In accordance with Standing Order No. 22.1, a Welsh translation of the draft regulations has also been laid in the Table Office.

These regulations are made in relation to Wales only. They amend the Seeds (Fees) Regulations 1985, as amended. They provide for fees to be charged for examinations by crop inspectors and seed samplers. Fees for these examinations have always been payable but have been collected by an administrative arrangement. This Order regularises that and will not result in an increase in the fees currently levied. These regulations came into force in England on 22 October 1999. Inspectors and samplers are needed to ensure that seed of agricultural and some vegetable species is officially certified before marketing. That ensures that the farmer or grower receives seed of a minimum recognised quality.

To obtain a licence to operate, crop inspectors and seed samplers must attend a course of instruction and pass an official examination. The training course for crop inspectors is predominantly technical in content. In England and Wales, training is administered by the National Institute of Agricultural Botany. The courses vary in length according to the crops for which the applicant seeks to be licensed. The examination tests the applicant in the theory and practical aspects of crop inspection. There is a refresher course and retest every five years. Between courses, crop inspectors are circulated with information to keep them abreast of developments.

Training for seed samplers is run by the official seed testing station and it tests applicants’ practical and theoretical knowledge. If a candidate is successful, the licence is issued for life, subject to samplers maintaining their expertise. Seed samplers are strictly supervised by plant health and seeds inspectors, who regularly visit their workplace to check on all aspects of their performance. If necessary, an inspector can recommend that a sampler is sent for retraining and retesting. Samplers who fail to meet the required standard will have their licence withdrawn.

A crop inspector may inspect only the kinds of crops specified on his or her licence, in one or a combination of the following species: cereals, sugar beet, peas and beans, herbage and miscellaneous crops. During the period of the licence, crop inspectors are supervised by officers from the UK’s agricultural departments, acting as the certifying authority, who check a random selection of crops—about 7 per cent—that they have inspected. They ensure that inspectors maintain their expertise by establishing a minimum and maximum number of crops to be inspected. Inspectors who fail to maintain the required standard will have their licence withdrawn.

Once qualified, seed samplers are permitted to draw samples for all seed categories from seed lots on the premises of a merchant, packer or processor. These samples are submitted for official analysis by the official seed testing station or a licensed seed testing station. The seeds industry is relatively small and highly organised. Many of its companies, including the largest, are represented on trade associations, which have an interest in maintaining the industry’s reputation. It is a single product industry and the techniques for sampling and examining seed can be judged against well-established international standards. Therefore, they should be failsafe. These regulations put into statute fees that the industry would have been expected to pay. The training and examination process is essential to ensuring that the seeds industry is monitored and managed by well-qualified personnel. I commend the motion to you.

Dylid croesawu’r symudiad hwn oherwydd bod mawr angen gwarantu safonau arolygu cnydau os ydym am greu cnydau a chynnyrch o’r safon uchaf yng Nghymru. Cymeradwywn y symudiad hwn a chroesawn, unwaith eto, y symudiad tuag at greu safonau uwch yn y diwydiant amaethyddol.

Rhaid imi gyfaddef fy mod yn poeni ychydig o weld bod samplwyr hadau yn gysylltiedig â hyn. O ystyried y drafodaeth ar hadau a addaswyd yn enetig a geir yn y Pwyllgor Amaethyddiaeth a Datblygu Gwledig bore yfory, hwyrach y dylem roi yswiriant bywyd iddynt yn ogystal â ffïoedd archwiliadau.

On behalf of the Welsh Conservatives, I also welcome the highest standards. I realise that it is a specialised trade and it is important to maintain the highest standards for the industry.

The regulations ensure that the integrity of the UK seeds certification scheme is maintained. Rhodri Glyn said that it could be difficult for people within the industry to monitor their own industry. Peter was right to say that they are there because they are experts in their fields. We must bear in mind that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food watches the watchers; that safety mechanism is always there. The training and examination arrangements are important. The payments that growers have to make have not changed. They range from about £75 to £150 per crop. There is no change apart from the fact that this Statutory Instrument regularises the issue.

It is important that we approve this motion for the Assembly to become a member of the Wales European Centre. I suppose that it can loosely be described as the unofficial Welsh embassy at the heart of the European institutions.

If we approve this motion today, the delicate balance that we must achieve in joining the Wales European Centre will be difficult. Over the last eight years or so, WEC has established itself as a body that involves many stakeholders from different walks of life in Wales. Since 1992, it has unofficially acted as a listening post and a non-diplomatic agency on behalf of different public bodies and a small number of private bodies, but mostly from the pre-devolution quango state in Wales.

If devolution had existed in 1992 when WEC was formed, I have no doubt that the Assembly would have formed it and might have been the only body responsible for it. However, the Assembly is joining eight years later when it already has a group of stakeholders, which are Assembly sponsored public bodies such as the Welsh Development Agency, the Countryside Council for Wales, the Wales Tourist Board, the Welsh Language Board, the Arts Council for Wales, the national parks in Wales, the training and enterprise councils, higher education bodies—which do not have to join, but several of our university colleges have—, the further education sector in Wales, the Wales TUC, the Farmers Union of Wales, voluntary sector groups such as Welsh LEADER groups, which do such valuable work in rural Wales, and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action. Therefore, Wales has a kind of mini Parliament already in Brussels and the Assembly is joining it eight years later.

The body of expertise has been built up over the past eight years. We must be careful that we do not muffle anybody else out. We want to consider this as a value-added exercise, whereby we move in without encouraging other bodies to think that they can drop out as the Assembly will now be funding WEC. It would be a tragedy if they dropped out, as they would not then have the same direct access to the listening post services of WEC that have been built up over the past eight years.

Over those eight years, WEC has developed an excellent reputation, not only in Wales but, perhaps more importantly in terms of objective measurement, in Brussels. The institutions of the EU regard it as one of the most effective regional offices operating as a listening post in Brussels. WEC provides an integrated service. The staff, from whichever quango, public body or outside appointment that they may have come, serve the whole partnership that is on the present board of WEC, rather than their own sponsor or a group of a few sponsors. It is a completely integrated service. This provides the opportunity for the centre’s policy advisers to specialise in all manner of policy, but not based on which body they have come from. WEC is a strong body and we want to add to that strength. We do not want to weaken it indirectly by making the other partners think that they can drop out because of our arrival.

The structure of the proposed voting system, as stated in the motion, involves us having one vote but three representatives. That is exactly the same as the Welsh Local Government Association and some of the other partners have. There will be no domination by the Assembly. We will not be the body that acts as the driver of WEC. We will have a role and a stake, but that stake will not be bigger than that of the WLGA. It is essential to keep the delicate balance between local and devolved government in Wales, and between all the other partner bodies, which may make smaller subscriptions than us. We are contributing the same subscription as local government in Wales. We will keep the exact, equal and delicate balance between the biggest partners, which will be the WLGA and ourselves.

It was announced this morning that Des Clifford, the head of the Assembly’s Press Office, will become the head of the WEC set-up. I think that that is an excellent choice. It is an important post, as he will be acting as the eyes and ears of the allied body that acts directly on behalf of the administration. These two bodies must work together closely. Our own set-up, which will have full civil service and diplomatic status, will work closely with WEC as a stakeholding body, working from the same premises and in the same way.

Both of these moves have the same effect of raising Wales’s profile in Europe. The strengthening of WEC and our ability to have our own representative office that can work under diplomatic status in close conjunction with the UKREP office is advantageous in raising our profile in Europe. It will also ensure that we have access not only to EC information but, through the set-up that Des Clifford will be running, to the information that is directly available from the UKREP office on some of the more delicate and diplomatic communication between the British Government and the institutions of the EU and between UK Government departments and devolved administrations in this country.

We hope to be able to second officials on a wider scale. Seconding has been one of the great difficulties over the 27 years and a couple of months that Great Britain has been a member of the EU. We have never been able to get sufficient numbers of seconded officials from Wales into the institutions of the EU. Officials can do their 12 months, or two or three years over there, and then return with the ability to contribute that inside knowledge to the way in which Government is run here. That is important and that is why I am pleased that Des Clifford is going over there. That is not enough and it is not the end of the story.

The Assembly, as people will remember from the draft Assembly strategic plan, is committed to increasing the number of secondments from the current level of two to six by 2003. I understand that suitable staff are being identified for this purpose, but this obviously has a voluntary component. I welcome amendment 1 and am pleased to report that we are taking action to achieve this.

