Members of the National Assembly for Wales, it is my pleasure to address you on the
last day of what has been a wonderful tour of Wales. The Duke of Edinburgh and I have
greatly appreciated the warmth of the welcome which we have received in the places we have
visited, small and large, from Bangor to Newport.
Here in Cardiff Bay, we can see around us changes which have shaped the history of Wales.
A thousand years ago, this was a piece of marsh ground forming part of the disputed
kingdom of Glamorgan, ruled over by descendants of Rhodri the Great, whose blood line runs
through my family.
One hundred years ago, in the first year of my great grandfather's reign, this site was
part of one of the busiest ports in the world, exporting almost 19 million tons of coal
from the thriving pits of South Wales.
When I came to the throne, Cardiff's port had already begun to change. The rise and fall
of businesses due to the vagaries of supply and demand, and to changes in the use of raw
materials or in technology, are never easy. But Wales is overcoming its difficulties. Over
the last decade, a new life has been breathed into this area. Hotels, marinas, exhibition
centres, restaurants and residential and commercial properties have replaced the docks of
the past. Opposite this Assembly Building, the spectacular new Wales Millennium Centre,
which will be a base for Welsh National Opera and other important cultural institutions,
is being built where railway lines once ran. The growth and innovation in Cardiff Bay can
be seen across Wales. More than 70 thousand people are now employed by overseas companies
you have been able to attract here.
In this Chamber, you are yourselves building a new institution, and you are an important
element in the evolving constitutions of this country. This can be seen in the context of
steady changes in the way Wales has been governed over the last 50 years. Throughout the
second part of the twentieth century there had been a growing level of administrative
devolution to Wales. The significance of the change which occurred in 1998 was that
administrative devolution was replaced by a system which was to be more accountable to the
electorate. It is an example of how our system of government can adjust to new demands
peacefully and democratically.
I am not sure what Rhodri the Great, or indeed King Edward VII, would have made of this
Assembly, or of Wales at the beginning of the twenty-first century. But as Queen of the
United Kingdom, I follow with great interest the work of the Parliaments and Assemblies
which we now have. I hope and pray that you, as Members of the National Assembly for
Wales, will continue to work together to serve the common good and the people of this
proud and beautiful land.
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