Welsh Affairs

Christina Rees Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

St David’s day, 1 March, is a national day of celebration in Wales. It is a day on which to celebrate Wales and being Welsh. We are a proud nation of culture, literature, song, art and sport. I congratulate the Wales women’s rugby team on recently beating Scotland and France at the Knoll ground in my constituency and on qualifying for the world cup. That is a great achievement. It would be remiss of me not to mention squash—the game, not the drink—because in a former life I was the national coach for Squash Wales. As a small nation, we have always punched above our weight and medalled on many occasions, including the European Championships, in many countries. That leads me to what I want to talk about today, which is the importance of staying in Europe.

In my constituency of Neath and across Wales, we enjoy great opportunities and great benefits as a result of EU membership. I pay tribute to Derek Vaughan, our Member of the European Parliament for Wales, who is vice-chair of the budgetary control committee in the European Parliament. He has fought for the benefits that Wales receives. He is a former leader of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, and he has used his great experience and knowledge as a former leader of the Welsh Local Government Association to fight for Wales in Europe.

Wales is a net benefactor from the EU to the tune of £838 million a year. Moreover, the lower prices, higher job numbers and increased trade and investment that come from our membership of the EU are worth more than £3,000 a year to the average Welsh household. That is 10 times more than the £274 that each household pays in.

The EU is without doubt the biggest, richest market in the world, upon which, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, 191,332 jobs in Wales depend. The economic benefits are clear: for the 2014 to 2020 period, Wales will receive £4.9 billion from the common agricultural policy and structural funds. It is estimated that, over time, the UK could lose as much as 6.1% to 9.5% of our GDP following an exit from the EU. In my constituency, the EU has created 1,120 jobs, helped 6,680 people into work, granted access to further education for 3,490 people and helped 13,630 to gain qualifications. The help in my local authority area—that of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council—that the EU has provided to enterprises has meant that 670 have been assisted and 420 have been created.

One of the best examples of EU funding benefiting my constituency is the newly relaunched Workways Plus scheme, which is led by the local council and has received £7.5 million in EU funding. It offers training and paid work experience opportunities to 4,000 long-term unemployed people to help get them back into work. The support targets disadvantaged people, helping them to take their first steps to re-engage with or enter the labour market; the scheme offers one-to-one mentoring, and support with job-seeking and interview skills. The programme targets individuals affected by work-limiting health conditions and disabilities, as well as those with care responsibilities and low or no skills. It is the perfect scheme to get people back into work, and it continues a similar EU-funded scheme that ran across south-west Wales between 2009 and 2014, which was an enormous success and showed the true benefits that EU funding can bring to our communities.

Not only are there jobs that have benefited from EU funding, but the effects of our membership have benefited the infrastructure in Neath. EU regeneration funds have been used expertly by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council to regenerate many town centres across the constituency, and this, in turn, has revived the use of these town centres and has helped the local economy get back to strength after tough economic times. Crucially, EU investment and involvement would also help aid the UK steel industry, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) said. The UK Government should follow the example of the Welsh Government, who have taken full advantage of our membership of the EU to help fund many of their projects and schemes, such as Jobs Growth Wales, which have helped get the Welsh economy, and the jobs and skills market, back on track.

Business leaders have already warned that leaving the EU would amount to a step into an

“Abyss of uncertainty and risk.”

The path for a potential exit is unclear; it has been likened to getting off a bus and into a car, which sounds a dangerous prospect to me. My constituents cannot afford this uncertainty as the negotiations conclude and then a potential exit is negotiated. The economic reality for Wales and for my constituents in Neath is such that Brexit would be disastrous for our jobs and prosperity, not to mention for the benefits we all enjoy, such as workers’ rights, environmental protections, consumer safeguards and free movement.

The Conservative party has treated the issue of our membership of the EU as a political football for many, many years, and the Prime Minister has put so many jobs, businesses and projects in my constituency on the line just to appease his own Back Benchers. Rather than address the necessary reforms of the EU in a constructive manner from inside, we face the prospect of an exit, which will be a disaster for neath and for Wales as a whole.

