Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I have not personally been involved in detailed discussions on those issues, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is in continuous dialogue with the authorities in Northern Ireland about them.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Under measures in the draft Wales Bill, candidates for the Welsh Assembly can stand both on the regional list and the constituency list. Therefore, in places like Swansea West a Liberal Democrat candidate can have two lots of election expenses against the sitting Assembly Member. Will the Deputy Prime Minister make sure that that does not happen?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We have, of course, made reforms in this area already, but we will continue to keep them under review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I certainly agree with that. Furthermore, I would point out that the M4 is an extremely important UK national asset and it is a great pity that it was not upgraded long ago. Recently, I have had discussions with Welsh Assembly Ministers on this issue, and I hope that we will be able to make further progress.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State press the Treasury to invest now in the M4 above Newport and Port Talbot, going westwards, and to reduce the Severn bridge tolls, to give a real stimulus to the south Wales economy?

[Mr Jones]

I am heavily engaged with the Treasury on that very issue. However, I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that the road network in Wales is a devolved competence, and it is a great shame that the Welsh Government have not attended to this problem sooner, before the situation declined to the extent that it has. We are certainly engaged with the Treasury, and I hope that we will be able to make announcements in the future.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I speak as one who was a 14-year-old schoolboy in south Wales when Margaret Thatcher became party leader and as a representative of the Swansea West constituency. Mrs Thatcher was obviously a person of steely determination and focus who cared not about the ebb and flow of opinion or focus groups, but about her strategic vision to deliver change, and that is good. However, she should be judged on her own terms—on whether she did deliver harmony where there was discord and hope where there was despair. Certainly in south Wales, she failed on those two counts. On whether she delivered a better Britain, she did for some and did not for others.

Her leadership was born in the economic and political trauma of the 1970s. Inflation peaked at 25% thanks to oil price increases, the miners’ strike got rid of Ted Heath and then the Labour Government were held together by a Lib-Lab pact that tried to bring down inflation through pay relationships with the trade unions; it had some success approaching 1978.

According to my predecessor Alan Williams, a former Father of the House, Callaghan said, “I think we can have another round of pay restraint—the unions won’t want Margaret Thatcher as the new Prime Minister.” How wrong he was. We had the coldest winter for 16 years, strikes lasted until February 1979 and an election was called after a vote of no confidence. Saatchi’s then brought forward “Labour isn’t working” and delivered Margaret Thatcher. That was a cruel irony, because unemployment went up from 1.5 million to 3.2 million between 1979 and 1983. That was the human cost of bringing inflation down by 4%. That certainly did not deliver harmony at all.

Mrs Thatcher was deeply unpopular then. The Labour left was split and the SDP broke away in 1981. In 1983, the SDP-Liberal Alliance got 25% of the vote to Labour’s 28%. Had it not been for that and the Falklands war, Mrs Thatcher might not have won in 1983. When she did, her first focus was to settle scores with the miners who had brought down Ted Heath. She built the coal stocks up in the winters of ’83 and ’84 and announced that there would be closures and that the National Coal Board would be privatised and sold off. Scargill, of course, fell into the bear trap. He did not hold a vote, there was a 12-month strike—a third of the pits were still working—and a great mining industry was destroyed. As has already been described, we are currently consuming 50 million tonnes of coal a year. but there is no coal industry. Near my constituency, there is the Tower colliery, a co-operative through which the miners bought their own mine, and it operated successfully for 10 years. But communities have been left on their own in despair without support. That is the politics not of hope but of fear, as Nye Bevan put it.

Economic Thatcherism is a matter not just of using unemployment to keep down wages and unions, but of mass privatisation. Crucially, the proceeds of that privatisation—the £70 billion, alongside the £80 billion from oil—were not used as they should have been: to renew our industrial infrastructure, our hospitals, our transport and our schools. The legacy was one of squandering instead: we ended up in a situation where money was being used to keep people on the dole and to provide tax breaks. We ended up with an unmanaged oil system where high exchange rates meant that manufacturing was declining much faster than it should have been.

