§ 5. Mr. Gwynfor Evansasked the Secretary of State for Wales when he plans to visit Carmarthen.
§ Mr. Barry JonesMy right hon. and learned Friend has no immediate plans to do so officially.
§ Mr. EvansWhen the Secretary of State does visit Carmarthen, will the hon. Gentleman ask him to call at County Hall, where he will learn that the slashing cuts in expenditure on roads, together with the £1 million and more interest which the people of Carmarthen, Cardigan and Llanelli, as well as Pembroke, have to pay on the cost of the Cleddau Bridge, will mean that, if this is persisted in, the principal roads in the county of Dyfed will be resurfaced once every 50 years, the non-principal roads once every 86 years and the thousands of miles of non-classified roads once every 289 years? Does he not consider that this will lead to an appalling situation on the roads which will mean no further or little further development in industry or in modern farming, which employs bulk tankers?
§ Mr. Barry JonesI must disagree with the rather alarmist and exaggerated point of view expressed by the hon. Member. I do not agree that there have been slashing cuts in expenditure on roads in Wales. Indeed, the hon. Member's constituency will benefit hugely by the decision made by my right hon. and learned Friend to extend the M4 to Port Abraham. I would 1074 also wish to tell him, if I had the time and had had notice of the question, that the Welsh Office will invest in many more road schemes pointing to West Wales.
§ Mr. Michael RobertsWill the Minister ask the Secretary of State when next he visits Carmarthen to study the state of the people to find out whether they are free and to find out whether the county of my forefathers is still the land of the free? When he confirms the massive reality that the people of Carmarthen are still free and that they did not fight in vain for their freedom, does he then expect the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Evans) to stop talking nonsense about a lack of freedom in Wales?
§ Mr. Barry JonesOne thing I was not able to say to the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Evans) was that about 1,000 jobs in his constituency have been saved or created and that he has the perhaps enviable record of Welsh Members of Parliament that in his travel-to-work area of Carmarthen the rate of unemployment is the lowest in Wales.
§ Mr. AndersonAs my right hon. and learned Friend travels along the road to Carmarthen, will he travel along the M4, which he has saved against all the odds, thus helping the people of Carmarthen, and will he tap the views of the people of Carmarthen as to their priorities on whether they prefer expenditure to be on road signs or on roads?
§ Mr. Barry JonesI would not wish the House to have the impression that money spent by the Welsh Office on roads entirely went to South Wales. I should like to point out to the hon. Members that some £150 million is soon to be earmarked for North Wales and the A55.