I cannot speak about matters important to Wales without mentioning another critical issue—the ongoing farce that is the Wales Bill, which, as originally drafted, met with criticism from all sides, including the Welsh Affairs Committee of this House. To make matters worse, we learn, not in this House but from the media, that the Bill is now on pause, pending a major overhaul. As the First Minister said, we are back to where we started. How can the Conservative party justify putting Wales’s economic development and prosperity at risk with its mishandling of this Bill and of our relationship with the EU?

Oral Answers to Questions

Christina Rees Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The unemployment rate in Wales has fallen by more than that in any part of the UK over the last quarter. Welfare reform is key to that. We are determined to deliver a low welfare, low tax, high wage economy.

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned this month that universal credit will tend to weaken the incentive for single parents to be in work. What assessment have the Government made of the effect that rolling out universal credit will have on the number of workless households in Wales?

Oral Answers to Questions

Christina Rees Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I am aware of the issue raised by my hon. Friend, who is as ever a powerful and effective voice on behalf of his constituents. Planning applications in relation to Dean Quarry would be dealt with by the Marine Management Organisation and local authorities, which should absolutely take into account local concerns.

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

Local businesses across Wales are eagerly anticipating the investment that the tidal lagoon will bring. It would be a travesty if the UK Government were to pull the plug on the lagoon, so can the Minister confirm that they remain committed to the project and to agreeing a strike price for the tidal lagoon?

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady is right: this is a big, potentially very exciting and significant project. It is also a project that is looking for a large amount of public subsidy and intervention, and it is absolutely right—not that we would expect Opposition Members to understand this—that when we are dealing with large sums of taxpayers’ money, there needs to be due diligence.

Spending Review and Autumn Statement: Wales

Christina Rees Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015 on Wales.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. Last month’s autumn statement was an opportunity for the Government to deliver a fair deal for Wales; to support Welsh families, to invest in skills and infrastructure and to give the Welsh Government the tools that they need to fund the vital public services that we all depend on. Unfortunately, however, the Chancellor of the Exchequer did none of that. Instead, he delivered yet more cuts to the Welsh budget and to the budgets of thousands of families across Wales.

Thanks to Labour’s campaign, the Chancellor was forced to abandon his plans to cut tax credits that would have hit 135,000 working families in Wales. However, we now know that those cuts have been delayed, not dropped altogether, and thousands of Welsh families will be hit just as hard through the Government’s cuts to universal credit. Families across the UK are expected to lose £1 billion this year and over £3 billion by the end of the Parliament because of the cuts to universal credit. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has predicted losses of £1,600 a year for 2.6 million working families and cuts of £2,500 a year for 1.2 million families who are out of work.

Although fewer than 6,000 Welsh people are currently on universal credit, the number will rise significantly over the next few years, as other benefits such as tax credits and jobseeker’s allowance are phased out. In my constituency, 656 people are currently on universal credit, but 14,250 people are claiming one of the main out-of-work benefits.

Working people in Wales will be worse off on universal credit, leaving those who are currently on tax credits with a perverse incentive not to take on a new job or extra hours for fear that it will change their circumstances and cause them to be moved on to universal credit. In Wales, 167,400 working families will feel the impact, 134,600 of whom are families with children.

In Neath, 6,200 families were on tax credits as of April this year; 5,300 of those were families with children, all of whom will be negatively affected by the changes and cuts to universal credit, should they take place. That neither meets the Government’s aim of making work pay, nor ensures that those on middle and low incomes are protected. Wales already has the highest level of child poverty of any of the nations of the UK. One in three children lives below the poverty line. Half of the people deemed to be living in poverty are actually working—an unfortunate truth that is often ignored when painting a picture of worklessness and a benefit-claiming culture of poverty and deprivation.

On the autumn statement, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation made it clear:

“There was little in this Statement to tackle the causes of poverty and it was a missed opportunity to support low income families. Without action”—

the foundation warns, our economic recovery will be

“built on rising poverty and insecurity.”

In Wales, we are particularly at risk, and the Chancellor’s plans are bad news for low and middle-income earners across the country. However, just as we successfully opposed his pernicious cuts to tax credits, we will continue to highlight the fact that the Chancellor’s plans will leave Welsh families worse off.

