Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 4 Tachwedd 1965.
It is the hon. Member who has been guilty of misrepresentation by his statements.
Having got that off my chest, I want to turn from coal to transport. We have to face the fact that there never has been a road programme for Wales. The total programme for England and Wales has always been dominated by the need to relieve congestion in great cities, and dominated by the total figures of loss and accident. On these measures the English share of the programme has been growing much faster than the Welsh. This is a policy which the Government inherited from their predecessors. The Government, in all fairness to them, attempted to increase the total programme, but, if they are to follow the National Plan, they must no longer adhere to this measure only of congestion. They must have a new yardstick, the yardstick of development.
Such share of the road programme as we have is concentrated mainly in the south-east of Wales. I make no complaint about this but simply state the fact. Even there, if we judge by continental standards, the only road which by any stretch of Celtic imagination we can call a motorway is the length of 22 miles which will be built from the Severn Bridge to Newport. And although dual carriageways may be familiar in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire they are totally unknown in Carmarthenshire and certainly farther west. Even the Heads of the Valleys Road ends at Hirwaun. I do not know why that road cannot be extended to Llanelly—which should appeal to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—and then to Carmarthen, which certainly would appeal to me.
We have to realise that when talking about the economic development of the country we cannot have such a National Plan unless we first have a modern road system in Wales. I hope very much that we shall not only have better roads in the south but that we shall remember there are other areas of the country which have to be served. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has spoken about Mid-Wales. He has not said a great deal about it today. When he gets the report of his consultants—we do not know what the report may contain—how is he to get round the question of transport costs and transport facilities? There is the Central Wales railway line, but the facilities are being cut and restricted all the time. Is this to be the main arterial connection for the industries which will come there? Have the Welsh Office plans ready for a new road there? It takes five years from the drawing board to the moment when we can travel on a road. Is that road already on the drawing board? When it is going to start?
It seems to me that these are all absolutely vital questions when we are talking about industrial expansion in Wales, but they are important also for the development of that industry which has become now, I think, the fourth greatest industry in Wales, and that, is the tourist trade. I was very glad to hear—I do not want the Secretary of State to think that I am ungrateful—very glad indeed to hear him say that the third stage of the Carmarthen Plan was to be carried out. This will be of great assistance. But it is not going to solve the problem. It will relieve congestion in one place and will create a bottleneck in another. It is going to create a bottleneck on what is the high road from Pembroke to Carmarthen and to the rest of Wales and to England. With the ferry car service on the cross-service to Ireland becoming increasingly popular it is now one of the high roads to Ireland as well.
One can be in a traffic block of 12 miles on the Pembrokeshire Road from St. Clears in the summer months. I should like my right hon. Friend to consider that point.
I should like also to raise one other point, and that is about the postponement or deferment of the Llandudno bypass. As has already been said in this debate, great improvements have been effected by the new Conway Bridge, but this is one of the vital points in the whole of Wales from the point of view of the tourist trade, because the 1961 figures, given in the Report of the Council for Wales on the Welsh Holiday Industry, show that of the holiday makers who take their main summer holidays in Wales 59 per cent. come to North Wales, and of that percentage by far the largest number have their holidays in Caernarvonshire. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will be very glad to hear that. Of the places visited, second to the top in the popularity rating was Llandudno, and there we have got this one point between Llandudno and Conway. The other fact one has got to note is that 158,000 people visited Conway Castle. I really would suggest to my right hon. Friend that for the sake of this industry, which is of growing importance, which is producing an increased revenue every year for Wales, he should reconsider these points which affect the tourist industry in North and South Wales.
Wales, as far as some areas are concerned, is a highly developed industrial country. As for others it can be classified as an undeveloped territory. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery represents one of those areas. I believe that Wales has a great deal to gain from the National Plan, because if her resources are properly developed not only will Wales make an even greater contribution to the prosperity of her own people but also to the prosperity of Britain as a whole.