HC Deb 15 December 1980 vol 996 cc9-11
8. Mr. Geraint Howells

asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he has any further plans to give financial aid to the Development Board for Rural Wales; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards

The Government's expenditure plans include provision of about £6 million a year at 1979 survey prices for the Development Board for Rural Wales, as stated in Cmnd. 7841. I expect the board's resources for 1981–82 to total £8.2 million at November 1980 prices. As the House will be aware, the Industry Bill provides for the board's financial limit to rise from £40 million to £100 million.

Mr. Howells

Is the Secretary of State aware that in many parts of rural Wales the unemployment rate is higher than in other parts of Wales? For example, in Cardigan, Llandysul and Lampeter it is 18 per cent. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Government policies are having disastrous effects on the Welsh people and the nation? What plans has he to try to alleviate that position?

Mr. Edwards

As part of the programme being financed by the funds that I have announced, there is a substantial factory building programme in the areas to which the hon. Gentleman referred and in other parts of rural Wales. The board is having considerable success, even during these difficult times, in filling those new factories.

Mr. Delwyn Williams

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the gratitude of the people of eastern Mid-Wales to the board for its efforts in helping us to ride out the recession? Is he aware that in Mid-Wales, in the Newtown and Welshpool area, our rate of unemployment is far below the national average? Will he assure the House that he will continue an injection of money to help the board, and Dr. Skewis in particular, to carry out its industrious work?

Mr. Edwards

I confirm that we shall continue to support the board. The fact that the Industry Bill is raising the finance limit is an indication of that support. Because the area is so attractive for people to work in and. particularly, for small units to start up in, I have no doubt that the board will continue to have success.

Mr. D. E. Thomas

Will the Secretary of State tell us how the level of his funding for the board compares with the level in the year before he took office?

Mr. Edwards

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a reduction from the year before we took office. We have broadly maintained the expenditure provided by the previous Government in the PESC survey. In the previous year the Labour Government found an underspend in another Department and boosted the money for the board. We have maintained in broad terms the long-term expenditure plans set out by the previous Government.

Dr. Roger Thomas

Would it not have been more equitable and honourable if the whole of rural Wales had been included within the perimeters of the DBRW rather than a specialised and arbitrary three-fifths? If the whole of rural Wales had been included, the Government would have accepted at least one extra recommendation of the Welsh Select Committee after its long deliberations.

Mr. Edwards

The decision, arbitrary or otherwise, was taken by my predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris), who set up the board with its present boundaries. I thought that it would be wrong, at a time of limited resources, to spread the work of the board more widely because that would reduce the effectiveness of what it can do in the area for which it is responsible.