It's Saint David's Day bank holiday. Relax, spend an extra half hour in bed, take a leisurely breakfast ... and beguile the day.
In Wales, one day.
The Western Mail
Wednesday's editorial in the Western Mail was one of those rare occasions when I have been genuinely surprised by a newspaper's stance on an issue.
Powers that would boost Welsh democracy
Devolution, as Ron Davies memorably said, is a process not an event. While the next step in Wales will be the referendum on further lawmaking powers, an equally important debate concerns the level of financial autonomy that should be available to the Assembly Government.
Many will be instinctively reluctant to grant any kind of tax-levying powers to Cardiff Bay, fearing that that would inevitably result in a higher tax burden. But that is by no means necessarily the case, as the Scottish Government has demonstrated by choosing not to vary the rate of income tax during the first 10 years of devolution.
We believe there is a strong argument for changing the way the Assembly Government is funded. There is already substantial concern about the workings of the Barnett formula, which allocates resources to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Holtham Commission, which has been asked by the Assembly Government to investigate current arrangements, has already concluded that Wales stands to lose £8.5bn in Treasury funding over the next decade because of the way Barnett works. A move to a robust needs-based formula is clearly appropriate.
But there is a wider issue of accountability that suggests granting the Assembly Government the power to levy or at least vary taxes would strengthen Welsh democracy. At present AMs are only able to make decisions about how to carve up the block grant from the Treasury – they have no ability to vary the total amount of the cake. In this respect, they are in a less powerful position than the smallest community council in Wales, which can fix its own precept. Political parties and others often deplore the lack of political engagement with Welsh politics. Nothing would be more likely to stimulate a greater interest in the affairs of the National Assembly than the possibility of a tax increase. More crucially, the existence of tax-levying powers would force parties to concentrate their minds on the need to create the wealth from which tax revenue springs.
We also support calls for the Assembly Government to be granted full-scale borrowing powers. In the short term, this would allow a forward-looking administration to overcome the constraints on capital spending to be introduced whoever wins the general election. It would also give ministers greater flexibility in planning projects like new hospitals.
An additional reason for supporting tax-levying and borrowing powers is that Wales cannot afford to lag behind Scotland as devolution goes forward. With the Scottish Government likely to be granted income tax-varying power of up to 10p in the pound, our politicians should be trusted with the same responsibility.
The last time Martin Shipton said something that made my jaw drop was when the first part of the Holtham Commission's report came out in July.
As I mentioned in this post at the time, the doyen of Welsh political journalism—or weathered old hack, if he doesn't mind a little affection—said this:
The importance of the Holtham Commission’s findings about the way the National Assembly is funded cannot be overestimated.
... What is particularly neat about the Holtham report is the way the Commissioners have deployed the very same formulae used by the UK Government to allocate funds in the English regions to demonstrate that Wales is likely to lose out by billions of pounds over the next decade.
It is astonishing – and grossly unjust – that what is considered the right way to do things within England is regarded as unnecessary or unacceptable in the context of the UK as a whole.
The subject is the much same, so I'm not surprised at that. However what has changed is that the earlier statement was just one journalist's opinion, but it has now become the Western Mail's editorial position.
That is quite some shift ... and of course it is one that I welcome.
A hermit crabb flipping its shell
Some of us are still amazed at how such a small insignificant creature would be able to flip his home, but this exclusive footage from the shallow waters off the Pembrokeshire coast reveals how it was done:
Of course, we'll need to hit the replay button to get the full effect, for this particular specimen managed to flip his home not just once, but twice!
Since that all came to light he's found the shame rather hard to live down, and has been told to keep a low profile in the hope we'll all forget about it. Hermit by name, hermit by ... er ... political necessity.
Update on new Welsh-medium schools
Having talked about education in Euskara (the Basque language) last week, I thought I should balance it by talking about some developments in Welsh-medium education.
One year delay in Vale of Glamorgan
I mentioned the Vale of Glamorgan's plans for expansion of WM education here in November. I praised VoG for taking the initiative in both surveying demand properly and coming up with good set of proposals in the form of starter schools. So I was rather disappointed to read their official consultation document, and find that they have had to put those plans back by a year. Instead of starting these new schools in September 2010, they are now proposing to launch them a year later.
The demand for Welsh-medium schools has increased substantially in the past three years to the extent that current demand now exceeds capacity; this is especially the case in Barry and the rural Vale.