We believe that amendment 3 is the only amendment that does not make good sense. We believe that a level of representation that is above that of local government would upset the delicate balance of not wanting to dominate this partnership. The consequence of upsetting that balance would be a kind of rolling programme of people deciding that they need not make a contribution because the Assembly had done so. We do not want to be in a position of discouraging others from continuing to be stakeholders in the Wales European Centre.

Would you agree and reinforce the point that local government was concerned that the Assembly might have too strong a voice? Keeping the balance right is crucial. Do you also agree that the way in which this is approached so that the partnership is created, and that building on something that is already strong, is likely to give Wales one of the strongest presences—stronger and more focused than that of Scotland—in the Commission and Brussels?

I agree with Alun and pay tribute to his greater previous knowledge and contribution to the way in which these arrangements were structured so that we are parallel with local government. Things must stay that way. If Mike German persists in pushing his amendment through to a vote, we recommend that it should be opposed on the grounds that it could upset the balance with local government and result in derecruitment of the different stakeholders in the Wales European Centre.

On the comparison with Scotland, I do not think that the choice that the Scots made at the time they established their office was necessarily a bad choice for them. Their office was set up almost immediately after devolution in May 1999. Scotland acted quickly and we have learnt from some of the weaknesses in the Scottish set-up. Essentially, there are two separate set-ups that cannot play off one another quite as well as we are hoping our structure will achieve. We have learnt from the Scottish experiment and we have a slightly greater ability to integrate the two sides of the representation we need in Brussels: the diplomatic and the non-diplomatic. Alun and I visited the Scottish representation office recently and were told that the office, which is next to the UK Permanent Representation office—UKREP—is abbreviated to JOCKREP. I do not know whether the Welsh office will be known as TAFFREP or whether some other abbreviation will be used. I am fairly sure that, in line with what Alun said, we have learnt from Scotland and have acted slightly differently, and slightly better in my opinion.

The new premises will be available fairly soon. The offices are a converted merchant’s house and are impressive and delightful. I hope that they will be equally impressive to all Assembly Members when they become operational, and, more importantly, that people will make practical use of the offices when visiting Brussels. The members of the Assembly’s Committee on European Affairs, who will be on a working visit to Brussels on Thursday and Friday of this week, will visit the new premises and see the progress of Wales’s new unofficial embassy.

What does the Assembly hope to receive from the Wales European Centre? It will receive the same type of service as the rest of the partnership. This will mean regular flows of information in the public domain and, more importantly perhaps, information that is only partially in the public domain and still under discussion between different bodies in Europe. Receiving information earlier means that you can lobby to have it changed to suit you better. It also means that you can attune any applications earlier to ensure that they are at the front of the queue, not in the middle or at the back or missing altogether. Briefings on a range of policy areas, including seminars and conferences that stakeholders will want, will also be available, as will support for any delegations to Brussels to visit the institutions and to bargain and negotiate with the European Union. Assembly Members on the Committee of the Regions will be able to get briefings and support from the Wales European Centre and events will be arranged similar to the ones taking place this week to raise Wales’s profile more generally. As we are celebrating our patron saint’s day in the middle of this week there are events taking place to try to raise Wales’s profile and that is being done by the Wales European Centre.

Identifying opportunities for secondments in the institutions of the European Community and developing links with the offices of the other regions in Brussels to develop greater strength among the different regions or small nations of Europe is all possible via our membership of the Wales European Centre. Detailed discussions have taken place on the technicalities of how to arrange this in terms of changing the constitution of the Wales European Centre. They have taken place with WEC’s Chair, George Wright, and Director, Jos Gallacher. The company has recently agreed changes to the memorandum and articles of association to enable the Assembly to join. However, an application for membership can only take place if this motion is approved. I commend it to the Assembly.

Cynigiaf hefyd welliant 2. Ychwaneger ar ddiwedd y cynnig:

Yr ydym ni ym Mhlaid Cymru yn croesawu’r penderfyniad hwn. Cefnogwn y cais i’r Cynulliad ymuno â Chanolfan Ewropeaidd Cymru ym Mrwsel. Yr ydym wedi bod yn dweud ers blynyddoedd ein bod yn dymuno gweld y berthynas rhwng Cymru ac Ewrop, ac yn arbennig ym Mrwsel, yn cryfhau oherwydd bod cymaint o benderfyniadau sydd yn ymwneud â’n bywydau ni yng Nghymru yn cael eu gwneud yn Ewrop. Rhoddaf enghraifft yn ymwneud â’r Pwyllgor yr wyf wedi cael y fraint o’i gadeirio ers sefydlu’r Cynulliad, y Pwyllgor Amaethyddiaeth a Datblygu Gwledig. Mae 80 y cant o’r arian sydd yn dod i ffermwyr, a nifer fawr o’r rheoliadau sydd yn effeithio ar eu bywydau, bellach yn dod o’r Gymuned Ewropeaidd. Mae’n bwysig bod gennym lais cryf yn y trafodaethau i sicrhau bod gennym ffynhonnell wybodaeth dda ym Mrwsel. Felly, yr ydym yn croesawu’r cam sylweddol hwn tuag at sicrhau gwell presenoldeb i’r Cynulliad a thrwy hynny i bobl Cymru.

Yr ydym hefyd am weld swyddfa CEC yn dod yn ffenest siop i Gymru yn Ewrop. Bydd Tŷ Cymru, fel y mae Rhodri wedi egluro, yn gweithredu fel rhyw fath o lysgenhadaeth i ni ym Mrwsel. Yn ystod yr etholiad yr oeddem ni ym Mhlaid Cymru yn cael ein beirniadu am ystyried y math hwn o ddatblygiad fel llysgenhadaeth. Yr wyf yn falch fod Rhodri yn symud i’r cyfeiriad hwnnw.

Math o lysgenhadaeth?

Math o lysgenhadaeth. Yr ydym yn dod at ein gilydd yn araf deg dros gyfnod o amser.

Ar ran Plaid Cymru, llongyfarchaf Des Clifford ar ei benodiad i’r swyddfa ym Mrwsel. Yr oeddwn yn falch o glywed ar y radio y bore yma fod Des Clifford yn cael ei enwi fel y diplomat cyntaf i Gymru ers dyddiau Owain Glyndŵr. Mae hwnnw yn gam mawr arall tuag at sicrhau bod gennym bresenoldeb annibynnol, os caf ddefnyddio’r gair hwnnw, ym Mrwsel.

Gofal.

Dyna a ddywedwyd ar y radio y bore yma. Yr wyf yn siŵr nad yw Rhodri’n anghytuno â’r gosodiad. Mae pryder yn bodoli ers tro byd ein bod ni yng Nghymru ar ei hôl hi gyda chynrychiolaeth ym Mrwsel. Yr wyf yn derbyn pwynt Rhodri fod ein cynrychiolaeth yn awr yn dod yr un mor gryf neu hyd yn oed yn gryfach nag un yr Alban. Yr oedd pryder ein bod ar ei hôl hi o safbwynt sefydlu ein swyddfa yno a’n cynrychiolaeth o fewn Canolfan Ewropeaidd Cymru. Mae grŵp Plaid Cymru yn falch ein bod wedi cyrraedd y fan hon ac yn cefnogi’n frwd y bwriad i’r Cynulliad fod yn rhan o’r cynllun.

Mae’n bwysig mai’r Cynulliad, fel corff, ac nid y Prif Ysgrifennydd sydd yn penderfynu cyfeiriad ein cynrychiolaeth yn Ewrop. Nid ydym yn gwneud unrhyw sylw am y person sydd yn y swydd, oherwydd disgwyliwn mai Aelod o Blaid Cymru fydd y Prif Ysgrifennydd ar ôl yr etholiad. Nid pwynt gwleidyddol pleidiol mo hwn. Y Cynulliad ddylai fod yn gwneud y penderfyniadau hyn. Yr wyf yn derbyn y feirniadaeth fod ein gwelliant 1 yn ddiffygiol. Yr ydym yn fodlon tynnu’r gwelliant hwnnw’n ôl ar yr amod bod cynnig newydd sydd yn cynnwys ysbryd y gwelliant yn cael ei gyflwyno i’r Cynulliad cyn 1 Ebrill. Byddwn yn falch o gael y gair terfynol ar y cynnig hwn. Wrth gloi’r ddadl hon, a wnewch chi’r pwynt hwn yn glir os gwelwch yn dda?

