Wales

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 4 Tachwedd 1965.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Michael Foot Mr Michael Foot , Ebbw Vale 12:00, 4 Tachwedd 1965

The suggestions which have been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) are extremely constructive and I am sure that they will be taken fully into account by the Welsh Office and by the Government. Certainly anyone who represents the Ebbw Vale constituency has a very strong vested interest in improving road conditions which go up the valleys. I represent the narrowest valley of them all, and we have a road which certainly needs plenty more spent on it.

I was diffident about taking part in the debate, not because I was not extremely interested in the subject but because, owing to an inescapable engagement, I was not able to hear the concluding remarks of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the whole of the speech of the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft), and I do not like to criticise the right hon. Member for Monmouth without having been able to hear his speech.

However, I have been informed, on the absolutely reliable authority of many of my hon. Friends, that the right hon. Member for Monmouth was his usual outrageous self. I therefore think that it is quite proper for me to comment upon what he said, because he seems to have plucked up courage to talk about steel in the House of Commons, even though he very rarely does so in Monmouth. I can hardly think that the right hon. Gentleman would wish many of the things which he dares to say here to be reported in Monmouthshire. In Monmouthshire he does not attack public ownership very strongly. I can understand that, since his constituency is dependent on public ownership in the steel industry.

At the last election the right hon. Member for Monmouth got back only by the narrowest of squeaks. I recall seeing during that election, in one of the circulars which he issued, a picture of the new Llanwern Steel Works. A great champion of private enterprise was trying to take credit for the achievements of public ownership. He did not explain in that circular that the publicly-owned section of the industry had gone ahead when private enterprise had fallen down on the job and had not been prepared to go on. That was omitted from the circular.

The right hon. Gentleman does not attempt in Monmouthshire to put the case against public ownership that he sometimes puts in the House of Commons. That is because he knows that the facts are there to deny what he says. The greatest expansion of the steel industry has occurred because of public enterprise, and it is no good the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt) thinking that he can put me right on this because the whole world knows that what I am saying is correct.