To confirm future demand for Welsh medium education a survey was undertaken during July and August 2009 of parents with children under three years of age living in the Vale of Glamorgan. The survey revealed that, of those who responded, 26% are very likely to require a Welsh medium school place for their children. The survey highlights an unmet or latent demand for Welsh medium education. This is due to the existing distribution of Welsh medium primary schools across the Vale and the travel distances involved to access these schools, especially Ysgol Iolo Morganwg in Cowbridge.
Analysis of Welsh medium demand for September 2010 indicates a shortage of places throughout the Vale to accommodate parental demand for Welsh medium reception school places. The Council, therefore, is in danger of not meeting its statutory obligations.
Ysgol Iolo Morganwg serves the rural vale including Llantwit Major. There is insufficient capacity to accommodate the anticipated demand for Welsh-medium reception school places for September 2010 onwards from those resident within the school’s catchment area. Around 40% of children attending Iolo Morganwg (66 children) live in Llantwit Major and the surrounding area and receive free school transport to Ysgol Iolo Morganwg costing the authority in the region of £115,000 per annum.
Due to the length of the statutory processes required by the Welsh Assembly Government including the need to undertake proper and reasonable consultation when proposing the establishment of new schools, we will not be in a position to open new schools in September 2010 as originally planned. The opening dates for both new schools will be set at September 2011.
The reason they have given is that the statutory procedures they have to follow are so complicated that they cannot act as quickly as they had hoped to. I don't want to engage in any finger pointing because I don't know the full circumstances. My main reaction is simply disappointment.
It's almost certainly too late to do anything differently in terms of formal procedure now, but there are still immediate issues to be dealt with; namely that there will be parents who want WM education for their children this coming September. These can't simply be turned away. Therefore it looks to me as if VoG are going to have to find one or two more temporary classrooms for their existing WM schools.
But if VoG wanted to be more proactive they might well look at what Cardiff did in a very similar situation last year ...
Ysgol Gabalfa, Cardiff
Last September Cardiff opened a new WM starter class in Gabalfa Primary School. The existing EM school had a large number of surplus places so it made perfect sense to put it there, especially to relieve pressure on Ysgol Melin Gruffydd, about a 1km to the north, which is full to bursting and with no room to expand.
But as it happened, even though Gabalfa was quite happy with the arrangement, there were still the same drawn out formal procedures to go through (if there is even one objection, the matter has to be referred to the Assembly) and these simply could not be completed in time for September 2009. Therefore the Education Minister in the Welsh government gave permission for it to happen in September 2010 instead.
But this is where Cardiff got clever. They could have just let things rest for a year, but instead they went ahead and set up the starter class. However they did so not on the basis of it being a new starter stream, but as temporary accommodation for Ysgol Melin Gruffydd ... which just so happened not to be on the Melin Gruffydd site. So the question is, Why can't VoG do exactly the same? Some of the new starter schools they propose will be on land that is currently part of other schools so it might well be possible to go ahead anyway, but with the temporary accommodation "technically" being part of the existing school. I'm not saying it can be done, perhaps there are insurmountable difficulties, but I am suggesting that someone tests the water to see what's possible.
In the meanwhile, the good news for Gabalfa is that Cardiff Council have now decided [details here] that they want the starter class to become a permanent WM school. As we can see in from the picture above, Gabalfa Primary has separate Infants and Junior blocks, and the intention is to convert the Infants Block (top right) into a 1FE WM school, leaving the Junior block (top left) as a 1FE EM school. The building in the foreground is a special school. One of the good things about this plan is that the site has an abundance of open space, so in future there would be room to expand the WM provision as the demand for WM increases.
Ysgol Glan Morfa, Cardiff
At the same meeting, Cardiff also decided to increase the age range of Ysgol Glan Morfa in Splott from 4-11 to 3-11, i.e. to incorporate nursery provision [details here]. Cylch Meithrin Gwaun Sblot are providing a nursery in the school on a non-statutory basis, but if the Local Authority step in it will provide a more solid core service, enabling the Cylch Meithrin to use its resources to provide an extended wrap-around service.
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Of course these positives in Cardiff still leave a number of more long-standing problems in the city such as the Whitchurch reorganization and the future of Treganna/Lansdowne. The second of these is in Leighton Andrews' intray, and what he does with it should provide us with an idea of whether he'll prove to be any good at his new job.
What are the LibDems for?
It is always good to hear someone advocating a fairer and more consistent devolution settlement for Wales, so some of these sentences from Nick Clegg, the leader of the LibDems, are particularly welcome:
Clegg "passionate" about giving more power to Wales
The National Assembly should be transformed into a full parliament with the same powers as its Scottish counterpart, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has declared.
