Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
No contrition, then, in any of those answers from the Secretary of State, whose party has, by freezing tax thresholds, piled on £960 extra on average to the tax bills of around 400,000 pensioners in Wales. The Prime Minister has now made a totally unfunded £46 billion promise to scrap national insurance. Will the Secretary of State tell us how on earth the Government will pay for that, and will he rule out raising income tax by 8p or scrapping winter fuel payments to do so?
Port Talbot Steelworks
Jessica Morden Excerpts(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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David T. C. Davies
A few people seem to have the idea that building a DRI plant would resolve this problem. The first point to remember is that if a DRI plant were built on the site, it would probably save another 200 jobs. There is a plant in Texas, run by Voestalpine, which I believe produces 2 million tonnes or so of steel every year and employs 200 people, so a DRI plant will not resolve the problem. Clearly, DRI plants require access to a regular and affordable amount of natural gas. There is, however, nothing whatsoever to stop Tata, at some point in future, building a DRI plant to go along with the electric arc furnace, if it believes that that is commercially sensible. Even if it were to do that, it would not really resolve the problem that we face: 2,800 jobs being lost in Port Talbot. At best, it would save another 200 jobs.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I am sorry, but this Government’s lack of ambition for our steel industry is just disgraceful. As many of the Secretary of State’s constituents work in Llanwern, he should understand that decisions made about Port Talbot have a direct impact on Newport and can lead to problems with securing volume for Llanwern. We are looking at potential redundancies, and uncertainty about the long-term future of the plant. It is not too late for the Secretary of State to stand up for his constituents, show more ambition for our steel industry—as other countries do—argue for a fairer transition, and try to avoid compulsory redundancies. Why will he not do that for his own constituents?
David T. C. Davies
We have acknowledged all along that under the proposals, Port Talbot planned to close down the pickle line at Llanwern, but not until the electric arc furnace was built. We discussed that at the last meeting of the transition board, and we all agreed that just as we want to help everyone in Port Talbot, we want to help anyone affected in Llanwern.
The hon. Lady keeps talking about a lack of ambition. We can all dream about a situation in which blast furnace 4 is kept open for another six years, but what we cannot do is force Tata to continue accepting losses of over £1 million a day in order for that to happen. I have to say that there has been a lack of responsibility on the part of some Labour Members—though not any present in this Chamber—who seem to have gone around suggesting that they have a special, costed secret plan that would save all those jobs. They do not. They have not put any kind of a costed plan to any senior management in Tata. They have never sat down and said, “If you do this, we will give you this, and that way, we could save all those jobs.” They have simply gone around saying that they want to see all the jobs saved. We all want to see every single job saved, but we cannot force Tata to continue to take losses of over £1 million a day.
Spring Budget 2024: Welsh Economy
Jessica Morden Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), on securing this very important debate; in fact, I believe that this is the second year running that she has secured it. As always, she made her points well, as did all the speakers so far. I echo her comments on Gaza and the middle east. We share the city of Newport, and I know that that is a matter of great concern.
As my hon. Friend and neighbour set out, this is a Government clinging on to power, having presided over 14 years of managed decline. They lack the interest, vision and appetite to deliver the fundamental change that our country needs. We have had some excellent contributions from Members who will have had direct feedback from their constituents, be it on the doorsteps in places such as Monmouth, or in their surgeries. I certainly have: over the Easter recess we carried out a cost of living survey in Newport East, and people told us very strongly just how held back they feel by this failing Tory Government.
My hon. Friend put it well when she said that “never have a British Government asked their people…to pay so much for so little.” Having played fast and loose with the public finances, the Conservative party is passing on the cost of its incompetence to those who can least afford it just as public services, on which so many of them rely, are crumbling under the weight of its cuts. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) is quite right: the spring Budget is smoke and mirrors, and people are not taken in by it.
