Image via Wikipedia

An all-day ministerial excursion took me today to Wrexham, the part of the world where I was brought up and which, in my admittedly prejudiced opinion, is one of the most interesting corners of Wales, with a rich military, industrial and social heritage.

There, I learned some facts of which I was previously unaware:

• Glyndŵr University was constructed in the 1950s, in what I can only describe as a very late art deco style, as a technical college.  It was built, however, with a more sombre alternative potential use in mind: as a hospital to accommodate the victims of a nuclear attack.  Hence, the corridors are particularly wide, to allow for the passage of trolleys and beds.  We must be thankful that it never needed to be adapted from its primary purpose.
• The old police station, which is now being converted, courtesy of the Heritage Lottery Fund, into the Wrexham museum, was formerly a barracks for the Denbighshire Yeomanry.  It originally had a tower (two of which remain) on each of its four corners  and was planned to be surrounded by a moat.  Like many fine Wrexham buildings of the period, is constructed of honey-coloured Cefn-y-Fedw sandstone, which is sadly no longer quarried.
• The police station’s architect also designed the marble church in Bodelwyddan.
• Owls, according to the members of Owlrescue whom I met at Garth CP School, can rotate their heads through 270 degrees.  They do this because they are unable to swivel their eyes.
• Not all owls are nocturnal hunters; only those with dark eyes are.  Owls with yellow eyes are diurnal and those with orange eyes are crepuscular.

Tomorrow, it’s the Denbigh and Flint show.  I’d bet a pound to a penny that I will learn something new there, too.  Because, in this job, that’s something that happens every day.

Related Articles

• University guide: Glyndwr University (guardian.co.uk)

When we finally got in, it was well worth the wait.  The weather was perfect, with the large crowds clearly enjoying themselves.   I was pleased to see my old friend Ieuan Wyn Jones; our respective officials took pictures of us together.  I wondered momentarily what our old principal from Ruthin days, Elwyn Talog Davies, would have said if he could have seen us.

I took the opportunity to launch the Welsh Office’s new taskforce aimed at consulting on the economic impact of the downturn on the life of rural Wales.  Over the next few months, we will be consulting with individuals, community groups, academics and business organisations to gather views and suggestions as to what the coalition Government can do to promote recovery in the rural areas.

The initiative was well received by the two Welsh farmers’ unions, the CLA and the Federation of Small Businesses.   We are now inviting other groups to feed their views into the Office by the 27^th September.

For more information, visit the Wales Office website.

Sadly, therefore, I have to conclude that light blogging is likely to be the rule, rather than the exception, for the foreseeable future.  My profuse apologies to my readers, but there we are.  I’m sure you’ll understand. 

A second reason for the lack of blogging has been the fact that we have just moved house – a significantly harrowing experience, bedevilled and delayed by all sorts of hiccups. 

The move itself took place on Friday.  We said goodbye to the old family house, loaded our worldly possessions in a couple of vans and headed two miles eastward, over the next hill but one.  There we disgorged the same possessions and settled down to a summer in which we will be sharing our new home with builders, electricians, heating engineers and decorators.  

It will be a long haul, but I’m sure it will be worth it.

Monday was spent in Cardiff, settling into the Wales Office building in Cardiff Bay, meeting the very welcoming officials and generally getting my feet under the table.  There was a very successful visit by the Prime Minister to the Assembly, where we met the Presiding Officer and the PM and Secretary of State had a private meeting with the First Minister.

Yesterday I got my feet under another table; this time, the one in my office at Gwydyr House, the Wales Office’s principal base, in Whitehall.  Again, a round of meeting more officials, who were equally welcoming.

In the afternoon, I crammed with colleagues into the overflowing Commons chamber for the election of the Speaker.  Not only were there hundreds of new faces, I had the experience for the first time of viewing my colleagues from the Government side. 

The election procedure was conducted in stentorian tones by the new Father of the House, Sir Peter Tapsell.  Sir Peter is a formidable yet well-loved figure, and appropriate tribute was paid to him by Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who informed the House that its new Father had first entered the chamber in 1959, having previously worked for Sir Anthony Eden.