The party will vote on Tuesday to support a referendum which could give the Assembly law-making powers in 20 strictly defined areas. But Mr Clegg believes devolution in Wales should go further.
In an interview with the Western Mail, he said: “I am a passionate believer in devolving power away from London and Westminster to the constituent nations of the United Kingdom and I think that means the maximum amount of powers for Scotland, for Wales and the other parts of the United Kingdom.”
Arguing this was the best way of guaranteeing the long-term future of the UK, he said: “I think there is nothing inconsistent between keeping the union but devolving ever more powers. In fact, I think the way to keep the union fresh and strong in the decades ahead is precisely to give more and more powers to Holyrood and Cardiff.”
However the problem with the LibDems is that they are very good at talking this sort of talk, yet don't have such a good record of walking the walk. The language that Nick Clegg has used is one of devolving "the maximum amount of powers" away from London and Westminster. Fair enough. But when it come to an obvious area in which powers could be devolved to Wales he suddenly becomes very vague and noncommittal:
When asked if he would support the devolution of criminal and justice powers to Wales, he said:
"We would look at it. We are completely open-minded. We have no arbitrary red-lines at all ... "
That isn't a consistent answer. These powers are devolved to Scotland, and are—if everything goes according to plan—going to be devolved to Northern Ireland as well. So why couldn't Nick Clegg answer the question with a simple, unequivocal "Yes"?
Much the same is true of the LibDems' position in Scotland. As I commented here a few months ago, if the LibDems really did want "devolution max" for Scotland, why tie themselves to the almost minimal increases of responsibility for matters in Scotland advocated by Calman? They could very easily come up with their own devolution policies for Scotland to include much greater fiscal autonomy, responsibility for the tax and benefits system, broadcasting and many smaller issues. These could then be put as a third option in a referendum on independence later this year. (It is pointless putting the Calman proposals to a referendum since all parties, between them representing the huge majority of people in Scotland, agree on them as a minimum.) Between them the SNP, Greens and LibDems could carry a vote in the Scottish Parliament to set up such a referendum, and it would put the two big parties in London in a very awkward position if they decided not to implement what had been voted for.
So why exactly are the LibDems so lily-livered? They have a golden opportunity to present the people of Scotland with their ideal vision of a Scotland within the UK. Why are they so afraid to put those cards on the table?
It is hard for me to escape the conclusion that they are putting their own electoral advantage before any issue of principle. Following their "behind closed doors" conference last year it seems that they only want to do this after the Scottish elections in 2011, hoping that their number of seats will increase as a result of them showing themselves more in favour or more devolution that either Labour or the Tories. But they have enough seats to do it now, so why wait?
In Wales, the Labour party has shown us that it only wanted devolution as a way of strengthening its own hold on Wales, and now only wants to move to primary lawmaking powers for the Assembly because it is about to lose power in Westminster. But at least Labour has now come round, the Tories will always be in two minds.
But there would seem to be every opportunity for a party that wants to see devolution progress further in Wales ... but stop short of independence. Why aren't the LibDems in Wales making more of that message? Why are they only prepared to say they are "open minded" over policing and justice? Why, for example, don't we hear them say that they want control over the question of welfare and benefits transferred to Wales? After all, there is very substantial support for it in Wales, as I've mentioned before:
Survey respondents were asked about which level of government "ought to make most of the important decisions for Wales" for four key policy areas: Welfare Benefits, the National Health Service, Schools, and Defence and Foreign Affairs. Results are presented in Figure 6.3 below. These show not only clear majority public support for the devolved level of government to have control over areas where they already make many decisions—on schooling and healthcare—but also a similar level of public endorsement for those powers to extend to an area like welfare benefits. The latter is striking, as it is a policy area that currently remains very much reserved to Westminster.
In fact, for the last four years in a row, the BBC's annual poll has shown that people in Wales think the Assembly should have more influence over our lives than Westminster by a huge margin of about three to one:
60% to 21% in 2006
56% to 19% in 2007
61% to 22% in 2008
61% to 21% in 2009
It is good to see that Dib Lemming is blogging again, I hope she continues. But her first post after a long absence was to berate the fact that the LibDems could not escape being asked which parties they would work with. I want to be less mealy mouthed. In the 2011 Assembly election I expect to see Plaid get somewhere between seven and ten additional seats, but it is hard to see how we could win more than 25 seats.