Ultimately, Mrs Thatcher got re-elected through the Lawson bubble that burst. In the final chapter, while the rich were getting richer, she wanted the poor and the rich to pay the same tax for local services: the poll tax. As we saw the grey smoke emerge from the violent protests in London, the grey suits went round Lady Thatcher and wanted to elect a grey leader—John Major, who, of course, managed to get in. Then, naturally, everything broke down and afterwards we got a new Government who reinvested the proceeds of growth in new schools, hospitals and opportunity. I fear that some of Thatcher’s legacy will involve going back and claiming that everything she did was right. What she did not do, however, was to deliver what she should have delivered—harmony and unity, a future that works and a future that cares, rather than a divided nation. I very much hope that we will not continue to press along the road of division and austerity, but will build a new future.

Royal Charter on Press Conduct

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bone]

rose—

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will not give way, if Members do not mind, because I have given way quite a lot and I am sure that hon. Members think that I speak too much anyway. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] It is nice to unite the House. Again, it is nice to see the leader of my party agreeing.

We can all agree to this system today, but if the press does not sign up to it, it will have been a complete and utter waste of time and energy. The money that was spent on the Leveson inquiry—wasted; the efforts of all the families who put themselves through another form of upset and humiliation—completely and utterly wasted. I say to the press that there are times when their hyperbole is wonderful, entertaining and lovely. Even when vicious hyperbole is addressed at oneself, one can sometimes take the joke. However, some of the ways in which the press have put forward their argument in the past week have not been helpful to their cause. I hope that the press will now come on board.

There is a proud press tradition in this country of being able to tell the truth to the Government, politicians and those in authority. The Guardian revealed the truth about phone hacking at the News of the World, despite many other people trying to prevent that from coming out, and that is important. For myself, I bemoan the fact that the Rhondda Leader is not quite the newspaper that it was nine years ago; it is not as read as it was then, which means that local politics are probably even less scrutinised than Parliament today.

I wish to make one brief point about the way we are conducting our business today. I now have a copy of the charter—I think it is your copy, Mr Speaker, and I am grateful to you for finding one for me. In the end, however, this is not a good way for the House to do business. We are dealing with a motion that we have not seen—the motion we are debating is not printed anywhere—and a draft charter that people have only just seen, halfway through the debate as it is handed round. We have manuscript amendments in this House and the House of Lords, and on the whole we tend to make bad legislation when we do it on the hoof and those on the Back Benches are asked to trust in those on the Front Benches.

We are doing a good thing today and it is something we should have done a long time ago. I take no pride in the fact that the Government whom I supported when the Labour party was in government did not do enough in this field and could have acted earlier. In the past, we as politicians have tended either to chase or to run as far away as possible from a headline, which on occasion has meant that we have not been brave enough, or been too cowardly, in matters of press regulation. We let the victims of crime become the victims of the press as well, and—let us face it—we let Parliament be lied to time and again. I am glad we are putting a full stop on that today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dodds]

I absolutely agree. It is important to emphasise that today’s provisions, and Leveson himself, propose a means of independent self-regulation. Some of the hyperbole and over-the-top commentary has been deeply counter-productive and simply wrong. The idea that there should be nothing in legislation is deeply flawed. How else will we properly apply the issue of incentives and disincentives unless we pass something in this House that deals with exemplary damages and cost? There has to be legislation. I welcome statutory underpinning—for that is what it is—to non-interference in the royal charter.

As was said earlier by a number of hon. Members, including the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), no Parliament can bind another Parliament. The doctrine of the sovereignty of Parliament means that the two-thirds majority is open to being changed by a simple majority and the passage of any legislation in the normal way in any future Parliament. However, it sends a message and draws attention to the fact that if Parliament wishes to legislate on the matter, in overturning a distinct and discrete piece of legislation it is doing something significant.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the right hon. Gentleman think there is any risk, over time, of a political appointment to the oversight body—with the advent of a right-wing UKIP Parliament or whatever—that will constrain the freedom of the press?