John Bercow was re-elected by almost universal acclamation.

Then back to Gwydyr House, and more meetings.

Cardiff Monday, London Tuesday.  If it’s Wednesday, it must be St Asaph.

The ash cloud has not, however, descended to the lower reaches of the atmosphere.  It is, I repeat, a stunningly clear day: so clear, that it is possible to pick out every sheep enclosure, every whitewashed cottage on the slopes of the Carneddau, now free, at last, of the snows that have lingered since October. 

The may is breaking into blossom, too, throughout North Wales.  The journey back from Ruthin surgery yesterday was a delight, the Clwydian roads lined with hawthorn trees heavy with the white, sometimes pink, bloom that is the cheerful hallmark of springtime here; the most visible sign of nature’s renewal.

Today I must drive back to London, taking with me boxes of files that were temporarily removed to the constituency during the election campaign.  The Mini is crammed full of them; it took me ages to get them in and I have no idea how I will unload them when I arrive.  I’m beginning to think that I may, sadly, need a four-door car again.

And tomorrow, there will be new challenges.  New job, new office, new colleagues, new routines.  The familiar process of adapting to the unfamiliar.

But new is good; new means progress.  New means change. 

Change, heaven knows, is what our country has needed, for so very long.  And change, at last,  has started.

Around 3.00 pm, my mobile rang.  It was the Government Chief Whip: “David, the Prime Minister has asked me to invite you to join the Government as Parliamentary under Secretary of State in the Wales Office.”

It didn’t, frankly, require too much thought.  I was delighted.

And then the phone started ringing.  And didn’t stop. It continued ringing until 6.00 pm, when I left to attend the mayor making ceremony in Abergele.

People have been so very kind; I have been greatly touched to receive so many messages of goodwill from so many friends, colleagues, constituents and acquaintances.

Yes, it’s been quite a day.  But now the work starts. 

I understand that, even as I write, my first ministerial boxes are on their way to me from Whitehall.

The academy will need the appropriate infrastructure to support it, most importantly road links.  This is what the local MP, John Smith, had to say at last May’s Welsh Grand Committee:

We must ensure that the infrastructure is right for the people of west Wales and mid-Wales, so that we have easy access to and from the site.

Consequently, one of the most important projects being considered right now is the airport link road from the M4 to Cardiff airport. It is absolutely critical that that project remains on track and is delivered. Following the Budget, I recognise that there will be pressure because of the constraints on public expenditure growth and the pressure to look at projects that may be viewed as providing easy savings. However, it would be a disaster if the airport link road was delayed any further, or shelved or dropped by the Welsh Assembly Government between now and 2014, when the college will open. If that road is not built, the college will still open and the job opportunities will still be there but they will not go to the people of Wales, or rather they will not go to the proportion of people in Wales to whom they should go.

John Smith will consequently be disappointed at yesterday’s announcement by the Welsh transport minister that the airport link road is to be abandoned, together with a long-planned improvement to the M4 in South Wales.  Indeed, John has gone further and called the decision “economic lunacy”.

The announcement will undoubtedly cause uncertainty over the future of the St Athan project.  Such uncertainty will not have been relieved by the following exchange at yesterday’s Welsh Questions:

Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con): The defence training project at St. Athan would bring huge opportunities to Wales. Will the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State is co-ordinating with the Ministry of Defence and that the pre-contract agreement letter will be issued to the preferred bidder this week, on time on 17 July—or will the Government delay that? 

Mr. David: The hon. Lady is correct to stress the importance of that investment to Wales. It will be the largest single investment ever in the Welsh economy. The defence technical college will be of tremendous benefit, not only to the Welsh economy but obviously to the United Kingdom armed forces. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State fully recognises the importance of that; he has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Defence and they are going forward together. The hon. Lady can rest assured that we recognise the importance of the project for Wales. 

Wayne David’s answer was unsettlingly lengthy; I hope that it was not deliberately obfuscatory.   It could, and should, have been a simple: “Yes, it will be issued”. 