Pwysleisiaf yr hyn a ddywedir yng ngwelliant 2 ynglŷn â chynrychiolaeth staff. Cytunaf â’ch pwynt am bwysigrwydd annog a chefnogi aelodau o staff y Cynulliad, y gweision sifil a staff o nifer o gyrff eraill yng Nghymru i fynd ar secondiad i Frwsel. Mae’n bwysig wrth gynnal perthynas â’r sefydliadau yn Ewrop fod gan bobl yn y gwasanaeth sifil, yn arbennig y rhai sydd yn gwasanaethu’r Cynulliad, brofiad o weithio ym Mrwsel.

Un o’r adegau gorau o ran derbyn gwybodaeth o Ewrop oedd pan oedd gennym secondiad o staff i UKREP. Caem weld yr holl bapurau. Yn ychwanegol i gynllun lobïo, yr oeddem yn rhan o’r system ac yn gallu gweld i ba gyfeiriad yr oedd y Comisiwn a’r Cyngor yn mynd ar adeg arbennig. Credaf y byddai o fantais cael aelod parhaol ar secondiad yn UKREP—nid yr un person drwy’r amser, wrth gwrs—fel bod rhywun yno’n barhaol ar ran y Cynulliad er mwyn gweld sut y mae pethau’n symud o un pegwn i’r llall. Rhaid cofio bod y broses o ddatblygu polisi yn Ewrop yn wahanol i’r broses yr ydym wedi arfer â hi yn y Cynulliad ac, yn sicr, yn San Steffan.

Er bod Rhodri Morgan yn dweud mai ychydig o enghreifftiau sydd wedi bod, pe baem yn ystyried y cyfraniad a wnaeth gwŷr megis Hywel Ceri Jones, Aneurin Rees Hughes, Gwyn Morgan ac eraill i’n bywyd gwleidyddol, cymdeithasol ac economaidd yng Nghymru, byddem yn gweld pa mor werthfawr yw’r gynrychiolaeth honno. Mae angen annog cymaint o’n haelodau ag sydd yn bosibl, yn enwedig y rhai ifanc, i dreulio cyfnod ym Mrwsel.

Byddai wedi bod yn ddefnyddiol inni yn ystod y cyfnod o drafod y ddogfen raglennu sengl i gael rhywun yn UKREP a chael presenoldeb cryfach yn Ewrop. Byddai wedi bod yn ddolen gyswllt rhyngom ni a gweddill swyddogion y Comisiwn.

Yr ydym fel plaid yn cymeradwyo’r cais am aelodaeth o Ganolfan Ewrop Cymru. Gobeithiaf y bydd hynny yn ein galluogi i gael gwell perthynas gydag Ewrop, cryfhau ein perthynas gydag Ewrop a sicrhau ein bod fel cenedl yn chwarae rhan ar y llwyfan Ewropeaidd yn fwy effeithiol.

I welcome the move to join WEC. This is an important day for Wales. The Assembly is taking its full part in representation. I remember being in WEC when it was told to remove the Welsh dragon from the pole outside its office in Rue Montoyerstraat by a previous Secretary of State who said that Wales should not be represented in such an appropriate manner—

If that happened, perhaps the leader of the Liberal Democrats would join me in calling for the European flag to be taken down from outside the Assembly to return this gesture in full.

You have got it wrong, David. In fact, a Secretary of State for Wales, whose first name began with a ‘j’ and whose surname began with an ‘r’ and was something to do with a tree, was in Brussels. He looked at the flag, saw the Welsh dragon above the WEC office and said that the flag should come down, although WEC was not funded by the Welsh Office or any organ of the Conservative Government of that time. Those of us who were around supporting other organisations deeply opposed that. However, the flag will now fly above the new office as well as the present representation.

This is a good day for Wales. I move my amendment but, should Rhodri provide me with sufficient comfort by the end of my speech, I may withdraw it. It depends on what he says in summing up.

On the amendment, I understand the choice between local government and us, and that you do not wish for central government, in Wales terms, to be seen to overwhelm local government. However, if you read the amendment carefully, it mentions representation. It does not necessarily mention full board membership. The Assembly is a different institution and we have tried our best—sometimes with success, sometimes without—to ensure that everyone is involved. We are still feeling our way, and being kept out of one group or body is a fate that could befall all of us, not only one party. Only last week or the week before, the Conservatives argued strongly that they were being locked out of the monitoring committee. I accept that such situations are bound to occur and I hope that a way will be found to ensure that the Conservatives can play their part.

I have a letter from Rhodri, in which he makes suggestions about how we could receive information and be part of a pre-meeting procedure. However, there must be a way of ensuring co-operation, perhaps by providing co-options or other processes to ensure that all parties are present. We have taken it as given that we will do whatever we can to ensure that all parties are included in our relationships, internally and externally. We should not give up that goal, although that would be easy. We talk about sharing power. Sharing power also means sharing responsibility. However, with shared responsibility comes shared information and access. We must make this Assembly accessible to consider all views expressed here. This is a big issue that should not be put aside. This is just one example, but I quoted another, and it may well happen during the Assembly’s life. It is important that we set the right precedents from the beginning.

It is difficult to assist in any move forward when you are locked out of the process. That is why we want to press this matter. I wonder whether there has been, for example, a thorough examination of the memorandum and articles to see what room for flexibility there might be, in the form of co-options, observer status and so on, at the board meetings. Something of that nature might be sufficient for us to withdraw our amendment. However, I will wait to see what happens.

On the motion as a whole and Ieuan’s amendments, which I fully support, Wales must carry out three functions in Europe, particularly in Brussels. First, information and intelligence. Intelligence is useful to find out how policy is framed in advance of the documents being presented. If it had not been for WEC, there would not have been an Objective 1 flow programme to be presented by the UK Government, nor the previous background information and debate. It is important that we use our full facilities to gain intelligence from inside and outside the Commission.

The second function of our European role is lobbying. We have a message to tell and interests to portray. That lobbying takes place at the Commission level, in the Parliament—and we must all play our part there, since we all have representation in the European Parliament—and in UKREP, which is particularly important for us and which Ieuan mentioned.

We must also lobby other partners and allies. It is amazing how you create alliances around Europe for specific issues. Scotland has proven capable of finding partnerships and alliances. Unfortunately, some of those alliances are with people with whom we want to be allied. We need to be careful of our relationship with Catalonia, which is in danger of going to Scotland if we are not quick and clever. I have warned the First Secretary of this before. I share ground that it is the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament who has been helpful to the Scots in this matter. However, I have already told him that I will be beating a pathway to Barcelona. I am sure the First Secretary will support us in that.

The third reason for being in Europe is to build relationships and to raise the profile of this Assembly and that of Wales. We need people who can do this job from within the diplomatic circle—that is, UKREP—and from outside it, which is the Wales European Centre and the Wales representational role. We need to be on both sides of the fence to play the whole thing as properly and as powerfully as we can. UKREP constrains people in some ways because it is the UK’s representation. However, the diplomatic role we play outside of UKREP is important to get our own message across. I described UKREP once as something that could listen at the keyholes. We are trying to establish important positions there by having people seconded to UKREP so that we can find out what is happening inside the European Commission as well as finding out the reaction of the UK Government to policies. It is a triangular relationship, and only by being in UKREP can we find out well in advance what happens. I congratulate Des Clifford on his appointment to the outside of the circle. I hope that we will now see senior people inside UKREP because the more seniority you have, the more clout you have within the civil service.

Finally, the Committee on European Affairs must take the lead here. It is important that the WEC partnership is brought into the loop so that it is not only a question of WEC taking the lead, the Assembly taking the lead through its diplomatic role, or UKREP taking the lead. It should be a genuine partnership working in a circular way. I hope that the Committee on European Affairs will have a powerful role in making sure that that happens.

In supporting of this motion, may I say how important it is that the people working within Europe are aware of the concerns of many of us in Wales about the way in which the European Union is being run. We must take every possible measure to get across our concerns about things that have been taking place. I think of the disgraceful ban on beef exports to Europe. The ban was implemented not for any medical or scientific reason but as a deliberate commercial ploy to try to give European beef farmers a commercial advantage over those in Wales. If WEC had been in place then, perhaps we could have expressed our great anger over this. I think of the controversy over GM crops which has been in the news recently. Although we may debate whether or not to licence GM crops in Wales, the reality is that it would be possible for us to be overruled in Europe. Again, it is important that we get our point of view across. One of the most fundamental flaws of the European Union is the completely undemocratic structure that lies at the heart of it. It is run not by the Members of the European Parliament, as some think, but by the unelected, unaccountable European Commissioners. Anything we can do to bring the influence of elected representatives to bear over this unelected quango would be most welcome.

