To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the number of primary and secondary school pupils in Wales suffering from dyslexia and as to what specialist, qualified teaching is available for them.

The Education Act 1981 abolished the categorisation of children by disability, so the precise numbers are not available. Provision for children with learning difficulties is made by local education authorities according to local circumstances.

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that Clwyd local education authority only recently carried out a survey of primary school pupils to identify those suffering from dyslexia and that it has not yet carried out a similar survey in county secondary schools? Does my hon. Friend agree that all Welsh local education authorities should carry out surveys if they have not already done so, since such data are essential if we are to raise the standard of special teaching for dyslexic pupils up to the admirably high level that prevails at Orrets Meadow school in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales?

As I think my hon. Friend knows, dyslexia covers a wide range of learning difficulties. The intention behind the relevant provision in the Education Act 1981 was to abolish the categorisation of children by disability. I understand that Clwyd has acted as my hon. Friend described. It is for Clwyd to get on with analysing the number of dyslexic children in secondary schools, if it thinks that it should do so.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had with local authorities in Wales concerning the future of the community charge.

On 7 January I met representatives of the district and county councils at a meeting of the Welsh consultative council on local government finance to discuss local government finance structure and functions.

Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating those people in Wales who have campaigned hard and long against the poll tax, often at great personal cost? Will he assure the House that when a replacement tax takes over from the poll tax, as it must, the new tax will take into account the cost of administration and that it will be substantially less than the very high bureaucratic cost of the poll tax?

I do not join the hon. Gentleman in what he asks, but he did not expect that I would. However, I very much look forward to meeting him and his colleagues, as well as senior representatives of the Liberal Democrats, in the next few days to discuss this thorough, wide-ranging and constructive review of the community charge. My great regret is that the official Opposition have yet to respond positively.

My right hon. Friend has done astonishingly well to enable councils in Wales to keep the level of the community charge so much lower than in England, but is he aware of not only the puzzlement but the resentment about the system whereby he has been able to secure so much extra money for rebates to communities? I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has anything to say on the subject, but I should be glad if he would at least say that he is well aware of that ill feeling.

Of course, I considered whether we might introduce the English form of transitional relief. I was responsible for formulating it for England. However, there were two reasons why that was not possible. First, it would have taken a great deal of time and administration to introduce. Secondly, I should not have been able to get the relief to as many people as I have. According to my predictions, if the English scheme had applied in Wales, it would have gone to I million people and amounted to £50 million worth of transitional relief. As it is, the relief will go to 1·4 million people and will amount to £62 million.

Is the Secretary of State aware that Newport's council and its people are bewildered by the perverse effects of the rebate, whereby most prosperous areas get a hand-out and most of the poorer areas get nothing? The Secretary of State has managed to add the unfairness of the old rating system to the unfairness of the poll tax. What does he intend to do about it?

Not at all. It is easy to calculate, because it is based on the average rates paid in that community. I have more than trebled the amount of relief and whereas in the past just over 300 communities benefited, now well over 600 do. Three times as much relief now goes to twice as many people.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Labour party is extremely long on criticism of the community charge but remarkably reluctant to take part in constructive discussions on how to improve it? Is the reason that the Labour party is unclear about which of its 60 local government policies are actually Labour party policy on financing local government?

I have spoken to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment about that matter and understand that the Labour party has introduced a new condition for participating in the review of the community charge in Wales. In England, Labour Members have confined themselves to saying that they will sit down and talk if the purpose of the exercise is the abolition of the "poll tax"; in Wales, the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) has now introduced a second condition, which is that I must promise to consider the introduction of a property-based tax levied according to an individual's ability to pay. It is about time the Labour party spent more time considering a positive attitude rather than considering what other conditions it will impose.

Does the Secretary of State agree that there is universal agreement among all local authorities, most political parties and even most members of the Conservative party that the poll tax is bad and should be abolished? Will not the Ministr admit that, over the years, the poll tax has been seen to be unfair? Does he accept that the most important statement for him to make to the House and to the Welsh people is that, in the first instance, the poll tax should be done away with?

If the hon. Gentleman feels so strongly about the matter, why will not he drop the nonsense of preconditions and talk to me about the future of local government taxation? In England the average payment after relief and benefit is £300 whereas in Wales, according to my latest calculations, which are in line with the settlement that I announced, the average payment of community charge after relief and benefit will be £161.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met the chairperson of the Countryside Council for Wales to discuss development and the environment in rural Wales.