After the 2007 election Plaid were in the unique position of being able to work with either the LibDems and Tories in the Rainbow, or with Labour. I think it's fair to say that we chose Labour for two major reasons: first because we could not get the referendum on primary lawmaking powers without them (it needs 40 AMs to vote in favour) and second because some of our AMs would have found it almost impossible to work with the Tories, even though the All Wales Accord itself contained hardly anything that was distinctively from the Tory manifesto.
Next time will be different because the referendum will have happened. Although Plaid probably won't get enough seats to form a government alone in 2011, there is a very real chance that we could form a government with the LibDems, even if only a minority government (Labour and the Tories will always cancel each other out because that is how they choose to position themselves in a UK context.) But to do that, the LibDems in Wales have got to start being a lot clearer about what they want for Wales. I would suggest that a clear commitment to the transfer of policing and justice, the responsibility for administering the welfare and benefits system, plus of course a substantial degree of fiscal powers for Wales (since we could use those levers to make it more attractive to do business in Wales, and therefore increase employment) could form a decent foundation to build an agreement on.
But although I think that might make sense to some LibDems, we have to go back to the rather sad fact that the majority of LibDem voters in Wales don't really seem to want the same things as LibDem politicians, as I mentioned here. And that—if you think that asking what the LibDems are for is facetious—does raise serious questions about why people actually vote for them.
Over the weekend I had the great pleasure of meeting Gwynoro Jones for the first time. Something which, by happy coincidence, ties in nicely with these two pieces about him and his son Glyndwr, Plaid's candidate in Merthyr, by Martin Shipton in the Western Mail yesterday:
Once the biggest foe of Gwynfor, ex-Labour MP aids poll bid by Plaid son
Gwynoro Jones brands Independent Wales a "childish fantasy"
Gwynoro was particularly active in the early days of the SDP when, for a brief year or two after breaking from the Labour Party, they looked like making a breakthrough in UK politics. But in the end they lost momentum and were subsumed into the old Liberal party, with all their passion for actually making a difference lost. Gwynoro can support his son because he knows Wales needs that sort of passion, even though it wouldn't be right for him to join Plaid because he does not want Wales to be independent (... and, as with Ron Davies, I would not want him to join unless he came to believe in independence.)
So my advice to the LibDems in Wales would be not to leave your leader in London to talk about his "passionate" (though not thought through) desire for greater self-government in Wales, but to start shaping some firm ideas on how you intend to go about it. If you can do that, you might have a reasonable hope of getting the votes of some of the consistent 60% or so who want to see the Assembly have more influence over the lives of people in Wales than Westminster ... but be careful, they might not be the people who vote for you now, since the majority of those who vote for you now are against further devolution.
However if you can't do that, don't be surprised if more and more of those people vote for Plaid simply because we are the only party with consistent ideas on how to devolve more areas of responsibility to Wales, even though they may not be persuaded about independence ... yet!
A finger of fudge is just enough ...
A GUEST POST BY MADOC BATCUP
Madoc Batcup is an independent financial consultant, with interests in structured financial products and in the environmental industry. He is also a consultant with the economic advisory firm Smithers & Co. He has also served as a member of the National Association of Pension Funds’ property advisory committee.
Madoc is a law graduate of Cambridge University and of the Institut d’Etudes Européennes in Brussels. Prior to becoming a financial consultant he worked for the investment banking arm of Swiss Bank Corporation in both London and Tokyo.
He is also Director of Wales in London.
The recently announced agreed takeover of Cadbury’s by Kraft has been greeted (if that is the right word) with a sense of disbelief that the venerable maker of so many brands of indulgence tailored to the British taste should have become the property of others. Cadbury, a firm founded by Quakers, has a proud history of having a mission of fair play both towards its customers and its workforce. The housing it created for its workforce on the Bourneville estate was and is a powerful symbol of a more caring approach to capitalism. However since the members of the Cadbury family gradually sold out their shareholdings in the company that bears their name the company has increasingly been run along lines similar to those of any other large multi-national corporate, and only a comparatively small part of its workforce is now actually located in the United Kingdom.
The future of Cadbury, like many of its products, will no doubt result in large chunks being taken out of it after a limited shelf life, and the company’s operations in the UK will doubtless be deemed to be past their sell-by date in the not too distant future. Despite all the sweet words, the finger of fudge is in effect a very large raised American middle finger of one hand. In the other hand is some £12 billion to buy all this comfort food.
The sale of such a familiar name is a jolt and it has highlighted in an unsettling way the unpalatable truth that the purchase and sale of companies even with such iconic brands and history as Cadbury is a decision purely for the shareholders of a company, and comes down purely to price; it is a matter solely for the owners of the equity in the company concerned.
