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For information on IWA events and publications please visit our website at www.iwa.org.uk or call 029 2066 0820 summer 2009 Production Strange Death Editor: John Osmond Assistant Editor: Nick Morris Associate Editor: of Labour Britain Geraint Talfan Davies Present day parallels with political events a century ago are so compelling they bear Administration: Helen Sims-Coomber, Clare Johnson some examination. In his Strange Death of Liberal England the journalist and literary editor of Vanity Fair George Dangerfield surveyed the political landscape of the early Design: 1900s, and from today’s Labour perspective, highlighted some alarming coincidences. www.theundercard.co.uk He observed that the collapse of the Liberal Party came within a few short years of To advertise its greatest electoral triumph – the landslide victory of 1906 – and happened at the Tel: 029 2066 6606 end of its longest period of government. Some of the reasons for the collapse are Institute of Welsh Affairs also uncannily contemporary. The Liberals split over a misjudged and costly war, in 4 Cathedral Road their case against the Boers in South Africa. They picked a fight with progressive Cardiff CF11 9LJ causes such as votes for women. They alienated their working class supporters. They Tel: 029 2066 0820 reformed the House of Lords, but left hereditary peers in place. Their senior leaders Email: [email protected] – Lloyd George and Asquith – fell out. And they left office, for at least a century if www.iwa.org.uk not for ever, mired in a cash for peerages scandal. The IWA is a non-aligned independent think- Of course, historical precedents are not necessarily transferable and the Liberal tank and research institute. Members (annual collapse a century ago was partly attributable to the First World War. Nonetheless, subscription £40) receive three times present times do have an Edwardian air of being the end of an era. In this issue a year, can purchase reports at a 25 per cent we review a new IWA book by Conservative AM David Melding. It has the title reduction, and receive discounts when attending Will Britain Survive Beyond 2020? Many will think this an extraordinary question, IWA events. coming from a Conservative, a member of what used to be the most unionist of parties in Wales. This is no longer the case. Indeed, the book reveals that some of Branches North Wales Secretariat the most challenging thinking on constitutional issues is now coming from the Welsh Conservative camp, albeit from a relatively rarefied part of it. David Melding’s case c/o Huw Lewis is that if Britain is to survive then it must be as a federal construct, with the Home 6 Maes yr Haul, Mold, Flintshire CH7 1NS Tel: 01352 758311 Nations each given their sovereign identities and dues. Another strand is the public’s disengagement with the political parties and Gwent Secretariat electoral politics, exacerbated by the expenses saga in the House of Commons, a c/o Chris O’Malley theme a range of authors explore in our Outlook section. The party most affected is University of Wales, Newport, Caerleon Campus Labour. Part of its problem in Wales is that because it is still such a dominant force, PO Box 179, Newport NP18 3YG it has the most to lose. The London media made great play of the Conservatives Tel: 01633 432005 coming first in the recent Euro elections, the first all-Wales electoral contest that West Wales Secretariat Labour has not won since 1918. In reality, the Conservatives and Labour were neck c/o Margaret Davies and neck, with not far behind. But this still meant that the Labour vote Principal’s Office, Trinity University College, fell by 12 per cent, a larger fall than in Scotland or any region of England. A most SA31 3EP generous reading of their performance will see them losing at least half-a-dozen of Tel: 01267 237971 their Welsh seats at the forthcoming general election. If all this is so and we are indeed living through the ‘Strange Death of Labour Swansea Bay Secretariat Britain’ does this mean that, inevitably, Labour Wales will also be included? c/o Beti Williams Devolution could be part of the answer to Welsh Labour’s woes. In a valedictory Department of Computer Science, message to his party, in his contribution to the IWA’s Politics in 20 th Century Wales Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP last year, Rhodri Morgan offered some good advice. In short he suggested that the Tel: 01792 295625 party should advocate proportional representation for local government elections and Wales in London work hard “to counteract the charge that Labour stands for some diluted or half- c/o Robert John hearted form of Welshness”. The party could also take a leaf out of David Melding’s First Base, 22 Ganton Street, London W1F 7BY book in the form of pressing for more autonomy within the framework of what is Tel: 020 7851 5521 presently a highly centralised British organisation. If Welsh Labour had, say, a federal relationship with other Labour parties in Scotland and England it would be forced to strengthen its organisation and policy making capacity. Unless some initiative along these lines occurs then it is difficult to foresee anything but a continuing hollowing out and decline of what, not so long ago, seemed an invincible political force. contents opinion news outlook

Summer 2009 No. 38

opi nion 20 Devolution’s Next Step 27 Winning in Scotland 41 For Whom the Peter Hain urges caution Isobel Lindsay assesses Bridge Tolls 6 Time to Talk About in pressing ahead with a the record of the SNP Nick Morris investigates Women Again referendum on more minority government obstacles to removing Laura McAllister says power for the Assembly charges on crossing the women should dare to be economy Severn Bridge different in tackling the 22 Assembly’s Legal more subtle discriminations Dividend 30 Ministerial Logjam in Welsh public life Carwyn Jones says a Frustrates Economic debate is needed on Dynamism news creating a separate Brian Morgan argues jurisdiction for Wales that if the economy is 9 Latest news from the not improving by 2012 IWA and beyond 24 Wales and the Matter we will need to bring of Britain back the WDA outlook admires the way a Welsh 33 An Ethical Alternative international 12 Opting Out Conservative is seizing the to the Casino Economy affairs In the wake of the Euro constitutional Initiative Kevin Morgan and Jenny elections how can we O’Hara Jakeway say 44 Making Wales promote political 26 Adventures in mutualism is an idea whose a World Nation engagement? Democracy time has come once more Elin Royles explores the Geraint Talfan Davies Assembly Government’s 12 A Perfect Storm examines an account of a 36 Tax Powers under the approach to paradiplomacy 14 Put Aside Tribalism reconstruction underway Microscope 15 Political Authenticity behind the facade of the Gerald Holtham unravels 46 In Place of Fear in the Internet Age British state the debate over funding the Pichard Bowen argues we 16 Value of the Vote National Assembly and the should think creatively about Scottish Parliament placing Wales at the heart of the international search for polit ics & policy 38 Welsh Budget Squeeze peace and security explains 18 Rhodri’s Reign how Wales has lost out in 48 Cuba’s Green Food Peter Stead reflects on the public spending over the Revolution First Minister’s contribution last decade Steve Garrett reports to the birth of the new Wales on Havana’s experimentation with urban agriculture

4 | www.iwa.org.uk science contrasting local government newsflash performance regimes in 51 A Luddite Approach Wales, Scotland and England Coming up… to Farming • Lecture Denis Murphy questions 68 Rescuing derelict houses 4 August 2009 the Assembly Government’s Joanie Speers examines Cymru yn 2050: Golwg o'r Dyfodol opposition to GM crops how abandoned properties (Wales in 2050: A view from the future) can help with the rural Morgan Parry, Chair, Cynnal Cymru 54 Applying the housing crisis 12.30 pm, National Eisteddfod, The Pagoda, Precautionary Principle Llanfor, Bala – Simultaneous translation Nic Lampkin says organic communications • Reclaiming farming should not be Gwent Branch – 23 September 2009 evaluated in terms of the 70 Rock and Roll 6.00pm University of Wales Newport, Caerleon GM debate Journalism Presentations by Adrian Gilbert, author The Holy Kingdom: Ian Hargreaves makes Arthur in South Wales and Catherine Fisher, Newport novelist environment the case for an on-line • Life Change for a One Planet Wales networked news service to Conference in association with Cynnal Cymru 57 Save money and compete with BBC Wales 25 -26 September 2009 the planet National Botanic Garden of Wales Simon Nurse on how being 72 Our Place in the Keynote speakers: Professor Gareth Wyn Jones, Dr Adam environmentally friendly Online World Corner and Professor Ken Peattie, Cardiff University, makes sound business sense Andrew Green reports on Rhiannon Rowley, Co-ordinator Wales Transition Towns an ambitious project to put • Cardiff and the Valleys: One Place or Two? BARRAGE SPECIAL Wales on the Web Launch of Cardiff and the Valleys Branch 59 Fog in the Severn 6.00pm 7 October 2009 Madoc Batcup examines culture Business Conference Centre, the UK government’s Speakers: Cllr Russell Goodway, Tyrone O’Sullivan, options for generating tidal 74 Roundabout Professor Kevin Morgan. Followed by wine reception power off the Welsh coast Leighton Andrews • Science, Industry and Heritage celebrates the role of Swansea Bay Branch seminar in association with 61 Turbine threat culture in regenerating History Research Wales Mike Evans reveals the his Valleys constituency 6.00pm 15 October 2009 – National Water Front Museum impact a barrage would Keynote Speaker: Professor Huw Bowen, Swansea University have on the Severn • A NEET Solution for Wales Estuary’s fish population Gwent Branch conference 23 October 2009 62 Tidal Reef 9.30am Coleg Gwent Pontypool campus Peter Jones suggests a Keynote speakers: Skills Minister John Griffiths AM, Howard greener way forward Williamson, Professor of European Youth Policy, University of Glamorgan, Frank Callus, Strategic Manager, Education, Training and Skills, Heads of the Valleys Programme.

social policy • The New Mutualism Day conference – 30 October 2009 64 Jane Hutt Asserts 9.30am, Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University Her Authority 77 Opening Doors Keynote speakers: Professor Stephen Yeo, Chair, Co-operative Polly Hamilton explores Board, Duncan Forbes, Bron Afon Community Mutual Housing welcomes the government’s new ways of utilising the Association, , Simon Harris, Wales Co-operative Centre, Andrew Davies, Minister of Finance, Welsh Assembly Government. national strategy for Welsh- arts for regeneration medium education last word Just Published 66 Self Assessment • Will Britain Survive Beyond 2020? Versus ‘Name and 80 Wired for Colonialism David Melding – £11.99 Shame’ Peter Stead says we need a Steve Martin reports on few good men (and women) • Regional Economies in a Globalising World Edited by John Osmond – £10.00

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded or otherwise without the permission of the publisher, the Institute of Welsh Affairs. ISSN 1464-7613 More information : www.iwa.or g.uk contents opinion news outlook Time to Talk Abo ut Women Again Laura McAllister says women should dare to be different in tackling the more subtle discriminations in Welsh public life

expansive, but nonetheless significant per cent of professors are women (and ‘zipping’, with women candidates gaining this is much lower in areas like Science pole positions across the regional lists. and Engineering), despite broad parity That such positive actions can bring in the overall number of male and merely temporary and often vulnerable female lecturers. For a while, I assumed gains is underlined by the fact that this was a specific academic problem women still make up only 20 per cent but it is oddly reassuring that this seems of MPs at Westminster. This is despite to be across the board. experiments with all-women shortlists. In sport it’s a similar story. Of all There have only been twelve women the national governing bodies of sport I’m weary of hearing that the 21 st MPs elected in Wales since women won (including those that represent Century is proving Wales to be a the right to vote in 1918. Of our 40 predominantly women’s sports, like special place for women’s equality. MPs today, only eight are women and netball and hockey), there is only one In a peculiar way, we have been half of those were selected via all- female chief executive. Men comprise disadvantaged by some of the women shortlists. 80 per cent of their board members, significant sectoral breakthroughs we We have also done well at the while 12 sports (including swimming, have made. No one would argue, for European level with, until this June’s badminton and cycling) have no female example, that we haven’t made some election, three out of our four MEPs being board members at all. And we wonder massive strides forward in politics. We women. We can see how fragile such a why female athletes are marginalised, now have the first female party leader position is, however, when following the ignored or sexualised? in the Assembly, Liberal Democrat election at which two of the female MEPs Wales has no female chief executives Kirsty Williams. And with 28 women stood down, the number of women was in its top 100 private firms and under out of 60 AMs we have 47 per cent of reduced to just one. 5 per cent of all FTSE 100 company the total, a healthy proportion. Yet, Outside of frontline politics, women chief executives are women. It begs the this didn’t happen by accident or are generally faring extremely badly in question as to whether recent financial osmosis, nor is it permanent. occupying leading positions in Welsh crises might have been handled differently There was nothing organic about the public life. There are fewer women now had there be more women on boards. achievement of numerical gender equality on the boards of Assembly Sponsored Norway has driven real fractures in its in the Assembly. It was the outcome of Bodies, despite the use of a private sector glass ceiling by requiring some rather bloody (and unfinished) comprehensive equality framework in that 40 per cent of boardroom posts are party political business. Basically, two the appointments process, and only one occupied by women. Moreover, it was a parties - Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru female chief executive. Just a quarter of Conservative Industry Minister, Ansgar - were courageous enough, not only to our local councillors are women, while Gabrielsen, who instigated this change, use positive action to select candidates, 80 per cent of local authority chief saying: “From my time in the business but also to take the consequences from executives are male. world I saw how board members were within their own memberships. Labour’s There are no women Vice- picked. They come from the same small use of ‘twinning’ – that is, pairing Chancellors in Wales’s universities, circle of people. They go hunting and neighbouring constituencies with one one deputy Vice Chancellor (at the fishing together. They’re buddies.” In man and one woman selected for each University of Glamorgan) and only Wales, we could easily substitute golf pair- was augmented by Plaid’s less three Pro Vice-Chancellors. Only 17.5 and rugby clubs.

6 | www.iwa.org.uk Kirsty Williams, first female party leader in the National Assembly, seen on her farm near Brecon – a breakthrough in political visibility for women that has been rarely followed in other walks of Welsh life.

What’s more, none of the foregoing acknowledged to be the hardest area in in the toilets even), before timing and touches upon some serious inequalities which to effect change. And, to solve a managing one’s interventions in terms in pay - 12 per cent and higher for problem, we must first identify it. My of both quality and tone. Much of this part-time female workers. ‘It’s Time professional experiences have convinced is initially unfathomable for women and to Talk about Women Again’ was the me that the problem is two-fold. First, also for younger men, and when it is title of Professor Margaret Wilson’s the higher one progresses towards that grasped, it’s often too late. A woman inaugural lecture at New Zealand’s notional glass ceiling, the more subtle will make what seems an entirely Waikato University in June. It’s relevant the discrimination becomes. Secondly, relevant point only to hear it repeated because Margaret was the first woman inequalities are better concealed at almost verbatim by a subsequent Speaker in New Zealand and used her senior levels. Together, these conspire (usually male) speaker, with the chair lecture to show how much work to form a new, more subtle type of congratulating him for his wise remains to be done. discrimination, one that is social, intervention. The reality is that the character and cultural and informal, less easy to What about the informality of parameters of the problems have altered. identify and quantify, but equally recruitment and succession in Of course, we have made substantial pernicious and unpleasant. professional life, especially at the top? gains in terms of a clearer and more Personal experiences are problematic It took me a while to grasp that most proactive legal framework for outlawing because when recounted they sound of this is procedural and almost discrimination, especially following unscientific, anecdotal, and often entirely conservative. In all but the statutory equalities duties. However, it is churlish. Thus, they are usually most gender aware organisations, there noteworthy that all of these were the unspoken. Yet it is these experiences is almost always an informal ‘pre-sift’ products of women’s sustained efforts, than can be most enlightening. Take the stage where names – invariably male - not bureaucrats’ interventions. culture of meetings. First, one has to for key vacancies are thrown into the To effect real change, there needs to penetrate the subtleties of emphasis in pot. There’s no great surprise in that be a seismic shift in culture, generally agenda, the informal chat (sometimes because a triple whammy applies. There

summer 2009 | 7 contents opinion news outlook

are more senior men from which to as professional women makes it (and adding formality and organisation choose. Men usually know more ourselves) sound weak and just a bit to what most of us have pursued professional men than women. Finally, pathetic. And there’s no room for informally throughout our careers. most older men prefer working with that in the upper echelons of any More controversially, I’d make a plea people in their own image. This organisation these days. The bottom for embracing tokenism. I have some informality is, at best, conservative in line is that the more subtle the form positive personal experiences, especially terms of succession and renewal and, of partiality, the more difficult it is from sport - on the Welsh Football at worst, hideously discriminatory other to articulate and the harder it Trust Board and the National Assembly than for middle aged, white males. is to prove. And on this edifice of Football Taskforce, in particular - where There are also widely accepted silence, inequality is sustained. I have been the only, and clearly ‘token’ definitions of professional experience So if the glass ceiling is only woman. Of course, it can be which seem to ignore the fact that less showing disappointingly minor cracks, uncomfortable and infuriating at times, may very well often be more. Interview what can be done? The following but the pragmatist in me sees these as panels are often impressed by lengthy suggestions - for myself, as much as opportunities for a foothold of influence lists of activities on CVs - a case of other women - are only partly tongue which can be used to good effect. After ‘never mind the quality, feel the in cheek. First, we should stop all, the alternative is often no quantity’. However, very little attention conforming so readily. By tempering representation. From a Trotskyite position, what’s wrong with infiltrating “…would you really recruit a woman described and manipulating from within? The simplest and strongest rationale as formidable, opinionated, pushy, impatient for equality lies in maximising human resources in a small nation such as ours, and emotional? ” providing fresh blood with different views and utilising our wealth of subtly different talents. Superficially, there have is paid to what was actually achieved our behaviour, conversation and dress, been some great strides forward but only by way of tangible, useful outputs. It we are perpetuating the imbalance and a fool would argue we have shattered the is often said that the more financially legitimising the behaviour of those who glass ceiling. It is in everyone’s interests rewarding the post, the more men are haven’t quite got the equality message. that we do not create a conspiracy of likely to value it; the more worthwhile, Even worse, some of the more silence around this. the more it is valued by women. damaging compromises will have Despite some valiant initiatives, Interpretation of CVs needs to bear reverberations for the generation public life in Wales has a soft underbelly this in mind. behind us and similarly limit their of inequality. This is sometimes There is also the gendered language horizons. We need to dare to be uncomfortable and disorienting and, of politics or, in professional life, the different and trail blaze by not always at other times, alienating and terminology of job references. It’s imitating approach, style, dress, voice discriminatory. We owe it to ourselves interesting to look at the different or behaviour. We should speak out at and each other to ensure that this ‘battle adjectives that are used for job subtly unfair, informal processes in is won’. The rhetoric around gender applicants. Words matter. Gillian promotion, workload allocation and equality needs to be properly unpicked Wilmot expressed it perfectly in last profile and, in doing so, accept that and challenged or Wales’s glass ceiling December’s Financial Times: “While commenting will not always be to our will remain as durable as ever you may well recruit a man described personal benefit. as impressive, clear thinking, ambitious, We need to roll out more incisive and passionate, would you comprehensive, better mentoring and Laura McAllister is Professor of really recruit a woman described as networking schemes for women. And Governance at the University of Liverpool formidable, opinionated, pushy, these need not only be for women. Many and was a member of the Richard impatient and emotional?” younger men are as appalled at the Commission. She is Vice Chair of the Sports There is no question that these conservatism of public life as we are. Council for Wales and a Director of the subtle but cumulative experiences can The Women’s Universities Mentoring . She is Chair of IWA seriously damage women’s confidence Scheme, launched as a collaboration Women , an action group being launched in and put them off scaling the professional between the Welsh higher education October to influence gender balance in the ladder. Yet to rehearse our experiences institutions, is an excellent example of political parties and the media.

8 | www.iwa.org.uk New s

- the first of the Blair IWA launches new Branch administration. “One of our main for Cardiff and the Valleys concerns will be finding ways of linking the Valleys with The IWA will launch a new Cardiff Branch is Huw Cardiff and our inaugural Cardiff and Valleys Branch Roberts, who has been meeting reflects that at the University of Director of Welsh Affairs with aspiration,” Huw Roberts said. Glamorgan’s Treforest the Royal Mail group since “The Valleys are a highly campus on 7 October with 2007. Before that he was the distinctive region within Wales a debate about whether the Board member responsible but at the same time they are region is, in fact, two places for public policy, press intimately connected with the rather than one. Speakers relations and promotional capital, historically of course include former Cardiff Lord work at BBC Wales. by the coal industry, but also

Mayor Russell Goodway, Huw Roberts’s career Russell Goodway – in terms of contemporary leader of the has spanned Westminster, a view from the capital commuter flows and Cardiff’s miner’s buy-out Tyrone Whitehall and public and role as a cultural centre.” O’Sullivan, and Cardiff private companies, as well as “Cardiff’s relationship with University professor Kevin running his own consultancy Wales as a whole will be Morgan who was brought providing political insights and another of our themes and we up in . advice to a wide range of are planning to raise the profile clients. During the 1990s he of debates on topics such as The new Branch joins the was Senior Special Adviser to transport links within the existing North Wales, West the Secretary of State for region, the economic and social Wales, Swansea Bay and Wales Ron Davies who Tyrone O’Sullivan – impact of the projected Severn Gwent Branches which oversaw the devolution a view from Tower colliery barrage, and how local together now cover most of campaign before his authorities across the region can Wales. The Chair of the spectacular cabinet resignation collaborate more effectively.”

forum promoting climate making sacrifices like this can Golwg o’r Dyfodol change awareness. In the lecture cause inconveniences. Getting he will look back at events in about by bus and train can take The IWA’s annual National August at 12.30pm in the Wales from the perspective of a lot of planning. However, the Eisteddfod lecture Wales in Pagoda on the Maes. Morgan 2050 through the eyes of his son, positives massively out way the 2050: A view from the future Parry is chair of Cynnal Cymru: Math who will be 50 half way negatives. Driving the kids to will be delivered at Bala by Sustain Wales which is an through the century. school would take three minutes Morgan Parry, on Tuesday 4 Assembly Government backed Until recently Morgan was where as walking them to school Director of WWF Cymru in takes 20. That is 20 minutes which capacity he calculated more time that I get to spend his own ecological footprint at with them, which is great. 1.84 compared with the Wales “Also camping in Scotland average of 3.14. His home, for example instead of a package three miles from , holiday abroad tends to give us has a electric consumption more quality time with our meter which shows when too children. I am also a much fitter many lights and electrical man now that I walk and cycle. appliances are on. I find that leading a low impact Morgan who has also got rid lifestyle only enhances your of his car to reduce carbon quality of life.” Father and son: Morgan Parry and millennium child, nine-year-old Math. What will he make of the 50 years that separates them half-way through the century? emissions, said, "Undoubtedly

summer 2009 | 9 contents opinion news outlook

which are commonly IWA to Improving considered to be crucial for standard care.” undertake • Wales has the highest mortality study of pupil Standards rate for both coronary heart disease and stroke in the UK, performance in NHS Wales despite higher prescribing rates between 11 for these diseases. In general Wales prescribes more, and and 16 older medicines that elsewhere. NHS Wales faces major out for the pharmaceutical • There are declining rates of A key policy challenge challenges in tackling the company Pfizer by the some healthcare-associated facing Wales is the low biggest disease killers in international consultancy infections, in particular educational performance cancer, heart disease and IMS, comparing treatment MRSA. However, there has of a large proportion of healthcare associated outcomes in Wales, Scotland, been a sharp increase in the our young people aged 11 infections. This was made Northern Ireland and incidence of C. difficile in the to 16 compared with clear by new research into England. This lays out the past four years. relatively higher levels of differences in policy and scale of the health challenge attainment elsewhere in practice between the in each country. The IWA conference also the UK. Over the next six devolved nations that was The message for Wales heard from Gwyn Bevan, months the IWA will carry unveiled at an Academy was that its healthcare system Professor of Management out a statistical survey to Health Wales conference in generally fared worse, despite Science at the London School investigate educational Cardiff in 7 May 2009. major increases in spending. of Economics, who said, “The performance in Wales’s 227 The IMS report, Access to IMS study conclusions are Following the conference the Innovation in Healthcare: sobering and reflect a cosy IWA published a report with Lessons from Devolution for Welsh parochialism in which Regional contributions by the main Wales, found: poor performance is tolerated. speakers Malcolm Mason, “Research into systems of Economies in Cancer Research Wales • Wales has the lowest five year performance measurement a Globalising Professor of Clinical Oncology survival rate for two of the and experience in the NHS in at Cardiff University, Dr Phil most prevalent cancers, England and elsewhere in the World Thomas, Director of Cardiac colorectal and lung, and world has demonstrated Services Wales, and Dr Eleri among the lowest for breast publishing performance This book, just published Davies, Director of the Welsh and prostate. “Given the ranking has had a major by the IWA, asks eight Healthcare Associated Infection magnitude of the problem, it impact on raising standards.” economists and economic Programme. has invested comparatively less Professor Bevan said geographers working in In the report the clinicians in both oncology medicines Wales should establish an contrasting regional respond to research carried and technology – two areas independent NHS Analytical economies around the world Unit whose role would be to to reflect on their experience benchmark progress on key of analysing new approaches service and clinical indicators to economic development in in relation to achievements in the context of globalisation. the rest of the UK and overseas. These should be What has worked in their published as much to put context and what has pressure on those inside the disappointed? What policy NHS as to inform the public exchange can be realistically attempted? How best can The IWA’s report Challenges regional economies engage facing the Welsh NHS in with the forces of globalisation? tackling cancer, heart disease The objective is to study what Dr Eleri Davies, Director of the Welsh Healthcare Associated Infection and healthcare associated lessons Wales can learn from Programme, addresses the IWA’s Academy health Wales conference infections is available at £5. the experiences of regional

10 | www.iwa.org.uk secondary schools. This is • Rank the performance judged as counterintuitive. amongst young people during a major challenge facing of the cohort. The main focus in each Key Stage 3 can be found in Wales can be gauged from • Map the relative performance case will be to explore factors the educational experience of the following statistics: of schools against the that explain the relatively low young people during the socio-economic background performance of the low- transition from primary to • 46 per cent fail to achieve of their intakes. ranking schools, and the secondary school. adequate qualifications at 16 relatively good performance of It is envisaged that the (five GCSEs at Grade A* to A Steering Group to oversee the high-ranking schools. The study will be undertaken in two C or NVQ Level 2). the study is being chaired by objective will be to assess phases. Phase 1, which will be • 60 per cent lack five GCSEs former University of whether there are patterns of carried out during the Autumn including English or Welsh, Glamorgan Vice Chancellor teaching, curriculum, and of 2009, will comprise mainly mathematics and a science. Sir Adrian Webb, an IWA pupil support that could be of a statistical analysis, with the • Around 10 per cent leave trustee. This study will aim to transferred from the better production of an interim report school without any draw lessons from the performing to the less well to be presented at a conference qualification at all. experiences of the top and performing schools. in Cardiff in February 2010. bottom performing secondary In addition, by exploring A second phase during 2010 The research will: schools at Key Stage 3 (11 to the experiences of a selected will involve detailed research in • Use Assembly Government 14). In particular, the research number of contrasting schools six selected schools across and local government data on will compare schools that it will assess how far the Wales in an effort to provide the performance of a cohort share similar socio-economic schools themselves make a policy recommendations for of pupils at ages 11, 14 and characteristics but which are difference. There is a addressing under-performance 16 relative to their socio- currently performing in a way widespread belief that one at Key Stage 3 economic background. that could reasonably be reason for falling attainment

economies as far apart as might be transferable to Wales. Moreover, while globalisation The first day was spent with Europe, the Middle East, the The most important lessons that was taken as a given, its impact their discovering a little about the Far East and North America. emerged were: was not considered in detail. Yet, experiences of the Welsh The project builds on within a space of five years, economy. This included visiting Competing with the World, a • High quality independent globalisation, climate change and and the National report published by the Institute research and analysis should the need to promote sustainable Assembly where they met with in 2004. Again, this surveyed underpin a ‘communal’ development have come to Leighton Andrews AM, Minister effort in which business dominate economic development for Economic Regeneration in the plays an active part thinking across the world. Welsh Assembly Government. alongside government. Each of the economists and Following this they toured the • Entrepreneurial universities economic geographers featured south Wales Valleys which dedicated to the region’s in the IWA’s new book study included a visit to the Big Pit economy should be have published widely in their Mining Museum in Blaenafon, a promoted. Support for the fields of regional economic World Heritage Site. The second indigenous fabric, especially development, globalisation, and day was given over to a more networks of small businesses, intellectual capacity building. In formal seminar in which each of should be given top priority. November 2008 they attended a the participants presented papers • There are no quick fixes or two-day event organised by the on which the chapters in this magic formulae. Successful IWA and British Council Wales publication are based economic regeneration policies at Cardiff University in which must be tailored to local they participated in debate and conditions, and then pursued discussion around the following consistently over decades. question: how far can global Regional Economies in a policy transfer enhance regional Globalising World is available However, it was striking that in economic development, social from the IWA at £10. More regional economies throughout this study climate change was cohesion, and the engagement details can be found on our the world to see what initiatives hardly taken into account. of civil society? website www.iwa.org.uk

summer 2009 | 11 contents opinion news outlook Opting Out In the wake of the Euro elections how can we promote political engagement?

engulfs both sides of the House of point move us all on to other issues. Commons, resulting in an At present the British public is well unprecedented forced resignation by the ahead of the politicians and the world Speaker, and the hasty repayment of of finance. It does make a connection money by dozens of members, including between the banking crisis and MPs the Chancellor of the Exchequer and expenses: the abandonment of value Leader of the Opposition. systems that guide people to right and proper decisions whether or not the law • Third , public anger and revulsion at or a regulatory system exists to constrain the tawdriness of the exposed systems them. The popular judgment on the in banking and Parliament results in a worst excesses of remuneration in the major party, Labour - one of the financial world is far from naïve, it is Geraint Talfan Davies pillars of what was two-party politics a well-judged cry for some brake on for the best part of the last century - rampant inequality. The public does sense A Pe rfect sinking to its lowest vote in a the powerlessness of local government. nationwide election since 1918. In the It certainly does not share the misplaced Sto rm same election the main opposition belief in the superiority of the workings of party does not make the gains in votes the Mother of Parliaments – a belief that n Thursday, 18 June 2009 it might have expected and, as a has been so prevalent at Westminster. It Omembers of the Salford Labour consequence two deeply negative also knows it is ill-informed about Europe. Party met at the city’s civic centre parties, BNP and UKIP, gain a You do not have to be a student of to decide whether to de-select their foothold in the political scene that will the constitution to be aware of the gross sitting MP, Hazel Blears. She won the give them the money to distort debate imbalance between the power of the vote comfortably by nearly three-to- for at least another five years. executive and the legislature, or of the one. But the most striking fact was decades of failure to reform the House that, despite a multiple charge sheet It was against this background that of Lords. If Parliament cannot deal relating both to her expenses and to a self-indulgent resignation from the Ms Blears’ fate was decided by only 45 rationally and rigorously with the simple Cabinet on the eve of the European Salford people out of an electorate (in matter of its own house-keeping, it is elections, and despite widespread 2005) of 53,126. Both the attendance no wonder that it cannot grapple with public anger and local campaigns for at that meeting and the result – 33-12 even more fundamental issues about its her removal, only 45 people voted at in her favour – speak volumes about own operation. the meeting. What are we to make of how far political parties have lost touch It has long been fashionable to that, not forgetting that the row over MPs with the public. dismiss constitutional debate as a matter expenses is just one part of a perfect The nagging fear remains that a for the chattering classes. That was storm for Britain’s economy and politics? deeply flawed political system and a always a short-sighted and self-interested There are three elements: hollowed-out democracy will, by argument. Just how short-sighted has definition, be unable to respond now become clear. • First , the total collapse of the British adequately either to the financial or to the Movements like Charter 88, or the banking system is averted only by constitutional crisis; that Government and more recent Power Commission under putting future generations in hock to a Parliament will not be shaken out of its Helena Kennedy QC, have only ever been degree never before seen in peacetime, historical complacency about our system allowed limited purchase. Governments even after the near total nationalisation of government; that the will resume have usually seen constitutional change of major banking institutions. their wilful deafness to Government and as a distraction, to be avoided if at all society; and that somehow a combination possible, but if not, then to be minimised • Second , a scandal about MPs expenses of fatigue and boredom will at some early and boxed in, with wider linkages ignored