I met the chairman of the Countryside Council for Wales on 30 October last year to discuss the council's corporate plan and other aspects of its proposed activities for the next financial year and beyond.

During discussions with the chairman of the Countryside Council, did the Minister of State discuss the funding of national parks in Wales? Will funding now be directed through the council, because the national parks in Wales have complained to me and many other hon. Members that their increase is about half that available to national parks in England this year and in the future?

The national parks' supplementary grant is, as the hon. Gentleman says, funded separately from the Countryside Council for Wales. We shall have to see how things develop, but we have increased the national parks' supplementary grant for next year by 11·2 per cent. Their representatives have been to see me. That increase was substantially more than inflation and is on top of a real-terms increase of about 37 per cent. over the past decade or so.

In his discussions with the chairman, did my hon. Friend satisfy himself that the Countryside Council for Wales will be adequately resourced?

I have given that assurance, even for the formation of the council in its shadow form. This year, we gave it £470,000 of grant in aid and next year it will have a total of £14·5 million.

The Minister will be aware that one of the special and unique features of south Wales is the finger of rural Wales stretching between the urban valleys. He will be aware of the great consternation about parts of rural south Wales being destroyed by landfill sites because local authorities are so strapped for cash that they cannot afford recycling units. What provision will the Government make to meet that need in urban south Wales?

There is another question on the Order Paper about the green belt which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State hopes to answer. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the conference that was held under the auspices of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. There is no question but that parks are of tremendous importance to the whole of Wales. I know that the hon. Gentleman has particular regard for the Brecon Beacons national park, which generates much interest in the industrial valleys of south Wales and is supported by several county councils.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects the unemployment total in Wales to exceed 100,000.

In January 1991, the unadjusted total of unemployed claimants was 101,452. The seasonally adjusted total is 96,000.

Does the Secretary of State accept that those figures represent much suffering and an appalling waste of human resources in Wales? After 12 years of Tory Government frittering away our national assets, under-investment in education and training, transport, research, industry and employment generally, does the Secretary of State feel neither shame nor embarrassment that he has no new initiatives, policies or prospects for improving the position of the people of Wales?

To be fair, five years ago the headline total was pushing 200,000; it has fallen substantially since. I am certainly doing everything that I can to promote Wales and the development of the Welsh economy. Having carefully considered transport provision, I am happy to announce a boost of more than £8 million in local authority capital provision for urban projects. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that I am making a £4·9 million transport grant which will enable his county council to make a start on the lower Rhymney valley relief road scheme.

I thank the Secretary of State for meeting the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman on Welsh affairs and myself to discuss an issue involving further redundancy and unemployment in Wales. If the Government continue like this, we shall soon reach the figure of 200,000 that he mentioned. I am talking about the 40 or 50 staff of the community action training organisation, which has trained 4,000 people in the past 10 years. It was established as a community initiative, but the Welsh training and enterprise councils, which the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for setting up, have withdrawn CATO's contract for 200 trainees. The Secretary of State should at least announce whether he intends to carry out an investigation to ensure that the TECs did not take a political decision on the closure of CATO.

I am happy to give that latter assurance. After hearing the argument of the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend, I contacted the training and enterprise council. I understand that it had reasons for reaching its decision and I have asked it to make them available to the hon. Gentleman.

Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming this morning's announcement of the creation of a further 60 jobs at Breger Gibson in my constituency, which brings the total to just under 300? Does he agree that that is a further sign of how much more diversified, soundly based and therefore resilient our local economy has become in the past 10 years, thanks in large part to Government policy?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The £2 million factory expansion at Holywell, Clwyd, which will create 60 new jobs is indeed welcome. I was happy to be able to make a Welsh Office grant towards the project. As well as creating the 60 new jobs, it will secure the jobs of 230 people who are already employed by the company, which was established as recently as 1986.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks about transport. Is not he deeply concerned at the depth of the recession and the nature of the redundancies in Wales? I have in mind hundreds of redundancies in coal, steel, cement, furniture, clothing and electronics and in famous names such as Pilkington, Hoover and JCB. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the lost BBC and HTV jobs will be very hard to replace? Can he explain why, when unemployment is rising, with the figure of 100,000 in sight, he proposes to cut his industry and employment budget by 35 per cent? Why is that, given that the job situation in Wales is so serious? Will he relent on his plans to make cuts?