As I am interested in democracies, as I am sure you are, David, would you agree that the European Parliament over a period of time should become the body to guide and take forward the European Commission? What role do you see for the national member state governments such as Westminster?

I would be happy to see the European Parliament taking over more of the powers currently being exercised by the European Commission. Most of all, I would like to see national state parliaments, which are closer by far to the people, exercising those powers themselves. We were told that the point of the Assembly was that it brought elected power closer to the people. An Assembly governing three million people was meant to be more democratic than Westminster, which governs 60 million people. How can one argue on the one hand for an Assembly and on the other for more powers for the European Commission? The powers of the European Commission are already too great and it is vital that we take these measures to get our elected representatives into positions of influence.

Having voiced my support, I hope that this does not become a gravy train, which is a danger. About 18 months ago and before I was elected to the Assembly, I attended a conference in Cardiff at which there were a number of potential Assembly candidates from different parties. We were addressed by a representative of the Länder within the European Parliament. He got up on the stage and argued that it was important that Wales has strong representation in Europe. He said that this was important because sometimes his officials put in grant applications that were refused. If that happened, his job was to find the relative official and to take him out for a long, good lunch. He said that he puts his point of view and application to him again over the brandies and cognacs, and nine times out of 10, the official will look at it again. That is how Europe is run. It is simply not acceptable. Taxpayers’ money is used to fund people who take people out to lunch in the hope of passing grants, which should be passed anyway. That is happening at the moment, so it is vital that we do not drag WEC into disrepute by allowing that sort of behaviour to go on there.

I am also reminded of a conversation I had with a former European Commissioner. I asked him, who are the best people at getting money out of Europe? He replied that it was the Germans. I asked why the Germans were so good at it. He said that the Germans have a positive attitude towards Europe and that they are not like the British, always complaining, moaning, asking for changes and making criticisms. They are positive about the whole project, which is why they do better. Is it not an absolute disgrace that those people who do not criticise things that are fundamentally wrong are the ones who benefit financially from the European Union? However, we will have the influence of elected representatives. Some people consider themselves to be above the law. Is it not funny that only today we discovered that there had been over 100 traffic offences by European Commissioners, for which none of them were prosecuted because they have been above the law? Do we all remember how difficult it was to get them to resign after exposing their corruption? The answer is yes to WEC. Let us get our elected officials in there and try to bring some democratic accountability to the European Union.

Yn gyntaf, ac yn wahanol i’r siaradwr diwethaf, croesawaf yn frwd ymwneud ffurfiol y Cynulliad â Chanolfan Ewropeaidd Cymru. Croesawaf ymestyn presenoldeb Cymru yn gyffredinol ym Mrwsel. Yr ydym wedi gweld dros y diwrnodau a’r wythnosau diwethaf gymaint yw’r budd posibl o gael perthynas waith agos gyda’r Comisiwn Ewropeaidd. Pe bai cynrychiolaeth ffurfiol a sylweddol o’r Cynulliad wedi bod ym Mrwsel dros y misoedd diwethaf, mae’n bosibl y gallem fod wedi osgoi rhywfaint o’r trafferthion yr ydym wedi eu profi ynglŷn â chynllun Amcan 1.

Hoffwn wneud dau bwynt ynglŷn â Chanolfan Ewropeaidd Cymru. Yn gyntaf, mae angen edrych ar enw’r ganolfan. Ni chefnogaf yr awgrym o ‘TAFFREP’ mewn unrhyw ffordd. Credaf nad oes angen galw presenoldeb Cymru ym Mrwsel yn ganolfan Ewropeaidd. Mae’n amlwg fod canolfan ym mherfedd Brwsel yn Ewropeaidd. Mae angen edrych ar enw mwy bachog a phwrpasol ar gyfer y ganolfan yn ei chyfanrwydd. Cynigiaf Tŷ Cymru fel enw ar gyfer y ganolfan. Gobeithiaf y gall cyfarwyddwyr CEC ystyried hyn yn fuan.

Yn ail, bydd angen adolygiad rheolaidd o strwythur Tŷ Cymru, neu Ganolfan Ewropeaidd Cymru. Sefydlwyd y ganolfan mewn cyfnod cyn bodolaeth y Cynulliad, a thra fy mod yn gwerthfawrogi pwysigrwydd y bartneriaeth sydd yn rhan o redeg y ganolfan, credaf maes o law y bydd angen ystyried symleiddio’r trefniant presennol. O Ebrill ymlaen, bydd y Cynulliad yn ariannu CEC yn uniongyrchol, ac ar yr un pryd yn ariannu Awdurdod Datblygu Cymru a chyrff eraill sydd hefyd yn ariannu CEC o’r gronfa honno. Mae’n bosibl nad y trefniant hwn fydd y mwyaf effeithiol ar gyfer cynnal ac ariannu CEC yn yr hirdymor.

Trof at y darlun Ewropeaidd ehangach a dylanwad Cymru a’r Cynulliad yn Ewrop, ynghyd â dylanwad yr Undeb Ewropeaidd ar y Cynulliad a Chymru. Rhaid ystyried o ddifrif a yw’r trefniant presennol yn llwyddo. Nid yw Pwyllgor Materion Ewropeaidd y Cynulliad ond wedi cwrdd deirgwaith ers mis Mai. O gwrdd mor anaml, arwynebol yw’r drafodaeth ar yr ystod eang o bynciau sydd yn gyfrifoldeb i’r Pwyllgor hwn. Un o’r pynciau pwysig hynny, er enghraifft, yw effaith y cyfarwyddebau Ewropeaidd ar bolisi yng Nghymru. Mae hefyd angen monitro a dylanwadu ar weithgaredd a pholisïau Senedd Ewrop, Cyngor y Gweinidogion, Pwyllgor y Rhanbarthau a’r Pwyllgor Economaidd a Chymdeithasol. Rhaid trafod oblygiadau’r ewro i’n heconomi ac oblygiadau ehangu’r Undeb Ewropeaidd i Gymru. Methodd y Pwyllgor â rhoi sylw teilwng i’r materion hynny hyd yn hyn. Rhaid i’r Pwyllgor Materion Ewropeaidd fod yn fwy effeithiol a gall wneud hynny drwy gwrdd yn amlach ac yn fwy rheolaidd. Gellid galw’r Pwyllgor yn siop siarad ar hyn o bryd. Byddai cyfarfodydd cyson â thrafodaeth fanylach yn creu Pwyllgor llawer mwy cynhyrchiol. Gobeithiaf y bydd Cadeirydd newydd y Pwyllgor yn fodlon talu sylw i’r gofidiau hyn.

Cyfeiriodd y Prif Ysgrifennydd at Aelodau o’r Cynulliad sydd yn aelodau o Bwyllgor y Rhanbarthau yng nghyd-destun gwasanaethau o Ganolfan Ewropeaidd Cymru. Hoffwn holi’r Prif Ysgrifennydd pa drefniadau sydd ar y gweill i Aelodau o’r Cynulliad gymryd sedd ar Bwyllgor y Rhanbarthau cyn gynted â phosibl, o gofio bod 10 mis ers etholiadau’r Cynulliad a bod y corff hwn heb gymryd ei sedd yn un o sefydliadau pwysicaf yr Undeb Ewropeaidd.

I listened with interest to the leader of the Liberal Democrats refer to a previous Secretary of State for Wales. I remind Members, particularly the Liberal Democrats, that it was a Conservative Prime Minister who took the decision to take the United Kingdom into the European Community. It was a Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who signed the Single European Act 1986, which not only provided the basis for much of the social policy and economic issues of the day, but also gave businesses a wide economic advantage through the single market. It was a Conservative Prime Minister in John Major who negotiated and signed the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht in 1992. He negotiated a series of advantages that the current Labour Prime Minister is enjoying. I am sure that Tony Blair would wish to thank John Major for the superb work he did in batting for Britain and in supporting Britain’s corner in those negotiations. Had he not done that, I do not think that Tony Blair would not enjoy some of his present advantages.

As a member of the Committee on European Affairs, I endorse and support the application to join WEC. The Conservative Party looks forward to a positive working relationship through the Assembly and WEC in our work in the European Union. The Wales European Centre has done tremendous work in recent years. Those of us who have worked in European affairs before being elected to the Assembly and who have been in contact with WEC, will recall the professionalism and the high quality and accuracy of information that it provided on a number of occasions. We must build on the expertise and ability that we have in Brussels to provide the Assembly and its Members with that detail of information.