Let us take ourselves back to 2019, when those on the Government Benches stood on manifesto commitments not to raise taxes; to reduce debt; to reduce poverty; and to help people with cost of living pressures. Three Prime Ministers and five Chancellors later, and with the Tory chaos almost halving the Government’s parliamentary majority, those promises lie in tatters. As hon. Members have already said, it is the case, despite cuts to national insurance, which we support, that the income tax threshold freezes mean that taxes are rising at a record pace. They are now at a 70-year high, and rising in each year of the spring Budget’s forecast period. That will make households in Wales £700 worse off, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West said. I was very struck by what was said to me by a constituent I met in Magor on Saturday on the issue of the income tax threshold freezes, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli. The constituent described to me how her small monthly pension was hit by the impact of that and how unfair that was.
Dame Nia Griffith
I am sure that my hon. Friend will mention what I forgot to mention, which is that pensioners do not pay national insurance, so they have had no benefit whatever from the NI cut.
Jessica Morden
I thank my hon. Friend for making that very pertinent point. There is a big impact on pensioners, as she has said.
The UK debt to GDP ratio is at its highest in 70 years, with no sign of falling. The number of people living in absolute poverty is expected to increase this year to 12 million, with 4.2 million children living in poverty. This year, 62,000 householders in Wales will face the Tory mortgage bombshell—which hon. Members have mentioned—as their fixed-term rates expire, with the average homeowner expected to face a £240 hike in their monthly bill. As hon. Members have said, this is the first Parliament on record for which living standards are set to be lower by the end than they were at the beginning. The Tory Government are breaking promises and breaking records—and all to the detriment of Welsh people struggling to make ends meet. The Prime Minister has joined his predecessor in backing the sort of enormous and entirely unfunded tax cuts that led to the swift demise of her premiership—this time in the form of the abolition of national insurance. Perhaps the Minister will explain to us in this debate, because the Prime Minister could not—he repeatedly failed to answer the question at Prime Minister’s questions today—what the Tory Government will cut to find the £46 billion needed every year for their new policy, or whether they plan to extend their tax-raising record by piling further costs on to Welsh working people.
Not only have the tired Tory Government lost any semblance of economic competence—driving down business confidence—but they have lost their moral compass. Over the last few days, my constituents Colin and Janet Smith have been sharing with the media the story of their decades-long fight for justice for their son, Colin, who tragically died aged seven, having contracted AIDS and hepatitis C from contaminated blood administered by the NHS. For years after his death they faced bullying, abuse and the loss of employment, due to the stigma surrounding his illnesses. I know the family very well, and the absolute tragedy of what he was put through. Members of the House will know that the Smith family’s story is not unique. They have campaigned tirelessly alongside so many others for the truth and for just compensation, so I would like the Minister to tell us why, despite the final recommendations on compensation having been delivered to Ministers by Sir Brian Langstaff, chair of the inquiry, more than a year ago, when he said the Government could get on with making the compensation payments, there is not a single word about it in the spring Budget. I think that is an absolute disgrace.
Welsh steelworkers are right to feel betrayed by a Government willing to countenance 3,000 redundancies across south Wales while our European steelmaking competitors make historic investments in green steel. The almost-overnight end to our virgin-steelmaking capability in Port Talbot is not an inevitability. Rather than relying on imports from across the world, exposing us to the same global risks that precipitated the energy crisis, Ministers must revisit the multi-union plan, described by Tata itself as credible, to work with our steelworkers towards a just transition to the greener future for steel that we all want.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli mentioned, a Labour Government in Westminster would invest £3 billion in green steel within the first term, protecting livelihoods and the future of our sovereign British steel manufacture, which is vital for our plan to make Britain a clean energy superpower by doubling onshore wind, tripling solar and quadrupling offshore wind.
It is not too late for the Government to change direction on this, and it would be particularly important for my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West, with the Llanwern steelworks in Newport. It would not be the first time a Conservative press release has sounded suspiciously familiar to Labour colleagues. Whether it is the narrowing of the non-dom tax loophole or the half-hearted levy on oil and gas giants, the Prime Minister appears to be slowly realising that the path to a fairer, brighter future for Wales and Britain is through the progressive policies of a Welsh Labour Government working with a Labour Government in Westminster.
The consequential funding that will flow from a UK Labour Government to Welsh public services will be critical. Importantly, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) mentioned the cost burden on local government too. Our public services face intense challenges, particularly in the context of the value of the Welsh Government’s budget having dropped by £1.3 billion in real terms as a result of the Tories’ economic mismanagement.