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has tried to suggest that there are planned cuts. I believe that he has done a great deal to mislead the press—unintentionally, I am sure. The industry programme, as last year, shows a decline due to the withdrawal of regional development grants, but that had been expected for some time. My industry programme provides for total gross expenditure of £268 million next year, which is some £15 million above this year's spend. It will still be higher than now in 1993–94, even allowing for the end of RDG. The hon. Gentleman should not seek to bring down our country with talk of gloom and doom. The medium to longer-term prospects for Wales are as good as ever.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the progress of Heartbeat Wales.

The Heartbeat Wales programme, which is run by the Health Promotion Authority for Wales, continues to combat the high incidence of coronary heart disease in Wales. The evaluation that we have started under the programme, which was established in 1985, already shows welcome trends in the sample survey. It shows that smoking and excess drinking are decreasing and that more people in Wales now take exercise.

Notwithstanding the excellent work of Dr. John Catford and his team in Heartbeat Wales, my hon. Friend will be aware that the incidence of coronary heart disease in the Principality remains very high when compared with that in other countries. Does he agree that the new general practitioners' contracts provide an excellent opportunity to do more for health promotion? Will he ensure that general practitioners in Wales have the necessary information to deal with patients who come to them with high levels of blood cholesterol and other indications that may suggest the onset of coronary heart disease?

My hon. Friend's interest in that matter is well known, as he is the chairman of the all-party food and health forum. I assure him that the plans for action contained in the Health Promotion Authority's document, which has just been issued, concentrate on that. He is right to point out that, in the new GP contracts, health promotion and dealing with heart disease are given very high priority.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his present estimated date for completion of the dualling of the carriageways of the A55 from the Welsh border to Bangor.

Dualling of the whole of the A55 route in north Wales is expected to be achieved in 1994.

My hon. Friend and I have represented north Wales constituencies for longer than any other hon. Member in the House. Does my hon. Friend realise—I am sure that he does—how dramatic has been the transformation of the north Wales scene as a result of the progress made on the A55, especially during the past 12 years? Does he think that the public authorities along the route are taking the maximum advantage of the huge potential for development represented by this corridor of opportunity?

My hon. Friend will agree that the plans outlined in our document. "The A55: Road of Opportunity" showed a tremendous amount of activity on the part of local authorities and I certainly look to those authorities to develop opportunities along that magnificent corridor into north Wales.

The Minister will be aware that there are more than a quarter of a million of us living in mid-Wales. We have been very tolerant over the past 10 years. We have looked north and south and have watched the Welsh Office spending millions of pounds on the motorway in south Wales and the dual carriageway in north Wales. Will the Minister assure us that, after 1994, he will consider dualling the carriageway between Shrewsbury and Aberystwyth to make sure that we in mid-Wales see fair play at last?

Our strategy for roads in Wales is set out in "Roads in Wales", which covers the whole of Wales. Not only are we providing the M4 in the south and the A55 in the north; we are spending a considerable amount on links to those two roads. On the north-south route, for example, we are due to spend £100 million on the A470 alone. We shall also be spending on the A483 from Manchester to Swansea and, in addition to Welsh Office spending, we are supporting extensive spending by local authorities on their county roads.

Does the Minister agree that the rural hinterland of north Wales requires links to the A55 if the benefits are to be felt deeper into the areas that really require them, including Denbigh and the Vale of Clwyd? Can the Minister tell me when there will be a link— perhaps bypassing St. Asaph, with which I know he is concerned? That would add a link from the Vale of Clwyd into the A55 corridor.

Clwyd county council is the responsible highway authority for St. Asaph. On the broad principle, as I said earlier, we are spending a considerable amount on links to the A55. I can tell the hon. Gentleman now that we plan to spend £175 million on those links, which include the A5, the A470, the A487 and the A494.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the green belts conference he held in Cardiff on 28 January.

