5. Debate on the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee report: The Welsh Government's Draft International Strategy

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:54 pm on 4 March 2020.

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Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 3:54, 4 March 2020

I had intended to speak and it was going to be quite a dry speech, but I'm inspired now by some of the other Members. I will turn to the dry bit in a moment, but actually, if we're going to share experiences of how we can actually reach out to our wide global community, then can I suggest that we dwell on people such as Richard Price of Tyn Ton Farm in Llangeinor, whose ideas and philosophy ran egalitarian and that it should be one-vote for one person, and everybody should have that vote and that every man and woman was equal, actually underpinned not only his support for the founding fathers and for the American revolution itself, and that the 13 colonies were unjustly presided over. So he was honoured and he was paid tribute to for underpinning the very fundamentals of the American constitution and the philosophies of the founding fathers of America, but he also extended those.

He was regarded as a troublemaker back home. I think that's an admirable tradition: be regarded as a troublemaker on your own patch and then be lauded overseas. He was lauded as well for extending those same principles actually into support of the French revolution as well. So you can imagine why he was regarded by the establishment as an out and out troublemaker. But actually his academic approach to economic thinking as well would, I think, garner support on the benches opposite, because the idea that we now talk about quite regularly, about actually balancing the public books and maintaining the right balance between public debt and the wider economy, he was the first person who actually put those ideas forward and put them into writing. So he was actually lauded for that.

So his reach in America, Minister, is extensive. They all know Richard Price in America, but when I wander up the valley that I'm in and I say, 'Oh, there's Tyn Ton Farm. That's where Richard Price, son of many in the farming family, who walked to London to make his way as a Unitarian preacher, a radical dissenter, that's where he came from.' 'Who's Richard Price?' Well, that's the sort of thing we need to really use to our advantage. [Interruption.] Yes, indeed.