12 | www.iwa.org.uk or denied. Even devolution has conformed in manufacturing, should be debating in the UK and reform in Wales is already to some of this pattern, witness the way and supporting loudly? Assembly evident in the field of the salaries and the Richard Commission’s report was Ministers have expressed great interest expenses of elected members. Sir Roger sidelined. The European Union has in the notion of more local banking Jones’s examination of the system that been a more effective driver of reform institutions. In that context do we not obtains at the National Assembly came on human rights than Parliament. In also have cause to be concerned that the months before Sir Christopher Kelly England, proponents of more local Lloyds/HBOS merger is an unwarranted presents his report on the Westminster democracy, for at least three decades concentration of financial power, or that system. Perhaps the UK can learn from accorded the same respect as train- spotters, even now are to be indulged “Would not a reformed House of Lords be a before elections but probably ignored after them. potential mechanism whereby the interests The lesson of the Salford 45 is that and standing of the nations and regions of the revitalising our democracy will not be achieved solely by Parliamentary UK could be democratically entrenched in the UK reform. The constitution and political constitution, much as the states are in the US practice has to be rethought at every Senate or the Länder in the German Bundesrat? level, from the Royal Prerogative to ” the most local ward meeting, with connections made all along the way. This poses a number of challenges our centralised systems and assumptions Welsh experience at the sharp end. for us in Wales: first, to look to our own place too many barriers in the way of Both are being tasked with bringing party political structures and the the development of more local some semblance of principle into play adequacy of political engagement with institutions? Wales has every reason to and creating conditions that are the Welsh public but also, just as encourage and to engage with the debate demonstrably fair to our elected importantly, not to allow our natural on a more socially aware capitalism. representatives, that can connect all of concentration on the shape and output On the political front there is now a them to the Nolan principles that they of our own constitutional dispensation to revived discussion about the reform of seek to impose on many others, and divorce us from the wider debate about the House of Lords. Is that not an issue that might even encourage more people future economic and financial policy and on which the National Assembly might to think of politics as a calling rather constitutional change across the UK. have a view? What should be the linkage than a mere career option. Where it can the Assembly between the devolved administrations In recent weeks we have heard a lot Government has acted quite and Parliament? Would not a reformed about the deficiencies of our Members expeditiously in response to the recession, House of Lords be a potential of Parliament, not just as individuals but even winning some measured plaudits mechanism whereby the interests and as a group. For those in Cardiff Bay from the CBI in Wales, but it knows that standing of the nations and regions of the used to hearing gripes about the calibre it does not have its hands on the main UK could be democratically entrenched of Assembly Members, it must have economic levers. That fact should not in the UK constitution, much as the been a vicarious pleasure to hear similar prevent the National Assembly and civil states are in the US Senate or the Länder complaints about MPs. society in Wales from debating what in the German Bundesrat? Care needs to be taken with the overall economic and financial policies we If that were the case, might there language. To argue about the calibre of would like to see pursued within the UK not be some benefit in retaining the elected members seems to be an act of and internationally. There is surely scope possibility of dual (elected) membership personal denigration, in the vast majority for an alliance of manufacturing regions of a devolved Parliament and a UK of cases undeserved. The real issue is committed to some re-balancing of upper house? Alternatively, could the about the increasing narrowness of the economic interest within the UK away current wrangling between Cardiff Bay gene pool from which elected members from the City of London-obsessed and Westminster be mitigated through are drawn, and that is certain to be a policies of recent decades. joint debates embracing members of the much bigger issue for a body of 60 Alistair Darling has been urging Assembly, and Welsh members of both members in Cardiff Bay than for the banks to take a longer-term view of houses of Parliament and the European 646 in the House of Commons. returns on investment, but can he make Parliament, on the lines of the non- The answer does not lie only in pay it stick? Isn’t that something on which confrontational Westminster Hall debates. and rations, it also lies with individual Wales, with its higher than average stake An early connection between reform parties who urgently need to review their

summer 2009 | 13 contents opinion news outlook organisation and selection procedures, abandoning the party because, in this as well as the extent to which they have respect, New Labour has abandoned failed to open themselves to dialogue them. This process began early in the with and participation by the public. It is Blair-Brown period. As early as the too tempting for party leaderships, once ‘victory’ of 2001, Labour was winning elected, to maintain a mirage of mass fewer votes than in the defeat of 1992. followership that does not stand forensic Even so, many commentators, dazzled examination – something that a system Nick Davies by Blair’s electoral ‘successes’, have only of democratic primaries might address. recently noticed that something is amiss. Party funding below the UK level is also Put As ide Welsh Labour is not party bound an issue that has not been much debated. to the Westminster consensus. Under The task of reforming democracy Tribalism Rhodri Morgan, its programme has in the UK is multi-faceted and, despite had a strong public service ethos, the election of John Bercow MP as urn-outs of 30.53 per cent for this underpinned by a commitment to Speaker, it will not be easy to hold the T year’s Euro-election in Wales, 43.7 equality of outcome and a rejection of hand of this or a future government to the per cent for the National Assembly New Labour’s consumerist ‘choice’ flame for long enough to accomplish it. election in 2007, and 62.6 per cent for agenda. Yet the collapse in Labour’s However, the weaknesses in the British the general election in 2005, suggest vote in Wales has, been as bad as, or constitution are now more clearly manifest widespread disengagement, not just even worse than, in England. than they were. It is also clearer than ever with the main parties, but with the However, contrary to the claims that the other side of the coin of Britain’s process itself. By contrast, the turnout of some commentators, there is no fabled pragmatism and willingness to for Wales in the 1950 general election evidence that the ‘clear red water’ compromise, has been a preference for was 84.8 per cent. between Wales and Westminster is to fudge and muddle. blame for Welsh Labour’s poor record Our unwritten constitution is an We should not assume that this represents in recent elections. It is more likely that accumulation of anomalies and, with an irreversible secular decline in political voters who get most of their news from expenses as an instructive example, we participation. Evidence from around the a London media with little interest in have now seen where that gets you. world suggests that people will vote if Wales or Welsh Labour’s agenda are There is a danger that even in our they think the outcome will make a unaware that, for example, unpopular arrangements for devolved government difference to their lives. There was an English policies such as SATs and we could be repeating the mistake. increased turnout in the last two US school league tables do not operate Witness the contrast between the Richard presidential elections, for example, after here. As a result they are even more Commission’s principled clarity and the decades of decline. Suggested solutions, disaffected by what they see emanating convoluted legislative procedures enacted such as compulsory voting and placing from Westminster than voters in in the 2006 Government of Wales Act. polling booths in supermarkets are England. Welsh Labour needs to shout As far back as 1828, even before therefore attempts to find administrative more loudly about its break from New the first Reform Act of 1832 – a solutions to a political problem. Labour orthodoxy, rather than be measure, let’s remember, designed to Voters’ common complaint that ‘all pressured to move closer towards it. head off democracy rather than to create politicians are the same’ has an element Its failure to do this thus far is due, it – the German poet, Heinrich Heine, of truth in the UK. There is consensus firstly, to the etiquette of devolution. While on a stay in London, observed that “It among the three main Westminster tending your own garden, you don’t is rarely possible for the English, in their parties across a range of issues, including complain about your neighbour’s, Parliamentary debates, to give utterance to the desirability of the free market and of especially when the neighbour also owns a principle. They discuss only the utility its application to the provision of public your land and pays for your tools. or disutility of a thing, and produce facts, services. New Labour assumed, wrongly, Secondly, Welsh Labour has always been for and against.” One hundred and eighty that the party’s core vote would stay rather a top-down organisation, with the years later it is time for some adherence to loyal, while it continued the Thatcher- professional politicians, party officials and principle in constructing our democracy Major project of marketising and union fixers calling the shots. Meanwhile across the UK and here in Wales privatising public services. the wider membership is cast as something Yet, security from the perils of the of a stage army, exhorted to campaign for market economy was an important party policy because it is party policy, Geraint Talfan Davies reason why people used to vote for ‘Old’ rather than enthused by a vision of a more is Chair of the IWA Labour. Traditional Labour voters are just and equitable society.

14 | www.iwa.org.uk Sadly, the progressive ambitions of and declare that Aneurin Glyndwr was the ‘clear red water’ project do not in fact one of the 12 best blogs in extend to a revitalisation of the Labour Wales. Yet his initial reaction captures movement’s democratic culture. Yet, what, not without good reason, the vast without the active, informed participation majority, politicos and general public of members, progressive Assembly alike, believe all blogging and internet Ministers and policymakers committed campaigning to be about: scoring cheap to an agenda of social justice and greater points off the opposition. equality of outcome are in danger of Aneurin Glyndwr was an attempt to becoming generals without an army. establish a left of centre presence for Welsh Labour can rescue itself, and re- Welsh blogging, as other political voices David Taylor engage the people of Wales, by opening up have perhaps been quicker to take up politics to genuine, popular participation in the opportunities of the internet for decision-making. In health, education and Political campaigning. In that sense it was always transport, users, patients or students’ Au thenticity going to face a baptism of fire as bodies could work with those who provide opponents tried to decry its content. the services so that they become truly in the The one thing the McBride affair accountable and responsive to the needs Internet Age did do, or at least ought to have done, of those who depend on them. is get us to recognise that just going Experts and administrators could negative is ultimately self-destructive. be accountable for their decisions. ritain is no Iran. In that country Times have to change if we are serious Environmental and planning decisions Bthe internet took the regime to about changing politics. Refusing to could be opened up to unions and the brink of revolution because it change means we risk deepening the community and environmental groups. represented the only chance for free disdain with which people view our expression. In the UK, the papers There could be popular participation political process. This doesn't mean that denounce the government in the in the setting of budgets and the criticism of the opposition, their politics most vitriolic of tones and yet we determination of economic priorities. and their character, should be stopped. tweet about Katie Price’s latest Such ‘participative budgets’ are now an tattoos. Twitter has quickly melted But it does mean that it ought to be established fact of life in the Brazilian into British pop-net culture. Like based on real issues, not drivel. city of Porto Alegre, and have brought MySpace, Facebook and Bebo it The many sceptics will ask, is it improvements to the city’s infrastructure is used to share insignificant even worth it? After all, although every and considerable redistribution of public whisperings on the mundanities polling day from 1997 onwards has investment towards where it is most of everyday life. been proclaimed as the climax of the needed. In the 1980s the Greater "first ever internet (latterly 'real internet') London Council briefly experimented Of course, I'd rather live in Britain election", we are still waiting for a with popular participation, involving than under the theocracy of Iran, but decisive breakthrough. communities in planning decisions within the trivial way we treat our freedom And 2010 will be no different. All guidelines negotiated by the GLC. does sometimes depress me. A few the parties, in Wales as elsewhere, are Such political renewal sounds ambitious. months ago star Tory blogger Iain Dale piling resources into field organisers and However, if politics is to be rescued from claimed the Aneurin Glyndwr blog press officers, rather than electronic the grip of cynicism and consumerism, or (www.aneuringlyndwr.com), which I warfare. After all, let’s remember that even worse, the extreme right, it is the right helped establish, was the Welsh even the McBride story only mattered ambition. It is also probably beyond the equivalent of Damian McBride's when it was splashed all over what capacity of a single party. The destructive proposed "Red Rag" smear website. bloggers love to sneer at as the dead tribalism of those who see electoral success Even for Mr Dale, this was tree press. as an end in itself must be put aside. extraordinary hyperbole. First of all, The frequent citing of Barack Socialists, environmentalists and other Aneurin Glyndwr was anything but Obama's use of the web to raise money progressives, from all parties and none, anonymous. It was launched by senior and harness volunteers misses should learn to work together with the Welsh Labour figures and its content is the point. Last November's American aim of building a new Wales, based on far from the kind of puerile behind-the- election was far more like our 1997 equality and sustainability bike-sheds garbage that titillated election, with an energetic left and an McBride. Strangely it took only a few electorate yearning for change. The Nick Davies is Chair of Welsh weeks for Mr Dale to do a handbrake prospect at next year's general election Labour Grassroots turn in the information superhighway is very different. The left is in trouble

summer 2009 | 15 contents opinion news outlook and yet the voters are unenthused by And this does not mean lowering quality - because of a lack of choice and the right, no matter how slick David the tone of debate to that of the cyber competition - are long gone. And thank Cameron’s PR machine has been. cranks, with settled and extreme views. goodness for that. That is why a blog or So does this mean that internet Wales has not developed the vicious a Facebook page are just not enough any campaigning is all hot air and hype? Of internet subculture that devolution more, even if they are still necessary. course not. But for the web to play its seems to have unleashed in Scotland, Welsh Labour will soon elect its new full part in the UK political arena, the although the public will have to be told leader. I hope that person will grasp the first thing all of us must do is recognise that with power will come responsibility. opportunity to drive the online political that the era of snide attacks and smear Equally, political parties must fight the innovation, currently so neglected, yet has to end. For the sake of our urge to influence online discussions which offers so much. There is no democracy we need to develop new with the use of party stooges. This substitute for a two way process of ways to use the internet. means taking a harder road, but, iterative dialogue and the internet offers The traditional shop-window party ultimately, a more fruitful one. an amazing opportunity to do this. But and candidate website will always be For Labour in particular, none of it will only work if people approach the with us. When a voter types a political this will be easy. Undoubtedly part of medium with an honest desire to speak party name into a search engine they the New Labour’s success was to in their own voice, and listen with their expect an accessible site with basic impose order on the previous anarchy own ears. Because when marketing is information about the party and its of the left. Programmes were kept king, it is authenticity that matters policies. But the political party that gets minimal to ensure we could under- the most from the internet will be the promise and over-deliver. The David Taylor is an online activist one that makes the break with the ‘talk- alternative – of sharing the burden with and an aide to Regeneration Minister at’ model of communication and instead the electorate – seemed too risky for a Leighton Andrews. opts to listen and interact. party conditioned by successive defeats This does not merely mean finding into fearing any risk. ever more elaborate ways of sucking up Today New Labour must appeal to email addresses in order to deliver more millions of modern consumers, worried of the same old boring mass about their jobs, yes, but also proud that communications. Certainly, there is no their kids may be the first in their more sure-fire way of alienating an families to attend university. They may already disenchanted voter base than by be concerned at the standard of using their email addresses to fire treatment a relative is receiving at their millions of dull, irrelevant and poorly local hospital, but glad there is a publicly written communications at them. By funded health service available at all. engaging in this practice, political parties They are voters who would are no better than online Viagra vendors . appreciate the opportunity to engage in a Rather, I mean using the internet as new form of civic debate but whose work a means of tailoring a political product and family commitments render them too Trevor Fishlock for individuals. Let's use the web as a time-poor to hang around a local hall to genuine means for people to put see their AM, MP or councillor. Value of politicians on the spot on the difficult It is the job of political parties - like issues, obtain answers and directly input large corporations - to stay one step the Vote into policy deliberations. ahead of consumer expectations. Today it can feel like we have an Consumers rightly demand ever higher he IWA’s Devolution Decade electorate that demands the moon and standards from political parties and that, T conference, held in April, was expects it for free, while politicians – just like Tesco, Mazda and Google, is a hard day's listening. I learnt a lot. who plainly cannot deliver that - can precisely what they must supply. The The critiques were rigorous and some only speak in phrases designed to difference between these successful of them had a painfully high Ouch obscure as much as enlighten. In future companies and political parties is that the factor. They underlined the verdict, we need much more co-development former realised this years ago, while the that while much has been achieved and co-decision. The public want latter is stuck in the past. there's still a long way to go, that the control, so let us bring them inside the The days of the passive, post-war best equipment for the journey is a tent where the really difficult decisions consumer, happy to accept an hard head and a long view. are being made. undifferentiated product of inferior

16 | www.iwa.org.uk Political change is usually best when it tradition shaped lives. It emphasised the Mikhail Gorbachev's rule, much of the takes time. A devonaut friend of mine importance of detail and human interest story was about the unravelling of the admirably refused to be dismayed by in bringing people to life on the page. A Soviet Union 74 years after Lenin's the 1979 referendum. “Business as lot of reporting, after all, is about going, revolution. I went often to the Baltic usual,” he said. seeing, listening and describing how countries to report on the growth of the As a side effect of the conference I people live. movements calling for the restoration of was prompted to revisit that other country, independence lost when the Soviet Union the Wales I reported in my twenties. “Change needs time annexed them in 1940. I was impressed The first story I wrote for The Times to put down roots. ” by the people's courage and patience. described the Queen's opening of the Their only weapon was firm and polite Royal Mint at at the end of argument. They paid a price. I was in 1968. As Jim Callaghan's gift the mint is Vilnius during the night in 1991 when a monument to an age when politicians Soviet troops attacked a peaceful crowd bandaged suffering regional economies with guns and tanks and killed 14 people. with factories. I chronicled the saga of In South Africa, I wrote about the the dwindling coalfield, the aftermath end of more than 40 years of apartheid. of Aberfan, language protests, local Much of what I wrote was rooted in There was the remarkable spectacle of government scandals, angry farmers, changing political fortunes and crises, and crowds queueing patiently to vote in the angry miners, angry steelworkers, down the hopes and disappointments of first multiracial elections. After all these to the coalface, up to the mountains: democracy. In India Mrs Gandhi's years, they said, waiting a few hours is hundreds of stories and essays from centralising of power and the reduction of nothing. The moment when Nelson the infinite variety of Wales. public access to the leadership contributed Mandela, 27 years in prison, was at last In 1969 the government staged the to her downfall. Indians had campaigned declared president was unforgettable. investiture of the Prince of Wales at and waited for many years for Such scenes, in many parts of the world, , a pageant it saw as a independence. They were proud of inoculated me against electoral apathy. swinging-60s opportunity to showcase their democracy and I soon learnt the Many humble people have shown me modern Wales. But it also reflected importance men and women attached to the value of a vote. tensions in Wales. Ahead of the investiture their part in it. At elections it was always Change needs time to put down roots. I described the prince’s university term at moving to see them walking for miles to In 1969 the Prince of Wales could read his Aberystwyth. The plan was that he should vote, each a dot in the multitude, each a tutor's forecast that Wales would be self- emerge as super-prince, knowing more voice. When India reached the 50th governing before he became king; and 30 Welsh and more Welsh history than any anniversary of its independence I asked years later he and the Queen opened the prince for centuries. an editor to consider his country's Welsh Assembly. In the Devolution One of his tutors, , achievements. “We defeated famine. It Decade conference we heard the verdict a former vice-president of Plaid Cymru, took us 25 years, but we learnt to feed on its performance: “Could do better.” spoke of an awakening and said he looked the people. That was progress. And we And we heard something of the reality forward to the time when Wales would remain a democracy. These are things to of serious problems. enjoy full status as a self-governing be proud of.” In my many journeys to Still, a measure of power and country within the British Commonwealth. Pakistan I found people proud of their responsibility has come home, the political “I am convinced,” he said, “that Wales country, but disappointed by its withered focus is in Wales, and one of the benefits will win this status before the Prince and troubled democracy. of the Assembly's existence is a greater ascends to the throne.” George Thomas, In the United States in 1984 I confidence and self-respect among people. Secretary of State for Wales, feared that followed Jesse Jackson in his long These qualities, too, need time to grow. Aberystwyth made the prince dangerously campaign to persuade African Americans I left the conference wishing that more knowledgeable about Welsh history and to embrace the dignity of democracy and people, more often, could hear and read politics, even sympathetic, and wrote to register to vote. His was a battle against informed and astringent comment. Harold Wilson asking him to have a word their own apathy as well as against Newspapers improve democracy and with the Queen. prejudice. He was inspirational, planting the pity is that the press is in decline at My experience in Wales was in people a sense of their own worth. a time when we need more arguments invaluable, standing me in good stead He fired them with what seemed an and facts and skilled reporting when I left to work for 20 years as a impossible dream, the audacious notion foreign correspondent. It showed me that a black man could become president. Trevor Fishlock is a writer how geography and history, culture and In three years in Moscow, during and journalist.

summer 2009 | 17 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

enriching celebration of everything Welsh. If the subject of the Ebbw Valleys had come up then the names of every local Rhodri’s Reign farm, of every landowner, minister and Peter Stead reflects on the First Minister’s contribution to the would have been explained and relished. The topic would not have been birth of the new Wales dropped until every cultural and A quintessentially Rhodri moment to be a mistaken display of pedantry. The genealogical nuance had been milked. For came in the aftermath of Labour’s First Minister would have taken enormous Rhodri the Penrhiwgarreg moment was a defeat in the 2006 Blaenau Gwent personal pleasure in his ability to flashback to a delightful childhood that all by-election. On Wales Today the First spontaneously reel off the name of every should envy. The Morgan Minister was invited to respond to hamlet in Blaenau Gwent. To start with household was one that would never need accusations that he had not spent he would have known that his young BBC the Welsh Academi’s 2008 Encyclopaedia sufficient time in the constituency interviewer will only have made two or of Wales . Their own version would have supporting the Party’s candidate three visits to the constituency and none been a trifle more definitive. Owen Smith. “That’s not true. I before that month. And surely the subtext Rhodri was never to break the links made several visits,” he replied. of the exchange was Rhodri’s implication with his parental home, but nevertheless that he could go on to name all the small he opted to spend his working life in a Rhodri then proceeded to name the communities that make up every other different environment. In the Cardiff of actual villages and communities within constituency in Wales. That kind of the 1960s the Rhodri who had returned the constituency that he had visited. That knowledge and the pleasure it brings is from Harvard had seemingly and naturally was a fair-enough answer that must have in the very marrow of his being. assumed much of the lifestyle and satisfied most viewers. But there was What marks Rhodri out from most appearance of an American postgraduate more to come, something along the lines people active in public life in Wales is student. There was something very of, “The only villages in the constituency that he does not have any attitude or MITish about his colourless and that I did not visit were Cwm Celyn, affectation at all about being either sometimes shapeless casual clothes, his Llandafal, Penrhiwgarreg’ and so on for a Welsh or Welsh speaking. His untidy flat, his pioneering jogging around few seconds. All the good had been Welshness is not rooted in any anger. Roath Park, his weekend motoring into undone. Labour agents sighed in despair. Moreover, it is not something that has the hinterland and his love of statistics. Those agents would have seen this to be continuously worked out in any His spiritual home had become the totally unnecessary verbal mistake as sense of antagonism with Englishness, back bar of the City’s Old Arcade pub evidence of electoral naivety on the part or indeed any region or sub- where a remarkable group of Labour of the First Minister. However, for culture within Wales itself. He was born supporters seemed poised not only to experienced Rhodri watchers there was into a natural state of Welshness that run Cardiff but the country as a whole. far more to this Penrhiwgarreg moment. allowed him to study at Oxford and After the 1964 Election the Chancellor Of course, everyone knows that he loves Harvard and to be a Westminster MP of the Exchequer and local MP Jim lists and will slip into them at the slightest without ever having to concern himself Callaghan would call in to pick up some opportunity. The tactic can often be with questions of identity or loyalty. tips but more especially to hear the now nothing more than a defence mechanism, To appreciate this fully one needs to Lord Brooks strum his guitar and a choir a treading of water that fills in someone recall his family background. His mother led by the now Lord Kinnock and the else’s time. Nevertheless, he is hoping Huana, who later became an Honorary election maestro Paddy Kitson sing that the list will work in his favour. On Fellow of Swansea University, had, in songs denouncing Polaris and all racism. this occasion he has made the calculation 1927, been one of that college’s first The Labour Party has never seemed so that the citizens of Blaenau Gwent will women graduates. His father, T.J. Morgan informed, relaxed, relevant and rooted be truly impressed by his local was an academic and administrator as in genuine comradeship. Rhodri was a knowledge, for surely it is more well as one of the finest and most elegant cherished member of that group, always important to know about the existence essayists in the . His joshed for his academic eccentricities of of these communities and to bring them brother Prys remains the leading authority dress and punctuality. It was in that to the attention of the wider world rather on every aspect of Welsh cultural history. world for which so many of us feel a than to have walked every street. When his parents were alive, to share an deep nostalgia that Rhodri first met his And for Rhodri there is even more to evening or a meal with this family was to wife-to-be Julie. An English graduate and be gained from what many will have taken be immersed in a totally comforting and an offspring of parents totally committed

18 | www.iwa.org.uk continuing recession. He can be an infuriating orator given to rambling and using his lists as a substitute for argument. Yet he remains Labour’s only natural communicator. The sad truth is that in recent years Labour has lazily relied on Rhodri’s personal charm and humour to disguise its own failure to develop any strategy of communication. The recent European Election leaflet with its photo of Rhodri Morgan, Welsh Labour’s “only natural communicator”. Rhodri as a gardener, seemingly pausing for a cup of tea, summed up the to special educational skills, Julie like talk about in the Old Arcade. Tony Blair bankruptcy of Welsh Labour’s ability to Rhodri was naturally and unaffectedly became the godfather of Devolution but connect with floating voters. a democrat in every thought and deed. then had thought to establish it on Rhodri should have established a far In the early Sixties Rhodri had Blairite lines by turning to a Cardiff MP more effective Labour machine in Wales returned to the city where he had grown Alun Michael. The fraught early days of and one capable not only of dominating up. From the outset we could see that an Assembly elected by proportional what media we do have but also one Cardiff was a glove into which he fitted representation needed sensitive handling set on drawing business, academic and perfectly. Perhaps he knew then that he with Welsh Labour activists themselves administrative leaders in Wales into a would never leave it. The remarkable needing reassuring. Rhodri came into to debate on where we go from this point. fact was that the man who could hold steady the boat and that, of course, has Rhodri has spent hours talking to these informed conversations in every pub been his greatest achievement. groups at home and abroad and at the and school in Wales has always been The new voting dispensation made same time his administrations have first and foremost a Cardiffian, educated coalition government inevitable whilst developed coherent and distinct and reared in its northern suburbs, more the decline of industry and community, economic and social policies. But this recently resident in a beautifully hidden taken in conjunction with Labour’s has not been enough and now Rhodri western hamlet, and always a man of Westminster policies, ensured that in threatens to leave us just as the the city’s inner wards. Wales Labour would have to fall back unthinkable has to be thought. On international days countless red on its heartland. Above all, Wales has The three radical parties in Wales shirted youths travel into their capital needed a leader who could transcend now seem all set to take up the old city to join the tribal celebration of our the party dogfight by conveying some shibboleths. Perhaps it was the case national game. For over half a century sense of national coherence. Labour that Rhodri was just too comfortable in their First Minister has patronised those would not have stayed in power in his Old Labour and Old Wales guises. very same pubs reminiscing about the Wales without Rhodri. His Grangetown Perhaps it was not the time to rock heroes of his adolescence, Billy Boston, credentials make him effortlessly Old the boat. But is there any other Welsh Bleddyn Williams, Rex Willis and Sid Labour whilst at the same time his leader with the sufficient authority Judd. We should contemplate the pride background allows him to work with that Rhodri has had to thinking about that the First Minister takes in having other parties who seek to represent alternative strategies and to start asking seen his city so transformed in his other Welsh issues and constituencies. searching questions about not only lifetime. Of course, he would have done it Rhodri has been a successful First local government (as he has done) rather differently for far too much of his Minister. He has given Wales good but also the NHS and our schools? beloved waterfront has disappeared. But, stable government and has utilised The old Harvard jogger is 70 this make no mistake, it has been his and coalition politics to defend vulnerable coming September and justly deserves others confidence and pride in Cardiff as groups in Wales at a time of great a break. But as I look around and take a place in its own right that has served difficulty. He has established the stock I am tempted to ask the First to make the new Wales possible. Do not normalcy of devolved politics and Minister whether he doesn’t fancy what dismiss Cardiff’s beating the All Blacks in set up the possibility of further would be the greatest challenge of his 1953 as a factor in helping shape what developments in that respect. lifetime. I remind him that Gladstone was to become Rhodri’s Wales. Of course, he has made mistakes. went on until he was 85 Ultimately it was Ron Davies’s vision Yet to analyse those mistakes is to that made possible the Assembly that confront the enormous difficulties facing Peter Stead is an historian Jack Brooks and friends had begun to a de-industrialised Wales in an era of and cultural commentator.

summer 2009 | 19 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

Devolution’s Next Step Peter Hain urges caution in pressing ahead with a referendum on more power for the Assembly

The Government of Wales Act 2006 easily than was possible before. The enormously widened the scope for the which I delivered as Secretary of streamlined mechanism takes the form Assembly to make its own ‘mini-laws’ – State settled the question of Wales’ of a new Order in Council procedure, but without compromising the principle constitutional status, if not forever, enabling Parliament to grant the of ultimate Parliamentary control and then for generations to come. There Assembly the power to make its own Parliamentary sovereignty which remains may be amendments to the Act - for laws over specific matters put before in place until a successful referendum. instance on numbers of Assembly Parliament on a case-by-case basis. The new procedures have meant a Members or the electoral system - The Orders do not set out the steep learning process for AMs and not but there will never be another Act detail of the policy that the Assembly just for officials in Cardiff and Whitehall. because it provides for full law wishes to implement. Under the Act At last the Assembly is beginning to act making powers of the kind pointed that is a matter for the Assembly to as a fully-fledged legislature, targeting to by the IWA’s Putting Wales in the determine. LCOs simply define the issues for legislative priority, and Driving Seat . scope of the powers being conferred on scrutinising the new Assembly Measures. the Assembly, with Parliament voting The pre-legislative scrutiny in Meanwhile the IWA report on the principle of the Assembly Committees in both Westminster and underestimates the potential of acquiring those powers. Cardiff Bay has also started to bed down Legislative Competence Orders (LCOs) The truth is that, despite being in well, with good cooperation that has and is far too negative, both about what its infancy, the LCO mechanism has already been improving the draft LCOs. they have already achieved, and what already been successful. Although there Consequently I reject the idea that there the process will deliver in future. have been teething problems at both is a ‘fog of misunderstanding’ (as stated The Act established a mechanism ends of the M4, that is hardly surprising by the Chairman of the All-Wales that has freed the Assembly from the given the novelty of the mechanism. But Convention, Sir Emyr Jones-Parry) Westminster logjam restricting Welsh it has already devolved far more powers surrounding LCOs or that they have legislation in the past, by transferring to the Assembly than was ever possible been a failure. legislative responsibility to Cardiff in under the old 1998 Act. As time goes However, there should be no relation to defined matters, approved on, that will be even more the case. argument in principle against the IWA on a case-by-case basis by Parliament. The ingenious substitution of Orders report's call for primary powers by It is enabling the Assembly to in Council in place of primary legislation moving to the 2006 Act's Part 4. deliver tailor-made policies for the has unquestionably given an immediate Instead, the issue is one of timing. people of Wales more quickly and more boost to the Assembly’s powers and The 2006 Government of Wales Act

Peter Hain engages with constituents in Neath: have they heard of an LCO?