This feeling of unease that this is not the way that things should be done is not unfounded. The example of Cadbury is just one of many thousands of mergers and acquisitions that are happening all the time in various countries and on differing scales. It reflects a very deep schizophrenia in the developed world; a contradiction that we do not care to dwell on. A situation that has been well and truly fudged. It is symbolic of the wider issues of the current economic crisis. In looking at the near collapse of the banking system and the growing inequality in our society, highlighted by the bankers’ bonus issue, the fundamental tenets of capitalism are being questioned. The governments of the developed world proclaim loudly that they are firm believers in one person one vote, indeed they urge this system of governance on other countries, but in the case of companies they turn a blind eye to the fact that they are run on the basis of one pound one vote. In the civic sphere we believe in democracy, but in the corporate sphere we accept the purest form of plutocracy ever devised by mankind. The fate of Cadbury was sealed by a vote of the money. No-one else got a look in. A short period before accepting Kraft’s offer the chairman of Cadbury commented that Kraft hadn't been good at integrating deals, hadn't been good at improving their own results. Perhaps he was only saying it to talk up the price but if he was right, the current shareholders will have sold their shares at the right time and condemned the employees of the company in the UK and elsewhere to a very uncertain future in which they have had no say.
This is really the reason why there is an underlying concern about capitalism – it is controlled by money, and yet we continue to celebrate the triumph of democracy in government. Corporate capitalism is a strange bedfellow for democracy, not only is it wholly and deliberately undemocratic, but it doesn’t even work. This system of plutocracy masquerades under the description of ‘shareholder democracy’, but it has little to do with most shareholders and nothing to do with democracy. The collapse of Enron highlighted the fact that shareholders have little effective control over the management of large companies, and even when there is supposed to be some ‘shareholder’ control, this is often shorthand for insurance companies and other institutional investors rather than the individuals who are the ultimate beneficial owners of the shares.
Corporate capitalism is so entrenched in our society partly because of historical accident and partly because it is not communism – which is taken to be the only alternative and shown to be unworkable. But this is a false dichotomy. The real choice to be made is between democracy and plutocracy, between control by people and control by money. Not only is the voting control mechanism of a company completely alien to the principles of democracy, but it undermines faith in democracy. As citizens (or at least as subjects in the UK) our vote gives us the right to throw out governments which have lost our confidence. No such rights exist in companies. On the contrary, while management can show their lack of confidence in the workforce by sacking them, the workforce has no way of showing confidence, or lack of it, in their management.
If we really believe in representative democracy as a way of groups making decisions then it should be applicable in the commercial sphere as well as in the civic sphere, particularly in respect of large companies. The employees of a company should be entitled at the company’s Annual General Meeting to have a confidence vote in the board of directors, and the right to replace them if they feel they are not managing the company effectively. This would revolutionise the relationship between management and workforce: not only would management feel the need to keep the workforce much better informed about how the company was faring, but they would have to justify their salary levels to their colleagues and co-workers – perhaps a more difficult task than to a remuneration committee. In a system comparable to representative democracy in the civic sphere the workforce would have no rights to manage the company, any more than the electorate has the right to run a country, but they would have the right to hold the board of directors to account in the same way that governments can be voted out of office. This would give the workforce no rights to the profits of a company, the commercial rights of ownership would remain as before, but it would make the management accountable.
The origin of the word company is the Latin words ‘cum panem’ meaning literally ‘with bread’ and implying a group of people with whom one shares bread. If management and workforce alike considered themselves as ‘companions’ instead as employer and employee, then their working relationship might become more collaborative and less contentious. The John Lewis mutual model shows that a business can be run efficiently when employees have a say, but this way of working is not restricted to a mutual framework. By giving the workforce the right to vote at AGMs and the power to agree mergers and acquisitions, the way in which companies are managed could be transformed.
2010 is the 400th anniversary of Sidereus Nuncius, or the ‘Starry Messenger’, the work published by Galileo which as a result of his observations of the moons of Jupiter reinforced the idea that the earth went round the sun rather than vice-versa. The Catholic Church subsequently forced him not to publish further research on the subject, and when he was finally allowed to publish his view that the earth went round the sun he was forced to recant. In this anniversary year it is time to consider that the orbits of the business system should also be viewed differently, heresy though this may seem, and that in the future instead of labour revolving around capital, capital should revolve around labour.
This article can be downloaded as a pdf from here.
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