At the Welsh Office conference my right hon. Friend called for serious consideration to be given to the benefits that statutory green belts could bring to parts of the Principality. Participants at the conference were drawn from the local authority associations and environmental and development interests in Wales. Speakers expressed a wide range of views on the green belt. The Assembly of Welsh Counties has accepted my right hon. Friend's invitation to take forward the consideration of that question as a first priority in its review of strategic planning guidance and to submit an interim report in spring this year.

I am sure that my hon. Friend acknowledges the outstanding contribution of the Council for the Protection of Rural Wales. Will consultation be confined to the county councils, which are neither planning nor leisure authorities, as South Glamorgan county council appears to be leading the charge to develop that which should be retained as green belt? Will he keep to the forefront the consideration that my constituency, north of the M4 from Tongwynlais to St. Mellons, must be the prime candidate for green belt status?

As usual, my hon. Friend defends with vigour his constituents' views and I certainly take on board his point. We shall certainly ensure that the district councils and the city council in Cardiff are included in our discussions on this matter, because, as he rightly says, they are the planning authorities for most issues.

May I tell the Minister that he will find support on both sides of the House for the speedy introduction of statutory green belts in Wales to protect areas like the rural Vale of Glamorgan which are threatened not just by developers, in terms of the destruction of open countryside, but by the lack of much-needed urban regeneration on the waterfront?

I welcome the hon. Gentleman's remarks. We want the issue to be bipartisan. It is not a matter for party political controversy and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman supports us.

It seems a little late for the Minister to consider being bipartisan. He is becoming very good at attending conferences and appearing to offer help to solve problems that the Government have created. Does he accept that attempts at sensible and coherent planning of land use and the protection of the environment have been undermined by the way in which the Welsh Office has granted planning permission on appeal with gay abandon over the past 10 years? Will he promise now to break with the policies of the predecessors of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and put the power back into the hands of local elected representatives to protect the environment of our towns, cities and the surrounding countryside?

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman's premise.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many primary and comprehensive schools in Wales have applied to opt out of council control; and how many of these applications have been granted.

Two secondary schools have applied for grant-maintained status. The application in respect of Cwmcarn comprehensive school, Islwyn, has been approved and that in respect of Queen's comprehensive school, Newport, was rejected. No applications have been received from primary schools.

Does the Minister recognise that our local education authorities are being pressured into curbing expenditure which invariably means school closures? When those schools are allowed to opt out, the capital funding is two and a half times the level for local authority schools. Can the Minister explain the rhyme, logic and reason for that ridiculous attitude on the Government's part or is that just bribery to undermine our local authority schools?

The hon. Gentleman knows full well that the option of grant-maintained status was given to the education system, and particularly to parents, under the Education Reform Act 1988. Various procedures must be followed before a school gains grant-maintained status. We have explained our decisions, and the decision letters in the two cases to which I have referred are in the Library. Their revenue funding is much the same as it is for any school under the local management of schools system and the capital funding is provided direct by the Welsh Office in this case. There is a problem in Gwent of surplus places and our decision in relation to Cwmcarn does not contradict that policy in any way.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he next intends to meet the newly appointed chief executive of the Welsh Development Agency to discuss the recent fall in manufacturing output in Wales.

I keep in close touch with the chairman and the chief executive of the Welsh Development Agency about a wide range of issues concerning the development of the Welsh economy.

In view of the fall in manufacturing capacity in Wales and the severe damage that has been wrought on the manufacturing base in Wales by 12 years of Tory Government, is not the Secretary of State concerned that the experience and expertise of the recently appointed chief executive of WDA lies almost wholly within the candy floss activity of property? Will he ensure in future that senior appointments at board level and at senior level reflect sufficient expertise and a track record in manufacturing industry?

I reject the right hon. Gentleman's comments about Phil Head. I believe that he will be a marvellous chief executive. He won a very competitive contest for that position.

With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's opening comments, I must remind him that the WDA's budget this year is to be exceeded to the highest ever level next year of £160 million, which is £10 million higher than this year and £10 million higher than the figure that I inherited. It is set to remain above the 1990–91 level in each of the subsequent two years. The Welsh Development Agency has the means. The hon. Gentleman should not seek to decry Wales. I have recently seen executives from TSB, DAS, Bosch, Toyota and Dowty Koike. Those companies are now recruiting. That has nothing to do with a candy floss economy, but much to do with an expanding and strong economy.