[Mr Dodds]

No, because the system put in place for appointments to the regulatory body makes it very clear how that body should be populated. The terms of the royal charter are very clear that appointees will not be drawn from the political classes, will not be parliamentarians, and will not be involved in government or legislating. That is very important. Of equal importance, and why my party supported the version of the royal charter proposed by the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Prime Minister, was the issue of the press industry having a veto over who could be appointed. We believed that that was wrong and would not be tolerated in any other walk of life. It is absolutely proper and fair that there should be an appointment system that is not populated by the political classes and that is not capable of being vetoed by the industry. It was important for us that the regulator should have the power to direct apologies and corrections, including where they should be printed. That was recognised in the alternative version of the royal charter published on Friday, and we welcomed that. I therefore welcome its adoption in what is being presented to the House this evening.

We support what has been done: we welcome the fact that the royal charter has been changed for the better by cross-party agreement. I understand fully and endorse the reasons for proceeding by means of a royal charter as opposed to legislation. However, there is an irony in that we are now saying that the proper and best recourse is to proceed on the basis of a very antiquated means that is not subject to line-by-line scrutiny by elected Members of Parliament, or in any way subject to amendment. This is being brought forward on the basis of a draft by Her Majesty. Now, as a royalist and a monarchist I am all for that, and have no difficulty with it. However, in the modern, democratic world in which we live, it is ironic that we have decided that this is the way forward, rather than saying that the people’s representatives should have the opportunity to discuss, amend and vote on it. I understand the reasons, but surely there is an irony for all democrats in that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Garnier]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The point about exemplary damages, as set out on the amendment paper, would incentivise people to join the scheme, although as I understand the amendments—I might have misread them—they do not mean that if someone is in the scheme, they will be immune from exemplary damages, and that if someone is outside it, they will always be milked for them. The old rule in Rookes v. Barnard and so forth would still apply, insofar as it is relevant nowadays, but, as the Defamation Bill will make clear, juries will be taken out of exemplary damages cases, which will be decided by a judge alone. To that extent, exemplary damages will play a part in the proposals, but in my experience they are quite rare in libel actions nowadays, although not unheard of.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman believe that the proposed system is resilient enough to be exported? Could it be taken off the shelf by Egypt or Kenya, for example, or would it work only in a mature democracy, such as ours, where checks and balances are already in place?

[Sir Edward Garnier]

The Prime Minister and the leader of the Labour party were extremely busy over the weekend, as were their representatives, dealing with England and Wales—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

This is an important debate, but there has been a bit of hyperbole surrounding it. Today has been described as momentous, but I think that it is momentous for being the 10th anniversary of the war in Iraq; we should remember that.

No one in any part of this Chamber, or anywhere else in Parliament, would deny that a strong and free press is an essential pillar of our democracy. However, the corrupt press behaviour that we are trying to deal with, even though it takes place only in a minority of areas in the fourth estate, is a side effect of near-monopolies. We have had legislation for many years to combat unhealthy near-monopolies, but we have failed to apply that legislation properly or scrupulously to the media. This scandal is an exemplar of that fact.

I want to place on record my party’s gratitude—I am sure I speak for others—for the careful way in which Sir Brian Leveson undertook his inquiry. I also want to associate myself with some of the comments made about the proceedings over the past few days, which have perhaps not been the best demonstration of parliamentary democracy at work. During the last few hours, however, a broad compromise has been reached, and I am pleased about that. I am glad that Her Majesty’s Opposition have now reached agreement with the Government.

I should like to say in passing that I am grateful to the official Opposition for keeping me and my colleagues, and those in the Scottish National party and the other minority parties in the loop. The Prime Minister is in his place, and I want respectfully to place on record that, during the last Parliament, my party played a vital part in setting up the rather imperfect body known as the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. I could give him details of some of the changes that were made as a result of arguments put forward by me and my hon. Friends. Some of our arguments won the day and, in one case, we preserved the freedom of Members of Parliament to speak out in this Chamber when the draft proposals would have defeated our privilege in that regard. With the greatest respect, I urge the Prime Minister to remember that, should there be a similar occasion, we are ready and available as good parliamentarians and democrats to get stuck in, if I may use an inelegant phrase.