The autumn statement also saw yet another cut to the Welsh budget. Over the next five years, Wales will see a real-terms revenue cut of 4.5% and a cut to its overall budget of 3.6%. When Labour was in government in Westminster, we increased the Welsh budget from £7 billion in 1999 to £16 billion in 2010.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. In my recollection, going into the last UK election, the Labour party said that it would broadly copy the fiscal policy put forward by the Conservative party. Will she tell us what the cut would have been to the Welsh budget under Labour?

[Christina Rees]

No, we did not actually say that—if the hon. Gentleman checks his facts, he will see that we did not.

As I was saying, by the time this Conservative Government leave office in 2020, we will have seen an 11% cut in the Welsh budget. For all the Government’s talk of economic recovery, they have delivered a mountain of cuts since 2010, and their decisions will do further harm to the Welsh economy over the next five years.

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

The hon. Lady talks about 11% cuts to the Welsh budget, but how does that compare to the regions and Departments of England? She has not once mentioned the commitments on the national living wage. Will she welcome that as well as banging on with the diatribe we have heard on universal credit?

[Christina Rees]

The hon. Gentleman may think it is a diatribe but I do not—these are the facts, and the so-called national living wage is yet more rhetoric from the Conservative party.

In Neath Port Talbot, the county borough in which my constituency sits, the local authority has seen a cumulative cut of £65 million to its budget since 2010, not including this coming financial year, with further planned cuts potentially of £37 million over the next three years—a total of £102 million being taken out of its budget in eight years. That has meant its workforce has shrunk by 20%, and it is important to point out that those cuts have come as a direct consequence of UK Government cuts to the Welsh budget. That has hit local services hard, leading to the unwanted but necessary reduction in support for community facilities, such as libraries and leisure centres.

The IFS has estimated that the tax and social security changes introduced in the last Parliament cost the average Welsh family £560 a year and took £700 million out of the Welsh economy each year. According to the IFS, the Chancellor’s plans mean that Welsh households will lose a further £500 each year between 2015 and 2019, meaning an annual loss of £660 million to our economy.

The Chancellor made much of implementing a Barnett floor to ensure that the funding gap between Wales and England does not widen further. I welcome that announcement. Six years on from the Holtham report, which recommended such a floor, I am pleased that the Government have finally pledged to deliver that mechanism, but the simple fact is that the floor makes hardly any difference when spending on Wales is falling. What is unacceptable, and completely at odds with the recommendations of the Holtham report, is that the Barnett floor is only being set at its present level of 115% of spending in England for the duration of this Parliament, with the amount being “reset” at the next spending review

“to take full account of the Welsh Government’s new powers and responsibilities.”

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady clarify something? If the 115% level is deemed to be too low, what level would the Labour party want to apply to Wales, in terms of the Barnett formula?

[Christina Rees]

We have to look at this issue. When spending in Wales is falling, that level is too low, so surely the best thing is to generate an economically viable situation in Wales so that spending increases.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Will the hon. Lady take a further intervention?

[Christina Rees]

Not at the moment—I have to make progress.

We are all well aware of the Chancellor’s habit of slashing funding from central Government then expecting local government and the devolved Administrations to make up the shortfall. That policy ensures that the poorest areas are hardest hit. If the Chancellor plans to use the devolution of income tax to Wales as a cover to cut Welsh funding further and to lower the Barnett floor, that will understandably be seen by the people of Wales as an unacceptable outcome.

The autumn statement was also largely silent on the vital infrastructure projects that Wales needs. Despite its strategic importance to the Swansea bay city region, of which my constituency is a part, there was not a single mention of the Swansea bay tidal lagoon in the Chancellor’s statement. Along with the 22% cuts that the Chancellor announced to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, perhaps that silence signals the Government’s lack of commitment to green energy.

In light of the landmark agreement reached in Paris last weekend, we know that projects such as the tidal lagoon are essential if this country is to meet its international obligations to combat climate change. Unfortunately, although important progress was made in Paris, I understand that the pledges will not achieve the aim of limiting global average temperature rise to below 2 °C, so further action is urgently needed.