Some progress was to be welcomed from the spring Budget. We have repeatedly called on the Government to get a move on with the new nuclear site at Wylfa. The purchase of the site is therefore good news, but we are still nowhere near seeing the prospect of clean energy and thousands of good jobs returning to Anglesey. Had they not dithered for five years, we could have seen the plant 50% complete, with up to 8,500 construction jobs under way, around 900 permanent jobs to follow and £400 million for the local economy in wages.
What we saw in the spring Budget was a Conservative Government without a proper plan to grow the economy, without an industrial strategy to match the ambition of our talented Welsh workforce and without the appetite for investment in a greener Wales. Those will only be achieved with a UK Labour Government working with a Welsh Labour Government and a Secretary of State for Wales who stands up for Welsh interests.
Ruth Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention and for clarifying.
Ruth Jones
As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East says, the Minister does not have to wait; she can get on with it now.
The smoke and mirrors in the Budget were quite clear. The Welsh people are paying more and getting less. All I would say in conclusion is: bring on a general election and let us show what a difference we can make.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the impact of the Spring Budget 2024 on the Welsh economy.
Draft Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2024
Jessica Morden Excerpts(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I will not detain the Committee long, especially after the high excitement of Welsh questions earlier. This straightforward statutory instrument, laid as a consequence, as the Secretary of State said, of the passage of the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022 in the Senedd, will replace references in reserved UK legislation to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales with references to the new Commission for Tertiary Education and Research. It will also make technical amendments in relation to provisions being repealed as a consequence of the Act.
The Act formed part of the delivery of the Welsh Labour manifesto commitment on tertiary education. Although this is of interest to no one other than myself, my father spent his career in tertiary education in Gwent, in Pontypool College. The Act renews the 30-year-old system that predates devolution, under which tertiary education is currently organised and funded. When the commission becomes operational on 1 August, it will, for the first time, take a coherent and system-wide view of tertiary education, bringing under one roof the funding, oversight, quality and regulation of higher and further education, local authority maintained schools, sixth forms, apprenticeships, and adult and community learning, as well as other responsibilities for research and innovation.
In introducing these changes, the Welsh Government are implementing the main recommendations of the independent Hazelkorn review, which noted the confusion and complexity of the sector in Wales and the lack of system-wide strategic view and collaboration, as well as the incoherent learner pathways. I am pleased to confirm that the architect of many of the marketised reforms to tertiary education in England, the former Minister for Universities, Jo Johnson, similarly backed a
“joined-up system of regulation and funding for all post-16 education”
in England, deriding what he called a
“bewildering array of regulatory and funding bodies”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 June 2021; Vol. 812, c. 1813.]
After the Secretary of State’s attempted tour de force at Welsh questions—some little problems with Wrexham there—I am sure he will acknowledge that Welsh Labour is leading the way in this legislation.
Labour Governments invest in young people’s futures. Combined with the Welsh Government’s young person’s guarantee of education, training or work for all 16 to 24-year-olds, the new system will create the conditions for a highly skilled society with equality of opportunity and a civic mission at its heart. Its strategic duties will also include contributing to a sustainable and innovative economy, which is crucial for a UK Labour Government to deliver their plan to make Wales a green energy superpower, investing in the industries and jobs of the future.
This statutory instrument makes only a few minor and technical legislative amendments, so Labour has no reason to divide the Committee. However, I would ask the Minister to check with his officials whether the Department has notified the Welsh Government that the order has been laid. It is my understanding that that did not happen on this occasion, and it would be good to know that the issue will be taken forward and that people will check that the Welsh Government are notified.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. This
“Budget will do nothing to deliver a better future for retailers and their customers.”
Those are the words of the British Retail Consortium, whose members face 45,000 incidents of theft and 1,300 incidents of violence and abuse every day. To help keep our Welsh high streets safe, we Labour Members want to fund an extra 13,000 police officers and police community support officers, and extra measures to deal with offenders. Why are the Government failing to tackle the epidemic of shoplifting and its victims, and to take it seriously?
