandoned efforts to find as one parliamentary sense that Wales is being now be retrained as drivers news and other familiar constituency sending only knocked into shape.

spring 2003