20 | www.iwa.org.uk facilitated the evolution of devolution – consistently throughout the 1997 The Assembly has hardly begun to in step with people’s opinions, rejecting campaign that the Yes vote was about use its existing new powers and has the separatism of Plaid Cymru and 2:1 ahead. What happened on the day? It enacted only a very few new Measures taking devolution forward, not rolling it was a narrow, hair’s breadth victory for on the back of the LCOs passed. The back, as Cameron’s Tories would do. the Yes side, albeit one that spectacularly experience of doing so needs to be The remaining question is when it would overturned a 4:1 defeat in 1979. carefully assessed. Moreover, its be best to trigger the Act's provision for The timing was right in 1997, and legislative capacity, as Dafydd Elis a referendum to deliver the primary everything came together. We cannot Thomas has argued, is still limited. My powers already in statute within it? risk rushing into a premature referendum view is that within a short time there I support primary powers for the will be surprise at the sheer depth and Assembly - otherwise I would not extent of the additional law making have ensured that such powers were powers under the new process that will contained in the Act - and I hope to see have been devolved to the Assembly. them enacted within the current political Let us reflect on the success or generation. My pro-devolution record is limitations of this process at the very very evident to all, and well known in earliest into the new Assembly term in Wales. I spoke accordingly at a 2011. To do otherwise would, I Parliament for Wales conference in believe, backfire amongst voters. March 1994; I conceived of and helped The blunt truth is that the loudest set up the YES for Wales campaign in voices for an early referendum could 1996; in the 1997 referendum campaign not deliver the vote. Welsh Labour I worked endlessly to deliver the Yes members - and even more Welsh vote; and as Secretary of State I was Labour voters - are currently proud to deliver radically increased overwhelmingly against an early powers for the Assembly. referendum, and I do not see that My argument is about the conditions changing for some years to come. necessary to win a referendum. The Liberal Democrat leaders could not success of the 1997 referendum and deliver their own voters, indeed they my experience of helping to lead that and repeating 1979. I remain a hardly did so in the favourable campaign demonstrated the necessity passionate devolutionist. But it would environment of 1997. Whatever the of achieving the widest possible cross be tragic if a defeat was triggered either signals from the Welsh Conservative party consensus. The 1997 Yes vote through impatience by devolutionists, or Assembly leadership, their Party at was won with internal Labour Party by those who wish to contrive political Westminster remains hostile to full law consensus, a reasonable cross-party ambushes for partisan purposes against making powers and my current reading consensus with Plaid, Liberal Democrats Welsh Labour - and there has been of Welsh Conservative voters is that and Greens, and from there a broader evidence of such manoeuvres from they are even more bitterly hostile. national consensus. Plaid and Tory politicians alike, albeit There is moreover an ‘anti-politicians’ Even then, the vote was won with doubtless for different motives. culture in Wales directed at all parties the narrowest of majorities. Remember I will support a referendum when we both in the Assembly and at Westminster what happened in 1979. The defeat are confident that we can win it. Without which could easily be exploited by a No then set back the cause of devolution a significant shift in public opinion, it is campaign. Indeed the signs are that this for a generation. In 1997, when all the very clear to me that a premature is already happening on the back of the parties except the Tories were united, referendum would be lost, taking primary parliamentary expenses scandal. we only just squeaked home. I have no powers off the table for a generation. When a referendum is called I want doubt that if a referendum were held To call a referendum before the to be part of a successful Yes campaign. today, it would be lost. Indeed, I cannot current legislation has had time to bed For what it is worth, I won't join one I see a successful one happening until down, and the Order in Council process consider would be unsuccessful - IWA well into the next decade. to be tested, would only serve to reports or not Some recent opinion polls may have undermine the process, and to breach shown that the people of Wales favour assurances I gave to the Commons in Rt Hon Peter Hain is MP for Neath primary powers, though others have winning broad support for the 2006 and was Secretary of State for Wales not. But I recall opinion polls showed Act with only the Tories voting against. 2002-08 and Welsh Minister 1997-99.

summer 2009 | 21 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture Assembl y’s Leg al Dividend

Carwyn Jones says a debate is needed on creating a separate jurisdiction for Wales

The next ten years in the life of impetus to the need for institutions of in Wales more frequently. Legal Wales will be the most justice to be managed locally. When In 2007, His Honour Judge exciting and the most significant Lord Bingham, then Lord Chief Justice Hickinbottom referred back to those certainly since the abolition of the of England and Wales spoke at the comments from the Court of Appeal, Court of Great Sessions in 1830 opening of the Mercantile Court in when he rejected an application for the and possibly since the year 1536. Cardiff in 2000, he said: judicial review case of Deepdock v the Welsh Ministers to be transferred from Once the National Assembly is able “This court represents the long Cardiff to London. His Honour’s view to exercise primary legislative powers, overdue recognition of the need for the was that, with the increased impetus following a referendum, I think it is to have its own given to devolved government by the inevitable that we will have to consider indigenous institutions operating locally Government of Wales Act 2006, and creating a distinctive legal jurisdiction and meeting the needs of its citizens with increasing powers actually being for Wales. It is a question which neither here. This court is another step towards devolved to the National Assembly and the Welsh Assembly Government, nor recognising Wales as a very proud, the Assembly Government, there was the legal community in Wales can shy distinctive and successful nation.” a deepening imperative that challenges away from. to any devolved decisions should be It’s worth noting that a separate Although there has been an (like the decisions themselves) dealt jurisdiction need not be bound up Administrative Court in Wales since with in Wales. with future powers. The One Wales 2000, in reality the Administrative Court The Deepdock case involved a legal agreement between the two parties in the office has served as little more than a challenge by mussel fishermen to the Welsh Assembly Government includes a ‘post box’ for the filing of claims. development of a marina at commitment to consider devolution of Although claims could be filed at the on the Isle of Anglesey. The case the criminal justice system and moves Administrative Court in Wales, generally makes clear that the hearing of cases towards the establishment of a single management of cases was transferred to in Wales does not necessarily mean a administration of justice in Wales. the Royal Courts of Justice in London hearing in Cardiff. In fact it was heard However, to my mind it is not which would, thereafter, administer them in Caernarfon, enabling the Judge to necessary to first have the devolution until their completion. undertake a site inspection during the of criminal justice before we consider However, since 2000 there has hearing from a dredging vessel! An creating a Welsh jurisdiction. In been a growing expectation that appeal against the judgement handed Scotland, for example, employment law administrative cases relating to Wales down in that case was the subject of and aspects of criminal law are not should also be heard in Wales. In that the hearing before the Court of Appeal devolved, yet the jurisdiction is different. respect it has for some time been the in Cardiff in November 2008. So a jurisdiction does not require that practice of the Assembly Government Formal recognition that devolved the legislature it oversees has control in response to judicial review decisions should be dealt with in Wales over all areas of law. applications to apply for a direction was given by the recommendations of The increasing divergence of the that the case be heard in Wales. the Judicial Working Group on Justice law in relation to England and to Wales, In the 2006 case of National outside London chaired by Lord Justice and the bilingual character of the Assembly for Wales v Condron and May. Following on from that report, the legislation produced by both the Welsh Miller Argent , the Court of Appeal Administrative Court Regional Centre Assembly Government and the National called for practitioners and listing for Wales was opened in Cardiff in Assembly for Wales, has also given officers to seek to get such cases listed April 2009 and provides a fully

22 | www.iwa.org.uk functioning office for the Administrative Wales and other public bodies to ask Meanwhile, we need a reviewing Court in Wales. themselves why they are instructing process. The universities will have a The Welsh Assembly Government counsel from outside Wales. If they are role in the process, and over the next hopes that the opening of the new getting a better service elsewhere then ten years, law departments might want Administrative Court will speed up the we need to know so that the situation in to consider how they can play a role judicial process and enable matters to Wales can be improved. Over the next in law reform at a level in Wales that be heard more locally. Although the ten years advocates from Wales should simply wasn’t possible before. Administrative Court has been set up in be getting the lion’s share of the work. The Welsh Assembly Government Cardiff, it is worth stressing the point The challenge for the Bar is to structure is committed to offering opportunities that facilities will be made available for itself to compete for that work. for students to gain legal training and cases to be heard across Wales. I was pleased to recently announce experience by offering opportunities in There are clear benefits of having the appointment of Panels of Counsel. its Legal Services Department. This these cases dealt with in local accessible Clive Lewis QC continues to undertake is the largest public sector legal courts capable of dealing with Welsh the role of First Counsel to the Welsh department in Wales with over 100 lawyers providing legal advice and Flanked by Claire Clancy, Chief Executive and Clerk to legislative drafting services across all the National Assembly, Presiding Ministerial portfolios. Officer Dafydd Elis-Thomas, The Trainee Solicitor Scheme is a places the seal (see opposite page) on the Assembly’s first Measure. formal part of the departmental structure. The NHS Redress Measure, Presently there are seven trainees in the which relates to liability in connection with services provided department undertaking constitutional by NHS Wales, was passed by the and commercial work as well Assembly on 6 May 2008 and participating in the legal teams approved by the Queen in Council on 9 July 2008. The first piece of supporting policy-making in fields such primary legislation enacted in as education and health, agriculture, Wales, it was arguably a first step on the road to a Welsh jurisdiction. local government, social care and the environment. Trainee recruitment is done two years in advance and this autumn bilingual legislation, including Measures. Assembly Government. In addition, there adverts will appear for trainees to join It will also encourage the development are two separate panels, one consisting the department in 2011 and 2012. of public law practices in Wales. of Queen’s Counsel and a second panel, We plan to take two trainees annually. The enhancement of the consisting of Junior Counsel or Solicitor The scheme also provides an opportunity Administrative Court in Wales together Advocates. Those appointments will be to undertake litigation work with a Welsh with the growing body of law particular for a period of three years, with the local authority and offers a rounded to Wales create the need for a greater possibility of renewal. public sector and public law experience. span of lawyers who understand the What are the challenges for the All these developments mean that law as it applies in Wales. They should universities? I have to say first of all that we are on the cusp of substantial also have the knowledge and experience I would not want to see a situation arise change in the way the law in Wales is to take on the most complex and where a law degree from any of the administered and enacted. The first ten sensitive of cases, such as the Skanda Welsh universities is seen as being years of devolution have brought about Vale case, which the Court of Appeal inappropriate for practice outside Wales. great changes in the history and politics heard in Cardiff. Our universities must continue to be seen of Wales but left relatively little mark What this means is great as centres of expertise for all of the UK. on the legal world. We can expect this opportunities for lawyers in Wales, Nonetheless, there are opportunities to change in the forthcoming decade. a devolution dividend for the legal for academic lawyers. As the Welsh Legal Wales needs to be ready for the professions. We are now seeing the statute book grows, so the case builds challenges to make the most of this part establishment of specialist criminal and for a body to review those laws. This of the devolution dividend civil chambers in Cardiff. However, we has been performed in the past by the need more advocates who are prepared Law Commission for England and Carwyn Jones is Counsel General in to branch out into areas such as Wales. Over the next ten years, thought the Welsh Assembly Government. This administrative and employment law. will have to be given to creating a Law article is based on a lecture delivered at We also need local authorities in Commission or similar body for Wales. Cardiff Law School in May 2009.

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discourse in Britain”. Wales and the he sees as both “courageous and naïve” and his nationalism as “raw and Matter of Br itain primordial”, but through his “slow, grinding work” and, crucially, because Cynog Dafis admires the way a Welsh Conservative is seizing the he led Plaid to “accept the reality and constitutional Initiative permanence of the Anglo-Welsh and acknowledge the need to meet the This remarkable piece of work is after the period of Saxon expansion. demands of an industrial society”, testimony to its author’s conviction Then we find the Normans he “changed the face of Wales”. that “the study of history is the basis kidnapping that idea for their own Labour’s mission to establish of all political wisdom”. In six politico-dynastic purposes, the socialism in Britain by becoming the scintillating chapters he takes us on consolidation of England as their “champion of centralism” (Kenneth O. an intellectual journey through the kingdom and the ruthless suppression of Morgan) brought leaders like Aneurin history of Wales-in-Britain, from its the Welsh attempt to achieve statehood. Bevan into inevitable conflict with the emergence as Cymru (‘this wonderful Under the Tudors the Welsh are both demand for self-government launched fact’) in the eighth century, right integrated and accommodated within the by the Plaid-inspired Parliament for through to its reinvention as a emerging British state, their language Wales campaign in the early 1950s. ‘political nation’ in our time. As his given recognition in the process of However, David Melding sees the narrative proceeds, David Melding nation-building in which Protestantism age-old pattern reasserting itself. “If brings his extensive knowledge of plays a key role, and their land Labour’s state socialism was as political science and constitutional recognised as an administrative entity. centralising as Edward I’s regnal theory to bear on his theme, leading With the discovery of the Americas practices, like the Plantaganet Labour us to his conclusion that, in order to the was now ‘not to be also recognised the integrity of Wales in remain intact, Britain too must reinvent found at the edge of Europe but at the a symbolic way. In 1949 the government herself – as a multinational federal state. centre of the World’, and with the entry established the Council for Wales, and The Preface tells how the mind of of Scotland into the Union (Ireland is a although largely toothless, it has been this highly unusual Tory began to run case apart) the stage was set for Empire. described as ‘a landmark in its way’.” along these lines. He ‘became addicted In that project the Welsh are willing Enter the Conservatives, who to reading Welsh history’ when he was participants, subordinate and yet, between 1951 and 1964 “treated the asked to write a pamphlet on the through industrialisation, crucial for Welsh question with sympathy but little Conservative Party and the Welsh British expansionism. The story reaches skill”. Recognising Wales as a nation nation for his party’s Research its climax with Lloyd George, the with a rich and distinct cultural identity, Department. The resultant ‘grappling “Welshman who had seized the ‘Crown they serve the cause of devolution in with my own national identity’, of Britain’” and who “symbolised the two other ways. First, they laid the together with the influence of some fulfilment of Welsh nationhood within foundations of administrative devolution Czech friends and the ideas of Thomas the British state”. by creating the post of Minister for Masaryk, sparked off his ‘development Lloyd George also provides the link Welsh Affairs, ready for Labour to take as a nationalist’ who nevertheless voted to the next phase of the Wales-in-Britain the process further. Second, by gaining No in the 1997 referendum. narrative, the rise of Celtic nationalism, eighteen unbroken years of government The author describes his book as made possible both by the growth of at Westminster and insisting on the ‘a series of essays’, but his argument is democracy and the fact that the British blanket application of Thatcherism in fact seamless. In his opening two state had refrained from implementing a throughout the UK, they raised the issue chapters, he traces the close but complex policy of total assimilation of the Welsh of the democratic deficit in Wales and relationship between Wales and Britain and Scots, as had been within its power. Scotland, thus inadvertantly sowing the (first the ‘Idea’, then the ‘Practice’) over David Melding is generous and seeds of the referendum victories of a thousand years and more. First, balanced in his assessment of Plaid 1997 and the death of the British unitary drawing particularly on the poetry of Cymru’s leaders. , state. Chapter 3, Devolution, the Battle David Jones, he discusses the Matter of though “wild and uncompromising at Lost and Won gives an excellent Britain , an idea that continued to times” nevertheless through his thinking exposition of this series of developments. permeate Welsh consciousness long “changed the nature of political Chapters 4 and 5, Have we Been

24 | www.iwa.org.uk Anti-Welsh? and The Strange Death David Melding has produced a fine of Unionist Britain provide a masterly piece of work: erudite, stylish, lucid analysis of the Conservative Party’s and elegant, logical, passionate yet fraught and tortuous relationship with suffused with a gentle and tolerant the question of the Union and the irony. In so doing he has seized the status of its constituent nations. initiative on constitutional policy and By rejecting both federalism and thrown down the gauntlet to the home rule as solutions to the Irish political parties, challenging them to question, partly as a party-political bring forward convincing alternatives tactic and partly through ideological to his compelling vision. inflexibility, the Conservative leaders First the Conservatives, now were responsible for the loss of Ireland presenting themselves as reconstructed to the Union. As a result the Party agents for radical change. Will they have “entered its darkest and most the vision to embrace a constitutional destructive period”, with the threat of the Labour Party” – a not unreasonable framework that can preserve the Union violence and the call for a UK-wide position, bearing in mind the convoluted while allowing its component nations to referendum as a means of blocking Irish nature of those proposals. pursue their distinctive policy self-government. What the uninitiated At this point Francis Pym and Leon programmes? What an opportunity may not know is that there were Brittan argued that if a legislative David Melding has opened up for them. significant voices within the party Scottish Assembly were to be Second Labour, obsessive about the offering wiser counsel. Lord Carnarvon established, “it should be based on the Union and pulled every which by for example met with Parnell and found principles and practices of federalism” as questions of nationality, cultural diversity sufficient common ground for “an a prelude to introducing such a system and decentralisation. imaginative Conservative policy that throughout the UK. Moreover, Lord Third, and perhaps most important, would attract the support of Hailsham “connected a call for Plaid Cymru, whch currently offer nothing Irish Nationalists”. federalism to a wider programme of like the quality of analysis, argument and Meanwhile in Wales, Conservatives constitutional reform’. It is to this proposals that the Conservative David alienated themselves from mainstream tradition in Conservative (and Unionist) Melding has presented. The ‘Independence opinion by adopting anti- thinking that David Melding appeals in Initiative’, launched with cogent disestablishmentarianism as a central his advocacy of a federated Britain. He is flamboyance by , has so far policy plank. One example among impatient of the idea that federalism is generated little debate of substance, while many of David Melding’s delicious use somehow alien to the British a modest but credible policy document of metaphor will serve to illustrate the constitutional tradition, pointing out that produced by an internal working-group disastrous effect of decisions of this it is, in its application to the former seems to have disappeared without trace. kind. “The Party became the music hall colonies, largely a British invention. At the same time the party’s evidence on villain of Welsh politics, always destined In his final chapter, Will Britain Barnett to the Holtham Commission has to have its base amorous advances Survive beyond 2020? he sets out his a decidedly federalist tenor. spurned by the virtuous heroine to the case for a full-blown British Federation, There remain the Liberal Democrats. thrill and delight of the audience.” The with sovereignty in ‘domestic issues’ Given their commitment to federalism, scene was set for the Conservatives’ allocated to three national parliaments, they could simply adopt David Melding’s marginalisation in Welsh politics for the while macro-economic policy, most programme wholesale. On the other rest of the 20 th Century, culminating in taxation, immigration and citizenship, hand, if the Conservatives have the the rout of 1997, the year in which it defence, and foreign affairs remain the gumption to grasp the opportunity now also chose (‘lightly disguised’) to lead responsibility of a federal (probably opening before them, they could simply the referendum No Campaign. bicameral) parliament. He presents his adopt the Liberal Democrats However, the debate within the case by assessing, coolly and thoughtfully, Party was far more substantial and the arguments against both federalism Cynog Dafis is a former Plaid Cymru intelligent than conventional wisdom and independence. Devolution he regards MP and AM for Ceredigion. Will Britain would have it. For example, in 1976 it as inherently unstable, though he makes Survive Beyond 2020? is available from “reaffirmed its acceptance of devolution it abundantly clear that its reversal the IWA at £11.99 (25% discount to in principle but rejected the proposals of cannot be an option. IWA members).

summer 2009 | 25 matters A Useful Fiction is entirely Adventures jargon free and immensely readable, as anyone who knows Hannan’s work might expect. in Democracy Countless committees are presently beavering away at the intricacies of Geraint Talfan Davies examines an account of a reconstruction underway the Barnett formula, and at its possible behind the facade of the British state substitution by a needs-based alternative, something Hannan describes as a lovers are much addicted expenses: “The system of allowances “poverty contest”. His account of the to landscapes, hence the late Kyffin (a word with neat overtones of current block grant for Scottish and William’s remarkable iconic status. legitimacy) was in many ways a sham Welsh governments is both funny and A Useful Fiction, Adventures in British devised to keep the public in the dark sobering – “leaving [the devolved Democracy , too, is a work of about the money MPs received and why governments] little more than pensioners landscape, although a very long way they received it.” He does not, however, drawing their allowances at the from Kyffin’s brooding palette. The join the lynch mob on this issue. Westminster Post Office. They have to canvass is wide, taking in the whole The expenses row rather illustrates allocate a large part of their income to of Britain and Ireland, but Patrick one of his main theses that in the the fundamentals of everyday life – food, Hannan is not one for the broad British constitution nothing is quite power, accommodation – and with what’s swish of a palette knife, but rather what it seems. Things happen “in fact, left over they can choose between cat the steady accumulation of intimate if not in theory”, like MPs allowances food or a couple of pints of beer.” Why detail, acute observation, sardonic – or were they expenses? - or the do I see Rhodri Morgan in that picture? wit and jaunty asides – a cross transfer of sovereignty in different Hannan’s journey takes him through between Beryl Cook and Breughel. directions from our supposedly still all three nations of Great Britain and omni-competent Parliament. both parts the Irish island, tracing the There has been no shortage of writers elusiveness of Britishness, and concluding to tell us that Britain is changing. They that Britain “is not actually a country, but usually fall into two categories: those a state of mind”, and that who lament the passing of a Britain are the group least alert to the they thought they knew, and would like governmental revolution that is taking preserved in aspic, and those who place. He also takes in Scotland as it toys would like to bring down the whole with the notion of independence and the edifice. This book is different. prospect of becoming to England “what As befits the son of a emigrant Irish Canada has long been to the US”. He doctor, brought up in , and also takes in the rise and fall of the Irish the holder of both British and Irish ‘tiger economy’ and its relevance or Patrick Hannan – “a cross between Beryl Cook passports, Hannan views Britain’s and Breughel”. irrelevance for Welsh circumstances. democracy from outside the English and Hannan is not an evangelist for any British metropolis, both geographically It is prescient in other ways too. cause - either conservative or radical. and mentally. It is also a book that seems He rightly surmises that Peter Hain’s He is always resolutely sceptical of the to delight in the fluidity of our current rehabilitation is only a reshuffle away. certainties of the faithful. But as Britain situation, and the sheer unpredictability It happened only a week after the book faces yet more constitutional change - if of things. But it is definitely not a book was launched at the Hay Festival. Then we are to believe the politicians – this to be lodged in the local interest sections again, his excoriation of the Prince of book is an incisive and accessible guide of our large bookstores, rather a wide- Wales for wishing “to put Britain back the to, as he puts it, “the rebuilding work ranging and mature reflection that draws way it once was, or the way he thinks it that’s taking place behind the scaffolding on a lifetime’s reading and observation, once was, which is not the same thing”, and tarpaulins of Britishness” and a depth of quirky knowledge that has been swiftly followed by yet another has made him one of the stars of the architectural row between the prince and Geraint Talfan Davies is Chair of the BBC’s Round Britain quiz. Richard Rogers. Neatly, he describes IWA. A Useful Fiction: Adventures in It is also prescient. In a chapter Charles as “a one-man Britain walking British Democracy , by Patrick Hannan, entitled Where have all the voters gone? (or, more often, being driven) among us.” is published by Seren. he is ahead of the game on MPs Unlike most works on constitutional www.seren-books.com

26 | www.iwa.org.uk Winni ng in Scotl and Isobel Lindsay assesses the record of the SNP minority government

Halfway through the Scottish More than a few people found that they important not just because of the cost Parliamentary term is a fair point at didn't have any of the right names in but because it ends the transfer of which to assess what the SNP has their contact books. significant aspects of management to achieved. Tom Nairn described A second achievement, unrelated to private companies. While the absence nationalism as Janus-headed, looking particular policy agendas, was to show of borrowing powers has not made at the same time to the past and the that minority government can work and alternatives easy, during this future. It might be more relevant is an option for any future Parliament. Parliament, Scotland should not be now to apply the metaphor to the This has opened up choices that were saddled with more costly, rigid, left/right spectrum. Does the Scottish envisioned by many of those involved in privately-controlled management of Government face both left and right? work on proposals for the Parliament's core public amenities. constitution in the 1990s but were viewed In health services, there has been a As well as examining what the evidence by most commentators as not viable. rejection of market mechanisms and suggests about its ideological complexion, Using administrative powers to the full - private outsourcing on the English there is also an important question about as the Welsh Assembly Government has model, coupled with a commitment to how effective it has been in its shown - gave considerable scope for welfare state principles as with the administrative role. For any government, action without having to jump through phasing-out of prescription charges having its heart in the right or wrong the legislative hurdle. (following the Welsh example). In place is one important issue. Another is Moreover, opposition parties will school education there has been firm whether it has the ability and nerve to struggle to unite on many issues. support for the comprehensive turn values into successful outcomes. While the SNP has had to select its principle and no flirtation with city One of the most important programme with a view to minimising academies and other opt-outs from the contributions the SNP has made to good the chances of defeat, it has been able local authority. The abolition of the governance in Scotland was simply to to promote its own agenda more remaining fee element for university win. That in itself has greatly improved effectively than had it gone into students has been in the tradition of Scottish politics. All governments coalition with the Liberal Democrats. the post-war settlement. eventually get stale and arrogant as they In comparison with what has been On housing, there has been some come to take power for granted and a done by governments at Westminster, support for new council housing and third Labour/Lib Dem coalition would the dominant ideological position has more restrictions on the sale of social have conveyed the message that things been weighted to the left, although housing. Justice policy has taken a much can't be changed. To believe that things there has been something of a dual more 'progressive' agenda than the can be changed was important for the track. On most of the devolved powers tabloid-driven approach of the previous parties and important for the public. It there has been a fairly clear social administration. Energy policy has been was also important for all those networks democratic, centre/left position. That fairly green although the same can't be that relate to the public sector and had was also broadly true of the previous said of transport. The reduction in come to take for granted Labour's administrations but it has been more attempts to micro-manage local Scottish dominance with all the consistent with the SNP. authorities is rather closer to practice in patronage powers that went with it. The rejection of PFI has been the rest of the world. On the reserved

summer 2009 | 27 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

issues of defence and foreign policy, the Whether the SNP leadership's need to be effective in fulfilling their SNP Government has firmly positioned engagement with aspects of the neo- aspirations. Overall the SNP as an itself on the left in relation to nuclear liberal agenda arose from expediency or administration has been more impressive weapons and opposition to the Iraq war conviction is not clear. There is (or was) than its predecessors but the picture is (although it has been more ambivalent an obvious expediency argument. A mixed. Nicola Sturgeon has taken a on Afghanistan). party seeking radical change needs to From a European perspective, the cultivate allies and, equally important, to SNP Government would be seen as try to neutralise powerful opponents by mainstream social democratic across its offering them what they want to hear. areas of responsibility. From a The business ‘voice’ (not always the Westminster perspective, it would be same as actual business) was strongly seen as far left. against devolution in both referendum Alongside this centre-left profile, campaigns. Any independence there is another face. It is a smaller face referendum could expect the same and is complicated by the fact that opposition so one can see the attraction much of the more right-wing positioning in not frightening the boardrooms. of the SNP relates to reserved powers However, there is a distinction and there is no evidence of what it between the business ‘politicians’ who might have done in practice. make a lot of noise and many serious business people who have experience Education Minister Fiona Hyslop “went into denial mode” accepting “questionable figures given to her in operating in varying political by her civil servants”. environments. Also there will always be the business mavericks - Sir Hugh complex brief at Health and handled it Fraser in the 1970s and Brian Souter with great competence and openness. today - who will break with the She has entrenched core values and consensus irrespective of the CBI voice. addressed problems by openly admitting But expediency appears not to be the where there have been failures. only reason for cultivating the bankers This is in contrast to Education and promising a low post-independence where Fiona Hyslop, despite being corporate tax regime. Some in the SNP intelligent and articulate, has not been leadership were swept along with the an effective minister. It is an interesting

Some in the SNP leadership were swept along with the dominant economic ideology, getting Health Minister Nicola Sturgeon has “handled a too close to the Edinburgh bankers. complex brief with great competence and openness”.