David T. C. Davies
The hon. Lady is right to raise this important issue for retailers, but I remind her that the UK Government have provided for an extra 20,000 police officers across the whole United Kingdom. We have repeatedly brought forward legislation to increase prison sentences and punishments for offenders, but that legislation has often been voted against by members of her political party.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Some 8,000 homeowners in Wales face the Tory mortgage bombshell this month, with households projected to pay an extra £240 per month as their fixed-rate deals come to an end. Despite the Conservative party’s opposition, the Welsh Government have put in place measures to prevent repossessions, and a UK Labour Government would require banks to protect homeowners. What is the Secretary of State doing to help homeowners facing massive bills caused by the Conservative party’s economic mismanagement?
David T. C. Davies
The UK Government have put in place a number of measures to support any mortgage holders facing difficulties at the moment, but the most important measure has been to bring down inflation. Inflation actually peaked at a higher rate in Europe than in the United Kingdom. Inflation is now down at 4%—much less than half of what it was previously—which will have a beneficial impact on mortgage interest rates over the longer term. I ask the hon. Lady whether, in all fairness, she thinks that her party’s plans to borrow £28 billion a year, which is going to increase inflation and have a very bad impact on mortgage interest rates, will be good or bad for homeowners?
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Strong economic links are dependent on the Government actually having an economic plan, but the Conservatives’ track record speaks for itself. They cancelled the electrification of the main line to Swansea, they are spending half a billion pounds but still potentially making up to 3,000 steelworkers redundant and their pitiful semiconductor strategy does not even give us a bit part on the world stage. Why should anyone believe that their latest promises made for north Wales at a desperate party conference are worth the fag packet they are written on?
Dr Davies
I welcome the hon. Member to her position. She shares Welsh lessons with me, and I hope she will continue to do so. I urge her to be somewhat more positive about the £1 billion that has been announced for infrastructure development in north Wales by means of the electrification. Also, in terms of the steel industry at Port Talbot, the half a billion pounds has saved many jobs and means that decarbonisation can occur.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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David T. C. Davies
I am afraid to say that the barrier is the Welsh Labour Government, who have decided that they will, as a matter of policy, end all new road-building projects in Wales, and, on top of that, bring in speed limits and road user charging. That is bad for jobs, bad for commuters and bad for the economy of Wales.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Government have woefully underinvested in Welsh rail. The Burns commission and the union connectivity review all point to what the Government should do: upgrade the south Wales main line and build new stations, such as in Magor. When will the Government invest?
David T. C. Davies
The hon. Lady makes an important point. There is a project, which is going through the business case process at the moment, to improve the freight lines on the south Wales line to enable passenger services to run on it. I believe that there will be announcements about that shortly, when the new rail network enhancements pipeline programme comes out.
Support for the Welsh Economy and Funding for the Devolved Institutions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who made an excellent speech. I shall be speaking in a similar vein. I am also grateful to the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) for securing the debate, along with the Welsh Affairs Committee, which pressed for it to take place. I greatly miss being a member of the Committee, which does valuable work, not least in sending us copies of the Library briefing for today’s debate. That briefing confirms the decrease in funding for Wales’s final budget, which was disputed earlier by some Members.
In fact, the Welsh Government’s budget over the next three years is likely to be worth at least £600 million less in real terms because of higher than expected inflation. With the outlook for inflation, economic growth and additional funding looking bleak, the spending power of the Welsh Government is likely to deteriorate further, which is why they have called on the UK to update its settlement. As other Members have pointed out, we are also set to lose more than £1 billion of vital EU funding, with the UK Government failing to honour their 2019 election pledge to replace and
“at a minimum match the size of”
EU structural and investment funds.
Against that backdrop, the Welsh Government face even more pressures in seeking to address the cost of living crisis, which should be a priority for all Governments in the UK. However, even in these hard times, the Welsh Government are trying their hardest with what they have at their disposal to help households that are struggling to get by—unlike the UK Government, who are out of ideas and out of touch with what people are really going through; refusing, as others have said, to bring in an emergency budget; and raising taxes during a cost of living crisis.
