I wholeheartedly support everything that has been said with such eloquence and conviction by my noble friend Lord Wigley. My feelings on what the Minister’s attitude might be are summed up in one sentence by a Welsh poet of many centuries ago, Dafydd Nanmor, “Gobeithiaw a ddaw ydd wyf”, “My hopes are for the future”. I am confident that the Minister, who I know has shown himself to be extremely
sensitive to the rights and wrongs of situations such as these in Wales, will achieve a solution here that will be just and practicable.
In so far as the past is concerned, I remember very vividly the Tryweryn issue, although it is now more than half a century ago. There was a great deal of humbug involved and less than total honesty in the case put forward by Liverpool, which said, “The people of Tryweryn are deeply religious—they go to church on Sundays but they will not allow their neighbours in England to have a cup of cold water. Fie upon them”. Those are the exact words. But it was all bunkum; it was not drinking water but industrial water that Liverpool wanted, run down the River Dee and diverted from Queensferry to its own ends. It was sold to over 21 other authorities fringing Liverpool and they made millions upon millions out of it, because they chose to rape a Welsh valley. There is no other way of putting it. They stole the land of the living and desecrated the graves of the dead. I feel very strongly about this, even after half a century. I hope that I can forgive, but I doubt whether I can ever forget. However, that all now belongs to the past: Tryweryn must never happen again. I am confident that the Minister’s decision will be such that Tryweryn will not happen again. This does not mean to say that those privileges—call them what you will—that are entrenched in favour of English cities will be changed at all; they will remain as previously.
5.30 pm
However, some consideration should be given to the fact that, in many a dry summer—and we do have such a phenomenon from time to time—there will be areas in Wales from which water is extracted which suffer drought and will see that invaluable asset running away from them without any compensation whatever. That has to be put right some day. Amendments 103 and 105 in my name make it impossible for another Tryweryn to take place. If it did, I have no doubt that it would be the finest recruiting sergeant Welsh independence ever had, but that is another matter altogether. This is a matter of justice and I am sure that the Minister bears very much in mind the feelings that still remain raw in Wales in relation to it. I am confident that what he does will be just, wise and proper.