WEC has coped with tremendous developments: the establishment of the Committee of the Regions and the expansion of the European Parliamentary responsibilities, not least in legislative responsibilities such as co-decision and several other areas in which the European Parliament now has confidence. Changes in social affairs and the potential expansion of the European Union mean that organisations like WEC have had to deal with many changes in the EU’s life, which have significance in Wales. WEC and its staff should be congratulated for the role that they have fulfilled and will continue to fulfil in the years ahead.

Ieuan Wyn Jones referred to representation in Europe. When one considers the potential expansion of the EU and the possibility of a reduction in the number of MEPs representing Wales, it is even more crucial that the Wales European Centre acts as a strong voice for Wales and that the Assembly has a positive relationship with it, not only in determining those policies and influencing those procedures in Europe, but also in being able to garner information on what is happening in the EU.

Shared expertise has been mentioned as one of WEC’s key benefits. I suggest that that expertise is not only shared with other organisations that represent constituent parts of the UK but also with those that represent other regions in the EU. We should take advantage of the good practice in many of the German and Spanish regions. We should be using WEC, the Assembly, the First Secretary and the Administration to forge ever-closer links with the EU’s regions to ensure that Wales gains from that shared expertise. I have always believed that the processes of the EU should never be influenced from the sidelines. If you are to influence the processes of any large organisation and if you are to have a say on behalf of your organisation, you must be in there arguing hard. One way to do that through WEC is to use UKREP and several other networks that have been established. We welcome this opportunity for the Assembly. I trust that it will use the Wales European Centre wisely and I hope that there will be a more meaningful relationship with the various institutions of the EU for many years.

This has been an excellent debate. Before I address the amendments, I will comment on some of the contributions that did not deal with the amendments.

I think that it is fair to say that David Davies and Jonathan only just belong to the same party when it comes to European issues. Jonathan is very pro-Europe and David’s idea of having a presence in the heart of Europe is to send a Lancaster bomber over it. Their contributions were interesting. Jonathan’s attitude towards Europe has the original young-Conservatives-of-the-1970s feel about it and I approve of that. However, I am not sure whether he is right about the Maastricht Treaty negotiations. Two opt-outs were negotiated: one on a single currency—on which there are varying views—and one on the social contract. The latter also involved elements of low farce because the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Dr Lubbers had agreed a deal with John Major in which he would weaken the social contract so much that John Major would be able to sign it. John Major rang Michael Howard in London, who said that he would resign if he did. As a result, President Mitterand said that they would return to the stronger version of the social contract. As soon as the Conservatives lost the election, Tony Blair was able to sign the stronger version, which is what we have today because John Major and Michael Howard could not agree on it.

Cododd Elin Jones bwynt pwysig ynghylch Pwyllgor y Rhanbarthau a sut y medrwn wasanaethu’r Pwyllgor hwnnw a’n cynrychiolwyr arno pan nad ydym wedi penodi’r cynrychiolwyr hynny. Mae hynny’n bwysig. Cyn bo hir bydd yn rhaid i’r pleidiau gwahanol drafod ac apwyntio un cynrychiolydd ac un eilydd neu ddau gynrychiolydd a dau eilydd. Nid wyf yn cofio’r union fanylion; mater i Andrew Davies fydd hynny.

O ran effeithiolrwydd y Pwyllgor Materion Ewropeaidd, os yw Elin Jones yn rhan o’r ddirprwyaeth sydd yn mynd i Frwsel ddydd Iau a dydd Gwener, fe allwn drafod ym mha ffordd y mae hi eisiau i’r Pwyllgor fod yn fwy effeithiol. Os nad ydyw—gwelaf ei bod yn ysgwyd ei phen—fe allwn drafod y mater yn y dyfodol. Mae unrhyw gyfraniad yn werthfawr.

Yr wyf yn meddwl bod Ieuan wedi derbyn bod gwall technegol yng ngwelliant 1. Hoffwn ddelio â phwynt y gwelliant. Fe ddeliwn â’r pwynt ynglŷn â’r Cynulliad yn gwneud yr apwyntiad yn hytrach na’r hyn yr oedd Ieuan yn ei feddwl pan ddeuwn i’r amser i apwyntio cyfarwyddwyr i gynrychioli’r Cynulliad—y rhai a fydd â’r hawl i bleidleisio ar ein rhan. Ni allwn gael gwelliant sydd yn gorchymyn y Cynulliad i wneud rhywbeth gan mai’r Cynulliad sydd yn delio â’r gwelliannau. Felly, yr ydym yn cytuno ar bwynt y gwelliant ac ar yr amod hwnnw. Gobeithiaf y bydd Ieuan yn fodlon tynnu gwelliant 1 yn ôl.

Nid oes problem gennym gyda gwelliant 2 oherwydd yr ydym yr un mor awyddus â Phlaid Cymru i annog pobl o’r gwasanaeth sifil i geisio am secondiad i Ewrop a phob math arall o secondiad.

I turn to Mike’s amendment 3. He has mentioned trying to achieve parity with the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties as the third and fourth parties in the Assembly. The Conservative Party was upset that it was not represented on the programme monitoring committee. The shoe is now on the other foot. The Conservatives will be represented on the Board of the Wales European Centre, but the Liberals will not. There is an element of rough justice. You cannot always have four places on every committee and therefore representation across the board. When that happens, I hope that people realise that we always try to play fair by all four parties. However, it cannot be done on every occasion. In this case, the Liberal Democrats have concerns, which are reflected in Mike German’s amendment. We will be joining a long established organisation, therefore it is not appropriate for the Assembly to muscle in and tell it to review its membership structure now or we will not join. It would be too domineering for us to approach an eight year old body in that way.

However, when it is time for the Wales European Centre to review the representation on its Board—for which an obvious occasion is due to arise before too long—there will be an opportunity for WEC to consider this matter afresh. This may be next year when training and enterprise councils disappear, subject to legislation that is now before the Houses of Parliament, and the Council for Education and Training for Wales is established, which perhaps will not require the same amount of representation as the TECs. It may then be possible to consider whether all four parties can be represented on the Board. On that basis, I hope that Mike will not feel it necessary to press his amendment.

Subject to the views I have expressed, I can only commend the Assembly on what I hope will be regarded generally as a constructive debate. Everybody realises that £189,000 a year on our membership of WEC will be money well worth spending in order to get the extra profile, influence and flow of information in Brussels, as policies that affect our day-to-day lives are carried out there.

This report, made under section 88B of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, sets out determinations concerning special grants that the Government proposes to pay to certain local authorities. Approval of the grant report today will provide the legal authority for grants to be paid to local authorities in Wales, to whom I am grateful for their work in this respect, and to reimburse them for their reasonable costs in taking care of asylum seekers. This is up to 3 December 1999. It is a payment of grant in arrears under the old system. It is approximately £350,000 in total, but that must be seen against a social services budget for Wales of around £580 million.

In previous years, the Welsh Office administered grants to local authorities that had incurred expenditure as a result of their support for asylum seekers under the National Assistance Act 1948 and the Children Act 1989. Asylum is essentially a non-devolved issue in Wales, and from December 1999 new arrangements have been introduced, which are administered by the Home Office on an England and Wales basis. However, there remains a residual need to reimburse those Welsh local authorities for costs incurred between 1 April and 3 December 1999.

Asylum seekers who claim asylum at the point of arrival in this country are entitled to social security benefits, which cover their needs for housing, food and other necessities, unless or until their application for asylum is rejected, at which point benefits are withdrawn. The grant discussed today covers those who claim asylum after entry into the country and who are not entitled to benefits. In those cases, local authorities are responsible for supporting destitute asylum seekers under the provisions of the National Assistance Act 1948 and the Children Act 1989.

This grant reimburses those local authorities for asylum seekers they have had to support in anticipation of the introduction of the new scheme from 1 April 2000. We anticipate that there are about 200 such people in Wales. The grant will allow local authorities to claim up to £140 per person per week, in respect of adults accomodated under the National Assistance Act. This £140 is made up of costs for accomodation and board and can also cover the authority’s administrative costs. The grant also covers asylum-seeking families with children and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Local authorities will be able to claim up to £240 per week for each family they accommodate, and £200 or £400 for an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child, depending on whether the child is under the age of 16 or aged between 16 and 17.