On the events of last week, I shall leave aside the matter of the amendments that were tabled, but I would welcome some clarification from the Government on what exactly has happened and why we have suddenly reached this decision in such a short time. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) made the important point that we have not had sufficient time to decide these matters. Be that as it may, we are now dealing with the decision. Today, we have at least got an agreement that we can work on, and that is to the good of all. I commend the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and Her Majesty’s Opposition for arriving at that agreement. Our proceedings will have been listened to by Joan Smith, Ben Loakes, Paul Dadge and Jacqui Hames, who were all in their own ways victims of the awful behaviour that we are complaining about. Today, we have an institution on which to build.

The press is the latest institution to have taken a knock as a result of scandal, corruption and illegal practice. Since the establishment of the Leveson inquiry, my party has called for the establishment of a regulatory body that is independent of Government and of industry, whose independence is guaranteed by law. We have argued, as have others, that access to restitution and a simple, easy-to-navigate complaints process should be central to any new system that is established. The new compromise provisions before us have dealt with those aspects, but the question of statutory underpinning is open to debate. If we go further into that question we might appear to be dancing on the head of a pin, however.

[Geraint Davies]

I agree that any response to a mistake should be equal and proportionate, but does the right hon. Gentleman think that the proposals could make investigative journalists more risk-averse, if there is a chance that they might not get a complete answer?

[Mr Llwyd]

No, I do not think so. It is a time-honoured practice for journalists always to check their sources, and they will need to revisit that aspect of their behaviour and ensure that they get it right the first time round. The proposals will not be welcome in all areas, however. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), for example, could find himself considerably disadvantaged financially if what the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) said were true. I make that joke in passing, weak as it was.

Lord Leveson’s report stated that statutory underpinning was necessary in order to set up a statutory recognition process and to provide for costs and damages incentives for publishers who subscribe to a recognised regulator. The Government have at least seen the merits of the latter provision, and tabled amendments accordingly. Sir Brian’s report recognised that publishers would need to be incentivised to sign up voluntarily to recognised regulators. He also recognised that there would be circumstances in which a court would determine that a publisher must give a claimant exemplary damages, albeit rarely, as a result of reckless behaviour. The cross- party amendments to which I initially put my name would have implemented Leveson’s suggestion that incentives should exist for publishers in respect of exemplary damages and costs in such situations. I am pleased that the Government saw fit to table similar amendments.

I have some concerns about the proposals before us, however. I realise that, due to the short notice for tabling amendments, it will not be possible for us to enter into a deep debate on these points, but I wish to put my concerns on the record none the less. First, the amendments to which I was a co-signatory, and which were due to be debated today and have now been withdrawn, would have ensured that any new commission that was established, as well as any regulatory body, would have been subject to freedom of information provisions. That is a crucial provision that would have ensured greater transparency in the new bodies, and I sincerely hope that the Prime Minister, or the Minister responding to the debate, will be able to give us an assurance that that will still be the case.

Secondly, I welcome the assurances from the Government that any arbitration service will be free for claimants to use. I am pleased about that. Another amendment to which I had put my name would have placed a duty on courts to take account of a defendant’s means, including readership and assets, when awarding exemplary damages. I welcome the fact that the proposals fulfil that requirement. Although the proposals do not meet every recommendation made by Lord Justice Leveson, I welcome the fact that the House has been able to reach a compromise, albeit at the eleventh hour, to get at least some reference to the royal charter in statute.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

The Government have allocated £530 million to stimulate commercial investment to roll out high-speed broadband in rural communities and £150 million to improve mobile coverage where signals are poor or non-existent.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Even though there is a lot of rain in Swansea, the council wants to create a new cloud over Swansea—a wi-fi cloud. Will the Minister meet me and the council to discuss the prospect of super-connectivity for Swansea in the forthcoming Budget, so that the sun continues to shine through the clouds, and we can bathe in the glory of being League cup winners?

[Mr Jones]

I commend Swansea for their wonderful win in the League cup final. The hon. Gentleman knows that I am always happy to meet him. If he would like to contact my office, I will be pleased to do so again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It does remain my view, but I am afraid to say that, as far as I can see, I am the only party leader who believes that, in the years beyond this Parliament, we should increase defence spending in the way described by my right hon. Friend. The good news for all those who care about this issue is that it is agreed Government policy that the defence equipment programme needs real-terms increases up to after 2015. It is very important for us to be able to plan our exceptional equipment programme, which will give us some of the best-equipped armed forces anywhere in the world.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q2. The Office for Budget Responsibility tells us that the bankers will pay £500 million less for the bankers tax than the Prime Minister promised last year, yet in April he will inflict a £500 million cut on the poorest through the second empty bedroom tax. How can he justify taking from the poor and giving to the rich?