[Craig Williams]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way again. Will she take the point that there is also the Cardiff lagoon to consider, and that investors around the world are being shaken by what she and other Labour Members are saying about tidal lagoons at a very critical point, when we are negotiating the strike price? They are endangering lagoons, and not just the Swansea lagoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christina Rees]

I do not quite understand what that intervention means. We are not causing the uncertainty; the Government are.

The Swansea bay tidal project is also of critical importance because of the potential jobs and investment that it will bring across south Wales, as well as the apprenticeships promised to institutions such as the Neath Port Talbot College group. It is estimated that up to 1,900 jobs could be created during the lagoon’s construction phase, with many more jobs being created in the supply chains. Local businesses are eagerly anticipating the investment that the project will bring, so it would be a travesty if the UK Government failed to deliver this opportunity. Will the Minister confirm that the Government remain committed to the project and to agreeing a strike price for the tidal lagoon?

Another project that is of vital importance to the whole of south Wales is the electrification of the Great Western line from London to Swansea. Again, the Chancellor paid lip service to the scheme during the autumn statement, but he did not give any further details and now we know why. Since the autumn statement, it has emerged that electrification of the line between Cardiff and Swansea, which was due by 2018, will not be completed until between 2019 and 2024. That is an unacceptable delay and one that has the potential to damage the economies of south-west Wales, which will still be waiting for electrification years after electrification to Cardiff is complete.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Will the hon. Member take another intervention on that point?

[Christina Rees]

I will try it.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member; she is being extremely generous in giving way again. I agree with everything she has said about the electrification to Swansea; we have been seriously let down on that particular issue by the UK Government since the election.

The comprehensive spending review came with the statement of funding policy document, which refers to High Speed 2. In that document, Wales gets a 0% rating, which has a drastic effect on the overall comparability percentage when the Barnett formula is applied. Can the hon. Member explain why the Labour Government in Cardiff are accepting the line of the Tory Government here in London that Wales will not lose out on many millions of pounds in the future because of that decision?

[Christina Rees]

That was such a long intervention that I cannot remember now what the beginning was. We also have north Wales to consider and surely—

[Jonathan Edwards]

The south Wales economy is getting blasted.

Sorry, Mr Hollobone.

[Christina Rees]

The news about HS2 comes just weeks after the Public Accounts Committee concluded that the £1.5 billion rise in the cost of electrification to Cardiff was “staggering and unacceptable”. It is now down to the Government to get a grip of the project, to ensure that the upgraded line is delivered quickly and with the maximum value for money for the taxpayer. With that in mind, can the Minister please tell us when he expects the electrification to Swansea to be complete?

The Chancellor was also noticeably lukewarm about proposals to develop city regions in Swansea and Cardiff, which are landmark developments with the capacity to transform transport and economic opportunity across 10 local authorities. The Welsh Government have committed £580 million to the project and the local councils have pledged £120 million, but the autumn statement just confirmed that the Government were committed “in principle” to the proposals. Can the Minister please confirm whether the UK Government will match the funding pledged by the Welsh Government?

Finally, the Chancellor confirmed that highly skilled Welsh workers in Wrexham, Swansea and Porthmadog will lose their jobs with the closure of more tax offices across Wales. We have already suffered through the closure of offices in Carmarthen, Merthyr, Pembroke Dock and Colwyn Bay in 2013, which, for example, forced workers from Colwyn Bay to travel to Wrexham to work. Are those employees now expected to travel to Cardiff to work?

The effects of the autumn statement will soon be felt by families across Wales, many of whom have suffered because of the last five years of cuts. The spending review should have been about delivering a sustainable settlement to boost the Welsh economy. Instead, the Chancellor avoided the big infrastructure challenges facing Wales and delivered another cut to the budget of the Welsh Government, and his cuts to universal credit mean that thousands of Welsh families will begin losing out from next year. What is more, we learned that the Government are removing the requirement of a referendum on devolving tax powers to Wales. I regret that the autumn statement did not have the interests of Wales at its heart, and people in Wales will suffer as a consequence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Cairns]

The hon. Lady needs to recognise that the amount of funding from DCMS is relatively small. The proposal to cut from £7.6 million to £5 million over an extended period of time provides an opportunity for S4C to make its contribution to the savings. The spending review proposed £400,000 of funding savings from S4C in the first year, but she needs to recognise that negotiations with the BBC are ongoing, and to recognise the statements coming from Tony Hall. We welcome those statements and hope that the BBC will be able to deliver on them.