The UK Government is committed to reform of the current arrangements for immigration and asylum through the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and other measures. It is trying to improve the efficiency of immigration control, to simplify and speed up the appeals system, to regulate immigration advisers and tackle those who act unscrupulously, to strengthen immigration controls and to give new powers to marriage registrars. It also proposes to introduce new unified support arrangements for asylum seekers in genuine need. As I have explained, the new arrangements are the responsibility of the Home Office, which will administer them for Wales and England. They aim to allow local authorities to deal with asylum applications quickly and fairly. They also aim to ensure that genuine asylum seekers receive the protection to which they are entitled.

Taken together, the elements of this year’s special grant represent a fair settlement to local authorities and to council tax payers, who will be able to feel greater confidence that the burden of caring for asylum seekers will not force local authorities to transfer resources from other local services. The scheme means that any local authority that has provided support for asylum seekers will be able to claim for that support. Although the grant report for the most part covers the period from 1 April to 3 December 1999, when the Home Office interim arrangements came into force, responsibility for the element of the grant that relates to local authorities’ responsibilities in relation to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under the Children Act 1989, will remain with the Assembly. In that respect, the grant report will cover the whole of the financial year 1999-2000. I commend the motion, and ask Members to support it.

Wales has a proud tradition of welcoming those seeking new homes, whether as asylum seekers or, as we are now supposed to call them, ‘economic migrants’. We must acknowledge that those people have made a huge contribution to our national life. It is in that context that we need to place this debate today, as a small part of the ongoing discussions that we are having in the Assembly about how we make asylum seekers welcome both retrospectively, in the context of this report today, and in future. I thank Peter Law for his speech, which has helped to explain some of the issues about which I proposed to ask questions. You will be pleased to hear, Llywydd, that I will now not ask them.

I will look a little further into the future as to what happens after this report. We in Plaid Cymru—The Party of Wales, have made no secret of our revulsion for many of the elements in the Government’s new proposals for dealing with immigration and asylum seekers, particularly the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. We do not believe that it is acceptable to disperse people against their will, as if they were an oil slick, although we acknowledge the practical problems faced by local authorities at points of entry in England. There can scarcely be any Member who believes that it is acceptable to withdraw benefits from asylum seekers and replace them with vouchers, with the potential for stigma and humiliation that they entail. It is deeply regrettable that we do not have the powers to challenge these measures or to move to implement them differently as the Scottish Parliament seeks to do. However, we do not have those powers, and those measures will come into force in Wales.

It is essential that we do all in our power to ensure that asylum seekers receive a positive welcome in our communities and get access to all the services that they need. To this end, we welcome today’s special grant report, which will relieve local authorities of some of the burden that they have long been carrying, through the measures that we all need to make to support asylum seekers coming to our country. The refunds will no doubt be welcome, and I imagine that those refunds were in the budget for this year and were ones that we were expecting to make. If that is not the case, perhaps Peter Law will clarify from which budget heading the refunds come. I understand, however, that they are from a long-standing budget heading.

There are longer-term questions that we urgently need to address. These questions have been discussed before, but we still do not feel that we have had the answers. I therefore ask Peter Law again to give them his urgent attention. If we are to welcome additional numbers of asylum seekers, and possibly quite large numbers into some of our communities, we need to address how additional services, beyond the accommodation and subsistence that will be provided by the Home Office in London, will be provided and funded. For example, what plans do local authorities have to provide the additional specialist social and educational services that asylum seekers may need, varying from host language teaching to intensive counselling following severe trauma? Will local authorities, the Assembly or the Home Office fund these? Will additional services be in place by the time the asylum seekers arrive in numbers? What steps are being taken at a local and Assembly level to prevent racist reactions in host communities when asylum seekers arrive?

This must be a particular concern after last week’s figures showed an alarming rise in racist attacks in some parts of Wales. I do not think that this can all be put down to better reporting and to the police being more ready to record incidents. From our perspective, the new immigration and asylum legislation is not welcome in Wales, but the asylum seekers are. There is much work to do before we are ready to give asylum seekers a proper welcome. Today’s grants are welcome in their retrospective context. I hope that Peter Law will address some of the longer-term issues in his summing up, by at least providing some information on the way forward.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ report for December 1999 states that 94,000 asylum seekers were awaiting a decision on their applications. In 1998, 71 per cent of asylum seekers in this country were rejected. However, given the unique circumstances facing the former inhabitants of Kosovo, these candidates may find that the UK Government is more lenient.

We must ensure that this compassion is matched by funding from central Government. This is entirely the responsibility of the Home Secretary. Preventing adequate funding will cause serious problems. Once again, the dead hand of the Treasury may have damning consequences for Wales. The concern for match funding need not have its parallel with this problem, which can so easily be avoided. Welsh local authorities are already financially tested. The Home Office directly meets the costs of Department of Social Security benefits and local authority payments, but does not meet the cost of healthcare or education. Welsh local authorities will bear the cost of providing education and healthcare for asylum seekers.

The Home Office estimates a cost of £365 per family, per month, for the current financial year, rising to £368 per month in the next financial year. Local authorities will also have to bear any shortfall in central funding towards DSS benefits, a deficit predicted by the Local Government Association. The LGA has identified that single asylum seekers place more pressure on the single room rented property market. In towns and cities where demand is already high, this further increases the costs. It may cause further financial suffering for students and other young people with low incomes living away from the family home.

We must ensure that displaced people are neither disadvantaged nor victimised in Wales. To refuse fiscal support is no advantage for asylum seekers. To ask local authorities to bear these high costs may in turn cause resentment among local people. Last week, it was announced that council tax will rise by approximately £3 per household in Kent. This will be used to offset the additional cost to the authority of the large number of asylum seekers in the county. We must not have a repeat of the violence seen in Dover in August 1999. That led to 11 stabbing incidents.

It is inflammatory for local authorities to have to bear this cost, which is a transparent cost when it is so blatantly added to council tax. As the citizens of Wales will remark, sudden increases in council expenditure are extremely unpopular and cause a great deal of ill feeling. We do not want asylum seekers fleeing victimisation and terror to be forced to retreat into ghettos in Wales. We must assess the financial implications upon areas where asylum seekers are settled, and any consequent social problems. We must ensure that adequate start-up funding is provided by central Government, that receiving asylum seekers is not a poisoned chalice for local authorities, and that local authorities and individuals have no cause for aggression against asylum seekers.

We therefore ask you to consider the following measures. We propose that there is better organisation of a Welsh strategy led by the Assembly, and that local authorities in Wales form one committee to discuss quotas with the Home Office. We propose that the Welsh Local Government Association, which hitherto had no voice on LGA committees consulting with the Home Office, is involved in the consultation process, and that funding from central Government reflects the true cost, in its entirety, and the special nature of the circumstances. In addition, we propose that the dispersal of asylum seekers is equitable, but that it takes account of economies of scale, as greater numbers lead to a fall in costs. We also propose that there should be a concentration of specialist facilities and individuals, in particular linguists with obscure languages. There should be contact between members of the same national group, and it would be financially and socially beneficial to place asylum seekers in a minimal number of areas where amenities and facilities could be utilised to their maximum. We propose that central Government either adopts an immigration policy that it can afford or pays for the current immigration policy it is attempting to implement.

The motion before us is a mopping up exercise from the present system. Effectively, we are not debating the system that is coming in. However, some of the points made need to be restated. The Assembly should consider these points and ensure that our voice is heard when we discuss with local authorities and the Home Office how the new system will be implemented. The points raised by Helen Mary Jones were particularly valid.

The funding of the new system when it is introduced is clearly an issue. Many councils are concerned that, although they will get a grant for each asylum seeker they take in and house, that money will not cover the full cost of the housing and particularly indirect costs such as education. Councils are already hard-pressed and struggling to find money to meet those costs, and are therefore concerned that this will be an additional cost on their coffers and will leave them in a situation where they may have to make cuts to accommodate the additional expenditure.

Also, there is concern about the money available to local authorities for the teaching of English as an additional language. I understand that this is provided through grants for education support and training and that this funding was previously only available to Swansea, Cardiff and Newport. This money is to be spread more evenly across the whole of Wales, and if you spread a limited pot of money more evenly, then no one will have enough to do the job properly. That is also of concern. A key issue in the receipt of asylum seekers is to ensure that they are properly integrated into the community into which they are received and to ensure that they are given the services to which they are entitled. If they are to have the opportunity to seek out employment and to be accepted by the community in which they live, that integration must involve English language teaching.