But we can look at policy positions and at some choices made in Scotland. dominant economic ideology. They comparison and it is not about different Support for very low corporate taxation became true believers, more attracted to ideological perspectives. Both are more and light touch finance and business the Irish model despite the evidence of left than centre. A good minister needs regulation has been part of SNP policy its sharp increase in inequality and an to keep in touch with what is for over a decade. Where there have unsustainable property boom, rather than happening on the ground and needs been Holyrood powers, they have been the Finnish or Norwegian models. They the edge to cut through the defensive used to reduce business rates without became much too close to the Edinburgh departmental cultures that pervade any solid evidence of the employment bankers and avoided criticising business. many areas of government. outcomes. The SNP Euro MPs did not The Council of Economic Advisers In school education, we have had support implementing the 48 hour lacked any members with a trade union almost five years of the Curriculum for maximum working week in the UK. background. In the UK context this was, Excellence. The aspirations have been Business pressure for the M74 of course, in no way unusual. good but the implementation has been extension and other transport issues In government having the right abysmal, caricaturised by jargon-ridden have had a positive response. aspirations is not enough. Ministers generalisations that have cost substantial

28 | www.iwa.org.uk amounts to produce and left most deserves from the rest of the Cabinet. teachers struggling to understand what Finance has been handled very Join the IWA and it means in practice. This was inherited competently by John Swinney and, support our work. by the present minister but she failed to given the minority status of the “The IWA occupies a unique place in Welsh get an early grip. Government, it is not entirely clear public life. Its analysis of current issues is Postponing implementation and what budget choices are the outcome always professional and extremely helpful. ” throwing more money at the problem of horse-trading and what are the Lord Richard of Ammanford may work but confidence in the change Government's priorities. From a left Chairman of the Richard Commission has been seriously undermined by bad perspective, the freeze on Council Tax “The IWA is a quite extraordinarily valuable administration. Her Department has also is not a simple issue. Were it a fair tax, body, and I am very proud to be a member been poor at manpower planning. this would be seen as a move to the of it. ” Instead of recognising that there was right but it is a seriously flawed tax Lord (Kenneth) Morgan a problem with unemployed, post- which is very low for the wealthy and One of Wales’s leading historians probation teachers, the Education disproportionately high for many low- “In a time of transition for Wales, politically, Secretary went into denial mode and earners and retired. The SNP's local the Institute of Welsh Affairs provides a accepted the questionable figures given income tax proposal would have been a vital forum for all sides to come together to her by her civil servants. Similarly much more progressive tax. However, over both strategically important and contentious issues. ” with class sizes and education cuts. The Holyrood does not have a sufficient Baroness Ilora Finlay of Department's approach to universities, range of powers to implement it Professor of Palliative Medicine, one of Scotland's success stories, has properly irrespective of whether there Cardiff University been one of pacification without vision. was a majority for the legislation. The work of the IWA depends on the support Linda Fabiani had similar problems In neither Transport nor the and contribution of individual members with the Arts portfolio. There was Environment has there been an across Wales and beyond who share our nothing wrong with the values she effective programme. Here the lack of determination to mobilise the nation’s human brought to the job but she has been coherence is not primarily about the and social resources in order to face the ineffective at cutting through the ability of ministers but rather about the challenges ahead. By bringing together partners in business, academia, and the public and bureaucracy. In contrast Kenny SNP's lack of a clear philosophical base voluntary sectors, the IWA is helping to shape McAskill at Justice has been an on these issues. Ministers take issue-by- economic, social, educational, environmental issue decisions. Some may be good and cultural policy across Wales. some bad, but they do not add up to an environmental vision. So we get I wish to become a member and enclose a cheque for £40. some good decisions on energy bolted onto a very traditional range of policies I wish to become a member and pay by credit/debit card on transport and development. the sum of £ Going back to Janus, the god who can look in opposite directions at the Account Number _ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ same time, does the evidence of the past two years suggest that the SNP is Expiry date _ _ /_ _ looking both left and right? It would be I wish to pay by Direct Debit fair to say that rather than two equal (This will help us keep our costs down) heads, the gaze is mainly to the left Please send me a Direct Debit application form. with the other head opening its eyes Please send me details about becoming only from time to time an IWA Fellow.

Justice Minister Kenny McAskill “bravely taking on a difficult reforming agenda.” Name: Title: Address: admirable minister, bravely taking on a difficult reforming agenda with Isobel Lindsay is a former sociology confidence and nerve. The contrast lecturer at the University of Strathclyde Post Code: could not be greater to the cynical, and was a leading figure in the SNP in Tel: Fax: tabloid-driven previous Labour ministers the 1960s and 1970s. This article E-mail: and their current spokesman. One hopes appears in the current issue of Scottish he continues to get the support he Left Review . Return to: Freepost INSTITUTE OF WELSH AFFAIRS Institute of Welsh Affairs, 4 Cathedral Road, Cardiff CF11 9LJ politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

Mi nist erial Logjam F rustrat es Econo mic Dynami sm Brian Morgan argues that if the economy is not improving by 2012 we will need to bring back the WDA

Economic development should be improve when we create the right Scotland it has gone from around £13 about raising the level of gross value conditions for private sector companies billion to £30 billion.) These figures added (GVA)in Wales. This does not to generate wealth and employment. refer to ‘devolved public expenditure’. mean that other objectives such as For this to happen the decision making In addition there is ‘non-devolved public reducing child poverty are not process inside the Assembly expenditure’, for example social security, important, but simply that they Government needs to improve and and ‘non-identifiable public expenditure’ would be much easier to achieve if become more focused on for example, defence. Taking into GVA were higher. The main problem competitiveness which depends on: account all these elements the ratio of facing Wales is that our GVA per public spending to GDP in Wales has head has now fallen to 74.5 per cent • Public and private investment in increased to around 55 per cent (it’s 50 of the UK average – the lowest in the human capital. per cent in Scotland and as low as 30 UK. The minimal objective for the • Improving physical infrastructure. per cent in the South East of England). over the next • Accessibility to markets. High and rising levels of public decade should be to take GVA back to • Productivity of the workforce. spending can ‘crowd-out’ private sector 80 per cent per head, the level it was • Institutional capacity - including investment and there are many at when the Assembly was created. effective support systems for SMEs. mechanisms whereby this occurs, • Innovation and research facilities. including high wage differentials in favour Devolution was supposed to lead of the public sector. Table 1 indicates to greater prioritisation of public The lack of economic performance is why ‘crowding out’ may well have expenditure which would produce a surprising given the huge growth in occurred in Wales. The top 10 per cent significant economic dividend. The public spending in Wales which has of earners in Wales earn more in the fact that this has not happened is an doubled from around £7 billion in public sector than in the private sector indictment of the government’s policy 1999 to £15 billion today. (Similarly in which puts pressure on SMEs wishing of creating ‘Clear Red Water’ between to expand and attract qualified staff. Wales and the rest of the UK. It To address these important issues Table 1: Public and private sector promised much, but has delivered the Assembly Government needs to wage differentials very little. focus on developing consistent long- Because of our low level of GVA we Weekly pay 2006 – Differential term policies to achieve long-term now need to prioritise actions to raise between the top 10% public sector economic goals. It must eschew prosperity levels across Wales. This jobs and top 10% in the private sector popular short term initiatives that means focusing expenditure on detract from these goals, such as free measures that will directly contribute to United Kingom -7.60% prescriptions and free car-parking at increasing ‘value added’ and improving South East -19.20% hospitals. the competitiveness of indigenous Scotland -5.80% Moreover, in addition to the headline firms. We need to improve our West Midlands -0.10% grabbing ‘free lunch’ initiatives, there transport infrastructure, increase South West 2.00% have also been some strange public business innovation, raise education expenditure patterns in Wales over the North West 3.30% levels and skills, and close key funding past decade compared with England and North East 4.40% gaps such as spending on Higher Scotland, as the Charts on the following Education compared with England. Wales 9.30% page, showing public spending per head Our economic position will only Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2006 in key policy areas, illustrate.

30 | www.iwa.org.uk The Treasury figures shown in In particular, the enterprise support The sheer size of the new Department the Charts indicate that the Assembly sector seems to have been reinvented of Economy and Transport, together Government seems to have under spent in Wales every few years. We first had with the large number of initiatives in areas such as Science, Technology Business Connect, then the Business being introduced, means that decision and Transport compared with Scotland Gateway, then Business Eye and now making is becoming long and drawn and England, but overspent in Flexible Support for Business (FS4B). out. They are slowed down by a control Economic Development. However, this These were initially sub-brands within the culture inside the government which latter expenditure - amounting to over Department of Enterprise, Innovation and focuses on compliance and risk aversion £800 million a year - seems to have Networks, now renamed the Department above everything else. This is the exact achieved few measurable outputs in of Economy and Transport. In the opposite of the entrepreneurial economy terms of GVA. Hence the implication meantime we managed to abolish the only – the ‘value adding’ economy – that is that most of this huge outlay on business development ‘brand’ anyone had Wales needs to create. Instead we have economic development has been largely ever heard of, the Welsh Development created a process driven system rather wasted on poorly structured projects like Agency. This is especially the case so far than one focused on outcomes. The Fibrespeed (see Box 1 ) and absorbed by as marketing Welsh business abroad is Department of Economy and Transport restructuring and administration costs. concerned (see Box 2 on page 32 ). Is is hardly the streamlined, flexible there any wonder the public are confused? department we were promised when the

Box 1: Fibrespeed data communications network

Typical of many Assembly Government projects, this has taken so long to come to fruition that improvements in technology have simply overtaken it. It was originally developed by the WDA and based in Cardiff with a critical connection to a large data security centre. When the Assembly Government took over the project it decided to base it in north Wales with no connection to a data centre. So the project - now years overdue - has simply provided high speed network connections in north Wales at huge cost. These connections can now be bought off the shelf for a tenth of the price.

WDA was absorbed into it. Indeed, the civil service in Wales has expanded from 2,500 employees to 6,500 in the last 10 years. With so little to show for expenditure on economic development it is timely to ask whether the merger of the WDA and Wales Tourist Board (WTB) into the Assembly Government has succeeded. It is well known that private sector mergers rarely produce real business benefits. Witness for example the merger between RBS and ABM Amro that brought down RBS. It is now clear that the cost/benefit ratio of the merger of the WDA and

Source: Treasure Public Expenditure Statistics summer 2009 | 31 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

WTB into the government has been training regime introduced for WDA the case of Wales this means a decline excessive. A huge amount of managerial and WTB business managers when from £1.7 billion to £1.0 billion by time was exhausted and the merger they were absorbed into the civil 2013-14. simply introduced yet another tier of service: they were ‘re-educated’ to get If by 2012 the trend in Welsh GVA bureaucracy – with internal government them to understand that the Minister is still on a downward path then the staff ‘overseeing’ the process of economic was now their main customer. WDA and the WTB will need to be development. What happened was that The current Assembly Government reinvented. They need not necessarily civil servants took over the top managerial structure is flawed because it labours be re-installed as public sector funded posts and ‘oversaw’ better qualified under the fiction that the Minister is quangos. They could be relaunched as specialists. And en route to all these always responsible for making every independent public private partnerships changes Wales lost the WDA brand. decision. Consequently, the centralised with strict targets for raising GVA and As the scale of bureaucracy has Department of Economic Development identifying economic priorities for the increased, the problems of delivery and Transport has created a logjam of Block Grant. and decision making have increased decisions. Each business support initiative It has to be accepted that by 2004 in tandem. Large, centrally controlled has taken at least twice as long as the old WDA had failed to move with organisations tend to lose their planned, while officials appear to have no the times and was not performing at full flexibility and inevitably become conception of the importance of making throttle especially in relation to the timely decisions. Until we address this knowledge economy. However, what was Box 2: IBW Ministerial logjam, and devolve decision needed was a change of personnel at the making to the right level of competency, top not a merger into the civil service. IBW (International Business Wales) then the dynamism of our economy will Economic development needs to sounds almost like a cricketing term continue to suffer. In the process Welsh be driven by an institution that is and is hardly a well known brand. GVA will nose dive towards 70 per cent detached from the civil service Indeed IBW is a sub brand within of the UK average. structure. It should be funded by the Department of Economic An open debate is needed on the government but tasked with the Development and Transport. The best way forward. The first priority objective of raising private finance. WDA in contrast was an umbrella should be to set performance targets in It needs to be managed by a public brand which covered every aspect of enterprise development. The terms of specific outputs for the Welsh sector / private sector board, but has to Assembly Government’s current economy over the next three years, have a strong private sector culture. strategy of promoting the sub brands concentrating expenditure on areas that Raising economic prosperity levels without the strength of the umbrella will raise value added. Why three years? in Wales will not solve all our problems is not working. Branding is a major Because in three years time, by 2012, but our aspirations for improving the problem area within the government. we will be at the beginning of the fourth health service, achieving educational Their brand strategy is confusing and term of the Assembly Government and excellence and other social objectives the constant name changes makes it the final tranche of European aid money will be much easier to achieve on the increasingly difficult for users to will have been spent. back of a competitive economy. That identify with their services. Current EU aid must not be used is why ensuring that devolution does to support the large and expanding eventually deliver an economic dividend detached from the local community bureaucracy in the Assembly is so important they are trying to serve. The WDA Government. Instead, it should be and the WTB at least allowed formal targeted on creating a better responsibilities for economic partnership with the private sector. development and tourism to be Similarly, the Government’s Strategic assigned more clearly. They also had Capital Investment Fund should be incentives in place for timely decision urgently focused on improving our making and their executives were infrastructure and should be tasked accountable if things went wrong. with leveraging in additional money Professor Brian Morgan is Director of Even more important, these through public private partnerships. the Creative Leadership and Enterprise organisations had a better relationship This is particularly important given the Centre at the Cardiff School of with the private sector and actually saw 2009 UK Budget which sees capital Management, UWIC. He was Chief private sector companies as their investment falling by 17 per cent per Economist at the Welsh Development customers. Contrast this with the new year over the next Spending Review. In Agency from 1991 to 1997.

32 | www.iwa.org.uk An eth ical Alte rnative to the Casino

Eco no my ‘We’re all part of the Mutual’ – tenants with Bron Afon Community Housing Association at Thornhill in .

Kevin Morgan and Jenny O’Hara high-risk investment banking – that is The new supermutual aims to provide an Jakeway say mutualism is an idea between utility banks, which deserve ethical alternative to conventional banks, whose time has come once more to be protected by the public purse, capitalising on the Co-op’s very successful and casino banks, which do not. strategy of offering value with values. Without such a safeguard there is The supermutual story highlights nothing to stop banks becoming ‘too the fact that mutualism, far from being “Over the last 18 months, and big to fail’ in the future, threatening a a cultural residue of a bygone age, is as with increasing intensity over repeat of the most morally repugnant relevant today as it was in the 1840s, the last six, the world’s financial part of the financial crisis, which saw when the Rochdale Pioneers laid the system has gone through its profits privatised and losses socialised. basis for the Co-op. Indeed, we would greatest crisis for at least half Another radical option that was argue that mutualism chimes with the a century, indeed arguably the canvassed - but never seriously modern zeitgeist, which favours greatest crisis in the history of considered – was mutualism , which products and services that have value, finance capitalism”. could have transformed the banks into integrity and provenance. servants of their communities rather than Mutualism assumes many forms Were these the apocalyptic words of a masters of the universe. While some and it constitutes a much bigger share Marxist sect? No, they were opening mutuals were damaged by the crisis – of social and economic activity than sentence of the Turner Review, witness the Dunfermline and West we may think – see Box 1 . published in March 2009, the official Bromwich Building Societies for example The ideals of mutualism resonate response to the global banking crisis. – the mutual sector weathered the storm deeply in Welsh politics, especially Although Lord Turner’s review much better than the banks, not least among Labour and Plaid politicians, was interpreted as a radical report – because their constitutions fostered who make much of the fact that Robert because of its rejection of ‘light touch’ prudence and tempered profligacy. Owen, the father of the co-operative regulation and the theory of efficient The crisis actually witnessed a movement, was born in and rational markets on which it was supermutual, when Co-operative Financial Montgomeryshire. However, there is a based - this was radicalism of the Services merged with Britannia, the great disconnect between this political conservative variety. For example, second largest building society, to form a culture, which extols the co-operative Turner recoiled from drawing a line new business with £70 billion of assets, 9 values of mutualism, and the economic between low-risk retail banking and million customers and over 300 branches. reality, where mutual enterprises are thin

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on the ground. provision of housing. Indeed, if they namely public procurement, training, After a decade of devolution, one deliver on their promise, these mutuals employment creation, social justice, might have expected to see a stronger will become de facto community environmental management and tenant mutual sector in Wales, given the regeneration agencies. In that event, empowerment. dominance of Labour and Plaid in the they will help to integrate the hitherto When their mission is understood National Assembly. The sector which separate silos of regeneration policy, in these broader, more ambitious terms, has the greatest potential to generate it is not too much to say that RCT new mutuals is social housing. With Box 1: Mutualism Defined Homes and Bron Afon are engaged in some five million people on the waiting as significant a social experiment as Mutual organisations come in many list for social housing in the UK, this anything going on in the UK today. shapes and sizes, exhibiting degrees of sector constitutes the biggest failure Securing the active involvement of mutuality. Some are mutually owned by of New Labour since 1997. professional people in mutual their members. Others exhibit a mutual Since 2001 the housing debate enterprises is one thing, to do so with ethos although they may not be owned in Wales has been dominated by the members that are among the most by members. Let’s start with ownership. Welsh Quality Housing Standard, socially deprived, and who can lack self- A mutual organisation is owned by its which aims to upgrade all social esteem, is a far more challenging task. members, who also have a say – usually a housing by 2012 as part of an As laboratories of mutualism, RCT vote – in the corporate governance of the investment programme worth some organisation, for example, by voting in Homes and Bron Afon are flying the £3 billion. Where local authorities elections for a board of directors. But flag for the mutual model in social cannot meet this standard through this does not define a mutual: many housing and community development. their own efforts, they are transferring shareholder owned companies would fit Although less than two years old, they their housing stock to registered social that description. The distinguishing feature have made an impressive start. landlords where tenants approve it. of a mutual is that the member-owners are Over and above the bread and Two of these transfer organisations more than investors. They usually have butter issues, like improving the physical – RCT Homes and Bron Afon in another relationship with the mutual either fabric of their housing stock, the Torfaen - have adopted the as consumers, producers or suppliers. The mutuals have spearheaded procurement Community Housing Mutual model, members create and own the organisation contracts that help contractors invest in the central features of which are: either to consume its services or to come local labour and local materials wherever • All tenants can be members, thereby together as joint-producers. A consumer- possible. Equally, important social collectively owning the assets of the mutual, for example, is owned by innovations have been introduced as organisation for the benefit of the members who are also consumers of the well. For example, the active community. services the organisation provides. involvement of members in the hiring of • The Mutual has an obligation to ensure Mutually owned building societies and contractors, after scrutinising the latter’s that tenants are empowered to be insurance companies fit into this category. sites in other parts of the country, must closely involved with the regeneration A producer-mutual, for example, is owned rank as one of the most innovative of their own communities. by its members who are also its employees examples of tenant empowerment • The Mutual is designed to evolve or suppliers. An employee-owned because it opens the procurement and adapt to the needs of tenants company fits this description, as do many process up to popular participation. and communities, for example by farm co-operatives, which pool and market However, of all the challenges supporting the development of the output of their member farms. facing the new mutuals the most community based tenant management In practice, however, ownership is just difficult will be to convert more tenants organisations to manage homes at one, albeit critical, aspect of mutuality. into active members. This might be local level and possibly act as a Many organisations adhere to mutual more of a problem for RCT Homes vehicle for regeneration. principles in the way they are run, without because of a combination of geography, • The organisation’s management is being mutually owned. Charities, trusts scale and management culture. based on the democratic principles and clubs, for example, which have no Covering three valleys and nearly of the mutual/cooperative sector. owners, can adhere to mutual principles 11,000 properties, the sheer size of by allowing volunteers or members a vote RCT Homes might intimidate potential in elections for office holders and by Although RCT Homes and Bron Afon members, underlining the need for involving volunteers in production. are called registered social landlords, local neighbourhood structures to they are engaged in something much encourage higher tenant involvement. Charles Leadbeater and Ian Christie: To Our larger, and more ambitious than the Currently, RCT Homes has just Mutual Advantage (Demos, 1999)

34 | www.iwa.org.uk Bron Afon survey found that 83 per cent of tenants were satisfied with their home and 89 per cent said that the attitude of staff was very good. Having inherited large swathes of land, Bron Afon now plans to create community allotments and gardens, proving that poor areas can be part of the renaissance of urban agriculture. As for the management culture, the most encouraging sign comes from a tenant board member, Wendy Hughes, who said “You can’t tell who are tenants and who are staff”. This suggests that Bron Afon is more embedded in and attuned to its local community than RCT Homes. But A tenant being surveyed at the Thornhill estate in Cwmbran by these are early days and one hopes a Bron Afon Community Housing Association representative. that the mutuals will learn from each other’s mistakes and achievements. Social housing has the greatest potential for spawning new community mutuals because of the unique combination of human need on the one hand and large scale investment on the other. But many other sectors could and should be identified for a more concerted programme of mutualisation, a programme that could generate new models of business and community development in Wales. Think of the sectors that resonate most deeply in our everyday lives – care, food, housing and transport for example. These are the sectors where mutuals could draw on intangible assets that elude the biggest multinational companies, assets like local knowledge

A Bron Afon kitchen refurbishment scheme underway. and community trust. However, they will need more concerted political help 1,100 members, so it has a big otherwise it will alienate the very people to get started. At the same time, conversion challenge ahead of it. But whose trust it needs if it is to succeed nothing succeeds like success. In management culture sets the overall tone as a community mutual. and Torfaen, of the organisation, and this is far more Although it has a smaller housing two small enterprises are carrying big important than either geography or stock than RCT Homes, Bron Afon burdens which is why all eyes are on scale. The biggest management has a larger membership base, which their newly formed mutuals controversy within RCT Homes has currently stands at 1,300 members. revolved around executive salaries, and Bron Afon’s higher membership reflects Kevin Morgan is Professor of the handling of this issue left much to the emphasis its management team has Governance and Development in the be desired. RCT Homes operates in one placed on engaging the community School of City and Regional Planning, of the poorest areas of the European through face-to-face communication, a Cardiff University. Jenny O’Hara Union and its senior management needs strategy that has already embraced 96 Jakeway is a Communities First to be more sensitive to its social context, per cent of all tenants. The most recent Co-ordinator in .

summer 2009 | 35 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture Welsh Tax P owers under the Mi croscope Gerald Holtham sets out the debate over funding the National Assembly and the Scottish Parliament

Lord Barnett, the man credited with • Look at the pros and cons of the to our next report on fiscal powers this developing the system of block grants present formula-based approach to Autumn. Calman proposes a significant that funds Wales, Scotland and the distribution of public expenditure amount of additional devolution of Northern Ireland, once admitted that resources to the Welsh Assembly powers over tax to Scotland. His key it was not intended to last “a year, or Government. recommendation is that the current power even twenty minutes.” It has in fact • Identify possible alternative funding to vary the basic rate of income tax by been in place in Wales for almost 30 mechanisms including the scope for three pence in the pound should be years. However, after a decade of the Welsh Assembly Government to replaced by a new Scottish rate of income political devolution, extensive have tax varying powers as well as tax, applying to both the basic and higher changes to the system of financing greater powers to borrow. rates of income tax. the devolved administrations are Under Calman's proposals, the now under serious examination. We were asked to first consider the case basic and higher income tax rates for reforming the Barnett formula, before levied by the UK Government in The Assembly Government has turning to the case for devolution of tax Scotland would be reduced by 10 established an Independent Commission and borrowing powers in a later report. pence in the pound and the block grant on Funding and Finance. In Scotland, We have recently published our from the UK to the Scottish Parliament the Calman Commission has recently recommendations on the reform of would be reduced accordingly. It would published a set of recommendations Barnett, recommending a UK-wide then be a matter for Scotland to decide that would greatly strengthen the fiscal powers of the Scottish Parliament. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government is pursuing a ‘National Conversation’ with its citizens and has set out a series of options for reform, with full fiscal autonomy for an independent Scotland its preferred approach. In addition, a House of Lords Select Committee is examining the Barnett formula and is due to report in the near future. At present, funding for the Welsh Assembly Government comes from the The Holtham Commission: from left to right, Professor David Miles, a managing director and chief UK UK Government in the form of an annua l economist at Morgan Stanley and a member of the Bank of England’s Monetry Policy Commitee; Gerald block grant, with changes to the grant Holtham, a hedge fund manager, former Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, and an IWA trustee; and Paul Bernd Spahn, an Emeritus Professor at the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, determined by the Barnett Formula. The who has advised the Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina. devolved administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland are also reliant on a grant process to reform the way that block grants whether to set a ‘Scottish rate’ that from the UK Government, though are determined and suggesting shorter-term would simply recreate the status quo, Scotland also has (as yet unused) powers amendments to the Barnett formula and, or alternatively to set a rate that was to vary income tax and the Northern in particular, the way it operates. higher or lower than 10 pence, with Ireland Executive has some enhanced The work of the Calman Commission its budget affected accordingly. borrowing powers. The terms of in Scotland will no doubt frame the In addition, Calman recommends reference for the Independent debate about fiscal devolution in Wales that powers over four smaller taxes Commission that I chair are to: and so provides an important backdrop (stamp duty land tax, the aggregates

36 | www.iwa.org.uk levy, the landfill tax, and air passenger economic and social circumstances of the possibility of change in the fiscal duty) should also be devolved to Wales and Scotland differ and what is relationship between Wales and the UK. Scotland, with offsetting reductions in appropriate for one country need not be It is important that any proposals for the size of the Scottish block grant. appropriate for the other. On the other change be considered carefully against These tax powers, coupled with a hand, different outcomes in different principles such as efficiency, equity and recommendation that Scotland should parts of the UK should be the result of accountability. Changes should not lead be able to borrow from the Treasury to considering their different circumstances to displacement of economic activity fund capital investment and a proposal in the light of a common set of simply to avoid tax and any system must that the size of the block grant element principles. There is no reason to assume be capable of efficient administration of funding for the devolved that Wales should always have less while maximising accountability to the administrations should ultimately be discretion or autonomy than Scotland. taxpayers. This consideration is the next determined by relative needs, would, if This is a matter ultimately for the Welsh task facing the Independent Commission. implemented, represent a radical shift public through the political process. We earnestly welcome and invite in the fiscal arrangements of the UK. The Calman report has received input, responses and reactions from For example, Calman's proposals a broadly favourable reception in everyone in Wales, expert and non- would mean that over one third of Westminster, with the Prime Minister expert alike, that will help us to clarify devolved current Scottish spending would calling the recommendations on fiscal the judgments that Welsh politicians be funded by taxes decided and raised in matters “imaginative and bold”. The must soon make Scotland (including council tax and non- Secretary of State for Wales has domestic rates). If such measures were suggested that there may be an eventually adopted in Wales, it is likely opportunity for Wales to acquire some that a similar proportion of devolved of the fiscal powers that Calman Gerald Holtham is Chair of the Welsh spending would be funded from recommends passing to Scotland, should Independent Commission for Funding Welsh taxes while the rest would still be the Assembly Government request them. and Finance for Wales. Information on from a block grant. It is clear therefore that, should the the call for evidence can be found at: Of course, the political, constitutional, people of Wales want it, there is now www.walesfundingreview.org politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

Welsh Budget Squeeze

Eurfyl ap Gwilym explains how Wales has lost out in public spending over the last decade

Growth in Welsh public spending The Treasury’s figures are • Spending by local authorities raised over the last ten years has lagged summarised in Table 1 . This shows that from council tax. behind England to such an extent growth in identifiable public expenditure • Elements of annual managed that Wales has lost out by nearly in Wales has lagged behind both expenditure - covering items which are 4.5 billion. Statistics published by the England and Scotland since 1999-00. not controlled by annual limits such as Treasury reveal that had spending per If growth in Wales had been the same demand-led spending on social security. head in Wales grown at the same rate as in England then it would have been as in England since 1999 Wales would £743 million higher in 2008-09. During the period 1993-94 to 1997-8 have received an additional £4,530 Identifiable public expenditure includes: the real growth per capita in Wales of million over the last nine years. This 11.3 per cent was virtually identical to was after allowing for the £763m of • Spending by the Welsh Assembly that in England of 11.2 per cent. The EU funding of Objective 1 which was Government related to the block grant. figures in Table 1 , showing identifiable over and above the Barnett- • Direct spending in Wales by UK spending per head from 1999-09, determined changes to the block Government departments - dominated coincide with the first decade of the grant between 2001-02 and 2007-08. by spending on social security. National Assembly. What they reveal is

Table 1: Growth in identifiable public spending per head in England, Scotland and Wales 1999-00 to 2008-09

England Scotland Wales £ % £ % £ % £ Shortfall compared Growth Growth Growth with England 1999-00 4391 - 5377 - 5184 - -

2000-01 4649 5.9 5692 5.9 5513 6.4 -63m

2001-02 5080 15.6 6308 17.3 5900 13.8 351m 2002-03 5522 25.8 6696 24.5 6515 25.7 53m 2003-04 6018 37.1 7277 35.3 7040 35.8 303m 2004-05 6433 46.5 7567 40.7 7340 41.6 633m 2005-06 6795 54.7 8203 52.6 7800 50.5 756m 2006-07 7054 60.6 8575 59.5 8147 57.2 794m 2007-08 7426 69.1 9032 68.0 8493 63.8 960m 2008-09 7971 81.5 9538 77.4 9162 76.7 743m

Note: the percentage growth figures are compared with the base year of 1999-00. Source: Treasury’s annual Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) published on 19 June 2009. The figures for 2008-09 are estimates and will not be finalised until May 2010.

