Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 4 Tachwedd 1965.
Unfortunately, the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft) was not here to receive the welcome given to him by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot). I am sure that my hon. Friend will not mind if I adopt some of the welcome which he intended to give to the right hon. Gentleman. As a near neighbour of his, I found the intervention of the right hon. Member an unusual one. We had at last an acknowledgment that I have never heard before, that he was a Welsh Member for a Welsh constituency. That was fascinating to me. I knew that something would follow, and it did.
We witnessed the zeal of the proselyte. Enthusiasm really ran riot. It ran riot to such an extent that it seemed for a while that the right hon. Gentleman had really become merged into the general Socialist spirit of Wales. He was deeply concerned to ration building according to social need in Wales. His example was a nationalised industry, something to do with electricity offices, but I am sure that he would not be so prejudiced or biased as to select a building of that kind in order to put his views. Although I could not understand how we were to ration office building in Wales while not in any way interfering with the builders of Wales, I do not doubt that in future speeches the right hon. Gentleman will resolve the paradoxes of his own contribution.
His enthusiasm was such that he even ran in his love of Wales to a new Chauvinism which I have never heard him express before. I do not doubt that many of his constituents will appreciate it, particularly those in Cwmbran. Many Englishmen are coming to Cwmbran New Town from the Midlands and the North—many, I am pleased to say, the sons and daughters of Welshmen who were driven away from Wales as a result of the policies conducted by the right hon. Gentleman in other years. When I hear him expressing such extreme diffidence about another new town in any circumstances being established in so far it might possibly attract Englishmen to it, I feel bound to say that it is difficult not to interpret that as anything but denigration of his own constituents who have had the privilege of coming into Wales and the welcome that Wales gives to those who come from outside areas to Cwmbran New Town.
Of course he wanted to spur us on. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale did not hear how we had a new ally. The right hon. Gentleman was deeply concerned that a steel Bill should soon be introduced so that the agony of mind of some whom he claimed to be in South Wales and who did not know what their future would be should be finally resolved.