I do not agree with some of the language that William Graham used. There is a danger that we can be too inflammatory. It is essential that the asylum seekers that we will receive in Wales are housed and dealt with. We have a moral obligation to receive, house and look after asylum seekers. However, as has been said, the money has to be provided by central Government, otherwise local authorities will struggle to find it. William raised the issue of a consortium. That consortium is already in place; the concern is that at least one council has refused to take part in it and that other councils are perhaps considering not doing so. We must say to local authorities that we believe that they should be part of the consortium, that we should have a unified approach across Wales on asylum seekers and that no one council can stand alone in the way that it deals with them. Although this debate is about the existing arrangements, I hope that when we come to look at future arrangements for asylum seekers and discuss them with the Home Office, these points will be noted and Peter Law will do that on our behalf.

In rising to speak in this debate, I am aware that my native country has probably produced more political exiles and economic refugees than most other countries on this planet. In the United Kingdom there are possibly two or three times as many people of Irish extraction as live on the island of Ireland. While people from countries such as Ireland have assimilated well into the United Kingdom, there is no doubt that, at various stages, there have been serious difficulties and problems. It is important that that experience is not repeated. It worries me that, even though there are only six to eight weeks before the introduction of the new scheme in April, my local authority is still not sure of the size and nature of the problem and the extent of the settlement it will face. Even though it is working hard to put arrangements in place, the fact that it is not clear about the demands that will be placed upon it must be a cause for concern.

The money that we are talking about is for the basic provision of housing, education and living expenses. As others have said, there are needs that have not been clearly identified. If we do not get this right, there is plenty of evidence that there are racist, right-wing and nazi groups in our society that will be prepared to exploit the difficulties that may emerge if this settlement does not progress in a well-planned and humanitarian way. One problem, I would imagine, is that refugees will be located in the areas where housing is most likely to be available, which are already the most hard-pressed communities, with deep-seated problems. Unless this activity is planned well, there is a real danger that the problems in these communities will be exacerbated and that those who want to exploit that negatively and nastily will use that to forward their agenda.

My only experience of dealing with any significant number of refugees is dealing with Chilean refugees in the early 1970s. It is a bit ironic that we discuss this issue when we have Pinochet in this country, who still has not been brought to book for his crimes against the democratic Government in Chile. Settling the Chilean refugees was made easier because people understood the circumstances from which they came. To a certain extent, the battle for the hearts and minds of people had been won, because we understood the circumstances from which the asylum seekers were fleeing. In the current context, this work has not been done. There is much misinformation being generated and much scaremongering, which will not create the optimum environment for refugees to settle in our country.

We need to send out the message that even in Wales, we are a multi-origin society. We are made up of English, Scottish, Irish, Italians, Spaniards, Australians, New Zealanders, people from all corners of Africa, from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. All these people are Welsh people. We have benefited from these influxes and, by and large, Wales is a richer and more prosperous country because of them. We need to sell that message positively. We also need to point out that the vast majority of these refugees come from areas of great turbulence and hardship and from war zones. To read some of the Tory press—I hope that the Conservative Party does not object to me talking about the Tory press in this context; I am not referring to the party—and to read the scaremongering and hysteria in it, you would think that refugees come here for an extended holiday. However, as others have said, the level of provision that refugees will receive in this country will not put anyone on a gravy train.

Does the Member agree that, while it is vital that we welcome genuine refugees into this country and ensure that they are well looked after, at the same time we should not allow a situation to develop where young people, who have the most to put back into the economies of the countries from which they come, come to Britain simply because it is of economic benefit to them to do so? We must ensure that genuine asylum seekers are separated from the economic migrants who simply come here for a better way of life, particularly as, if those people were to come here in large numbers, that would be to the detriment of their own countries.

I would pity anybody who came to this country to live on a voucher scheme or on income support and travelled half way around the world for that privilege. I cannot believe that the vast majority of refugees who come to Britain come here to live off the fat of the land. I believe that they live in war zones and in social disruption and that their circumstances, almost universally, are pitiable and that we should reach out the humanitarian hand of help to them.

Do you agree, Brian, that the reason why there is an increase in economic migration is the way that the rich, western world has treated the poor world? Over the last century, the difference between the wealth of the richer countries and the poorer countries has increased twenty-fold. It is inevitable that people will come here. It is about time that we had a fairer, more socialist world. Until we have that, we will have great problems of economic migration.

I do not disagree with what Geraint said, but if we consider the national make-up of the overwhelming majority of the potential refugee and asylum seeker population coming to Britain, they are from countries such as Somalia, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Serbia and the countries of eastern Europe. The reason why they are the predominant group of people is because of the war situation and social disruption in those countries. They are not even coming here because of economic reasons. They have been driven out of their countries because of the circumstances in which they find themselves. It is not a coincidence that the majority of refugees are from a limited number of countries.

I have spent some time living in Sri Lanka in all manner of accommodation and I have travelled all over the island, including the area affected by war—it is not a sunny place to visit. However, the main reason why people are leaving Sri Lanka for this country is not because of war but because of the incredibly low wages that they receive. If the Member seriously thinks that there is any comparison between someone in receipt of social benefits in this country and someone who is working as a manual labourer in Sri Lanka, or other countries with similar economies, then he must consider the facts. The standard of living and the wages are much lower. Anyone who could get social security over here would be better off. We must bear that in mind. It is not that we are against genuine refugees, but young people are needed in countries like Sri Lanka to try to generate the economy.

Some people may come to this country for purely economic reasons, but they are in a minority, and if we allow this debate to concentrate on a minority then we will miss the main focus of the humanitarian challenge that we must address. There is a minority of abusers in this situation, but the core issue is being able to respond in a humanitarian way to the majority of people who are in a genuine refugee situation. We must also be aware that, in terms of the per capita number of refugees accepted by a given country, Britain only ranks number seven among the EU countries. The level of refugees that we accept is low compared with other countries.

When refugees come to our most hard-pressed communities, it is important that they are made welcome and are provided with the services that are appropriate to their needs. We must not create a situation in which these hard-pressed communities have to pay a price to accommodate the refugee population. There must be, at best, a no-loss situation for the host community. If additional services are being provided to improve the lot of refugees, then that should also be available to the host population. We should extend a hand of friendship as a humanitarian gesture and as part of our international responsibilities. It is vital that we get this right first time and I am not convinced that we can be certain of that at the moment.

Brian’s last point is important because it touches on the plight of asylum seekers and our ethnic minority communities. This Act provides for a number of services to be made available to asylum seekers, such as support for mothers who are learning English and appropriate housing advice. We welcome those services because they are needed. This is a good opportunity to emphasise that these services are also needed by our ethnic communities. Some of our ethnic communities tolerate the most appalling poverty and we are concerned that an influx of asylum seekers, who receive better services and are placed in better housing, may be seen to be in an enhanced position. This is not an argument against providing those services for asylum seekers because, while I was a student at Oxford, I visited Campsfield and, if David did so, he would see how refugees are treated. They are fenced in, and living in conditions in which you would not keep criminals. This is an argument for ensuring that there is not a disparity in access to services between existing communities and asylum seekers. Perhaps the Secretary will give us some assurances on that point in his response.

A few weeks ago, I visited a high school in my constituency where there are children from 30 different ethnic backgrounds and where there are 30 different languages. I saw two classes of pupils who were beginners in English, and several of them were refugees. This problem is not new to Cardiff, Swansea or Newport. We had a large influx of refugees from Somalia into Cardiff a decade ago and they have been, by and large, well integrated into our local community.

We tend to have a contradiction in our attitude. I use the term ‘refugees’ as it is the term with which I was brought up, rather than the modern, popular term of ‘asylum seekers’. I was born soon after the Second World War, and my grandmother spoke in hushed tones of reverence when mentioning refugees. They were the people who had been badly treated during the war, had lost everything and had come to Britain to make a new life. Nowadays, we see things on the television that touch our hearts. I was watching the floods in Mozambique yesterday and thinking of the impact on people’s lives. As a nation, we give lots of money, but we have a completely different approach when people wish to come here. It is time that we had a little common sense in our figures. I was pleased to hear Brian mention our per capita figures for the number of people seeking asylum in Britain. It is time for people, especially the media, to get the whole issue into perspective.