Recognising the importance of the project is one thing; issuing the pre-contract agreement letter is another.  The Wales Office should immediately clarify the position.  It would be extremely worrying if there were any doubt whatever over the Government’s commitment to St Athan.

The assembled company consists mostly of the great and good of the Welsh media, leavened with the likes of the Manic Street Preachers, Terry Waite and a certain celeb weathergirl.

I am flattered to be told that this humble blog is read by both a senior bod from the BBC and a very nice lady from Golwg.  Whether for pleasure or out of a sense of duty isn’t made clear, but I form my own, realistic, opinion.

Readers will recall (or perhaps won’t) that the committee reported to the Secretary of State that the draft Order should be approved, with one important proviso:

The full scope of the power to be transferred under a proposed Order, rather than just the current policy intention, should be clearly expressed in the Explanatory Memorandum. Proposed Orders should be drafted so as to transfer only those powers which are required and for which a clear purpose has been established. The same considerations apply to granting to the National Assembly for Wales the ability to abolish the Right to Buy/Right to Acquire. We recommend that the proposed Order be revised so that this power is specifically excluded from its scope. We further recommend that the proposed Order should not proceed unless this proposed revision is made.

Given that the Assembly Government had made it very clear in evidence to the committee that it did not intend to abolish the Right to Buy, one might have thought that this would cause few problems to WAG and that the LCO would proceed fairly swiftly.

Not so; it caused fury in certain quarters of Cardiff Bay and outrage on the part of the Assembly’s presiding officer,   Lord Elis-Thomas.  The committee’s recommendation, it seemed, had caused a grave constitutional crisis of the greatest magnitude.  Everybody got terribly aerated.

So the LCO sat on a shelf for a bit, gathering dust, while tortuous, protracted negotiations proceeded between WAG and the Wales Office.  Eventually, a compromise, not to say fudge, was agreed, which provided the Secretary of State with a veto if WAG should ever decide it wanted to abolish the Right to Buy.  I personally thought that was a constitutionally questionable solution to the non-problem, in that it effectively turned the Secretary of State into a Governor-General.  However, both sides – WAG and the Wales Office – were by now intent, above all, on saving face and both seemed to regard the rather dodgy lash-up as acceptable.

The draft Order was duly tabled; but then disaster struck.  The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments examined it and reported it for “doubtful vires”.  In other words, the committee was less than satisfied as to  the Order’s legality.

The Order was consequently pulled;  heaven knows when it will proceed.  Betsan talks of a “third way” to restore it, but, as to what that may be, gives no inkling.

All this is, of course, awfully silly.  WAG is effectively holding its breath and stamping its feet in an effort to obtain a competence it never, ever intends to exert.  Where’s the sense in that?

One other point of interest that emerges from Betsan’s post is that it reveals that the individual who proposed the Secretary of State’s veto as a solution to the impasse was a Plaid Cymru special adviser.  I understand that the gentleman in question is a very special, special adviser who carries a great deal of clout within the Plaid hierarchy.

What, one might ask, was a senior Plaid official thinking, in proposing that the Secretary of State in Whitehall should have the  power to inhibit Assembly legislation by extending a downward-pointing thumb?

I have my own theories, but I really don’t want to deprive Betsan of the opportunity of penning  another post about this truly fascinating subject.

Are you all still with me?

The wall above the fireplace looks rather bare, now that Peter Hain’s famous poster of Nelson Mandela has been taken down. Paul has replaced it with a Victorian view of Cardiff Bay which is, frankly, much too small to fill the available space.

Given that he has access to the Government collection, I’m a bit surprised that Paul hasn’t gone for something more interesting, particularly since he has found a very fine Augustus John painting of a cellist to hang a few feet away.

I suggest that he might try to find a work by Thomas Jones, Pencerrig, the 18th century Welsh artist, who produced some superb landscapes of Italy.

Gwydyr House is, after all, Wales’s shop window in London; it’s only right that it should display the very best of Welsh art.

Visiting its website today, I noticed that Paul Murphy’s picture still hasn’t been put up.

Poor Huw Irranca-Davies looks rather lonely.