HC Deb 14 December 1992 vol 216 cc13-5
9. Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to publish the party political affiliations of those he appoints to public bodies and quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations in Wales.

Sir Wyn Roberts

None. This information is not held centrally.

Mr. Jones

Presumably the Minister of State is reluctant to tell the House about the party political affiliation of appointees because recent analysis showed that 65 per cent. of appointees were Conservatives or had leanings towards the Conservative cause. The invitation of the Secretary of State for Wales for the production of lists is irrelevant, because a Conservative Secretary of State is bound to appoint more Conservatives than anyone else, as the record shows. The Minister must surely be aware that we are talking not about the appointment of the odd Liberal, Labour or Plaid sympathiser but about a system that is wrong. It is a grotesque distortion of the democratic process and the best argument for a Welsh Parliament that I have ever heard.

Sir Wyn Roberts

The hon. Gentleman really does astonish me. We do not ask prospective appointees, either on our nomination lists or in conversation, what their policies are. If they reveal on their nomination forms that they are active in politics as part of their qualification to serve the public, that is a matter for them, but we have no record of appointees' political affiliations. The hon. Gentleman does no service to his own supporters or to those of Opposition or Conservative Members by seeming to imply that activity in a political organisation somehow disbars a person from office. We have heard about the Labour party's "little list". I wonder whether Plaid Cymru has a little list, or whether the hon. Gentleman is able to make any recommendations, because I do not recall hearing from him about anyone he wished or thought suitable to be nominated for office.

Mr. Jonathan Evans

Will my right hon. Friend entirely resist the McCarthyite sentiments being shouted from the Opposition Benches? Will he note that the chairman of Housing for Wales was asked recently by the Chairman of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs whether he had ever been a member of the Conservative party and said that he had first been appointed to public office 18 years ago by a Labour Government? Will he further note that there will be incredulity in Wales at the remarks of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), discounting so many public servants as party hacks, especially the noble Lord Brooks who holds two such appointments as well as being a former leader of the Labour group on South Glamorgan county council?

Sir Wyn Roberts

I hope that the country as well as the House heard what my hon. Friend said. The Labour party's obsession with the political affiliations of public appointees takes us back to the time when it regularly appointed failed Labour candidates to high office in Wales; quangos were very much its preserve. The obsession of the hon. Member for Caerphilly with quangos and appointments shows that Labour is already thinking in terms of its little list, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State called it.

Mr. Kinnock

May I remind the Minister of State that it was Gilbert and Sullivan who had a little list and not Kinnock and Jones? Quango appointments of people with associations—I put it no stronger—with the Conservative cause in Wales have reached almost one-party state level. The extent of the Minister's embarrassment is evidenced by the length of his completely unconvincing answers on the subject.

Sir Wyn Roberts

I note that the right hon. Gentleman has not denied the existence of the list. He has thrown it away with a reference to Gilbert and Sullivan, but he has not denied its existence and there are some guilty faces on the Labour Front Bench. Party affiliation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I am sure that there are many people whom the Labour party considers to be Conservative political hacks, as it calls them, but who in fact are not, and perhaps many people who I think may belong to the Labour party but who do not.