38 | www.iwa.org.uk Panel 1: Possible reasons for lower spending per head in Wales compared with England

Non-Barnett funding funding from the Assembly Examples here include spending by 1. Identifiable expenditure in Wales by Government which in turn is the UK research councils which has UK government departments may dependent on the Barnett determined a combined provision of £4 billion have grown more slowly compared block grant - means that this cannot in 2007-08. However, it would imply with England. Given that such explain the material difference in that the position of Wales has expenditure, £9.157 million in 2007- growth in identifiable expenditure deteriorated severely in relative terms 08, is dominated by social protection between England and Wales during since 1999-00 and this cannot and that this has decreased in the period under review. account for most of the difference relative terms from 118 per cent to noted in this analysis. 116 per cent of the England average this factor can account for Funding determined by the 6. The convergence effect of the approximately £150 million of the Barnett formula Barnett formula has indeed reduced estimated shortfall of £960 million 4. There has been disproportionate relative expenditure in the case of in 2007-08. growth in identifiable expenditure on Wales (but not apparently in those spending programmes that have Scotland). An estimate of the 2. Annual Managed Expenditure (AME) a comparability factor of 0 per cent convergence effect may be made covers items which are not controlled and where the expenditure is clearly by noting that identifiable public by annual limits. The biggest single located in England. In this case expenditure on devolved services is item is demand led spending on social spending is deemed by the Treasury approximately 108 per cent of the security. With the exception of social to be for the benefit of the UK as a UK average. Given that for most of security (see 1) AME may have whole but takes place in England. the period under review nominal grown more slowly in Wales compared Examples of such expenditure are the annual growth in expenditure on with England. This expenditure is Channel Tunnel Rail Link (provision devolved services in Wales was approximately £560m per year and of £154 million in 2007-08), London approximately 8.5 per cent, the has remained fairly stable for the and Continental Railways (£398 Barnett squeeze would be period under review. Changes in it are million in 2007-08) and the Olympic approximately 0.6 per cent per year too small to account for the material Games. As has been noted by the which would lead to a cumulative difference in relative growth Calman Commission, which is squeeze between 1999-00 and 2006- in expenditure noted in this analysis. reviewing the Scottish Parliament’s 07 of 4.3 per cent and a loss of fiscal process, allocation of £560 million in 2006-07 and £800 3. Expenditure by local authorities in comparability factors by the Treasury million by 2008-09. This is a Wales funded from their own sources is often ‘arbitrary’. plausible explanation for the relative (council tax) may have grown at a squeeze but does not account for much lower rate than corresponding 5. Wales has failed to gain its population the lack of convergence in Scotland expenditure in England. The scale share of UK expenditure that has a (as shown in Table 1 ). of local authority expenditure from comparability factor of 0 per cent but its own sources – as distinct from is not geographically specific.

the new spending patterns that emerged even after the needs assessment in established in 1978 to determine the way following 1997-8 when the incoming 1976-7 no adjustment was made to extra UK spending is allocated between UK Labour Government resolved to the prevailing spending levels to reflect England, Scotland, Northern Ireland apply the Barnett Formula with rigour. the outcome of that study which and Wales - was designed to reduce Given that no needs assessment has indicated that relative to England,Wales differential levels of spending per head been published by the Treasury since was being under funded whilst Scotland between each of the countries. 1976-7 it is not possible to determine was being over funded. The Treasury Historically, spending per head has been whether or not the relative levels of has not published the outcome of any higher in Wales, Scotland and Northern identifiable public expenditure per subsequent needs assessment Ireland compared with England. capita in England, Scotland and Wales undertaken over the last thirty years. This levelling process is known as in 1999-00 were appropriate. Indeed The Barnett formula - first the ‘Barnett Squeeze’ and has the effect

summer 2009 | 39 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

of reducing relative public spending per There are six possible reasons for replacement by a more transparent, head in Wales, bringing it closer to the the smaller increases in identifiable needs related formula. UK average. In practice the squeeze expenditure per head in Wales compared A clear conclusion to be drawn was not applied during the first 20 with England listed in Panel 1 on the from the Treasury’s expenditure reports years of the Formula’s operation, to previous page. They are not mutually is that growth in public expenditure in exclusive: the first three are not a Wales has lagged materially behind In practice the function of the Barnett formula; the comparable growth in England and in second three are. Scotland since the establishment of the squeeze was Detailed analysis might quantify National Assembly in 1999. It is not the effect of reasons 4 and 5 but these clear that any serious attempt has been not applied factors cannot account for most of the made to redress this shortfall. Given during the first shortfall. The factor most probably that the Chancellor of the Exchequer having a material impact on the relatively has stated in the April 2009 UK 20 years of the slower growth of identifiable public Budget that there will a strong squeeze Formula’s expenditure in Wales is the convergence on public expenditure across the whole effect of the Barnett formula. The of the UK from 2011-12 onwards, operation. difficulty in confirming that this is indeed Wales is likely to experience a further the case is a demonstration of the lack squeeze on spending of transparency of the Barnett formula. It is to be hoped that the current reviews of the formula being undertaken by the 1998-99. However, in the last ten years House of Lords Select Committee and Eurfyl ap Gwilym sits on the boards the squeeze has tightened its grip, the Welsh Assembly Government’s of a number of public companies and especially in Wales. Holtham Commission will lead to its is a Plaid Cymru finance adviser. For Whom the Bridge To lls Nick Morris investigates obstacles to removing charges on crossing the Severn Bridge

This year has already provided The first Severn crossing was and operation of the existing Severn timely reminders of the opened in September 1966. Under bridge. The Act said the concession importance of the Severn bridges the Severn Bridge Tolls Act 1965 the period would run for a maximum of 30 to the economy of south Wales. Secretary of State for Transport was years from April 26, 1992, or until the In early February the second given powers to levy tolls for 40 years. concessionaire’s cumulative revenue crossing was closed because of ice Over subsequent decades a number reached £976,837,740 (at July 1989 sheets falling on cars during a of problems arose: prices). This was later amended to spell of cold weather. The closure £995,830,000 (also at 1989 prices). caused disruption and drivers • Between 1980 and 1990 traffic flows This followed a European Court of had to detour through increased by 63 per cent, calling into Justice ruling that from February 2003 Gloucestershire and Chepstow, question the bridge’s capacity. Value Added Tax should be applied to exposing an important weakness • There were congestion problems tolls levied on the bridges. Following a in the road infrastructure around in the summer and at peak times. UK Government move to take some the River Severn. • High winds and traffic incidents also £150m from the amount of VAT made the first bridge liable to delays collected the projected end date for In January tolls for the bridge rose again, and temporary closure. the agreement will have altered. by 10p to £5.40. Although below the The National Audit Office estimates inflation rate the hike prompted renewed In 1986 the UK Government decided that the concession agreement will come calls to remove the tolls altogether. The to build a second bridge and carried to an end around 2016. However, the Federation of Small Businesses has out feasibility studies between 1987 and then UK Minister of State for commissioned ’s 1990. Following a tender process Transport, Lord Adonis revealed that Business School to research the impact a consortium, called Severn River the UK Government’s temporary VAT of the tolls on small businesses in key Crossing plc, was announced as the cut to 15 per cent would not apply to sectors along the M4 corridor, from ‘concessionaire’ of the project in 1990. tolls claimed by Severn River Crossings. south east to south west Wales and The Severn Bridges Act 1992 He said the company would keep the around the greater Bristol area. The repealed the 1965 Act. The new Act money, which was estimated at research will assess the impact on a specified that the concessionaire would £128,000 for December 2008. sample of small businesses in various be responsible for the design, building Toll charges on the Severn bridges sectors, including manufacturing, and financing of the second bridge, and have been long subject to debate. In construction, motors, wholesale and retail. would also take-over the maintenance November 2006 the former Welsh

summer 2009 | 41 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

Liberal Democrat leader, Mike German dehumidifier system on the suspension Severn bridges. The question is whether AM, declared: cables was completed in April 2008. removal of the bridge tolls alone would Because the problems were classed as have a significant economic impact. “The Severn Bridges Act is an ass. ‘latent defects’, according to the Severn Increased traffic that might result Every year it forces the tolls up Bridges Act 1992, this meant the from the bridge toll removal could regardless of need, or whether people's Department for Transport had to meet be a problem. In relation to Scotland incomes have risen. The same act also the costs. As a result of this work Professor Alan McKinnon of Heriot- stops us using credit cards to pay this budget expenditure for repairs and Watt University told the Scottish ever rising tax on entering Wales.” structural maintenance rose from Parliament’s transport committee: £0.682m in 2005-2006 to £3.749m in Devolution has not transferred 2006-2007. Heavy goods vehicles have “On the benefit side freight operators responsibility over the levying of the been restricted to one lane on both would make a very small financial tolls from the UK Department for sides of the motorway over the older saving but on the disbenefit side they Transport. The official UK Government bridge since November 2006, following could be adversely affected by the position appears to be to wait for the discovery of the corrosion. traffic congestion that would be end of the concession period before FSB Wales has made comparisons caused. I take a less sanguine view of publicly considering the next move. In with bridge tolls in Scotland in its calls the effects of the abolition of the tolls May 2008 in answer to a question about for the removal of the tolls. The Scottish on the freight industry. Many freight the effect of the toll charges on tourism Government removed tolls on the Skye operators these days want flexibility in in Wales Huw Irranca-Davies MP, the and Erskine bridges in December 2004 their logistics—they want to be able Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the and May 2006. In February 2008 tolls to operate their trucks at any given Wales Office, announced that a review were removed from the Forth and Tay time. Increasingly, they must make was under way into “toll charges on the bridges, following a vote in the Scottish on-time deliveries at factories, Severn bridge” and would report later Parliament. The decision followed a warehouses and shops, so it is a bit that year. A working group had study by transport infrastructure complacent to say that most freight previously established that, in principle, consultants Steer Davies Gleave which vehicles will travel in the inter-peak it would be feasible to accept credit and examined the impacts of retaining or periods and therefore will not be debit cards as a method of toll payment removing tolls on traffic flows and how adversely affected by the congestion.” at the Severn crossings. However, it said changes in traffic flows would affect the that a number of detailed operational, Scottish economy and the communities An important lesson from Scotland was technical, financial and contractual in Fife and Dundee, as well as the the openness of the consideration of issues needed to be considered. environment. The study also examined the options for tolling bridges. The Meeting the costs of running and whether the financial cost of travelling Scottish Government commissioned maintaining the Severn bridges could over the bridges led to changes in route an independent analysis into the prove to be a considerable task for the planning by cars and other vehicles and implications of removing the tolls, as UK Government when the bridges in traffic generation or suppression. well as initiating a public consultation transfer into its ownership around The study predicted an extension of by a Scottish parliamentary committee. 2016. Tolls on the Severn bridges peak congestion that would arise from In Wales we have yet to make such currently go towards their maintenance. a possible increase in leisure travel, a detailed analysis but FSB Wales’s The Forth and Tay bridges provided bringing increased traffic emissions and forthcoming study by Aberystwyth more than £11.8m and £3.5m noise pollution. In the case of the Forth University will provide an insight of respectively in 2006, which the Scottish Road Bridge the study concluded that the effect of tolls on a number of small Government thought it could afford the bridge tolls were not influencing businesses. Unfortunately for Wales when making toll cessation proposals travel decisions made by freight or the ultimate decision will lie with the to the Scottish Parliament. As a business users. Secretary of State for Transport, who comparison, in the same year the Of course, comparisons should be will be under no obligations to listen Severn bridges collected £72m in tolls. made with care. The Severn bridge toll to the advice of the UK Parliament, Operational and technical issues is more expensive than those that were let alone the National Assembly have emerged more recently, in place in Scotland. However, journey particularly for the older bridge, which times, the cost of fuel, maintaining has been suffering from corrosion in its vehicles and paying wages are also Nick Morris is Research Officer suspension cables. The installation of a considerations for businesses using the of the IWA.

42 | www.iwa.org.uk politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture Making Wales aWor ld Nation Elin Royles explores the Assembly Government’s approach to paradiplomacy

The Welsh Assembly Government’s overseas. In total, the government has governance and culture. international engagement beyond its more than 200 staff located Involved are the Government’s role within the European Union is internationally. Activity covers a range Technology and Innovation Division, amongst its most under-reported of policy areas, including a number of Planning Department, external agencies activities. An exception was the presence departments, government agencies and such as Countryside Council for Wales, of Wales at the Smithsonian exhibition external partners and stakeholders. Forestry Commission Wales, three Welsh in Washington at the end of June and Wales’ connections with Chongqing, universities, National Museum Wales the accompanying trade mission led a large municipality in the western and the Wales Millennium Centre. At a by First Minister Rhodri Morgan. region of China, is the most active UK-level, the British Council manages This was an indication that the and potentially the most significant an Assembly Government-funded government’s ‘paradiplomacy’ outside relationship being developed. It initially schools project. In addition two Welsh the EU is potentially a significant form of international involvement.

As shown in the accompanying table, the Welsh Assembly Government has extended the practice of forming bilateral relationships. Most of these were formed as a result of hundreds of visits and delegations to Wales since 1999 when regional-level and state-level governments alike rushed to approach the ‘youngest democracy’ in Europe. Relations go beyond other regional governments to include nation-states such as Cuba and Latvia. This limited number of formalised relationships The Smithsonian exhibition in on the grounds in front of the highlights how the Assembly White House in Washington that featured Wales at the end of June. Government has attempted to be selective. In 2006 it took a strategic developed from Premier Wen Jiabao’s Affairs Officers were appointed approach in adopting seven priority visit to Wales (as Vice Premier to the British Consulate General in countries to make partmerships with - responsible for the Western Provinces) Chongqing during 2006-2007. Australia, India, Japan, China, France, in 2000. The relationship now spans Investing in the ‘Wales for Africa’ Germany and the USA. economic and trade development, framework, the government’s first International Business Wales has science and technology, education, the significant international development established 17 overseas offices in addition environment, agriculture / forestry policy initiative, reflects genuine to other European and External Affairs management, tourism, urban planning, willingness to support international Division and Visit Wales representations youth work exchange, health, development. It was a result of political

44 | www.iwa.org.uk commitment combined with external pressure from international development non-governmental organisations to take on the agenda. The framework is also a clear example of testing the boundaries of the Assembly’s limited powers. As international development was a reserved matter, there was an initial sense of caution. There was a constitutional question of the Assembly’s capacity to act within the limits of the Government

First Minister Rhodri Morgan visits the Smithsonian of Wales Act 1998. As a result the concept of ‘mutual benefit’, iinitiatives Welsh Office and Welsh Assembly Government formal bilateral relationships being being beneficial both to Wales and to the developing world, became crucial Welsh Office era in justifying activities associated with the March 1990 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed with framework. Extensive discussions were Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany held with the Department of October 1991 MOU signed with Catalonia, Spain International Development and Treasury 1992 MOU signed with Ontario, Canada lawyers in agreeing the legal basis for 1992 Informal agreement developed with Oita, Japan the Assembly Gopvernment’s activity. February 1994 MOU signed with Lombardy, Italy Constraints in both powers and resources mean that the Assembly 1995 MOU signed with New South Wales, Australia Government has an interest in creating Post-devolution close and good working relations with 2000 Reaffirm commitment to MOU signed with New South Wales, a UK government departments. For particular emphasis on education, science, technology and the arts instance, International Business Wales’s April 2001 New MOU signed with Catalonia, by Rhodri Morgan and Jordi Pujol relations with UK Trade and June 2001 ‘Joint declaration of co-operation’ signed between First Minister, Investment are central to the operational Rhodri Morgan and the Governor of Chubut, Patagonia. Emphasis effectiveness of Welsh investment and on collaboration to promote the Welsh language in the areas of trade promotion activities. tourism, heritage, economic development and export promotion The three broad aims of international Early 2002 MOU with Cuba based on building cooperation between higher initiatives are promoting trade and education institutions investment, supporting cultural and language development, and locating October 2002 MOU signed with Silesia, Poland Wales amongst the regions and nation- January 2004 MOU signed with Brittany. Further development of an Action Plan states of the world. Judging their overall in June 2006 impact is extremely difficult. There can May 2004 MOU signed with Latvia aimed at reinforcing economic, social and be no doubt, however, that taken together cultural co-operation between both countries they provide a crucial underpinning of March 2006 MOU signed with Chongqing Municipal Government, China. Wales’s image in the world and, in turn, Another three MOUs signed in 2007: economic development, having that image reflected back. trade and investment: IBW and COFTEC; Forestry Commission in The next decade of devolution with Wales and in Chongqing, Environmental Agency Wales and in its potential turbulence of different Chongqing counterpart parties in government in the Assembly January 2007 Second MOU signed with Cuba emphasising ‘continuing and in Westminster will provide a real institutional and inter-departmental links between higher education test for the opportunities and constraints institutions’ of establishing Wales as a world nation March 2008 Formal Co-operation Agreement signed with Chongqing, China replacing the Memorandum of Understanding. Committing to cooperation in science and technology, culture, health, education, Elin Royles is a lecturer in International agriculture, economic development, forestry management, Politics at Aberystwyth University. environment, governance, tourism and land use planning

summer 2009 | 45 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

In Place of Fear

Richard Bowen argues we should think creatively about placing Wales at the heart of the international search for peace and security

As Wales gradually gains greater Security Strategy of the United many of the UN action areas, even those autonomy, it becomes increasingly Kingdom . This recognises three factors that first appear purely societal, can important to consider its as “the biggest potential drivers of benefit from technologies available in international role and status. Small the breakdown of the rules-based Wales. For example, provision for nations can be particularly effective international system and the re- effective distribution of information can as promoters of peace, for they can emergence of major inter-state conflict, foster participatory democracy, and be seen as having no interest in as well as increasing regional tensions drilling convenient wells can promote international conflicts other than to and instability.” They are (i) climate gender equality as women are freed contribute to a peaceful resolution. change, (ii) competition for energy from the often onerous task of collecting and, (iii) water stress. water from a remote source. At the highest international levels it is It is noteworthy that Wales has the Much of the basis of recent analyses recognised that the absence of conflict intellectual and industrial resources to of the origins and resolution of conflict is a necessary but not sufficient play a major role in resolving all of was noted with great prescience by condition for peace. Peace is additionally these root causes of threats to peace, Aneurin Bevan in his 1952 political characterised by relationships between for example: testament In Place of Fear . He was individuals, and social groupings of all writing at the time when world military sizes, based on honesty, fairness, • Development of renewable energy expenditure began its steep rise to the openness and goodwill. This has led to sources can reduce the impact of present enormous levels, estimated to the United Nations launching, through climate change. be US $1464 billion in 2008. General Assembly resolutions in 1999 • Improved extraction efficiency Bevan noted how the ease of and 2006, a major initiative for the and recycling can reduce resource framing military “solutions” can lead promotion of a Culture of Peace . competition. to precipitate action. He also noted the This identified eight action areas: • Provision of essential needs such as tendency and reasons for military experts fostering a culture of peace through clean water and pharmaceuticals always to advise a level of defence education; promoting sustainable can contribute to diminishing expenditure larger than they know their economic and social development; marginalisation. government is prepared to concede. promoting respect for human rights; However, in searching for a better ensuring equality between men and All these require the types of engineering approach, he observed that as “the women; fostering democratic at which Wales is strong. In addition, peoples of the world are linked together participation; advancing understanding, tolerance and solidarity; supporting participatory communication and the “Bevan noted how the ease of free flow of information and knowledge; and promoting international framing military “solutions” peace and security. can lead to precipitate action.” UK government strategy on security was for the first time clarified in a single document in 2008, The National

46 | www.iwa.org.uk Become a Fellow and support our work. “I appreciate the immense contribution that the Institute has made and is making to the life of Wales. We would be much poorer without it. ” IWA Fellow, Labour Peer Lord Gwilym Prys Davies “I am an admirer of the quality of the work produced by the IWA. Its research and publications are of inestimable value to Wales and its people. ” IWA Fellow, Liberal Democrat Peer, Lord Livesey of Talgarth “The IWA fulfils a vital role in Welsh civic society. If it were not there it would have to be invented. ” IWA Fellow, Rt. Hon. Honorary President, Plaid Cymru “As someone who has been involved all of my professional career in thinktanks, research bodies and policy units, I would like to pay tribute to the way in which the IWA has clearly established itself as a leading forum for debate in Welsh political life. ” IWA Fellow, Conservative Peer Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach Fellows of the IWA are able, if they so wish, to become involved in shaping the work programmes of the IWA. In addition Fellows will: Vicky’s portrait of Aneurin Bevan, first published in Michael Foot’s 1973 • Receive special recognition in the IWA’s regular biography (the second volume, 1945-1960). Victor Weisz (1913-1966) was journal Agenda (unless they have a German British political cartoonist who worked for the News Chronicle , chosen to give their support anonymously). Mirror and Evening Standard . He signed his work ‘Vicky’. • Be invited to special Fellows events each year. • Have access to the IWA for policy advice in an endless variety of reciprocal of 140 countries on the 2008 Global and briefing. activities, then the condition of each Peace Index , whereas the UK ranks 49 th We ask that Fellows subscribe a minimum annual th one of us, becomes the concern of all (and the USA 97 ). payment of £200 to the Fellows Fund. Life fellowship of us”. His proposals for promoting At first sight it might appear that will be bestowed for a single payment of £1,000. peace included social amelioration to the Welsh Assembly Government neither These donations will qualify under GiftAid. remove capricious inequalities, UN led has nor needs a strategy to promote I wish to become a Fellow/Life Fellow cooperation in world development to international security, the main and enclose a cheque for £200/£1000. replace arms expenditure, and responsibility for which lies with the I wish to become a Fellow/Life Fellow conservation of resources to help London Government. However, a and pay by credit/debit card the sum of promote their equitable distribution. moment's reflection will show that many £ In finding a Welsh response to of the Assembly Government's policies Acct No. _ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ these challenges a country such as and actions have security implications. Expiry date _ _ /_ _ Norway could serve as a model. Wales has the intellectual and industrial I wish to pay by Direct Debit Norway is home of the Nobel Peace capabilities to promote peace by (This will help us keep our costs down) Prize, a successful mediator in many contributing to the resolution of the root Please send me a Direct Debit application form. armed conflicts, and the initiator of causes of conflict in ways that provide Please send me details about becoming an IWA Fellow. the campaign leading to international new economic opportunities in a more prohibition of cluster munitions. stable and inclusive society Following the Norwegian path could Name: Title: also bring direct benefits to the people of Professor Richard Bowen is a Fellow Address: Wales. Countries with low involvement of the Royal Academy of Engineering. in international militarisation and conflict His book Engineering ethics: outline of Post Code: tend to have high levels of societal safety an aspirational approach was recently Tel: Fax: rd and security. Thus, Norway ranks 3 out published by Springer-Verlag London. E-mail:

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Cub a’s Green Food Revolution

View of an organoponico in the outskirts of Havana

Steve Garrett reports on of what could be achieved has been set spaces, a climate in which plants grow Havana’s experimentation by Cuba. So it was noteworthy that in quickly and a population with an Spring 2008 Plaid’s Carmarthen MP apparent resilience and determination with urban agriculture Adam Price led a delegation to Cuba in to survive in the face of adversity. Food part to assess the impact it has made. production developed quickly, and over Concern about the rising price Later in the year I made a separate visit the past fifteen years much knowledge of food, as well as an increased to understand the Cuban ‘green and experience has been gained - to awareness of the environmental revolution’ in urban farming which has the extent that Cuba is now recognised impacts of conventional agriculture, largely taken place in the capital Havana. as a world leader in urban agriculture. have led to a new interest in the role With the collapse of the Soviet An abiding impression of Havana urban agriculture can play in creating Union in 1989, Cuba suddenly lost its is as a place of stark contradictions. more sustainable food chains in main trading partner, and in particular This is something of a cliché, but in Wales. In Middlesbrough, Bradford, its main source of oil and oil-based this case an inescapable one. In a London and other centres there are products. This had a particular impact country whose government expresses inspiring examples of urban-based on agriculture, due to its use of oil- a fundamental commitment to public food growing projects which have based fertilisers and insecticides, health, I was surprised how many parts demonstrated that significant levels alongside fuel needs for tractors and of the old city were poorly maintained, of production can be achieved, while transportation. Faced with the risk of with piles of festering rubbish and at the same time delivering a range widespread food shortages, especially pools of noxious-smelling liquids, of social and environmental benefits. in the cities, the Cuban government poorly insulated electrical wires easily quickly instigated a programme of within reach of children, and smoke In Wales the Welsh Assembly small-scale intensive food production belching out from ancient American Government is taking the first steps in in every kind of available urban space, cars, some of which sound as if they looking at the potential role of localised with some astonishing results. are powered by soviet tractor engines. food chains. In their 2007 Assembly It could be argued that Cuba was All of this would seem to present election manifesto Plaid Cymru in a unique position to achieve this a significant threat to the health of the proposed that 10 per cent of all public kind of rapid transition, due to having city’s citizens (especially its children). land be made available for food growing. a one-party state-controlled economy, However, it can be safely assumed that Over the past 20 years an example significant amounts of vacant urban these conditions are not the result of

48 | www.iwa.org.uk indifference on the part of the vegetables and a constant flow of sell the majority of what they produce government, but rather are directly due people in search of items to the small directly to the public, although there to a desperate lack of financial resources shops located adjacent to some is a ceiling set by the government on resulting mainly from the continuing organoponicos, even though their what prices can be charged. As well as trade embargo with the United States. opening hours seem somewhat irregular the organoponicos’ own shops, there Away from the older centre of and sales are dependant on the are a number of small markets in Havana, the situation was much better. availability of produce each day. different parts of the city, and in these Housing conditions were still very basic Although the Cuban economy is locations much of the food sold comes and tended to be in the ‘soviet block’ characterised as highly centralised and from nearby farms. Vendors at the model, but I was assured (and could state controlled, in connection with urban markets are essentially ‘middle-men’ see for myself) that residents and local agriculture there has evolved a high level who buy directly from the primary committees took a high level of of flexibility in how it actually operates. producers. In such cases prices must responsibility for cleanliness and safety There is a clear willingness on the part of remain within state determined ceilings. in their communities. It is in these more the government to tolerate and support a Generally speaking, food growing peripheral areas of Havana that many relatively individualistic entrepreneurial is a poplar form of employment in of the food growing activities can be approach in this area of activity. Perhaps Havana, partly because more money found. I visited three organoponicos in this is because they have learned from could be make growing lettuce than by two such areas – two producing a range their own experience and that of other working, for example, as a qualified of vegetables and one producing countries (the recent history of China professional in the Health service. medicinal herbs. I also visited several comes to mind) that unless individual However, the demand for cultivation larger food producing areas closer to effort is rewarded in some way, work was tempered by its relatively low the centre of the city. indifference can set in, even within the status, and this is something that the Two things quickly became clear most ideologically committed societies. proponents of urban agriculture are to me from talking to people involved In a country with an economy as trying to change by involving more with the cultivation of food in Havana. constrained and weakened as that of schools and children in growing Firstly, the level of pride they feel in Cuba, in the area of food production activities at an early age and promoting the way they have managed to adapt its citizens need to remain as motivated food production as essential to the to an extreme situation in such an as possible. In any case, support for survival of ‘the revolution’ – a concept effective way, and the contribution enterprise is particularly prevalent in which still inspires a certain passion that they feel they make to creating a the urban agriculture sector where the amongst many Cubans. healthy affordable source of local food need for productivity is so great. The To encourage more people to take for city residents. Secondly, the degree work is physically demanding, but has up urban agriculture, a process has of variety and flexibility, which seems had the effect of creating a dedicated been introduced by the government to exist in terms of how urban and hardworking cohort of ‘urban whereby anyone who wishes to become agriculture is planned, managed and farmers’ who achieve impressive levels a food producer can submit an delivered in the city. of productivity. application, following which a piece Only organic fertiliser is used in the Among the organoponicos I visited, of available city land will be identified organoponicos, as their name would there were a range of operating methods. and allocated to them in ‘usufruct’ – suggest. It is mostly sourced from nearby Some were entirely state owned and that is to say, provided the land is meat-producing collectives, and in some managed, with workers paid a monthly used productively, and until it may cases is made up from composted green salary. Others operated more or less as be required for other purposes. The matter. It is illegal (in theory) for private businesses managed either by government also provides some initial organoponicos within the city to use cooperatives or, in some cases, by support in terms of seeds and compost chemical fertiliser, and in fact it makes individuals. Sales took place either at to enable the new growers to establish good economic sense not to do so a ‘shop window’ alongside the a viable operation. because the cost of chemical fertiliser is organoponico or at other nearby market There was a consensus of opinion high and sources of manure are readily outlets. Income from these sales was amongst the people I spoke to that available. I did see some evidence at one used to cover costs and pay workers with urban agriculture is likely to remain, location that chemical fertiliser had been any surplus returning to the managers. a key land planning commitment for used, but as there is no form of organic Other organoponicos were part of the Cuban government and for the certification, this can be done more or larger state-owned cooperatives. Some committees which runs the municipalities. less without risk in a flexible way. were required to provide a percentage It is still the case that Cuba imports However, there is a strong public of what they grow to local schools and around 60 per cent of the protein demand for fresh organically grown hospitals at a fixed price. Others could consumed in the country, but this can be

summer 2009 | 49 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture balanced against the impressive fact that benefits and contribute to the broader are inclined to take a positive view of the about 80 per cent of the leafy vegetables well being of the city, its environment urban agriculture situation, for reasons consumed in Havana are produced within and its residents by providing well- of pride in their country and possibly the city. The numbers of people directly managed environmental areas that are because in the near future they still involved in food production in the city is free from vandalism and degradation. It cannot really imagine that there will be currently estimated as being more than was seen as encouraging that, although any other genuine alternative way to 20,000. This is a smaller number than urban agriculture did not appear in the ensure affordable food for the in previous years, partly because a certain Havana city plan of 1990, by 2000 it population. However, there is a risk that degree of economic development in Cuba was entrenched in the plans, although people who have been denied the, albeit dubious, pleasures of consumerism for so long are likely to embrace them with great enthusiasm given the opportunity. A nightmare vision of MacDonald’s and Tescos appearing all over Havana could well come to pass. One must hope that the government continues to recognise the tremendous tourist and trade potential of continuing to move towards becoming a truly sustainable country which has rejected crass commercialism, plus the health benefits of having a uniquely developed

An organoponico shop selling straight from the soil. organic local food system. Certainly, the example of Havana has led to the emergence of other access to urban land was still seen as suggests that urban agriculture could opportunities for employment, and partly somewhat temporary, and the emphasis be viable in Wales and could bring a because the efficiency of local food from the government perspective is still very wide range of benefits to a city production has consistently increased on food production and creation of such as Cardiff. With the right kind year on year as those who do still work employment, rather than broader social of government support, especially in ‘in the field’ develop their skills and and environmental benefits. terms of access to vacant land and production techniques. It was recognised that there needs other support mechanisms of the kind A key challenge facing urban to be a more in depth study into the provided in Cuba to help people get agriculture in Havana is the extent to relative costs and benefits of urban started in growing, urban agriculture which land in the city can be made agriculture, from economic, social and could deliver levels of service provision, permanently available for food growing. environmental perspectives, so as to economic activity, employment and A certain level of economic development secure its place in the future planning food production that would make it a has resulted in increasing pressure for for the city. Only a greater recognition cost-effective, popular and sustainable alternative uses for available land within of the broader benefits of urban planning objective. the city, and in such locations urban agriculture would ensure longer-term Undoubtedly, urban agriculture fits agriculture is seen as temporary. This government support – especially if well within the criteria for Cardiff City sense of impermanence places distinct economic development in Cuba leads to Council’s aim to become recognised limitations on the capacity of growers a greater availability of imported food. internationally as a ‘Healthy City’. to attract investment of time and/or People I spoke to were confident that It would also make an important resources. Another key issue is the even if there should be a drastic change contribution to a healthy urban planning extent to which the broader and less in the economy of Cuba, resulting in a process, enabling Cardiff to move closer tangible benefits of urban agriculture much greater availability of imported oil towards becoming a ‘sustainable city’ other than food production, and consumer goods, the public demand employment and economic activity are for locally produced food will remain Steve Garrett is founder and Chair recognised and taken into account in strong, and government commitment of Riverside Community Market the city planning process. to supporting it’s development in the Association, a social enterprise which For proponents, the productive green planning of Havana will continue. runs three farmers' markets and a range spaces created by organoponicos deliver I am more sceptical. It is of community food outreach projects a wide range of social and environmental understandable that people in Havana in Cardiff.