I regret to say that the term ‘asylum seekers’ has become derogatory. It is realistic to say that the thousands of people applying to come here include people who are both genuine political refugees and economic migrants. Of course, they also include many people who do not have a right to come here and who will eventually be turned away. However, the real scandal is the vast length of the queue to be dealt with. I have dealt with people who have been waiting three years to have their case determined. That is inhumane. It also adds to the public perception that there are people here who should not be. Obviously, if someone will be turned away, it is much more desirable that their case is dealt with efficiently, effectively and relatively quickly. That is for their benefit as well as for everyone else’s.

I do not believe that there is not a grey area in between. There must be people in between who are not purely economic migrants or political refugees. There are people in between on whom the judgement must be made finely. If we are looking to the future in Wales, the Government must sort out the muddle over this issue, speed things up and be more efficient. I welcome the fact that the Government has taken a step in dealing with this issue by setting up a scheme and setting aside finance to support it.

Finally, I return to where I started and pick up on a point that has already been made. The finance to support this scheme does not include money for education. Asylum seekers, refugees and political refugees who come here, many of them young, traumatised individuals, need support and education, and especially help to develop their language. The educational burden borne in Wales will be considerable and well beyond any funding that the Government intends to give us.

In recent months the issue of asylum seekers has captured the media’s attention and, to a certain extent, the public’s attention. One of the things that saddens me most when I read about this issue in the press and listen to it in the media, is that some people are undermining this country’s commitment to meet its treaty obligations. We have agreed by international convention to provide for asylum seekers. I do not want to be part of a country or state that reneges on its freely taken treaty obligations. That is the basis of what we are discussing. We do not want to get into a way of thinking that this is a simple act of charity that we could either give or take to asylum seekers. It is not.

We should also reflect with real depth and penance on the attitudes taken by some European countries—and we were not completely innocent in this before the Second World War—about allowing, for instance, Jews from eastern Europe into western Europe. They were poor. Now we consider it an outrage that anyone questioned the veracity of those people’s claims for asylum. We may not have been one of the great sinners in Europe—states like Switzerland sent Jewish asylum seekers back to certain death. Today there are places in the world where, if people are sent back, they will face certain death. That is one end of the issue.

The other end is that some people seek to exploit the situation. I am not so concerned about the individuals themselves, but I am concerned—when I see footage on the television—about those who run illegal operations in transit vans or on the back of articulated lorries and sell spaces to people who are desperate enough to seek relief in this way. They make a lot of money out of the transit of people into western European countries. We should aim at those couriers in human flesh because that is the outrage in this issue.

The economic migrants are nothing new. They are usually younger people who bring much talent and commitment to countries. If you studied how they perform in society, you would probably find that they contribute a lot. I accept that the message we send is an important one. We do not want people here under illegal terms, exploiting important international provisions to which we have agreed, namely to give sanctuary to asylum seekers.

I conclude by reminding everyone that most of the world’s refugees are in third world countries. The poorest countries generally have the burden of looking after most refugees. When we talk about what we provide—and I do not want any abuse to exist, I want a system that is fair to all parties concerned—we should remember that our obligations freely undertaken are outweighed by the countries who neighbour those states in turmoil, like Somalia, which has been in a state of savage civil war for most of the 1990s. I urge everyone to be responsible, especially when talking to the media, and to put across the true situation, which is more complicated and more a cause for compassion and understanding than you would believe by reading some of the press that has covered this issue.

I admired your comments, David. I applaud them because there is no doubt that we have a duty on humanitarian grounds to take action. It is all very well for us, on a relatively warm afternoon in February in a civilised country, to stand here and discuss this issue. Jenny Randerson put her finger on it when she said that from a distance we can show compassion, especially when we watch what is happening on the television. However, today we are tested as human beings. Can we say that we will collectively ensure that we give a traditional, warm Welsh welcome to these people who have suffered so much? We will never know what it has been like for these people, as Members have already mentioned, some of whom know more about this than I do. We will never appreciate the trauma that these people have suffered.

This has been an important discussion. I am grateful to everyone who has contributed. This debate is about approving payment to local authorities for the special grant for last year. I am sure that you will support that, and that is right. If we did not agree to it, they would not get paid. It is as simple as that. It would be wrong to penalise local authorities for the important work that they have done. Some 10 authorities throughout Wales have dealt with asylum seekers and are affected by this today. This debate also helps us to focus on the future as far as the asylum seekers who will come to Wales are concerned. That is what most of the concern has emphasised this afternoon.

The national asylum support service has taken over from the Home Office since December and will deal with the onward transmission of about 5,000 asylum seekers into Wales from April. These will probably be people of Kosovan nationality, Somali and Arabic speaking nationals. Each case will need careful consideration. The new legislation takes account of that and will deal quickly with people who do not have genuine grounds to come into this country as asylum seekers.

It is important that we underline Helen Mary Jones’s point about giving a strong welcome to these people. It is a traumatic time for them. We should reverse the situation and imagine how we would feel if we went to where they come from, as complete strangers in a strange land, having suffered what they have suffered. The people of Wales must give a positive welcome and offer help and understanding. We must work together in partnership with many communities. It is a matter for us all, local authorities, police, health authorities and communities in general.

I note the points you made on the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, Helen Mary. You made the same points last time. I understand that, but the fact is that we deal with the situation as it is today. You asked me about the money that has become available. It came from the block and was previously authorised by the Secretary of State. That is how it has always been under the National Assistance Act 1948. All authorities were reimbursed for what they claimed.

It is important that the local government consortium that has been formed to deal with asylum seekers works closely with us in the National Assembly for Wales. The consortium consists of 21 local authorities, with the exception of Cardiff, which makes its own arrangements. Cardiff has a proud tradition. Jenny Randerson hinted at that. It has dealt with this in the past because it has such a large conglomerate of people. It will give us a lead on many issues and the Welsh Local Government Association, I am sure, will work in unison with it.

Compassion is everything as far as this issue is concerned. However, I note the point that Members have made about funding concerns. We will look into that. We have never faced such an influx of asylum seekers before. At the moment one expects—as has always been the traditional funding arrangement under the 1948 Act—that local authorities will deal with matters like education and social services. Ongoing costs are accounted for on a formula basis, because of the regular equations that are made. There may be reason for us to consider this in the future and I will monitor it. I will inform the First Secretary about this at an appropriate time, because we may need to consider this matter in relation to the comprehensive spending review. He may need to make representations to us on it.

I do not want to alarm anybody. The most important thing is that we are here to welcome these people and make them as comfortable as possible. I have to deal with an historic funding system and I ask you to understand that. However, I will watch carefully what happens with it. The Home Office is negotiating with the Welsh Refugee Council on setting up a one-stop shop service to support asylum seekers and refugees in Wales. The council is considering the approach and the associated memorandum of understanding. A contract is expected to be concluded in early March. That is important. It is all about partnership. Peter Black hinted at that. The community is important and local authorities, the police and race and equality councils throughout Wales should be completely involved in this. I am sure that that has been considered. As Brian Gibbons said, we must be aware of the possibility of racist right-wing groups and discrimination. We must ensure that there is no discrimination and there must be no tolerance of it.

I cannot tell you where housing is available because that is a matter for the consortium to deal with in the local authorities. I am grateful to them for their work. No decisions have been made yet, but there are empty houses throughout Wales. You would be surprised. They are not all on top of mountains. There are many empty houses in this city. There are 6,500 houses available throughout Wales in the public sector. That does not mean that anybody will be channelled into one area or another. There should be fair and equitable distribution, dealt with by the professional people of the Welsh Local Government Association, working as a consortium. I am sure that they will consider the needs in every area. Perception is an important matter, as Jocelyn said. That must be remembered. I would not expect to see a disparity of services between indigenous people and asylum seekers, but I will ensure that this is monitored. We are entering a new era; we have never had such an influx.

I take all points made this afternoon seriously. I have considered all of them and I will monitor the situation and report on matters to the Committee as and when I can. The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 will modernise and improve the immigration and asylum system. This year’s grant is an interim step. These grants are designed to reimburse local authorities for the costs incurred for the accommodation and essential living needs of asylum seekers. They are not cash benefits for asylum seekers. The Government aimed to minimise the extent to which asylum seekers receive living needs in cash, and local authorities have provided the majority of living needs through vouchers.

I am grateful to the local authorities that are already preparing for their role in co-ordinating services and providing accommodation for asylum seekers under the new support arrangements after 1 April. I expect local authorities to co-operate with the Home Office in setting up new arrangements to ensure a more even distribution of asylum seekers around the country. We all have a responsibility, as fellow human beings. I ask you to support this motion.