The Welsh Government’s total funding is underpinned by our commitment to introducing a funding floor, as the hon. Member for Neath said. I would have hoped that she would have welcomed the funding floor, because it was only two weeks before the autumn statement that there was a debate in this Chamber about the need for a funding floor. There was doubt that it would be delivered, but a funding floor of 115% will be introduced. That is well within the Holtham commission’s fair funding range, and I would have hoped that that would be welcomed by the hon. Lady.

[Christina Rees]

I did welcome it, but there are too many provisos in there.

[Alun Cairns]

The surveyor and architect of fair funding for Wales, Gerry Holtham, analysed the position and came up with a range of solutions. After the autumn statement, he said that it was a fair settlement. That is the fundamental point. There will be political commentary from all around, but the person commissioned by the Welsh Government to provide the assessment and establish the financial relationship between the UK Government and the Welsh Government has said that it is a fair settlement, and that is testament to the strength of the Administration in Westminster, which has delivered on something that has been talked about, but never delivered, by the Opposition.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christina Rees Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making such a suggestion. It was on a Conservative motion back in 2006 that the Assembly voted unanimously to attract the Commonwealth games to Wales. The next opportunity is in 2026, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Craig Williams) is keen on that date and keen to ensure that Cardiff makes a leading bid. The Wales Office is standing ready and waiting to support any bid that comes forward from any part of Wales.

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

We were all pleased to see the rugby world cup come to Cardiff. I know that the Secretary of State shares my concern about the delays on the great western railway. What will he do to ensure that such delays do not happen again?

[Alun Cairns]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. Immediately after those disruptions occurred, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke with the train operators, who have apologised to him and to the public. Of course, we are upgrading the great western main line, which will make a significant difference in the long term. We also call on the Welsh Government to bring forward their proposals for the M4 in order to improve the infrastructure for those coming to Wales by road as well as by rail.

Barnett Floor (Wales)

Christina Rees Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered a Barnett floor for Wales.

It is a privilege to have secured my first Westminster Hall debate, which is on an important topic affecting funding for Wales in general and my constituents in particular. We all know how difficult the funding settlements have been in recent years. The Welsh Government have faced great funding challenges, and local councils, including my own Torfaen County Borough Council, are struggling to make ends meet and doing their best to protect front-line services when less and less money is coming from Westminster.

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the losses that local authorities have experienced and will continue to experience. In 2014-15, Neath Port Talbot’s budget was cut by £17 million. It has been predicted that, from April 2016, Neath Port Talbot will lose £18 million or possibly more, depending on the autumn statement. Public services have already been cut severely—

[Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)]

Order. Please make an intervention not a speech.

[Christina Rees]

I am simply making the point that we should not suffer from the Barnett formula.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The Neath Port Talbot example further illustrates and reinforces the point that I made about Torfaen.

The debate deals with an aspect of Westminster funding, the so-called Barnett floor. As Members are aware, Joel—later Lord—Barnett introduced the Barnett formula in 1978, when he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in the context of the devolution debate of that era. He did not originally intend that it should become a permanent feature, yet here, some 37 years later, it still governs the Wales-Westminster fiscal relationship.

More recently, in 2009, the interim report of the Holtham commission, “Funding devolved government in Wales: Barnett and beyond”, was published. It suggested that Wales was underfunded.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christina Rees Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman paints a very negative picture. His constituency, like a great many in Wales, has suffered too long from the curse of low pay, so I thought he would welcome the fact that one of the things we are doing to transform the Welsh economy is introduce a national living wage, which will benefit thousands of families in his constituency and mine

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

Would the Secretary of State allow made-up quotes to be included in leaflets from the Wales Office? If not, does he think it is acceptable that the Department for Work and Pensions did just that when it made up quotes about benefits sanctions?

[Stephen Crabb]

The information the hon. Lady refers to was used for illustrative purposes only. I think it is actually helpful to provide information based around real-life case studies so that people can understand how changes we make affect families in different circumstances.