[The Prime Minister]

I say to the hon. Gentleman—this is an important point—that we have introduced the bank levy. We think that that is a better answer than a one-off bonus tax. The bank levy will, of course, be paid every year, so it will raise considerably more than a one-off bonus tax. What my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has done when the bank levy has not come up to the figures that we require is increase the bank levy to make sure that they do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

As I said, I discussed this matter with the First Minister recently. The purchase of Cardiff airport is of course a matter for the Welsh Government. I have no doubt that they will be looking to see a robust business case for that purchase, and we will be considering the issue of the operator of the airport very carefully, too. My hon. Friend makes an important point about the importance to the local economy of the BA maintenance facility.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In order to stimulate jobs in aviation and the aerospace industry, will the Secretary of State press the Chancellor to give Swansea super-connected city status in the forthcoming Budget?

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman will know that Swansea made a bid for super-connected status, which was considered. Newport got super-connected status, which I am sure is welcomed by the people of Newport. He will know that a business case has to be made. He was very much to the fore in the business case for the electrification of the railway line to Swansea, and I hope he will play a similar role with regard to super-connected status.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

The Government have made consistently clear our belief that wealthier member states have both the ability and the capacity to finance their own regional development policy and hence do not require structural funds. However, as the Prime Minister made clear on Monday afternoon, we also recognise that the more prosperous member states, such as the UK, need to be given time to make the adjustment and so should continue to receive funding during the 2014-20 programming period. The Government will consider the right balance of competences in terms of regional policy in the autumn of 2013 as part of our review.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister accept that Wales does not get its fair share of UK funding in either capital or revenue from Barnett, that the money paid, for instance, to Swansea university—£60 million from the European Investment Bank and £30 million from convergence—helps Wales to succeed, and that we would like to see the UK Government help Wales in the same way?

[Stephen Crabb]

I do not accept that Wales is underfunded. This Government have demonstrated in our announcements on investment in rail infrastructure in Wales and broadband infrastructure in Wales that we are providing funding over and above the Barnett formula for Wales, so I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s proposition at all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is exactly right: it is vital that the two Governments—the UK Government and the Welsh Government in Cardiff—work together on a range of issues, not least the success of enterprise zones. I am committed to doing that, and I look forward very much to my first meeting with the Welsh business Minister, Edwina Hart, which is to take place shortly.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will be aware that having the Bristol enterprise zone alongside the tolls on the gateway to the south Wales economy is a major impediment to inward investment and growth. Will he therefore ask Treasury colleagues to commission a study to see whether a reduction in the tolls would be more than compensated for by an increase in income tax resulting from new jobs created by inward investment?

[Stephen Crabb]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is to discuss tolls on the Severn bridge with our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport this afternoon. No decisions have been made beyond 2018, when the current concession ends. Clearly there is a lot to discuss in relation to how we maximise the benefits of inward investment in Wales.

Regional Pay

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As a result of that confusion, many people who are in work are worried about spending money, because they are not sure what is going to happen to their pay, and that uncertainty is also making economic recovery harder to secure.

Comparing rates of pay in the public and private sectors involves a notoriously complex and controversial analysis. It is difficult to be sure that one is comparing like with like, because the jobs done by teachers, police officers or emergency workers have so few private sector equivalents.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend may be interested to know that inward investors to whom I have spoken are concerned to have decently funded public services in education and health; they do not want a GP in Swansea, for instance, to up sticks and go to Bristol. Does she agree that in many instances that analysis, concluding that different pay for the same job throughout the country will help the private sector, undermines the confidence of inward investors and is counter-productive?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend speaks powerfully on behalf of his constituents in Swansea. In my area, many people commute from Bradford to work in Leeds and the other way round. Would their pay be determined by where they work or where they live? If the Government say that their starting point is these differentials, they cannot blame people for concluding that their ultimate aim is a reduction of 10% or more in the relative pay of public service workers in some parts of the country.