50 | www.iwa.org.uk Denis Murphy questions the Assembly Government’s opposition to GM crops Lud dite A ppr oach to Far ming

In February 2009, the Welsh Assembly Government announced a new set of draft regulations governing the cultivation of GM crops. The openly Denis Murphy at work in his laboratory at the University of Glamorgan admitted aim was to create the most restrictive possible regulatory was as if the Assembly had suddenly fears of a measles epidemic in Ukraine environment and thereby ensure that decided to ban the MMR vaccine in after a measles/rubella vaccine was Wales remained to all intents and Wales by citing the now-withdrawn withdrawn in 2008, and an ongoing purposes ‘GM-free’. The Assembly claims of links between MMR and polio outbreak in Nigeria after three Government noted its concern that autism published by Andrew Wakefield state governments stopped vaccinations traditional farmers will suffer if their et al. These spurious claims appeared in 2003 after false claims that the land is ‘contaminated’ by GM crops. in the Lancet in 1998 and led to a vaccine caused AIDS and sterility. Among the measures proposed were: serious decline in public uptake of In the case of GM crops, which have MMR vaccination, with a resulting been consumed by millions of people since • The creation of GM-free zones. surge in measles that still bedevils the 1996, we are still being told hoary old • A ban on the crops in national parks Health Service today. Wakefield is now scare stories about superweeds and dead and sites of special scientific interest. under investigation by the General butterflies that have long since been • A compulsory GM crop register which Medical Council for fraudulent use discredited by most scientists. And yet, one could be accessed by the public. of results in his MMR study. of the things that has always puzzled me • The enforcement of ‘significant’ My point is that it can be very about the Assembly Government stance on isolation distances between GM and dangerous for policymakers to respond GM crops is the sheer irrelevance of the non-GM crops and buffer zones to a groundswell of public opinion in a issue to Welsh agriculture. Wales has an featuring ‘pollen barriers’ or traps. complex and contentious science-related overwhelmingly pastoral economy - 90 area, especially by giving preferential per cent by area. Less than 0.4 per cent of To many scientists like myself, this consideration to a few published studies its agricultural area has even the remotest seemed like a rather bizarre throwback that do not reflect mainstream scientific chance of being planted with currently to the anti-GM scare stories of a opinion. In the MMR case, the British available GM crops. decade ago. At that time incomplete media treated the issue as if the evidence So why is the Assembly Government and subsequently discredited findings for and against links with autism were so concerned about this particular issue? on the alleged toxicity of some GM equivalent. As a result many people were To a cynic, this kind of posturing might materials resulted in a precipitated panicked into avoiding the vaccine. smack of playing to a populist anti-GM withdrawal of all GM foods from Happily, at UK government level, agenda, rather than having anything to supermarkets. Meanwhile, the world wiser counsels prevailed and the vaccine do with serious evidence-based policy has moved on and GM crops are now was never withdrawn. However, there making. Indeed, I have spoken off the grown on millions of hectares by tens are instances where local administrations record with several AMs who privately of millions of farmers. And the majority in other countries have abandoned said they have no problem with GM of imported soy-based animal feed used vaccination programmes after media crops, but would never admit to this on Welsh farms is also GM. scares – with calamitous results for in public for fear of the potential The recent anti-GM announcement public health. Examples include renewed consequences at the ballot box.

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Some of the more organised anti-GM campaigning has come from the commercial organic lobby who unilaterally decided that all GM technology was bad, despite the fact that it can reduce the need for soil tilling and the use of chemical pesticides. In contrast to its treatment of GM farming, the Assembly Government has strongly promoted organic farming, For example, the Welsh Agri-Food Partnership set a target (unfulfilled) of making 10 per cent of the agricultural sector organic by 2005. While many of the aims of the organic movement, such as promoting soil fertility and reducing expensive chemical inputs are laudable, it has become enmeshed in an inconsistent and often non-scientific set of Arabidopsics plants used in genetic experimentation at the University of Glamorgan. regulations and beliefs that sometimes make it more akin to a religion than a serious set of agronomic practices. The organic sector will never be a mainstream provider of food in our crowded, climate-threatened world and it may become even more of a rich person’s niche food as the economic downturn continues. The wisdom of continuing public support by Welsh taxpayers for this particular industry may therefore be open to question. Meanwhile, what does the rest of the world think about GM crops? Within the UK, and in the same month as the recent Assembly Government policy announcement, Professor Robert Watson, chief scientific adviser at the UK Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, stated: Cell culture using oil palm plants imported from Malaysia, a major source of vegetable oil.

“People are asking how we will be able Also in February I completed a report the major conclusions of my report is to feed the world’s growing population for the UN Food and Agriculture that GM will have an important role in during a time of dangerous climate Organisation on the role of developing countries, although it is only change. While GM is clearly not the biotechnology in addressing the growing one of several new advanced whole answer, it may contribute problem of food supplies in developing biotechnologies that we will need to through improved crop traits such as countries. The UN has increased its deploy in order to increase food temperature, drought, pest and salinity estimate of those living in food insecurity production over the coming decades. tolerance. Hence additional scientific from 800 million to one billion. The The Assembly Government’s studies will allow us to assess the risks reasons include population growth, the preoccupation with GM and organic and benefits.” economic downturn, diversion of land crops is strikingly at variance with the for biofuels, and climate change. One of current priorities of farmers and the

52 | www.iwa.org.uk general public. Public concern about commercial gain, for example to produce mission of plant science research that GM appears to be on the wane. herbicide-tolerant crops. was responsible for most of the According to polling figures The remaining UK plant research outstanding achievements of agriculture commissioned by the Food Standards centres tend to focus on model plants over the past century. This increased Agency, those opposed to GM fell like Arabidopsis, rather than crops, and food production more than ten-fold, from 43 per cent in 2001 to just 26 on short-term (1-3 year) government keeping pace with the expanding world per cent by March 2009. contracts. Such contracts often address population. With the likelihood of In the case of farmers, a survey current public concerns, such as GM another three billion mouths to feed by the Home-Grown Cereals Authority crop segregation and basic field trials, over the next four decades, we cannot found that GM crops and organic crops rather than more considered longer afford the luxury of ignoring potentially were joint bottom of their wish list of term projects aimed at topics like crop useful new technologies. It is the 27 research topics they wished improvement for the growing amount responsibility of scientists to be more to see funded. On the other hand, of saline or arid soils where public-good proactive in explaining their research the widespread vilification of agbiotech research could really make a difference. and its implications, but we also need because of the GM crops issue has a greater sense of vision and leadership driven many companies and researchers Does any of this matter? from politicians across the board. away from Wales and the wider UK. I think it does, for three reasons: GM crops may be a rather It has also frustrated the considerable marginal issue in terms of their likely amount of world class basic plant science • Both Welsh and UK taxpayers might impact on Welsh agriculture. However, research that is still being carried out in question why they are funding basic a GM-free Wales agenda sends out a our universities and institutes. The result research in plant science if the country highly negative message to the rest of is that academic researchers are being has lost the capacity, and seemingly the world where GM crops are, or increasingly isolated from the application the will, to exploit its future benefits. soon will be, mainstream food sources. of their discoveries for wealth creation • We will still have to feed ourselves It may also establish a dangerous and social progress, both locally and in in the coming uncertain decades of precedent of indulging in populist developing countries, many of which economic dislocation and possible responses to ephemeral public pressure urgently need such expertise. climate change, but we have now by setting up institutions and We should remember that during largely lost our ability to breed new regulations that may be difficult to the 20 th Century researchers in crops for this purpose. dismantle when circumstances change. universities and institutes made many • The public sector needs to ‘recapture’ The anti-GM stance of the Welsh significant scientific discoveries, such as technologies like genetic engineering Assembly Governments does not affect antibiotics and Green Revolution crops. for use in public-good programmes my work in the slightest. I have long These became widely available as non- that are of relatively little interest to since abandoned attempts to carry out patented ‘public goods’. In the plant commercial companies. Such crop improvement in the UK using science sector, this paradigm of initiatives are now underway in the GM methods and my perspective is publicly-funded research designed to be US and Australia, but no so far in the now focused more on helping exploited both as public goods and for UK. Indeed, as with previous crop developing countries. Nevertheless, it private profit, started to unravel in the improvement technologies, such as is still disappointing to see how Wales 1980s, as the UK privatised or closed hybrid creation, mutagenesis, or inter- is seemingly turning its back on what many of its leading crop-related specific crossing, the key to the future could turn out to be a very useful set research centres. Since then, the success of GM might lie in its of future technologies, not because dwindling band of remaining research application as a public good rather they are any less safe than other new institutes have tended to focus more than exclusively for private profit. technologies, but more because of a on basic aspects of plant science and, short term and arguably short sighted with a few notable exceptions, there Rather than simply vilifying agricultural political agenda. Perhaps the biggest is almost no practical plant breeding biotechnologies and GM crops, we losers will be the next generation of research in the UK public sector. need to foster a greater understanding talented Welsh plant scientists, some One of the consequences has been of the wider opportunities (and possible of whom I currently teach, and who a loss in our capacity to exploit basic risks) that they might bring, especially will probably be obliged to seek research for long-term use as public in the context of public ‘open-source’ employment abroad goods, especially in developing countries. ownership of some of the newer Instead, new technologies like GM crops aspects of such technologies. Professor Denis Murphy is Head have been exclusively captured by the We should also embark upon the of Biotechnology at the University private sector and used for short-term renewal of the practical public-good of Glamorgan.

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Appl ying the Pr eca ution ary Pr incipl e

Nic Lampkin says organic farming should not be evaluated in terms of the GM debate

reliant on management skills rather than the nitrogen to the plant as an external inputs, and utilizing the self- ecosystem service. regulating properties of ecosystems to The system is self-regulating in sustain productivity. that as the level of nitrogen fixed builds The rejection of specific technologies, up, the plant has no advantage in including synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, sponsoring more nitrogen fixation most biocides and GM technology, and restricts energy availability to the makes sense only in the context of these bacteria, and they in turn slow down perspectives. This may be seen by some production. The form in which the Organic farming is often thought of as a superstitious ideology, but to others nitrogen is made available to plants, as farming without chemicals, and it represents a principled world view with as ammonium rather than nitrate more recently without GMOs, hence a concern about our impact on the compounds, reduces surplus uptake by its prominence in this debate. planet at its heart. plants. Ammonium compounds are less However, this is only part of the To illustrate how these concepts are easily stored than nitrate compounds, story. David Bateman, for many applied in practice, take the example of which if stored provide a food source years Professor of Agricultural nitrogen, a nutrient required by all for pests and pathogens, increasing the Economics at Aberystwyth organisms as a key component of need for pesticides. University, used to say that defining proteins, and which exists freely as a gas In addition, the legumes and organic organic farming as farming without in the atmosphere. At issue is whether manures emphasised in organic farming chemicals was like defining a nitrogen is captured by biological or provide a rich source of organic matter Christian as a man who only had one industrial means. supplying the soil ecosystem with an wife. One can argue the merits of Industrially, nitrogen can be fixed energy source that is manifestly absent one wife or two, or one technology using significant quantities of energy in from synthetic fertilizers. In the absence over another, but it doesn’t get one the Haber process. This is typically in of these energy sources, soil micro- any closer to the essence of what the form of soluble nitrate compounds organisms will break down existing soil Christianity, or organic farming, is. that are prone to leaching, representing organic matter so that they can utilise a pollution risk, as well as a significant the nitrogen that has been made Central to organic farming is an ethical use of fossil energy and source of available to them, but at the same time commitment to the health of soils, greenhouse gas emissions. degrading soils and releasing carbon plants, animals, humans and ecosystems; Alternatively, nitrogen can be fixed dioxide into the atmosphere. Overall, to the quality of life and food; and to biologically, typically in a symbiotic leaching, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental, economic and social relationship between certain plants the negative nutritional impacts of sustainability. Its central idea is the farm (legumes like clover) and nitrogen surplus nitrate uptake are reduced as a whole system, operating as far as fixing bacteria. The bacteria get their through reliance on biological rather possible within closed cycles, reliant on energy from the plants (captured from than industrial nitrogen fixation, while its own resources and minimizing waste, the sun via photosynthesis) and deliver the potential for soil storage of carbon

54 | www.iwa.org.uk can be increased. evolved against this background and afford to buy new seed stocks each year This is but one example to illustrate represents a consistent application of the – is constrained? Breeding programmes that there is a logical, science-based precautionary principle. Are we merely which provide farmers the opportunity coherence to the concept of organic developing new technological fixes to to develop plant populations that are farming that seldom surfaces in public solve unexpected problems created by adapted to their local circumstances are debate. The problem is that this previous technological fixes? Why use an alternative way forward. Organic complexity of argument is very difficult GM herbicide-resistant varieties if the researchers, including my research to convey to the general public and in herbicides themselves are seen as centre working in collaboration with some cases to farmers and specialists detrimental to ecosystem functioning? IBERS at Aberystwyth University, in the field. Reliance on cultural methods instead are at the forefront of some of these This was illustrated by Dafydd of herbicides, including alternating innovative approaches. Huws’ belief, in his article Genetic spring and autumn sown varieties, has In one sense, debating and Doublethink in the Winter 2008 issue been shown to contribute to higher communicating these concepts is made of Agenda, that “organic farming is numbers of farmland birds present on difficult by the existence of specialist based on the manifestly false principle organic farms. Why use crops which markets for organic food. These are that ‘artificial’ chemicals are bad and have had the gene from Bacillus necessary to ensure the financial ‘natural’ chemicals are good, as if plants thuringiensis that creates a toxin to pests viability of farms that reject certain could tell and were interested in the such as cabbage white caterpillars and yield enhancing technologies because difference”. Well, in the case of corn borers engineered into them, if this the yield penalties are often not nitrogen, it does make a difference. increases the chances that the pests will compensated for by reduced costs. This is underpinned by the same become resistant to the toxin and that Organic food in the market place is science that underpins non-organic other active and passive biological defined by production process farming, as reference to any nitrogen control strategies will then fail to work? standards, not by the end product. cycle diagram in a soil science textbook Yes, risk reduction strategies can be In marketing (and legal) terms it is will confirm. Where there is a difference implemented, but can we be confident easier to work with black and white is in the goals and values against which about these continuing to be definitions where sometimes shades of the merits or otherwise of specific implemented effectively as GM varieties grey might be more appropriate. In this technologies are assessed, and here become widespread? Why focus on context, the European legal definition there are clearly different perspectives GM varieties incorporating terminator of organic food makes it impossible and much scope for debate. technologies, where farmers’ potential to to use certain inputs, including GM. The opposition to GM technology use home-saved seed – critical for many In marketing terms, it is also much within the organic movement has resource-poor farmers who cannot easier to focus on communicating the

Red clover being harvested to make silage at an organic farm near Talybont, Ceredigion (close-up on facing page). Photos: Jeremy Moore.

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practices organic farming rejects, • Even taking account of lower yields, some sectors in the early part of this rather than the more complex world energy use and greenhouse gas decade, a second action plan for 2005- of principles, goals and best practice. emissions can be lower per kg food 2010 placed greater emphasis on Yet, as can be seen, this emphasis produced in organic farming. market development, with strong can seriously distort the debate. • While more land may be required, soil market demand and increasing fuel, Unfortunately, this can also degradation due to misuse and over- fertiliser and feed prices stimulating a sometimes be carried over into an intensification of farming is a more high level of interest in conversion in excessive focus on just meeting the important factor restricting potential 2007 and 2008. standards from a farming point of for future food production, and there The recession has presented a view, with a result that some organic is evidence that organic farming significant challenge to the continued systems fall short of the ideal. A neo- contributes to soil conservation. growth of the organic sector, but there conventional approach, asking which • There is also evidence that organic is good evidence of organic markets alternative input can substitute for a farming can contribute to biodiversity coming through the downturn and prohibited input, may be encouraged. conservation, not just in field margins opportunities for renewed growth. Of course, this is not unique to but also within crops themselves, A new action plan is currently being organic farming. University graduates due to the restrictions on biocides. developed to address the challenges that can do more than pass or fail their • For many farmers in developing the current economic situation and the degrees. They can get a first class or a countries, who cannot afford to buy growth in the organic sector will bring. poor honours degree, reflecting not just industrial inputs, reliance on the Far from being at fault, the Assembly their knowledge of a subject but their ecosystem management approaches Government deserves credit for an open ability to demonstrate understanding advocated by organic farming can approach to alternative development and critical analysis. A similar variety actually enhance productivity and paths for Welsh agriculture, such as of performance can be expected from food security. organic farming, which are not often organic producers as from any farmers, • While the evidence on food quality favoured by the large commercial reflecting differences in education, is less easily generalised, there are concerns that rely on selling their inputs skills, experience and commitment. specific instances where clear quality to farmers. Ecosystem management- Acknowledging the differences in differences have been identified, which based farming systems that increase performance that may arise between is not surprising given that decades of producer self-reliance and resilience as farmers, as well as the wide range of agricultural research has focused on non-renewable resources decline and organic farming, from intensive lowland how production systems can be prices rise do represent a real possibility horticulture to extensive hill and upland modified to influence product quality. to meet the challenges of long term food livestock systems, it is very difficult to security sustainably. generalise about the contribution that Against this background, the Welsh Further intensification and GM organic farming can make to some of Assembly Government has played a technologies are driven by a perception the key issues currently facing society. significant role in encouraging the that food security means producing more These include climate change, food development of organic farming. Wales output rather than considering how security, food quality, public health, is one of the leading European regions effectively we utilize what we produce animal welfare, biodiversity conservation in terms of the proportion of land already. They also tend to be pushed and social justice. Yet in each of these managed organically, now over 8 per irrespective of their impact on the areas, there is an increasing body of cent and well ahead of the other UK depletion of our remaining resources. research evidence that organic farming nations. Thanks to the foresight of Ron Meanwhile, there is a real scientific and can make a difference. The following Davies, in 1998 Wales was the first UK research challenge to explore further how are a few examples: nation to introduce an action plan for ecosystem services can be enhanced to organic farming. In turn this led to an support improved productivity without • Restrictions on synthetic nitrogen, integrated approach to the development increasing the use of non-renewable herbicide and pesticide use make of the organic sector combining agri- resources or degrading our essential soil, a real difference to levels of fossil environmental support, market water and biodiversity resources energy consumption per hectare development support and information and the resultant greenhouse gas services delivered through Organic Nic Lampkin is Executive Director of emissions, in particular nitrous oxides Centre Wales. the Organic Research Centre, Newbury, which are much more potent than Responding to the rapid growth in and Chair of the Welsh Assembly carbon dioxide. production and market over-supply in Government’s Organic Strategy Group.

56 | www.iwa.org.uk Steel being cut to size at Capital Coated Steel, Cardiff. They are used for a wide-range of products including white goods and roofing.

Sav emoney and the planet

Simon Nurse on how being environmentally friendly makes sound business sense

By reducing the diameter of the the initial design phase. Whatever the Capital Coated Steel, a Cardiff based beer can rim by an eighth of an reason, the diameter of the can rim was stockholder and processor, acted on the inch (3.175mm) without reducing a given, a forgotten constant amongst findings of a Carbon Trust survey. The its contents, American brewer the chaos of industrial life. Now take survey promised savings of £1,600 a Anheuser-Busch saved 9,500 tonnes the £16m saving and multiply it by year if hot air wasted from the back of of aluminium per year. A rough number of years that it could have external compressors was ducted back estimate at recent prices, made this been implemented – five, ten, or more? into the main factory units. This would a saving of at least £16m a year. Viewed through the rear mirror, one raise the temperature by 2ºC, so can start to put a cost on not regularly eliminating the need to run one of Let’s look at this a bit more closely. reviewing your processes. several costly gas heaters. As the work The beer can had an acknowledged Anheuser-Busch, a mega-company was completed using the company’s own shape and set of dimensions. The with massive resources at its disposal is resources, the cost of the ducting itself diameter of the can rim did not effect one thing, but how about a small scale was less than a few hundred pounds the amount of beer contained in the Welsh example? For this we need to and paid for itself in the first quarter. can, neither did it affect the can’s use. look no further than the hard-up steel The story could have ended there. It is possible that the design of the industry, a traditional and important Heating levels were maintained and costs original can reflected the limitations element of Welsh commerce and one were reduced. However this small success on production capabilities at the time. which has regularly been battered by prompted a wider review. Why did some Perhaps the diameter of the can rim the financial winds that redistribute of the doors not shut automatically? was an arbitrary consideration during global industrial activity. Would the heaters be more efficient if

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of driver. It could arise through more stringent regulatory controls that force businesses to consider waste issues more closely. Alternatively, it could come through increased education and innovation from within an organisation. Over time, It may even arise out of market and stakeholder pressure. The process of educating and coaching SMEs may well be a long haul. Government attempts to place Industrial Ecology on the agenda – through bodies such as the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme – are woefully under funded, little known and

Coils of painted or laminated steel obtained largely unavailable to SMEs. Even the from Shotton in store at Capital Coated Steel. Carbon Trust cap their assistance with a “we’re only interested if you spend serviced regularly? What about timers? carbon emissions. Figures calculated by more than £50 k per annum on energy,” After a thorough review of heating the Department for Environment, Food eliminating many potential beneficiaries. requirements, all of these needs were and Rural Affairs estimate that “low or Nonetheless, forward thinking addressed. The result was that during no-cost resource efficiency has the SMEs have a golden opportunity to January and February 2009 the cost of potential to save UK business about grasp the nettle and challenge their heating the factory units were one third £6.4bn per year”. world view. It takes a lot of effort to the cost of the same period in 2008, So if the benefits are so great, what increase sales by even a couple of despite gas tariffs increasing dramatically. is holding SMEs back? The reasons are percentage points. Just imagine what a The cost of the improvements were paid myriad. They include tight financial monumental difference it would make back in two months. budgets which prevent investment in to your business if you could slice new technologies, lack of trained 10 per cent off your costs, cultivate “So if the benefits are personnel to evaluate benefits, and over relationships with local suppliers, great, what is holding burdened management teams, blinded minimise unnecessary transport and SMEs back?” by the day to day rigour. effectively take a carving knife to your Yet the small size of an SME organisational footprint. could be its trump card in achieving Though a relatively small and close Industrial Ecology success. It is far knit business community, Welsh SMEs easier to analyse the processes in a have the opportunity not only to small organisation than tackling the reinvent their own processes and garner huge cogs of corporate giants. links with local suppliers/customers Industrial Ecology could be the solution for mutual benefit, but also to take We saved money, promoted that SMEs are seeking to address the advantage of local business networks. innovation, and employed truly triple bottom line; environmental, Pick people’s brains. Ask searching sustainable thought processes which had economic and social interests. questions. Share business ideas. a wider societal benefit. In short we According to Professor Daniel Esty Innovate and move forward. Welsh were participating in Industrial Ecology, and Andrew Winston in their guide to SMEs have a golden opportunity to the almost perfect 21 st Century planning environmental strategy Green to Gold , get ahead of the game by embracing tool, sweeping up our cost and this is not just a nice strategy tool or a Industrial Ecology techniques environmental concerns and focussing “feel good digression from the real our attention on their removal. work of the company”. Rather, it is an Simon Nurse is Head of Operations for An increased uptake in this kind “essential element of business strategy Capital Coated Steel in Cardiff and web of thinking amongst SMEs could in the modern world”. editor of www.IESME.org - Industrial represent millions of pounds of bottom However, this kind of thinking is Ecology and Sustainable Business, an line savings and by extension, reduce unlikely to take root without some form information-sharing website for SMEs.

58 | www.iwa.org.uk BAR RAGE SPE CIAL 1

the many environmental issues dealt with in the various reports, two will be highlighted here, one because it is Fog in scarcely dealt with and another because it is scarcely credible. The Interim Options Analysis the Severn Report gives scant attention to the visual impact of the various proposals, which it only mentions twice, yet the Madoc Batcup examines the UK government’s options visual intrusion of barrages and for generating tidal power off the Welsh coast onshore lagoons compared with offshore lagoons is likely to be The UK Government’s Interim Options If it is possible to have such a wide considerably greater. Intrusive masonry Analysis Report , published in April divergence of opinion between two leading up to the shoreline may well 2009, shortlists and costs five main groups of experts in respect of such a cause a change in perception in respect options for generating electricity in small scale project, then the potential for of the attractiveness of the affected the Severn estuary (Table 1, overleaf). divergence for a variety of large scale areas. Depending on their distance The Cardiff-Weston barrage and the projects in different locations along the from the shore off-shore lagoons would, Shoots barrage (close to the second estuary must be considerably greater. by their nature, be much less intrusive Severn road crossing) were included What is needed is a small scale pilot visually, and would not involve what as were a number of onshore, but not project to test some of the assumptions essentially would be a re-modelling of offshore, tidal lagoons. made. While this would be difficult in the coastline. Instead, they would the case of barrages, it would be provide a series of off-shore islands. In this context it is interesting that considerably easier for tidal lagoons. The Interim Options Analysis there has been a proposed project for The Swansea Bay offshore lagoon Report deals with the issue of a Swansea Bay offshore tidal lagoon project has already had a significant environmental damage by assessing the for some time. Two reports have been amount of work done on it, it is small cost of providing compensatory habitat. undertaken, one by Atkins Consultants in scale, and it is situated in a part of In the case of the Cardiff Weston Limited (Atkins) and the other by the Severn estuary that is beyond even barrage, replacement of habitat on a Clive Baker and Peter Leach of ess the most ambitious barrage project. one for one and a three for one basis consulting, the latter commissioned The construction of an offshore tidal were considered. It was estimated that by the WDA and the DTI. lagoon in Swansea Bay would not some 20,000 hectares would be What is instructive is that even in prejudice any of the options being affected. On a three to one ratio this this case of exactly the same project considered for the Severn estuary. Even would result in finding 60,000 hectares there was a very wide divergence in the assuming £100 million or more, the cost or 600 square kilometres of opinion expressed by these two firms. would be a small fraction of the up to compensatory habitat elsewhere. At one The ess consulting report published in £22 billion estimated for the Cardiff kilometre deep this would need 600 2006 suggested that the cost of a Weston barrage. Given the fact that the kilometres of coastline, about half of Swansea Bay lagoon would be £234 pilot scheme would generate electricity the total for Wales. million rather than the approximately and provide some return on the It is perplexing that the report £82 million indicated by Atkins, and investment, the net cost of its construction makes no suggestion where this would only generate two-thirds as much would be even less in comparison with enormous amount of space might be electricity. It is very surprising indeed the potential cost savings for the larger found, nor what might be the effect on that the estimates of the Atkins report projects. Such a project would be located the people or habitat of the areas where should be considered as being so far in the convergence funding programme this compensatory scheme might be out. Whilst Atkins had calculated that area, and might therefore be eligible for located. Whether or not the electricity generated by a Swansea Bay European funding. assumptions are justifiable the Tidal lagoon would be of the order of The environmental consequences conclusion requires unfeasible amounts 3.5p per KWh, the ess report of a large barrage will undoubtedly be of land to be made available. concluded that the cost would be ‘at substantially greater than those of the Funding the various potential least’ 17p per KWh. smaller barrages and tidal lagoons. Of projects is dealt with in the Financing

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and Ownership options report written raise the estimated £20 billion required estuary location. Whether barrages or by Pricewaterhouse Coopers. They for the Cardiff-Weston barrage option. tidal lagoons are built a substantial part suggest that while the larger barrages Undoubtedly, in a world where of the infrastructure will lie in Welsh could only be financed by the UK capital is scarce it would be considerably waters. It is certainly arguable that should government directly, the smaller barrages easier to finance a number of smaller any of the infrastructure be built under could be financed by a private finance projects on a sequenced basis where the an arrangement whereby ownership initiative where the ownership of the project risk becomes progressively better reverts to the public sector after a infrastructure would pass back to the understood than it would be to finance concessionary period, then in the case government after a period of 35 years. a very large project where the project of Wales that ownership should revert to Pricewaterhouse Coopers provide risks have only been ‘paper assessed’. the Welsh Assembly Government. a range of different options for the The recent experience of the Olympics The ability of Welsh coastal waters potential financing of different schemes. project highlights the difficulties of to generate electricity is a Welsh national In light of the credit crunch and the funding such large construction projects. resource. From a political standpoint huge and continuing budget deficit, it Pricewaterhouse Coopers do not reversion of ownership to the UK may be a matter of concern whether seem to have taken into account the government is likely to be highly the UK government is in a position to devolutionary implications of the Severn controversial. Unless there is a clear

Table 1: UK Government’s five options for generating electricity in the Severn estuary

Option Cost Power output Location / Pros Cons Description Middle Barrage £19.6-£22.2 bn 16.8TWh p.a. Brean Down to Low unit costs of Loss of 20,000 hectares 'Cardiff-Weston Lavernock Point; energy (the only one of intertidal habitat. Barrage' commonly known as lower is the Shoots Impact on migratory 'The Severn Barrage' barrage). Estimated fish. Affects access to 4.8% of UK electricity ports behind barrage. demand. Financing cost very large. Inner Barrage £2.6-£3.5 bn 2.7TWh p.a. Near the Severn Road Largest barrage that Impact on migratory (Shoots Barrage) Crossing could be taken forward fish. Loss of 5,000 with limited Government hectares of intertidal involvement on cost. habitat Cheapest estimated costs of units of energy. Does not directly affect access to major estuary ports.

Beachley Barrage £2.1-£2.5 bn 1.6 TWh p.a. Upstream of the Shoots Causes the least Smaller energy output. barrage and upstream (although still significant) Loss of 3,500 nectares of the River Wye intertidal habitat loss as it of intertidal habitat. is upstream of the River Wye and may have a reduced impact on that river. Does not have impact on the major ports. Low cost energy and cheapest in terms of capital cost. Lagoon enclosure on £4.1-£4.9 bn 2.3 TWh p.a. Impoundment on the Proven technology, less 6,500ha intertidal the Welsh grounds Welsh shore of the technical risk than habitat loss (Fleming lagoon) Estuary between embryonic technology. Newport and the Less detrimental effect Severn road crossings on environment and local ports than large barrage schemes. Lower impact on intertidal habitat than large barrage schemes.

Onshore Tidal Lagoons £3.4-£4.1 bn 2.6TWh p.a. Impoundment on the Proven technology. 5,500ha intertidal (Bridgwater Bay) English shore of the Lowest cost of energy habitat loss Estuary between for lagoon options. Hinkley Point and Potentially less Weston Super Mare detrimental on local ports and fisheries than barrages.