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the people of Wales how his Government have reached such a serious recession after 12 years in power and about £100 billion in North sea oil revenues? Does he agree that falling output and rising unemployment are not just blips but signs of a recession affecting every kind of industry and every kind of worker? Why have he and his right hon. Friends in Cabinet been so complacent? It ill fits the right hon. Gentleman to tell us about our country. His Government are not helping our country.

The hon. Gentleman did not listen to what I said. I said that I thought that everybody in Wales would be greatly assisted if the Opposition did not talk and preach gloom and doom. The hon. Gentleman mentioned output. Output per employee in manufacturing industry in Wales is the highest ever. In the six years since 1985 manufacturing output in Wales has gone up by 33 per cent. Over the same period output in the United Kingdom is up 19 per cent. Five years ago there were 81 inward investment projects in Wales. We have increased that by 75 per cent. There are 135 per cent. more jobs through inward investment and investment has increased by 263 per cent. Will the hon. Gentleman pay attention to those statistics and not play down the recovery in the Welsh economy?

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has for the improvement of the economy of rural Wales during 1991.

Several.

I am sure that the Minister will agree that agriculture plays a major role in the rural economy of Wales. Agriculture is in crisis. In order to restore confidence will the Secretary of State assure the House that he will go to Brussels to discuss Mr. MacSharry's latest proposals? Those proposals, whether phase 2 or phase 3, will have to be accepted. On behalf of both farmers' unions in Wales, may I ask him to give that assurance?

This is very defeatist talk. On Thursday, the hon. Gentleman introduced a debate on agriculture, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food demonstrated how strongly we should fight the MacSharry proposals. The Leader of the hon. Gentleman's party has just said, and I was astonished to hear it:

"Farmers have cried wolf far too often in the past. Now that there is actually a real crisis they are having some difficulty in getting people to listen to them."

They have no difficulty in getting me to listen to them. I am aware of the difficulties. How much does the hon. Gentleman support that statement by the leader of his party?

I echo the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells). On Friday I attended a meeting about rural affairs. The Minister will know about farmers' serious concern about the future. They have had a bad year with lamb and beef prices, and now they are worried about the GATT proposals and the MacSharry proposals. All that we get from the Government is a vacuum. We know that they are opposed to direct income aid for small farmers. The vacuum creates much anxiety and despair. What can the Secretary of State say to farmers in my constituency who are afraid of going bankrupt?

There are many worries, and I share them. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the fighting speech by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at last week's AGM of the National Farmers Union. That was a marvellous speech and I support every word of it. The hon. Gentleman should have paid tribute to the recent increase in hill livestock compensatory allowances. I fought hard to secure more than £37 million for Wales and I shall arrange for that money to be distributed to Welsh farmers as quickly as possible.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what proportion of school leavers in Wales in 1990 held a pass at A to C level in a foreign language at (a) GCSE and (b) advanced level.

In 1988–89, 21·3 per cent. of school leavers in Wales held a GCSE grade A to C in a foreign language. The corresponding figure for advanced level grades A to E was 3·3 per cent. Information for 1989–90 is not yet available.

Does my hon. Friend agree that, compared with the achievements of our European neighbours, those figures are worrying? Does he further agree that, unfortunately, we are short of sufficient foreign language teachers and that the teaching of foreign languages should be started in primary schools?

I, too, would like to see foreign langage teaching started at the primary level because we have had considerable success in teaching Welsh at primary level. There is, indeed, a shortage of foreign langage teachers, but we are combating that by providing bursaries of £1,500 per annum for trainee teachers taking the postgraduate certificate of education and other courses. We, too, would like to see a great improvement in the learning and teaching of foreign languages in Wales.

Could the Minister institute a study into the success rates of students taking foreign languages at GCSE and A-level, linking that with the constant drip, drip, drip of rainwater passing through leaking school roofs into buckets in the corners? In the county of South Glamorgan, part of which I have the honour to represent, the estimated cost of putting right the backlog of repairs to school buildings has now risen to £32 million, but the annual budget for repairing those roofs is only £9 million. How long is it——

This is a bit wide of languages.

How long will it be before that backlog is put right, and students of foreign languages at GCSE and A-level are given a fair chance of success?

I am well aware of the condition of our school buildings. Whenever I see a particularly rotten building and look into its date of construction, I usually find that it was constructed during a Labour Government's period in office.