Despite all you’ve achieved, particularly the additional money in the Government’s public spending review, do the electorate relate it to devolution?
The review of the Assembly that we’re now conducting is about how we can make it work better, and connect better, which I think is a perfectly proper thing to do after twelve months. For example, we inherited a set of standing orders, we’ve operated them for twelve months, but they haven’t proved as successful as they should have done in my opinion, in everybody’s opinion. The remarks I made on News 24 about this were grossly misinterpreted. They said I criticised the calibre of my colleagues as debaters. I said nothing of the kind. I criticised the raw material which gives them no opportunity to develop any kind of reputation as debaters because of the nature of the secondary material that we’re dealing with. As an example, the last one I put over to the presiding officers to sign off was a classic – the Sheep and Goats Identification Order [Wales] 2000. I know you have to separate the sheep from the goats! But that’s the perfect example of the problem that you have. Secondary legislation is absolutely essential to the efficient functioning of, say, public health or animal health, regulations on this, that or the other. But it’s not a showcase for a new democracy. We need, therefore, a better quality of legislation which, albeit secondary, is nevertheless to do with the day to day lives of people in Wales and not just the technicalities behind the scenes. It should be in the plenary sessions where people see the clash in objectives between the different parties or between different geographical areas of Wales, so they can see that the Assembly is where it’s all being settled. Let’s see some of that blood and thunder of debate whereby people can connect with that and say: ‘OK, I’m on that side, or I’m on that side, or I’m not on either of their sides.’
So, is the answer to move the Welsh Assembly closer to the Scottish Parliament model where you also have primary legislation?
Yes. I mean that’s something for the medium to long term. The review is to look at what we can do within the box of the Government of Wales Act to ensure that the raw material that we discuss is important to the people outside. I’m sure there’s much we can do to improve it. I’m not going to the people of Wales today and saying: ‘I don’t think this Assembly can ever really get off the ground and really take flight unless it’s got primary legislative powers.’ But I’ve always made my view clear that we should have been given primary legislative powers, and my views haven’t changed. If the Assembly works really well then the people of Wales will tell us and they’ll tell the British Government: ‘We think the Welsh Assembly has earned its spurs, now we can move on to primary legislation.’
I’ve noticed that when you refer to the next election, national politics or the national party here, people automatically assume you’re referring to Wales and the 2003 Assembly elections. Is that a change since devolution?
Undoubtedly, yes. Certainly, within the Labour Party we now have a separate policy-making process in Wales. We still have policy forums in Wales, which are part of the National Policy Forum process, and we have Welsh policy forums already, which are working towards 2003. Slowly people’s focus is more on Cardiff. Although, of course, as the General Election approaches that will be less so, as the focus will be: ‘Can Tony Blair pull off what he has dreamed about since 1994 and be the first Labour PM to win a full second term?’ I think he can, even though the Tories have come back strongly in the past six months with their pseudo-populist stances. But I still think he’ll do it. Once that’s out of the way in 2001 then obviously the focus in Wales is going to turn very strongly back to: ‘Can we win an outright majority in the Assembly?’
Why didn’t we manage that last time, as people expected?
The big difference between us and Scotland, which sometimes people in London forget, is what proportion of the seats are from the [Proportional Representation] list and what proportion are elected by First Past The Post. In Wales, the intention was to have one-third of the seats by PR, which made it likely that we would win an overall majority unless we played our hand wrong, or did something silly, or were running an unpopular administration for whatever reason. And that’s exactly what happened. In Scotland, 42 percent of the seats are by the list system, so you have a guarantee from day one that no-one can win an outright majority. But we can win an overall majority, and should do, I would say, in two elections out of three in Wales. Nor had we allowed for the fact that in devolved elections people are more likely to vote for a nationalist party than in a general election. They are voting in a far more ‘Welsh’ or ‘Scottish’ way. But next time it will also be coloured by how well they feel the Assembly is doing, I have no doubt about that. The perceptions of the Government and Assembly will undoubtedly influence votes for each other. There’s no doubt in 1999 that all the arguments at Westminster about whether Labour had let down the miners or not played badly in the valleys. It’s partly why we lost the Rhondda and nearly lost Cynon Valley and Pontypridd. We only held on to those two seats by 500 votes each.
Talking of the Rhondda, do you think the Government is doing enough for what we have always assumed were our safe seats?
Well, you certainly can’t get more heartlands than the Rhondda. There’s no such thing as a safe seat in that sense, in that politics has become much more detribalised. Now, Tony Blair set out to detribalise politics in a way, but it cuts both ways. You detribalise the attachment of people with money to the Tories and say: ‘Look, we’ll look after you as well. We’re all for aspiration and so forth.’ Well, that’s fine and we made big in-roads into that vote in 1997. We’ve got accountants, bond dealers and double-glazing salesmen, all sorts voting Labour because they were thoroughly fed up to the back teeth with the Tories. The repackaging of Labour as ‘New Labour’ detribalised the association that Labour had with so-called horny-handed, working class, blue-collar workers or whatever you want to call it. But the detribalisation in that direction, the pulling in of people who are ‘New Labour’ with the emphasis on the ‘New’ rather than the ‘Labour’, also detribalises at the other end. So the welfare-dependent, the working class, the pensioners, ex-miners, etc., also felt detribalised as well, as they haven’t got a big attachment to the ‘New’. Their attachment is clearly more to the ‘Labour’ bit.
So, can we win the heartlands back?
Once you’ve broken away from something, and the heavens did not fall in, then it’s much harder to win them back. But on the other hand, the new spending, particularly the concentration on the health service, could see a heartlands revival. And, of course, the perception of the Assembly as a solid force for good for the average man or woman in the street in whatever part of Wales will be very helpful come the General Election, if that’s a perception we can create. The way we explain and implement our policies will play a part in maintaining support amongst traditional Labour voters. For example, explaining that welfare to work isn’t a case of being tough on the welfare state, but is a successful way of helping people by easing the transition into work.
Is the high pound exacerbating Labour’s heartland difficulties?
As a manufacturing-dependent region, with a distinct absence of the financial services, you are in Britain running a kind of two-tier economy. When the pound is down and the Euro or Deutschmark is up, then that’s very good news for us in Wales or in the West Midlands or East Midlands. The very manufacturing-dependent areas will do better, and grow faster, than the average in the UK. When the pound is up and the competing currencies in Europe are down, then it puts huge pressure on the manufacturing areas like Wales. It’s very bad for us and very good news for the South East of England. At the moment we have a special interest in trying to find ways to bring the pound down to be nearer parity with the Euro.
When Welsh Questions takes place in Westminster it does give the impression that the role of Welsh Secretary is now redundant. Do you agree?
Paul Murphy’s role is absolutely crucial. Take the Care Standards Act, which has just received Royal Assent. That was something we wanted and argued for. But we couldn’t legislate for it because it required primary legislation. We made our case and I think Paul Murphy put over the case pretty forcefully with his Cabinet colleagues. Absolutely critical. He is sitting round the Cabinet table so he has the ear of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet every week and can explain why such and such a thing is important. Take the Comprehensive Spending Review: he can explain why it couldn’t work in Wales unless we tackled the Barnett Formula, which was successful, and we got a 5.5 percent increase, about one percent above the Barnett formula to enable us to access the Objective 1 European money.