60 | www.iwa.org.uk financial advantage to Wales in having BAR RAGE its environment substantially damaged, SPE CIAL 2 there would seem little incentive to the Welsh Assembly Government in agreeing to any of the schemes, since from a Welsh point of view there would only be downside. The upside would be overwhelmingly in England. The amounts of money involved Turbine are significant. The design life of the installations is 120 years. It is therefore reasonable to assume a useful life of 85 years after the 35 year concession threat period. One possible configuration under the shortlist is for a series of Mike Evans reveals the impact a barrage would have onshore tidal lagoons, together with on the Severn Estuary’s fish population a barrage near the second Severn crossing (the so-called Shoots barrage). Due to its geographic location, large There are over 100 species of fish Two onshore lagoons on the Welsh size, and immense tidal range the recorded in the estuary, making it one side, together with a half share of the Severn Estuary is a unique natural of the most diverse in the UK. The electricity of the Shoots Barrage would environment of international populations of many of these species have a capacity of a little under three importance. It is particularly valuable have been improving steadily over gigawatts and is estimated to deliver for its intertidal habitats that support recent years. The estuary is particularly some 6 Terawatt hours per year (i.e. huge numbers of wintering wildfowl. important for its protected diadromous 6 million MWh). At a price of £60 per The estuary and its tributaries are also species with for example 25 per cent of Megawatt hour this would mean an valuable for their fish populations, and the salmon spawning area of England income of around £360 million per in particular the fish that migrate and Wales being found in the rivers year, with minimal maintenance costs between rivers and sea to complete associated with the estuary. for the facilities, although of course the their life cycles (known as diadromous The River Wye is the best river in turbines and other components would species). Many of these habitats and the UK for sea lamprey and the River need to be replaced from time to time. species are protected by Europe’s Usk the finest for river lamprey. Over 85 years this would equate to over strongest environmental protection Perhaps the most difficult issue is how £30 billion. Whilst such projections can under the Habitats Directive. to protect the twaite shad, a fish that be subject to a wide degree of error (in either direction), this would clearly be a valuable resource in the future. Despite the considerable amount of work done, there is not yet sufficient data available to finalise a short list of the tidal power options of the Severn estuary. In order to have a more accurate assessment of the true costs and outcomes a pilot project should be undertaken. More work needs to be done on the large barrage proposal, particularly in respect of the potential amount and location of the compensatory habitat that it is calculated would be needed if the project were to go ahead. Finally, post devolution it is by no means clear why the benefit of the exploitation of Welsh natural resources should accrue solely to the UK government Salmon leaping up the river Usk – a quarter of the salmon spawning area of England and Wales is found in the rivers flowing into the Severn estuary. Photo: John Harding. Madoc Batcup

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only spawns in four rivers in the UK, of the low carbon electricity generated. BAR RAGE three of which are upstream of the Governments are also investigating the SPE CIAL 3 proposed Lavernock to Brean Down potential of more innovative technologies barrage site. for electricity generation in the estuary. One of the biggest challenges is how Additional funding is being made to avoid fish being killed or damaged in available to test these technologies which the electricity generating turbines, which have the potential to create less are so integral to any lagoon or barrage environmental impact than the traditional scheme. Migratory fish species may impoundment schemes. These include Tidal spend a considerable period of time in tidal stream technologies as well as low the estuary and are therefore at risk of head barrage schemes. There is a real having to cross an impoundment four opportunity for the UK to lead the world times a day over a period of many in the development of such innovative months. Shad species are particularly tidal technologies, resulting in green jobs Reef vulnerable to turbine damage, with the and investment. The governments should potential for up to 50 per cent being ensure that financial and regulatory killed in a single passage. frameworks support the development of Peter Jones suggests a greener way such technologies. forward for a barrage There are no easy answers. Given the urgent need to reduce greenhouse The RSPB’s opposition to the gas emissions, governments must Government’s apparently favoured consider what can be delivered quickly option of the Cardiff to Weston with the least risk of failure. If they (Lavernock to Brean Down) decide to decarbonise electricity barrage is that it would halve the production using cheaper, more reliable upstream tidal range. In turn, this technologies than those currently would lead to an estimated loss of Twaite shad, a fish that only spawns in four rivers in the UK, three of which are upstream of the proposed proposed for the estuary we must not at least 60 per cent and perhaps Lavernock to Brean Down barrage. Photo: John Hardy. turn our back on the Severn. 80 per cent of inter-tidal mudflats. The estuary represents a huge These are the principal feeding area Tidal impoundments would potential resource of low carbon energy, for nearly 70,000 over-wintering undoubtedly result in the loss of a and we must invest in wide reaching migratory waterbirds. significant amount of the protected studies to fully understand the estuary’s intertidal habitat. To ensure compliance ecosystems whilst at the same time However, one of the options excluded with the Habitats Directive, a project accelerating the development of more from the shortlist is for an engineering can only go ahead in the estuary if environmentally benign technologies. We concept termed the ‘tidal reef’. Crucially suitable compensation sites can be must ensure that anything we develop this is estimated to substantially reduce found and designated. We have some in the estuary is set in the context of the loss of tidal range and so lead to a experience of creating new intertidal sustainable development and meets the much smaller loss of inter-tidal feeding habitats, but not on the scale that needs of future generations. area – an estimated 20 and 30 per cent. would be demanded by the schemes At the same time Governments will Its creator, Rupert Armstrong Evans, has currently included on the shortlist. need to be sure that the environmental described the concept as being “driven Despite the importance of the impact of a Severn barrage is justified by the need to address environmental estuary, we still know relatively little by the contribution of the scheme to issues before rather than after the project about how the physical and ecological greenhouse gas reduction and energy has been designed”. processes work and how they would security. We should not under estimate The tidal reef could be either of change in response to construction of how difficult this will be. The decision traditional barrage design or, alternatively, a tidal power scheme. Despite the far may well set a precedent for how we a radical new concept that would involve reaching studies currently being define “sustainable living” in the future floating rather than fixed caissons to undertaken, many unknowns will remain enclose the turbines. It would operate at the end of the feasibility study. Mike Evans is Climate Change on the basis of two-way tidal flow, that Unforeseen consequences of a Policy Manager with the Environment is on both the inward flow tide and the development may well erode the benefits Agency Wales. outward ebb tide. The Cardiff to Weston

62 | www.iwa.org.uk barrage proposal, would only generate electricity on the ebb flow. In effect, the reef design would combine characteristics of both tidal range technology and tidal stream technology – it would harness both the height difference from tidal movement (range) and the inward and outward flows themselves (stream). To maximise potential electricity output, the tidal reef should be located further out in the Severn Estuary, somewhere between Aberthaw on the Welsh side and Minehead in Somerset, a distance of about 20 kilometres. Interestingly, the potential electricity output of the reef has been estimated as potentially greater than for the Cardiff Dunlin in flight at dawn along the Severn estuary near the Newport wetlands to Weston barrage, in the range of 13 to nature reserve. One of the best known waders, similar in size to Starlings, they 20TWh. The cost is also estimated as breed in the Arctic and fly south to Africa. Photo: David Kjaer. below that for Cardiff to Weston - £13 billion compared to around £20 billion. friendly projects such as the reef. ensure a fair comparison among all of Of course, these figures are contingent Moreover, the Atkins review the options, including both financial upon design and the materials used. suggested that it seemed ‘illogical’ – and environmental considerations. The RSPB, together with an alliance and might be illegal - to have excluded Instead, however, the UK of other environmental groups, including the reef from the short-list and Phase Government has only agreed to make the National Trust, WWF, the Wildfowl 2 of the Feasibility Study, given that a available £500,000 of public money, and Wetlands Trust and the Wye and Strategic Environmental Assessment of including from the Assembly Usk Foundation, recently commissioned each project’s environmental impacts Government, to pay for a year of further WS Atkins engineering consultants to would be an important part of the development work for each of the review the Government’s provisional further study. environmentally less damaging schemes, short-list of tidal power schemes for the We have concluded from the Atkins such as the tidal reef and tidal fence. Severn. The review concluded that the review that the Government should This Embryonic Technology Fund will Government had seriously underestimated expand the current short-list to retain prove of very limited utility given that the quantity of electricity that could be the reef, together with the other options, Atkins concluded that the tidal reef alone produced by more environmentally into the Phase 2 study. This would would need this sum in order to proceed further with design studies. Artist’s impression of the tidal reef proposed to connect Aberthaw in The Government has undertaken to south Wales with Minehead in Somerset. It could involve floating rather consider the development progress of than fixed caissons to enclose the turbines, as envisaged here. the embryonic technologies alongside the Phase 2 work on the short-listed projects before coming to a decision on harnessing the Severn’s tidal energy. It would be more sensible to include the reef and similar schemes in the Phase 2 study from the start, not least to enable a fair comparison of their respective environmental impacts through the Strategic Environmental Assessment process

Peter Jones is Environmental Policy Officer with RSPB Cymru.

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Jane Hutt Asse rts Her Auth ority Owen John Thomas welcomes the government’s national strategy for Welsh-medium education

Iaith Pawb the National Action comments are of historic importance. The Strategy’s second aim is, “to Plan to promote Welsh medium Underpinning the value of the local ensure that linguistic continuity is a education, published six years ago authority surveys is the awareness of priority, nationally, regionally and in has made slow progress. Now at the considerable potential for increasing local authorities at all teaching and last, the coalition Government has the number of designated Welsh- learning stages”. At present, as pupils launched a new plan for public medium schools based on substantial move from one stage to another, for consultation, promisingly called evidence that when such schools are example from primary to secondary A National Strategy for Welsh-medium school, in some western counties in Education . This is a fundamental particular, first language Welsh speakers step forward. become second language learners. Research carried out in 1999 – 2002 Ever since its introduction some sixty on the lack of continuity, recorded that 22 years ago, Welsh medium provision has per cent of pupils moving from Key Stage existed without a national framework. Yet 2 to Stage 3 (from primary to secondary despite its marginalisation, over a fifth of school) transferred from being Welsh our primary school children and a sixth speakers to being Welsh second language of our secondary pupils now benefit from speakers. There is further erosion as pupils designated Welsh medium education. move from Key Stage 3 to Stage 4 and The National Strategy prioritises the beyond. Distinct targets are being set here. main potential sources of growth and Education Minister Jane Hutt – her instructions to The aim is to concentrate on the process local government “are of historic importance”. sustainability for Welsh medium of bridging between primary and provision and draws it firmly into the established, they grow rapidly. The new secondary schools and to measure the education mainstream. plan repeatedly promotes and praises demand for Welsh as the medium of The Strategy’s main priority is for the successful work of the designated learning at 16 years of age; The essential local authorities to make systematic Welsh-medium Schools: “All learners yardstick will be the assessment at Key surveys of parental demand for Welsh- need to develop their Welsh language Stage 4 through to GCSE. medium education. These will be skills to their full potential founded on In contrasting designated Welsh- followed by action plans ensuring that the principal that Welsh-medium medium schools with the ‘continuity adequate new provision is made to education, from the early years with deficiency’ found in many traditional match the level of demand identified firm linguistic continuity through all Welsh speaking areas, the plan states: in the surveys. education stages, offers the best “The designated Welsh-medium The National Strategy states that conditions for developing a wide education of the south east and north from 2009 an agreement will be made variety of Welsh language skills”. west is the most successful way of whereby local authorities’ detailed survey Moreover, the plan continues, “It is creating fully bilingual schools and there’s proposals will be presented to the accepted generally that at least 70 per a need to uphold and strengthen this Welsh Government (not to the Welsh cent of curriculum time should be provision in other parts of Wales”. And Language Board as hitherto). Education through the medium of Welsh so that it adds, “Increasing the Welsh-medium Minister Jane Hutt has stated, “There the pupils can master the language, intake into schools in Carmarthenshire, is no way out of this for any authority. gaining a wide variety of skills with currently with limited Welsh provision, They will have to comply.” Her confidence and fluency”. is a priority for the future”.

64 | www.iwa.org.uk promote Welsh medium higher education, announced in June in response to the Merfyn Jones review of Higher Education provision, is another important step in revitalising the Welsh language. This development will increasingly enable students at our universities and colleges of Further Education to pursue all or part of their studies through the medium of Welsh. The work of the Federal College will extend a process started at nursery level over sixty years ago. The success of Welsh-medium education means it has not only attracted tens of thousands of pupils but also several thousand teachers. Children from Year 3 at Ysgol Glan Morfa Consequently, English-medium schools Welsh-medium school in Splott, Cardiff. are bereft of Welsh speaking staff. ESTYN has rightly drawn attention to It is indeed ironic that as Welsh- method of teaching the language. The the collapse in the standard of Welsh medium education is growing apace in Welsh for Adults Scheme, which reached second language teaching and learning the more anglicised counties, in many 18,875 learners in 2006-07, is controlled in our schools. So much so that those traditional Welsh speaking areas the from six regional centres with the medium schools that are language is receiving retrograde treatment Government steering the programme making headway with Welsh are the through a lack of linguistic continuity. strategically. exception not the rule. And there is The teaching and training system Welsh in the workplace and the little likelihood that there will be a in our colleges needs to be modified Teulu (family) learning scheme are being surplus in the supply of Welsh speaking (without delay) to match the growing encouraged. Welsh courses are available staff in the near future. In view of this, demand for Welsh medium education. at several levels with accreditation acting it would appear to be impractical to Creating a bilingual Wales will require as a stimulus for further learning and as highly prioritise Welsh as a second increasing numbers of Welsh speaking a series of stepping stones towards language in most of our schools until teachers, trained to pursue courses fluency. There are also plans for more the supply of Welsh medium teachers specifically shaped to meet the needs Adult Centres to deliver informal has grown considerably. of Welsh-medium provision. It is learning opportunities. The Minister of Education, Jane encouraging therefore that the document Enhanced Higher Welsh medium Hutt has spoken at an opportune states, “A National Welsh medium and bilingual education is being moment and asserted her authority. strategy will be set up to develop planned in light of the report by the Once the consultation process is over, effective provision from Nursery through Chairman of the Coleg Federal’s those authorities that still need to carry to Further and Higher Education with Planning Board. The present policy out parental surveys should receive the strategy supported by an action plan. for promoting Welsh medium further standardised Government It will ensure that all teachers under education is to prioritise six key fields: questionnaires to complete. It is also training who intend to work in Wales as childcare, health and social services, imperative that the priorities identified primary school teachers, or as second business and IT, leisure and tourism in the new plan receive frequent language practitioners, or in Welsh- and the performing arts. These offer monitoring to ensure that they are on medium locations, receive Welsh realistic ways of expanding Welsh target. Likewise, regular public reports language lessons and an awareness medium options. Childcare and on the progress of the main priorities of the language during their initial associated fields of work, such as early are essential to avoid slippage in the teacher training”. years teaching in the Foundation Phase, meeting of deadlines More adults are to be urged to are particularly in need of Welsh follow Welsh courses, especially intensive speaking staff. Owen John Thomas is a former ones (the Wlpan or Cwrs Carlam) which The Education Minister’s support teacher and Plaid Cymru AM for ESTYN regard as the most successful for the setting up a Federal College to South Wales Central.

summer 2009 | 65 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

public have had any formal way of identifying which councils are Self Ass ess ment considered to be under-performing. To understand why the three Versu s countries adopted such different approaches, interviews were carried out with senior policy makers from ‘Name and Shame’ government, audit bodies and local authorities who were closely involved in developing and implementing them. Steve Martin reports on assessment of each council’s overall We found that the three regimes had contrasting local government performance and capacity. However, several things in common. They all saw performance regimes in Wales, they were one-offs. Each council was external challenge by audit bodies as a Scotland and England inspected once between 2003 and 2009. way of highlighting poor performance. The Scottish approach rejected a They all used similar kinds of evidence Over the last ten years external scoring system and performance league and were all rooted in a theory of inspection has played a pivotal role tables because different areas were seen improvement which held that sustained in attempts to drive public service as having different needs and priorities. service improvement required effective improvement. Unlike traditional Audit teams could not therefore use a leadership, sound performance and approaches, which were largely standard, rules-based approach. Instead, financial management, and effective service based, inspection of local they published narrative reports which partnership working between local government has increasingly highlighted each council’s strengths agencies at the corporate level. focused on the performance of together with ‘areas for improvement’. At the same time there were the authority as a whole. Wales, Councils produced plans which set out important differences between them Scotland and England have adopted how they proposed to respond to the which reflected contrasting theories of contrasting approaches to these issues identified by the auditors. motivation. In each case there were ‘corporate’ assessments. Implementation was monitored by significant differences in the relationships auditors and, if insufficient progress wa s between central government, audit The Comprehensive Performance being made, the Accounts Commission bodies and local authorities. The Assessment framework was introduced could recommend to Ministers that English Comprehensive Performance in England in 2002. This judged an they take direct action. Assessment framework was a authority’s political and managerial As in England, the Wales competitive regime which aimed to leadership, performance management, Programme for Improvement involves stimulate change from the outside and partnership working and use of annual assessments of councils. enhance accountability to ministers. resources – in short, its ‘corporate However, in common with the Scottish The Scottish Best Value Audits were capacity’ - as well as the performance framework, it has been tailored to local less overtly competitive but also relied of key services. The resulting scores needs and priorities. It also makes on external challenge and public were combined to give an overall rating greater use of self assessment than reporting. Meanwhile, the Wales on a five point scale ranging from either of the other two regimes. Programme for Improvement sought ‘poor’ to ‘excellent’. Results for upper Authorities and the auditors complete to secure internal ownership of the tier and unitary authorities were parallel analyses and agree a joint risk need to improve and relied heavily published every year, with councils assessment. Unlike Scotland and on local leadership to effect change. found to be poor liable England, risk assessments have been The ‘hard edged’ English approach to direct government intervention. subject to bi-lateral confidentiality was in tune with an overall strategy for Best Value Audits were introduced agreements between the auditors and public services reform based on ‘terror in Scotland in 2003. Like the English authorities. The result is that neither and targets’, performance league tables, system, they provided an overall the Assembly Government nor the the ‘naming and shaming’ of poor

66 | www.iwa.org.uk performers and ‘earned autonomy’ Unsurprisingly, many interviewees changes to the Programme for for councils that were doing well. from local authority backgrounds Improvement in 2005, while proposals In Scotland and Wales policy expressed concern about the costs of for a major overhaul of the local makers believed this approach to be inspection and the burdens which it government performance framework inappropriate and unworkable. They places on councils. But we found and wider inspection landscape are argued that local authorities varied in widespread backing in Scotland for currently under consideration. terms of size, population density and the Best Value Audit approach and a The introduction of the levels of deprivation and it was therefore surprising level of support in England Comprehensive Area Assessment in impossible to make meaningful for Comprehensive Performance England marks a decisive shift away performance comparisons between them. Assessment. Some policy makers from the ‘one size fits all’ approach Moreover, the physical and relational believed that the latter had produced embodied by the Comprehensive distance between central government diminishing returns over time because Performance Assessment in favour of departments and local councils was early rounds had ‘picked the low bespoke assessments which recognise much shorter than in England. hanging fruit’ and local authorities had the importance of variations between Welsh policy makers were also more become better at ‘playing the game’. localities, along the lines of the Scottish mindful of local government’s own However, almost everyone we talked and Welsh regimes. democratic mandate and less confident to believed that it had helped to Policy makers in London are also of their capacity to intervene effectively encourage improvement, particularly showing increasing interest in the in poorly performing councils than in poor performing councils. potential value of self assessment. their English counterparts. As a result The picture in Wales was less clear And both the Comprehensive Area the performance regimes in Scotland cut. Local authorities reported that the Assessment and the revised Best Value and Wales were developed through Programme for Improvement was seen Audit framework stress the importance consultation and consensus, rather than as a relatively low level activity which of assessing the outcomes achieved by top down coercion and codification. had less impact than inspections of local partnerships. The consequence has been that the education and social services. Meanwhile, proposals for a new Wales Programme for Improvement in Interviewees from all sides lamented performance framework in Wales from particular has taken place well away what they described as a lack of ‘hard’ 2010, to be introduced under a new from the public gaze. There are few evidence of improvement. Though Local Government Measure, appear to sanctions for poor performance (or some believed that considerable be moving towards the Scottish and English approaches. They are “Interviewees from all sides lamented what they described promising a much sharper focus on as a lack of ‘hard’ evidence of improvement. ” authorities’ performance and capacity for improvement, and much more open reporting of inspectors’ assessments. incentives to excel) and interventions improvements had been made, they It seems that, after a period in have been relatively low key affairs, felt frustrated that there were no data which all three countries have pursued often orchestrated by the local to prove this. distinctive home grown solutions, we government community rather than Interestingly, the regimes in all three may now be witnessing the emergence of central government. countries are currently a state of flux. consensus about what works best. This Of course, the key test is whether There were major changes to the is perhaps a sign that in this particular these regimes actually work. And if they English Comprehensive Performance policy area the gap presented by Rhodri do is one approach better than another? Assessment framework in 2005, and in Morgan’s ‘clear red water’ agenda is Or is it a case of horses for courses, with 2009 it was replaced altogether by a beginning to close up different regimes best suited to different new regime known as ‘Comprehensive contexts? The lack of reliable Area Assessment’. Steve Martin is Professor of Public comparable performance data indicators Similarly, in Scotland there was a Policy and Management at the Centre makes it difficult to evaluate the relative major review of the first round of Best for Local and Regional Government effectiveness of the regimes through Value Audits in 2007-08. This produced Research, Cardiff University. He is statistical analysis. However, our proposals for significant changes to the leading a team of researchers from interviews provided important insights regime which will come into effect from Cardiff and Edinburgh Universities on into perceptions about their effectiveness. this year. Wales, too, introduced major an ESRC Public Services Programme.

summer 2009 | 67 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture Rescuing dere lict house s Joanie Speers examines how abandoned properties can help with the rural housing crisis

Across rural Wales people are being Park, initially in Carmarthenshire and support sustainable development in forced to leave their communities Powys, to turn derelict stone buildings rural areas. Yet, nowhere is there because they cannot compete for into affordable homes for local families. mention of utilising existing buildings homes on the open market. At the Adfer Ban a Chwm – ‘revitalize for affordable housing. The only same time large numbers of derelict hill and valley’ - was registered as a allowance is for new build. Nowhere vernacular buildings are slowly charitable company in June 2008, just is there reference to the numbers of falling into disrepair and taking with as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation stone houses slowly disappearing while them the history, heritage, culture published their report on the need for people have no place of their own to and stories of their communities. the Welsh Assembly Government to live. Nowhere do they consider the invest far more into affordable housing human investment that is represented For the last 30 years my husband and in rural Wales. The report stated that by these beautiful buildings. I have restored and rebuilt a watermill housing needs are particularly pressing In a recent Brecon Beacons and out-buildings in the Brecon in National Parks where there is an National Park local development plan Beacons. In June 2008 we set up a over emphasis on the protection of consultation, while there were questions building preservation trust to operate rural spaces and not enough on rural on the need for affordable homes and within the Brecon Beacons National communities. The report recommended also on what to do with redundant that the Assembly Government should buildings, there was no suggested link use redundant buildings, involve local between the two. communities, and encourage bold and Adfer Ban a Chwm is looking at innovative approaches. buildings that are under the radar of In its response the Welsh Assembly normal development. They are unlisted Government published a consultation and many are too far gone and expensive paper on planning policy changes to to repair in normal circumstances. But

A flour mill has existed here at Felin Uchaf, Llandeusant, Carmarthenshire for around 500 years and it was last used in the mid 20th Century. Joanie Speers and her architect husband Roger Mears bought it 30 years ago. By then it was a store for farming equipment and a barn for sheep. The ground floor was dirt, the upper floors were rotten, and a tree was growing out of the roof. Ty-melinydd, the miller’s house seen in the left picture, had a demolition order on it – it could either be demolished or rebuilt.

68 | www.iwa.org.uk once they are put back into use, they will to determine who is eligible to secure funding to buy these buildings, certainly last much longer than the usual acquire the property. pay for the work and to support and 60 years of new build. They are a link • Keep the community informed expand the organisation. with the heritage and traditions of our throughout the process. We have established an informal farming communities and a resource partnership with the south Wales crying out to be utilised. Adfer Ban a In this process we face a number of housing association Gwalia, and are Chwm is pursuing the following model challenges. The first is to convince working on a feasibility study of our in creating new projects: owners of derelict buildings to sell first, pilot building. We want to build them to Adfer Ban a Chwm at what partnerships with other organisations, • Agree with owners to purchase will inevitably be a low price, although including the National Parks, National derelict buildings at a low rate, these properties would have little value Trust, Young Farmers, the Dyfed pending planning permission to if sold commercially. Archaeological Trust, the WI, and rebuild as affordable homes. Secondly, we need to put forward a history societies. • Repair/rebuild to high conservation strong case to the planners in the Parks What we must avoid is taking so and sustainability standards, using and the local councils to approve our long in developing projects that the local architects, surveyors, builders, schemes. The Assembly Government derelict but often beautiful buildings and materials. is encouraging a more creative and scattered across rural Wales will • Sell as affordable homes to innovative approach to planning and we disappear and take with them pieces local people. hope this will work to our advantage. of local history and heritage, and – • Attach legal covenants attached to the A third challenge is to find local as importantly - their potential for sale to ensure that the property stays architects and builders who will work to becoming sustainable homes once more ‘affordable’ in perpetuity (for example our high conservation and sustainability by shared equity). standards using local materials and Joanie Speers is founder of Adfer Ban • Put a local cascade system in place traditional methods. Lastly we need to a Chwm / Revitalise Hill and Valley. politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

Rock and Roll

Journali sm BBC Wales’s newsroom at work in Llandaf, Cardiff

Ian Hargreaves makes the case for an on-line networked news service to compete with BBC Wales

In its comments on Lord Carter’s Commission to oversee the creation of can sensibly be resolved in London - Digital Britain report, published earlier this new force in Welsh journalism. but equally, what works in Wales this year, the Welsh Assembly All of this has sent sparks flying must work alongside what happens Government backed Ofcom’s across the media institutions which in England. proposal for a Wales news service cluster in the Cardiff Media Village. • In designing a solution based upon within slots made available by ITV, And the debate does indeed raise tricky ‘plurality’ around the BBC, we should to be delivered by a third party, questions about governance of public make sure that any new institutional contestably-funded and possibly even service media in Wales and, as ever, arrangement will plug and play into with contestable distribution. The of where the money will come from. the age of universal broadband. Assembly Government noted, but But none of these problems is • Any new commissioning machinery more non-commitally, the idea of insoluble. And they must not be allowed must be clearly insulated from direct a BBC-ITV partnership and the to distract us from the task of taking the political interference. proposal for an S4C-led English historic opportunity which now lies language news service. before us. For we are approaching the A major question is whether the main finale of this drama, the Britain’s Got focus should be upon looking after the In its own response, S4C said Talent moment when everyone has Channel 3 news slots or something intriguingly that “a progressive and strutted their stuff and the judges must broader and more ambitious. My answer open rights ownership model would decide. It’s make your mind up time. is that we must keep Channel 3 healthy, be developed with a view to sustaining But thankfully not with Simon Cowell indeed we should take this opportunity and promoting other forms of local and Piers Morgan in on the bench. to improve its health and so its life journalism.” S4C’s English language The debate has, I think, delivered clarity expectancy. At the same time we must News Pilot would be overseen by a on the following points: look further into the future, as a “strong and representative board, previous generation of politicians did appointed by the S4C Authority.” • An Assembly Government capable of when they created the BBC, nearly a The expert group that advised the clear policy specification in this area hundred years ago, and Channel 4 and Assembly Government proposed the demands and deserves to be heard. S4C in the 1980s. establishment of a Welsh Media • None of the matters under discussion The ambition must be high because

70 | www.iwa.org.uk the matter is of such high importance. It may benefit from or even depend Western Telegraph, now part of the As the IWA’s media audit said last year, upon the investment of public funds, Newsquest group, was celebrating its we are called upon to meet: but it should also seek private and 150th anniversary. The Western voluntary funding. It is a journalism Telegraph’s founder got started by “…the pressing need in Wales for which, in business terms, is the work of taking on himself the combined roles of investment in quality journalism: entrepreneurs, not corporate giants or reporter, editor and ad salesman, which journalism that demands time, talent established public sector institutions. was not unusual for the time. Having and space; journalism that can link Some say that the business model created his news sheet, he then set about the local with the national and vice for on-line journalism, and therefore selling it personally door to door. That’s versa, and where opinions derive for networked journalism, won’t work how newspapers made the transition from trusted, assiduous investigation; because we are swimming in free from high-cost single sheets, from which journalism whose intelligence and content, much of it the very high the literate few read out loud to the ambition measures up to the new quality offerings of the BBC. But illiterate many, to become the engine democratic reality in Wales that we even in a brutal recession which is of economic and democratic progress. now have the capacity to pass laws hammering jobs and profits in all It’s the spirit of the Western to govern ourselves.” parts of the media, there are important Telegraph in 1854 that we need today: reasons not to be too pessimistic: a spirit of risk-taking, challenge and We are already fortunate to have in the hard work that ignites a contest for BBC a large and self-confident global • The fact that readership of many local quality and better journalism in Wales. institution, probably the best news weekly papers (including those in It is a journalism which makes life less organisation in the world, and one of Wales) have held up in recent years, comfortable for government and big the most important institutions in demonstrating the value we place on institutions, public and private, even Wales. In order to create competition real local news and discussion. though journalism will continue to turn and difference we do not need a • The spread of broadband. to big institutions and the taxpayer for second large institution, a poor man’s • The imminence of digital switchover. financial support. BBC. Instead, we need a way of • The successful emergence of In the future I am as sure as I can be investing in and supporting what community radio, which blends that the most adventurous journalism will people have started to call “networked public and private finance. express itself first and in greatest depth journalism”, so that it can thrust its • The fact that advertising on the in some kind of on-line format. On-line roots across the whole of Welsh life. internet has already overtaken the does what journalism has always striven Networked journalism delivers from value of advertising on radio. for: to be fast, to be first, and to engage diverse voices a multi-media presence • The continued low cost of access hearts as well as heads. This means that on-line. It builds its strength through to on-line publishing; the internet, in all its disruptive but the brilliance of its linkages and • The evidence, from survey after survey, creative glory, is the key to the future alliances, whether to individual bloggers that people want their politicians, they of journalism in Wales. It is the key to and citizen journalists or communities really do expect them, to look after reporting and persuasion, to the transfer of interest within Wales along with journalism in Wales. of facts, knowledge and understanding, sources of news, information, comment to public conversation. The internet and creativity of interest to Welsh If I were starting out in journalism carries radio and television, as well as people, no matter where they live. It today, in recession-beaten Wales, or print. It is, essentially, invincible offers an interactive, conversational, England, or America or Africa, I’d disputatious, rock and roll journalism be looking for a way to make this for Wales, its diaspora and anyone else networked journalism model work. I Ian Hargreaves is Director of Strategic who wishes to join in. And, of course, would be operating by trial and error, Communication with the Foreign and it needn’t and shouldn’t stop at confident in the belief that democratic Commonwealth Office. He is a journalism. Such a network can also societies will always value the facts and Professor at the Cardiff School of nourish and animate much else. evidence that good reporters bring to Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies This cannot be provided by a single light and the high quality media debate and, until 2008, a founding member of organisation with a single board of which help us to reach judgments and the board of Ofcom, the governors bound to a 20 th Century settle our differences. A business model communications regulator. This article is mentality. It must be a patchwork of will emerge. It always has. an extract from a World Press Freedom organisations, mutually nutritious, as I remember being in Pembrokeshire Day lecture he delivered at the Temple well as competitive with each other. in 2004 when the local paper there, the of Peace, Cardiff, on 1 May.

