§ 2.36 p.m.
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE)My Lords, with the permission of the House. I should like to make a Statement about the future of the Wales Rural Development Board. A draft Order for the establishment of this Board at present stands referred to a Select Committee of this House. The Select Committee was due to begin its consideration of the draft Order to-day, and for that reason I thought it only courteous to inform the House of the Government's intentions at the earliest possible opportunity.
As your Lordships will know, the Secretary of State for Wales announced yesterday in another place that the Government have decided not to proceed with the proposal to establish a Rural Development Board in Wales. We believe that it would be wrong to ignore the force and strength of local feeling on this matter. We believe, moreover, that a Board could make no effective contribution to the problems of its area if it lacked essential support. Accordingly, it is the Government's intention to withdraw the draft Order which is now before the House. The Government fully 38 recognise that mid-Wales needs help. We are formulating our policies to provide this help; but we are clear that it will have to take a different form from that proposed by the previous Administration.
§ BARONESS PHILLIPSMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for making this Statement and to congratulate him on becoming the spokesman in your Lordships' House for Wales. I wish I could have congratulated him in happier circumstances and that the first Statement he made as spokesman for Wales had been of a more constructive and positive character.
I notice that the Statement says that "it would be wrong to ignore the force and strength of local feeling on this matter". Are the Government in fact going to direct their attention to more than one group in the community? I notice, too, that the Government say they, "fully recognise that mid-Wales needs help". This, I am sure, all your Lordships will endorse. May I ask the Minister when the plans to provide this help will be brought before the House?
§ LORD OGMOREMy Lords, I, too, should like to congratulate the noble Lord on his appointment and on the fact that he is to speak for Wales from the Government Benches. I am sure that his appointment will give a great deal of satisfaction in Wales, where the noble Lord is highly regarded. May I say that I heartily welcome the fact that the noble Lord's first Statement in this House should have set forth the abandonment of this ridiculous Rural Development Board. May I ask the noble Lord, now that he has started, to continue the good work? When the Government are considering the other measures mentioned in the Statement, will he give high priority to communications in mid-Wales, particularly to road, rail and air transport?
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness and to the noble Lord for their kind congratulations. All three of us, in different parts of this House, have been engaged previously on the affairs of Wales, and I know that we shall all do our best to follow what we consider to be best for Wales. So far as the remarks of the noble Baroness are concerned, I 39 can assure her that we certainly shall have constructive proposals for Wales. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is busy looking into the whole of the matter and into what policies can be devised for helping to solve the problems in South Wales. But I so much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, that in this particular instance the Board was ill-conceived. The people who objected most strongly to it were the farming community in mid-Wales, whom it particularly affected. It was against them that the compulsory powers, and the powers of not allowing individuals to sell their land, were directed. I can only assure the noble Baroness that we shall have constructive proposals coming before the House in due course.