HC Deb 29 April 1996 vol 276 cc754-5
4. Mr. Donald Anderson

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the follow-up actions he proposes to the meetings held with the hon. Member for Swansea, East, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) and local authority leaders from the Swansea area on investment and job creation in the area. [25635]

Mr. Hague

On 17 April I welcomed the opportunity to hear the views of the local authorities on how economic development in their areas can be further strengthened. I heard the views of the hon. Member and his right hon. Friend at an earlier meeting. I will continue to encourage the Welsh Development Agency to meet the targets that I have set for securing inward investment projects in the more westerly area of Wales—south, mid and north. My Department will also do all that it can to encourage the growth of indigenous Welsh companies.

Mr. Anderson

Will the Secretary of State confirm that at these two meetings the message came across loud and clear that although the representatives of west Wales are glad that Cardiff bay is prospering, there is a feeling of anger and unfairness at the imbalances that are being further financed by the Welsh Office? For example, west Wales has 25 per cent. of the population of Wales but in 1994–95 it had only 15 per cent. of the projects, 13 per cent. of the jobs and a mere 5 per cent. of the investments. What specifically is the Secretary of State proposing to do to get over this? Will he ask the Welsh Development Agency to publish the targets? What will he do about the regional benefits?

Mr. Hague

Government policy applies equally to all parts of Wales, including westerly parts of Wales. The area about which the hon. Gentleman is concerned benefits from assisted area status and other Government projects. There are a lot of specific actions that I will continue to take to try to assist the economy in the Swansea area. It is important for the Welsh Office and the Welsh Development Agency to work with the local authorities, and I was pleased with their willingness to do so at the meeting that I had with them.

I will continue to expect the WDA to meet the targets to which I referred earlier. I shall continue to encourage inward investors, on every possible occasion, to look at a wide variety of the sites that may be available to them in all parts of Wales before deciding where to make their investment. The best thing for the Swansea area is for us to have an economy that continues to grow and prosper. As long as we maintain our current policies, that is what is likely to happen.

Mr. Jacques Arnold

Is not co-operation between the Government and local government one of the many ways in which considerable success can be achieved? What does my right hon. Friend think of the recent announcement of the Welsh Local Government Association that it will refuse to meet him in the future?

Mr. Hague

I thought that that was a rather strange and silly announcement. Last week I was surprised to see the press release from the Welsh Local Government Association, which said: Hague is on his own and we will boycott future meetings with the Secretary of State. Two days later I was equally surprised to receive a letter from the chairman of the Welsh Local Government Association, which said: I and other leaders of the Welsh Local Government Association are very keen to discuss your intentions for 1997–98 with you at the earliest possible opportunity. This is too important a matter to delay a meeting. I shall consider that request for a meeting.

Mr. Denzil Davies

Is the Secretary of State aware that west Wales—that is, Swansea, Llanelli and the surrounding area—has considerable expertise in the car industry, particularly in manufacturing engineering? However, despite that, there has been no major inward investment in the area in the past 10 years. One belief is that the Welsh Office and the Welsh Development Agency are missing out every time to the Invest in Britain Bureau and to the Department of Trade and Industry which have managed to achieve investment in the north-east of England. What is he going to do about that?

Mr. Hague

The WDA has turned in a great achievement over the past year. As all hon. Members know, it is more difficult to persuade inward investors to go to the more westerly parts of Wales because they are geographically further away from the main centres of population in the United Kingdom. As I have already explained, there are a number of things that we can do about that—and we are already doing them.