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tapestry of comment and observation on Welsh public life - a prime source for Our Pla ce in contemporary living and future history . This irresistible growth of digital knowledge is paralleled by another the Onli ne World process, the migration online of parts of the huge legacy of past knowledge about Andrew Green reports on an ambitious project to put Wales on the Web Wales still trapped in traditional formats like manuscript, print, vinyl and film. Most economists and politicians colourless term 'content'. This can Some of this analogue-to-digital transfer agree that a flourishing post- mean a wide variety of things. It can has been done piecemeal by private recession Wales will depend on signify online software, services and individuals and community groups, technologically advanced industries. transactions: local authorities accept but most has resulted from the more What will unite many of them will systematic programmes planned by be a digital, and specifically online, public and private organisations. For means of operation. The role of over ten years the National Library of government is to make sure that the Wales has been converting parts of its various underlying structures of this varied collections to electronic form digital economy are in place for and making them available free on its others to use. website. It now has one of the largest and most active digital transfer units in Both UK and Welsh governments are the UK. Over a million separate digital alive to the need to improve online surrogates are now available: books connectivity, the crucial part of the and manuscripts, pictures and maps, technical infrastructure. In March 2009 photographs and exhibitions, film clips Lord Carter’s interim Digital Britain and sound recordings. report proposed a universal broadband Until recently most of this work obligation that would provide almost all was relatively small-scale. However, in UK households with a minimum level December 2004 Google announced of connection to the internet. The that it intended to transfer not single Welsh Assembly Government has for items or even collections but whole many years maintained programmes to libraries of printed books into digital compensate for market failures in the form. By October 2008 Google Books provision of online infrastructure, and council tax payment across the Web; had scanned seven million books, of may need to continue them if Carver's rail companies sell tickets online; which some one million were in the proposal is accepted. individuals share digital photographs, public domain and readable in full. Of course, connectivity is not videos and friends. But many or most Google’s aim is apparently to convert enough. It is just as important that of these have no specifically Welsh 10 million within a decade. companies and individuals realise the context. If Wales itself is to flourish How does a small country, too importance of their own use of online in the online world it needs to develop insignificant to feature on Google’s technologies and that they are sufficiently a higher profile in the other sphere of radar, respond? I suggest, by being engaged with them. Online usage in content: knowledge itself. bold and deciding that, though small in Wales remains stubbornly low in As Welsh people and organisations population, geography and resources, comparison with other parts of the UK. create new knowledge in digital form Wales has the capacity to claim a According to the Living in Wales Survey Wales, in all its variety and significant place in the online world. in April 2008 only 59 per cent of distinctiveness, gains in online stature. With its partners and within the bounds households had access to broadband. For instance, BBC Wales has built a of copyright law, the National Library Meanwhile, it is essential that Wales huge body of knowledge about almost of Wales has been developing a develops not just online technologies all aspects of contemporary Wales, in programme to give free access online to but also what happens online – Welsh and English. Bloggers, again in the contents of all of the print output everything encompassed by that both languages, have woven a rich of our country, from the 16 th Century

72 | www.iwa.org.uk to the present day: books, periodicals, must raise a further £1m towards the not yet clear to us. For example, newspapers and other publications. This second project, not to speak of further companies, educational organisations will place in every home, school, college stages - then Wales stands a good chance and individuals will be able with ease and workplace in Wales the equivalent of being the first country in the world to to 'remix' articles from the new project of a huge library – with the added be ‘complete online’. with content from other sources, for advantage that every work contained example pictures, sound or videos to in it can be retrieved in seconds. create new works. Research based on, The value of having such a for example, 19 th Century newspaper resource is easy to see. Researchers, sources could be fed back into the students, teachers and schoolchildren, resource itself for the benefit of future the media, family and local historians, researchers. Readers will be able to adult learners, businesses of all kinds, upload their own material – text, photos minority groups: all these and more or film – to amplify or comment on the will have at their fingertips a massive original. They may even volunteer, as additional resource. For the first time happens in the case of Australian digital a huge corpus of material in the newspapers, to offer corrections to Welsh language will be available online. digitised text not converted with Moreover, the history, languages, complete accuracy by today's software. literature and will be Print is not everything. Material in much more visible to the rest of the archival, graphic and audiovisual form is world, with beneficial results for equally amenable to re-creation in digital tourism, investment and recognition. form. The Library has been busy loading A recent study by Scotinform has on to its website (www.llgc.org.uk) some demonstrated the wide range of of the most significant collections in its possible uses and audiences, and own stewardship. It must be admitted confirms that there is wide support that the ability to make digital versions of in Wales for the programme. sound, screen and broadcast is severely Such an ambitious scheme, costed at hampered by the complexity of well over £20m, can only be realised in Printed publications are of course copyrights inherent in most of the stages. When it is complete this summer available to the public already in their material. This is a problem that will the first stage, ‘Welsh Journals Online’, original formats. Yet it is no exaggeration worsen if a European Union proposal to funded by the Joint Information Systems to claim that this programme will have extend the period of copyright in sound Committee and the Welsh Assembly the effect of liberating their contents. recordings to 95 years becomes law. Government, will present the contents In the 21 st Century it is in the online In all media the restrictions and of fifty of the most important periodicals universe that most people will expect to complexities of copyright law influence published in Wales since 1900 find most kinds of recorded knowledge: critically the extent to which published (http://welshjournals.llgc.org.uk/content/ they will be increasingly unwilling to knowledge can be put into the hands of home). The next stage, financed by a make special efforts and special journeys the public. There is in increasing tension £2m grant from the Government’s to seek out what might or might not be between the expectations and practice of Strategic Capital Investment Fund, available in libraries, archives and other most consumers, who desire easy and will add pre-1900 periodicals and will physical institutions. immediate access to as much as possible, uncover for the first time in detail the Moreover, the translation from print and the defensiveness of (mostly large, complete contents of most of the to digital is not a simple like-for-like multinational) copyright holders, who newspapers published in all parts of operation. It has the capacity to add seek ever more restrictive legislation on Wales up to about 1900: a vast reservoir value, most obviously by allowing public access. Perhaps in Wales the time of knowledge very little explored to date highly detailed searching - down to the has come to think creatively and more because of its inaccessibility. level of the individual word - for flexibly, through the use of licences and These projects present big challenges: information within works. other agreements, to achieve a fair technical (scanning, character recognition, Added to this, the advent of 'Web balance between creators and owners of describing), organisational (workflows 2.0' technologies means that online knowledge and a public eager to benefit and presentation) and legal (the content is not merely presented to the from it complexities of intellectual property). reader, as are analogue originals, but is But if these can be overcome, and the available for re-use and re-packaging in Andrew Green is head Librarian at momentum maintained - the Library all kinds of new ways, many of them the National Library of Wales.

summer 2009 | 73 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

Rhondda Roundabout Leighton Andrews celebrates the role of culture in regenerating his Valleys constituency

“Culture is ord inary: that is where we must begin”.

Those were the words just over Rhondda’s cultural history. Down the Abraham, whose home in fifty years ago of the great Welsh road, currently for sale, is the Red Cow recently received a blue plaque, sailed cultural critic, Raymond Williams. pub, where the Male Choir to Chile for work in the 1860s. The He also told us that “a culture is won its first competition in the 1880s. choir the Rhondda Gleemen won the common meanings, the product of a Half a mile or so west in World’s Fair Eisteddfod in Chicago in whole people, and offered individual lives the award-winning contemporary 1893. Ben Bowen went to South Africa meanings”. The Rhondda is a novelist Rachel Tresize. The sculptor in 1901 for his health and wrote back political space forged over the last Robert Thomas is also from there. articles and letters challenging Lloyd 125 years by successive generations. Further on lie the stones from George’s support for the Boers and Their history is recognised in the 1928 Treorchy Eisteddfod. warning of what led to apartheid. The common understandings and The collier poet Ben Bowen came Rhondda supplied more recruits for interpretations, as Williams says, from Treorchy. Up the valley near the the International Brigade in the Spanish “the product of a whole people” - Burberry factory site is Welsh Civil War than any other Valley. and with a politics involving Medium primary School, which opened Culture, here, was always ordinary. contested “offered individual as the first Welsh medium primary As the historian and Pendyrus chorister meanings” – Radical Liberal, school nearly 60 years ago. The novelist Gareth Williams has written of the syndicalist, Labour, Communist, Ron Berry came from , just a Rhondda’s early 20 th Century musical feminist, nationalist and so on. couple of miles further north. So did culture, “democratic and disciplined, Frank Vickery. So did the painter parochial and progressive, it had been On the day the Burberry factory closed Charlie Burton, 80 this year. Fellow a central feature of people’s existence, we marched to the Parc and Dare member of the Rhondda Group, Ernie transcending their work, their politics miners’ institute in Treorchy, achieving Zobole, came from , a few miles and even their poverty”. the great feat of uniting two Rhondda south. A few miles further south you Rhys Davies recalled “the branch male choirs, led by the GMB banner come to Rhys Davies’s and Lewis library in the front room of an ex- and the Amicus flags. This was a Jones’s and Tommy Farr’s collier’s house close to my home. It struggle that united ordinary people and Gwyn Thomas’s Cymmer. was run by the South Wales Miners’ in the factory with a wide range of It is, of course, an international Federation. The librarian’s job was his cultural figures in Wales and beyond. culture. The Rhondda was at the heart compensation for losing a leg in a pit Culture becomes ordinary. of the first outbreak of industrial accident”. And we don’t need to list You cannot step far from the Parc globalisation through coal exports. The the miners’ institutes and libraries. Dr and Dare without tripping over Rhondda’s first MP, Mabon, William Brinley Jones, former President of the

74 | www.iwa.org.uk National Library, recalls plays at the • Investments in key venues can have amongst others Katherine Jenkins, Maes yr Haf unemployed workers centre an impact on the local economy, Rebecca Evans and Sian Cothi. The in and performing himself in including the hotel and restaurant Partnership built its own the Garrick Players, headquartered in the sector, on tourism investment overall, amphitheatre back in 1992 which is engine house of Colliery. and act as a catalyst for further used to this day. Subsequently it opened As the opening lines of Jack Jones’ investment, including retail investment the arts centre Canolfan Rhys. Last year novel Rhondda Roundabout put it in and housing, and indeed result in it marked both the 40 th anniversary of 1934, the Rhondda was, ‘Revolutionary diminished crime levels. the estate and the 470 th anniversary of and riotous; sporting and artistic, coal- • You can have schemes where culture the destruction of the Penrhys shrine bearing Rhondda… place of origin of leads regeneration, where culture is and statue. It has published an oral champion boxers, noted preachers, fully integrated into a wider history of the estate, and now features talented musicians and composers, regeneration programme, or where again in the Cistercian way pilgrimage. famous choir conductors, operatic stars cultural activity is just an occasional The Rhondda’s own Spectacle and novelists”. To which we can add, part of a bigger programme. Theatre – already developing plans for film stars, historians, artists, actors, poets and politicians. And space for cultural activity has been central to the work of social reformers in the Rhondda from the earliest days. The pseudonymous Matron, writing in the Rhondda Socialist in 1912 says “women need leisure to rest their bodies, and more leisure in which to cultivate an acquaintance with the world of literature and the intellect” Retiring as Labour’s Welsh women’s organiser in 1948, Elizabeth Andrews said “There is a cultural side of our movement that we must develop… we Valleys Kids are based in the regenerated are not only a party machine, but a great Soar Ffrwdamos chapel in . human movement”. We can of course over-do this. It Community organisations are actively an ambitious community play about may be convenient for those of us in promoting culture as part of their the Riots for next year’s the regeneration business if cultural approach to regeneration. In the centenary – has been actively engaged activity was photoshopped for our Rhondda, Valleys Kids, based in the in undertaking community consultations benefit, but it wouldn’t be honest or wonderful regenerated arts space that is for Llwynypia Communities First. authentic. Our modern novelists of the Soar Ffrwdamos chapel in Penygraig, is Three Communities First Rhondda like Rachel Tresize and working on a drama linking communities partnerships in RCT have operated Richard Evans and yes Catrin Dafydd – in South Africa and Rhondda in the local radio stations for a month each whose Random Deaths and Custard build up to London 2012, and as part of on a number of occasions over the I’m claiming for the Rhondda even if Wales’ Cultural Olympiad initiative. The last 18 months, funded by our she is from Gwaelod y Garth - project, to be written by Lawrence Allan, Communities@One programme. Radio challenge any sense of a simple is inspired by the iconic film Zulu Rhys in Penrhys and Radio Cwmni in community cosiness in their writings. (featuring Ferndale’s Stanley Baker) , Dapper FM in , Even so, acres of research on the made in 1964, just as Nelson Mandela are engaging local people in making beneficial links between culture and was beginning his 27 year long their own programmes. regeneration, shows: incarceration. They want to bring the There are also a number of specific two strands together to form one initiatives undertaken by the Assembly • Cultural regeneration is key to the cohesive (and massive) performance in Government: building of the social capital 2012, performed in both South Africa important in community development and Wales. • We brought the National Theatre of and on the identity of a place, Pontygwaith Regeneration Scotland to Wales for their first visit. changing the attitudes of both partnership has run a major concert Attracting Black Watch to Ebbw Vale residents and outsiders. every year for the last five years, starring was a major coup and it presented a

summer 2009 | 75 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture

communities. Digital story-telling has been central to projects on digital inclusion, funded through our Communities@One programme, such as Community Archives Wales. Our successor programme, Communities 2.0, is funding the establishment of a Centre of Excellence on Digital Story- telling at the University of Glamorgan. We had plans for some time for a Visitor Centre for the Heads of the Valleys. We have now agreed that the Ebbw Vale General Office will house that centre and also house the new The Treorchy Male Voice Choir, pictured in front of the Wales Millennium Centre in Gwent Record Office which will Cardiff – it won its first competition in the Red Cow pub in Treorchy, now up for sale. become the cornerstone of a Genealogy rare opportunity for people to see As Gwyn Thomas wrote “most lives are Experience. The archives of the Gwent world-acclaimed theatre on their door a yearning for coherence”. Thirty years Record Office contain for example the step while also bringing outside ago Raymond Williams pointed out the minutes of the Tredegar Workmen’s audiences to the Heads of the Valleys. importance of family history to the Medical Aid Society, where you can That was about changing perceptions Welsh industrial novel. As he put it, read of the work of Councillor Aneurin and stereotyped images. “what is really being written, through it, Bevan and Dr A.J.Cronin. is the story of a class; indeed, effectively, Half-a-million people left the south • The Rugby Community Development given the local historical circumstances, Wales Valleys in the inter-war years. We Project is a partnership between the of a people”. will use 2010, the year of the Ryder Heads of the Valleys Programme All over the Valleys I find local Cup and the Heads of the Valleys and the . Both groups undertaking work on family Eisteddfod, to invite people to come partners recognize that in many history. Our local libraries and county home to the Valleys to find their family communities the clubs act as a hub records offices provide help with local history. It will be the year of Valleys’ for a variety of community activities, records and local photographs. Local Homecoming – Hiraeth Cymoedd . going beyond the core purpose of history groups produce well-researched More than 150,000 people will visit playing and developing rugby. Clubs websites and local history books. Young the Eisteddfod alone. Half a century that have benefited from funding to people work with the older generations after Aneurin Bevan hosted Paul date include Treherbert, Ferndale, on histories of their area. Robeson at the last Ebbw Vale Cefn Coed and Brynmawr. The Heads of the Valleys Eisteddfod, we hope to create another • We recognise the importance of Programme will be supporting the link with Paul Robeson’s family. As the Ryder Cup to the regeneration National Library in digitising (and giving President of the 1958 Eisteddfod, of Newport, and will be supporting free, searchable networked public access Aneurin Bevan said, speaking of local additional activities in Newport to) historic out-of-copyright newspapers authorities’ role in culture, “there can during this period through our published in the Valleys. This work will be no better purpose to which to devote urban regeneration company, be done as part of the National Library's public revenue than to help raise the Newport Unlimited. Welsh Newspapers and Magazines cultural standards of our people” Online project. The Library will ensure • We are making a substantial that a sample of the titles will be Leighton Andrews is Minister for investment of up to £300,000 to available to the public in time for the Regeneration in the Welsh Assembly underpin the Heads of the Valleys opening of the Ebbw Vale family history Government. This article is based on Eisteddfod at Ebbw Vale. and geneaology centre in August 2010. his speech to the IWA’s conference on Valleys Kids has worked with BBC Opening Doors: Culture, the Creative • We have supported the Head for Arts Wales and the National Library on the Industries and Regeneration , held at programme, including events like the Rhondda Lives project to help people the Parc and Dare Theatre, Treorchy, Valleys Girl art project tell digital stories about their in June.

76 | www.iwa.org.uk North Torfaen Youth Theatre participating in Head for Arts’ Valleys Girl community performance in Blaenafon in March 2009.

Opening Doors Polly Hamilton explores new ways of utilising the arts for regeneration

Aneurin works in theatre in London’s and creates bigger, more costly the Arts Council of Wales, the Welsh West End. He is a graduate of the problems for our education, health Local Government Association, Cardiff Royal Welsh College of Music and and social services. Partnerships with University and the Heads of the Drama and is now making a living the voluntary, private and other public Valleys partnership. doing the very thing he loves. But his sector agencies are integral to their During 2008 we undertook some story could have been very different. work. As creative workers they have baseline research to explore the work He grew up in an ex-mining village the very competencies prized by the of local authority arts services, to near Bridgend. His grandfather had public sector as integral to promoting understand the complex ecology of the worked in the colliery and his dad innovation and change. But these are cultural sector, and to consider ways to worked in a local factory. He thought the very services which are most at risk increase the impact that local authorities his life was mapped out before him, as local authorities attempt to battle the make on the creative industries as a key a prospect he wasn’t looking forward challenging funding climate. driver of the knowledge-based economy. to, and in his own words, “I spent In 2007, seven local authority arts We brought in a team of specialists, Bop my time dreaming up new ways to services in south east Wales - Blaenau Consulting, who work internationally in get young girls pregnant”. Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Merthyr the creative and cultural industries, and Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Rhondda tasked them to undertake a mapping So what made the difference? When Cynon Taf and Torfaen - came study of the sector in the region, and Aneurin was fifteen he had the together to make sure that the ‘door’, an audit of arts services. opportunity to take part in a weekly which had been opened for Aneurin, At the same time we began an youth theatre, provided by the local could stay open for others. Our mission extensive visioning exercise, consulting council with the support of the Arts was to enable arts services and the people about their aspirations for the Council of Wales. He said of the cultural sector to be more innovative arts in the future. We also embarked experience, “It opened a door I never and sustainable. In doing so we hoped on a programme of workshops to make knew existed.” to increase our contribution to the sure that we challenged ourselves, and For local authority arts services, regeneration of the Valleys and the developed a shared view of what a 21 st Aneurin’s story is not unique. There wider creative economy in Wales. The Century arts service could and should are many thousands of people whose project became known as ArtsConnect. look like. This included engaging with lives have been transformed by the ArtsConnect is a change the work of leading thinkers such as opportunity to participate in the arts. management project supported by the Charles Leadbeater, Richard Florida Arts services are one of the most Welsh Assembly Government under its and John Holden, and making visits to effective in the armoury of preventative Making the Connections programme, places such as Cumbria and Leicester services, those which work with people a key mechanism for delivering on the to see cultural regeneration in action. and communities to harness talent and recommendations of the Beecham Crucially, we spent time agreeing a set energy before it becomes disaffected Review. Additional partners include of shared goals and values, to improve

summer 2009 | 77 politics & policy economy international affairs science environment social policy communications culture how we worked together and to build racial stereotypes by enabling local next round of budgetary cuts. trust, pledging our commitment to people to engage with people from all The discretionary nature of local making the partnership work. over the world, whether Black Umfolosi government’s responsibility combined So what have we learned? The from Zimbabwe, Gretchen Peters from with the lack of strong leadership to creative industries are one of the Welsh Tennessee or the extraordinary throat- champion the arts has resulted in a Assembly Government’s top five singers from Mongolia. legacy of low investment. Expenditure priority growth sectors. From our Although arts services have on the arts by local authorities in the research it is clear why. Cardiff in demonstrated their commitment to region is considerably lower than the particular is booming as a cultural partnership and collaboration, there is average spend for Wales (£7.26 per centre, surpassing the performance of a danger that they have been spread head compared to £12.26). In addition, other major cities such as Birmingham too thin, and whilst their impact is revenue investment from the Arts Council and Bristol. In the ArtsConnect region evidential their profile is low. More of Wales is lower on average than in it is less positive. The creative recently as the profile of the creative other areas: £3 per head of population industries’ proportion of the economy is industries has grown in the UK, so compared to £8.89 average for Wales. half of Cardiff’s 5.1 per cent, although have arts services strived to rise to the There are ten core theatres across at 2.5-3 per cent, the creative sector is challenge by developing action plans, the region in need of substantial bigger than one might have expected supporting artists and creative investment to make them fit for for an area which is still semi-rural and organisations to find work premises, purpose. There are plans for two new overcoming the loss of its traditional start-up funding or specialist advice builds at Merthyr and Ebbw Vale and heavy industrial and agricultural base. and creating networking opportunities. a refurbishment at Bedwas, which will In 2002, Cardiff and the ArtsConnect Cultural, economic, learning and create three new cultural spaces. There region had similar employment levels in skills policies are not sufficiently joined- is a need to develop regional specialisms the creative and cultural sector – around up to provide a useful framework for to complement local arts programmes 8,000 people. Yet while Cardiff’s the development of the cultural and as a means of making the whole employment grew to just under 10,000 creative industries sector. For example, infrastructure more sustainable. since then, employment fell slightly in the Social Enterprise Strategy for Wales Audiences and participation levels Monmouthshire and the Valleys creative does not refer to the creative and are lower in south Wales than in the sector to 7,200, although this was largely cultural industries at all, even though rest of Wales. Across the ArtsConnect due to the closure of one large printing they are a significant part of this sector. region in 2007 there were approximately firm in Torfaen . Meanwhile, the Creative Industries 10,800 events attracting attendances of There is good news, however, Strategy, whilst recognising the around 533,000. These ranged from suggesting that there is real potential importance of arts and culture, has not participatory arts workshops in for transformation. The numbers of created delivery mechanisms for its community settings, to visits to theatres, creative businesses in the region are development as the seedbed of talent, independent cinema and galleries. substantial at 1,700, compared with nor does it address the creative sector’s Technology is changing how we Cardiff’s 1,280. Moreover, between role in social and economic regeneration. work and how people experience 2002 – 2006 the sector grew by 36 Very few Local Community Plans culture. Young people today are able per cent, which suggests a broad prioritise culture and the creative to make and edit their own film and infrastructure which is ripe for further industries rarely figure in local economic distribute it via youtube without the development and growth. development strategies, although there are intervention of adult professionals. Arts services have traditionally been exceptions, such as at Rhondda Cynon However, the live experience remains viewed as leisure-based services but have Taff. Furthermore, there are currently no important, including its contribution to demonstrated their ability to deliver on a national indicators for the arts and few creating an attractive environment in range of key policy areas. For example, arts services figure in local authority which to socialise and do business. Local Sonig and other youth music projects have improvement plans. In a sector where people are passionately supportive of the successfully worked with disaffected young what gets measured is what matters, the arts. In 2008 the Rhondda Cynon Taf people to build skills and confidence and arts are way below the corporate and theatres achieved a 96 per cent public create access to the music industry. policy radar. The proposed Cultural satisfaction ratings in an independent Events such as Abertillery Blues Duty pledged as part of the One Wales survey carried out for the local authority, Festival, Torfaen Jazz and RCT’s Where agreement is still a long way from being higher than any other service reviewed. Good Music Matters seasons provide implemented. Yet it will be critical if So what’s to be done? Culture adds visitors with great reasons to visit the culture is to have the status it needs in to place-attractiveness, encouraging valleys. They also help combat negative local government in order to survive the people to live, work, study and invest in

78 | www.iwa.org.uk an area. Culture is also a sustainable by- of ‘Wikinomics’ we are committed to learned that leadership can come from product of our industrial heritage. The fostering an agile, porous new anyone provided they are given the very skills that people gained in the brass organisation which recognises that it space and encouragement to grow. bands, choirs and amateur drama groups needs to think globally as well as locally, What makes this model particularly which were fostered to support workforce to reach outside itself to find the know- exciting is the opportunity to plug gaps, productivity by the mine-owners of the how to improve and innovate. As Charles build on our current strengths and to Industrial Age, have survived the loss of Leadbetter has put it, “You are what you encourage workforce development, training the industries which produced them. share. And if you share then there is the opportunities for staff and creatives in the These creative skills have been quietly possibility you can connect and wider cultural sector. For those participating nurtured by the voluntary sector and collaborate with other people and then in the initiative, merely being given an local arts services and are now the precise together you can start creating things.” opportunity to participate has been competencies we need to meet the The proposed new structure empowering. As Kate Strudwick, Creative challenge of the recession and drive new includes a focus on trading, enterprise Project Manager with Head4Arts at economic growth. Projects such as and income generation to optimise the Caerphilly County Borough Council, put it, Head4Arts and Creative Communities contribution of the cafes, bars and “Local authorities can sometimes be a sterile environment and good ideas don’t always get nurtured. ArtsConnect has provided an environment where good ideas matter.” We believe that the ArtsConnect project is entirely deliverable, utilising Convergence funding for the purpose it was designed for, to invest in a step- change that would create long-term sustainability. It is also a model that could be applied not just across Wales but in the UK as a whole. It could be the start of a new kind of . This article began with the story of how the arts changed the life of a boy An Acadami Young Writers Squad, called Aneurin, opening a door into a pictured in in Spring 2009 new world, a world so very different to have shown that even in our most business facilities which have the that which he thought he knew. That is disadvantaged communities there is potential to generate the essential our story. The arts change lives, untapped talent just waiting to have the revenue needed to sustain arts services changing the life-stories of those who chance to express itself. But questions in the long-term. This means a further engage. As the poet and novelist Ben remain: how do we most effectively investment of £750,000 to £1.2million Okri, has said, “Stories are the secret harness this creative energy, and how a year, according to our early figures. reservoirs of values: change the stories do we make the creative and cultural Additionally, our model proposes that individuals and nations tell industries more visible? new posts to support the development themselves, and you change the We have started by developing a of the creative industries, working individuals and nations.” shared 21-year vision to develop the closely with mainstream business We believe ArtsConnect can be part arts. At the heart is the commitment support providers, to help organisations of a process of sharing success and to creating an environment in which grow through developing new markets encouraging others to follow, and find the arts can flourish, where cultural and better exploitation of their their own solutions. As anyone who organisations are valued and just as Intellectual Property Rights. Innovation works in the arts knows, stories are coal once fuelled the Industrial age, the will also be integral to the proposed journeys. And all journeys begin with creative energy of Monmouthshire and new artistic programmes, supporting an open door… the Valleys can fuel the new creative local artists, commissioning new work economy in Wales. and focusing on creative collaborations Polly Hamilton was Head of Cultural We have also designed a new model and participatory arts, building on an Services for Rhondda Cynon Taf from of shared service delivery across local already existing strength. As well as 2002 to 2009 and led the ArtsConnect authorities, with technology-supported providing new senior leadership roles, project before moving to become networking as integral to our new way this model encourages peer-working to Assistant Director of Cultural Services of working. Embracing the principles support and develop projects. Having with Blackpool Council in early 2009.

summer 2009 | 79 last word Wired for Colonialism

Peter Stead says we need a few General, a Viceroy or even the like colonials. This is a question that needs good men (and women) Emperor/King visiting a colony just as it to be confronted directly and, not least by was about to be given dominion status. our elected politicians. It is they, I suggest, Any minute now, I thought, there will who continue to make Wales a colony. be garlands or possibly a triumphant A generation ago the issue of whether elephant procession around the estate. the traditional Welsh economy was Obviously that 1969 footage and essentially a colonial economy was raised by the more recent scenes at Myddfai had Michael Hechter and then fiercely debated almost automatically set me musing by historians and economists. In subsequent about the slightly unreal quality of decades, as we de-industrialised and skills royalty. Then, suddenly, the next news and wealth declined, we rather disguised the story which involved politicians brought colonial question behind our cultural vitality me down to earth and those events at and waited for economic miracles to happen. Caernarfon and in Carmarthenshire Our saviours, it was thought, would come This summer television has wallowed had to take their place in a very bearing gifts from Japan, Europe, North in nostalgia, not least for 1969. I was different context. America and, perhaps, even London. particularly taken with a series of It had already been a year in which The failure of our politicians has programmes recalling a feature film from we had been given sustained and ample constituted a double whammy. Was it that year that I think was called Liegeman evidence of the fundamental shoddiness their preoccupation with expenses that and apparently set in Caernarfon. and inadequacy of the majority of our ensured that they took their eyes off the I had thought I was familiar with elected politicians whom we pay to call ball? At Westminster they stood by as the all the feature films made in Wales but in at Westminster and the . The country drifted into disastrous military I had entirely missed this sequel to The defence of ‘it not being against the rules’ engagements, the national debt spiralled Prisoner of Zenda . The young lead actor has no validity when a situation exists in and the banking system imploded. oozed sincerity but one regretted that Stewart which those rules are almost non-existent Meanwhile in Wales, instead of Granger had not been available for the part. and have obviously been perused with an embracing the new devolution challenge, The Castle made a superb location but intensity that revealed every loophole. the majority of AMs dug deeper into the the surrounding Ruritanian set of humble Very little of this surprised me. defensive bunkers in which their respective cottages and shops looked distinctly I was lucky enough to have had an parties have always felt most comfortable. shabby. And the streets were far too entirely non-political upbringing. The They are wired only for complaining narrow for the mounted troops. The extras phrases that stand out from my childhood about some exploitative system. They are playing the local peasantry waved their are ‘they are all in it for themselves’ and colonials to the marrow of their being. flags enthusiastically. In contrast those ‘they should bring together the best of all I recently checked the list of AMs and extras playing the seated guests all looked parties’. Only occasionally was somebody found that I had never heard of thirteen of rather wooden and uncomfortably dressed. was referred to as ‘a good man’. We have them and three others I thought had retired. Other contemporary television news been short of good men and women this I was not proud of those statistics. But what and current affairs programmes have been summer. Perhaps, I was prompted to worried more was the feeling that it was depicting royalty in the Wales of today. reflect, a royal visitor who listens to our a folly to think that collectively these 60 We were shown a prince entertaining complaints and reminds us that the people could sustain a national debate on groups of his loyal subjects at his farm or country is greater than its temporarily the changes needed to create new patterns royal lodge in Carmarthenshire. Clearly elected leaders is a constitutional necessity. of wealth creation and aspiration in Wales. this traditional farmhouse had been given In a sense, however, the constitution It will only be when we engage all our a real makeover (had that been a separate (which, of course, we do not have) is less business people, academics, media pundits TV series?) but what was most noticeable important than the culture of our politics. and advisors in an open national debate that was the huge coat of arms in what had What the scenes at Myddfai really we will cease to be colonial. We have all once been a barn but was now a formal prompted was the thought that perhaps been lulled into a colonial mindset. In the assembly room. Turning down the sound, Wales is still essentially a colony. I came to Third World it used to be said that only what one was presented with were scenes this notion not from the angle of whether with the establishment of a national airline from the great days of Empire. we are all loyal subjects, but rather from was a new nation’s status assured. Certainly We were watching a Governor the perspective of whether we all still think the Senedd and Myddfai are not enough.

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