After Ofgem announced increases to the domestic energy cap, Rebecca Evans, the Welsh Finance Minister, set out a £330 million cost of living package of support, which goes beyond that announced by the UK Government. The Welsh Government provided the £150 cost of living payments to all households in council tax bands A to D and expanded the support to those in higher bands in receipt of council tax reduction. As other hon. Members have said, this included free school meals throughout the Whitsun and summer holidays, and additional funding for the winter fuel support scheme for 2022-23 will ensure that the scheme can once again provide people on low incomes with a non-repayable £200 cash payment towards their energy bills later in the year. That is on top of the Government’s £200 rebates on bills from October.
The average band D council tax bill in England is £167 more than it is in Wales. Even with the stuff that the Government have brought in recently, we pay £17 less in Wales. As has been said, we have a Labour Administration in Wales who are really serious about supporting the public through this perfect storm of rising costs. They stand in stark contrast to this Government and a Chancellor who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into introducing a windfall tax on oil and gas profits to partly fund cost of living support for households.
As the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire mentioned, the cost of living crisis in Wales has been made worse by the shortcomings of the benefit system. In its March report, the Welsh Affairs Committee rightly identified that current benefit levels are inadequate and called for an urgent review of the Government’s cruel decision to end the £20-a-week universal credit uplift, as well as a re-evaluation of policies including the five-week wait, the benefit cap, the two-child limit, the bedroom tax, the shared accommodation rate of universal credit for under-35s and the freeze of the local housing allowance rate at March 2020 levels. Everything on that list is relevant to today’s debate, and I would add to it the lower rate of universal credit for under-25s. That has caused hardship for many constituents, with housing associations in Newport East reporting under-25s spending all their universal credit on utility bills and having nothing left for food. It is worth pointing out that cuts to universal credit and working tax credit will take around £286 million out of the Welsh economy, with more Welsh families being hit proportionally harder.
I mentioned the loss of EU funding earlier. The loss of £243 million in rural funding and the £772 million shortfall in EU funding is likely to mean the loss of £1 billion of vital funds. The Minister will be aware of the considerable scepticism that exists around the shared prosperity fund. The Welsh Government have also voiced concerns that the fund will redirect economic development funds away from areas where poverty is most concentrated. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) also made that point. This is a missed opportunity to ensure that funding reflects the distinct needs of Welsh communities. The fact that the Welsh Government have been totally ignored in the decision-making functions around the fund appears to be a deliberate attempt to undermine the principles of devolution, as referenced by the Public Accounts Committee in its report.
There has also been frustration with how the levelling-up fund has operated in practice. Only three of the 10 successful Welsh bids for the first round of the fund came from south Wales, and none from Gwent. I urge the UK Government to put this right in the second round and to look carefully at bids such as the one for the regeneration of the town centre in Caldicot, which has cross-party support. Sixteen local authorities in Wales did not benefit from the fund at all in the first round, and it would be interesting to hear what Ministers are doing to address that.
On rail, Wales has 11% of the UK rail network but receives only 2% of rail enhancement funding from the Government. We are now set to miss out on billions of pounds of consequential funding from HS2.
On police funding, no area of the UK has been safe from damaging Tory cuts, but Ministers in this place have shown no recognition of the specific challenges facing Welsh police forces. For example, no Welsh force receives national and international capital city grant funding. That is relevant to Gwent police in my area and that of the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), which needs to draw on additional resources to support events in Cardiff in the neighbouring South Wales police area, as well as at the international convention centre and Celtic Manor in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones).
Similarly, Welsh forces have not been able to utilise their apprenticeship levy contributions in recent years, and they currently pay around £6 million a year more than their English counterparts towards the training of officers. That issue has been raised before in this place, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), but Ministers have—
Jessica Morden
I will not, on this occasion, because another Member wishes to speak and hon. Members have intervened many times during the debate.
As I was saying, Ministers have incorrectly attempted to pass the buck on to the Welsh Government for that issue. It is not a devolved issue, and it is time Ministers took some responsibility.
There are additional strains on finances that Welsh police forces just do not need, especially when we consider that the headline £5.2 million of extra grant funding for Gwent in the police grant report published earlier this year is effectively written off to fund the long-term costs of the final tranche of the police uplift programme and the 1.25% increase in national insurance contributions. The UK Government continue to leave police forces in Wales to fend for themselves rather than funding them properly.
Finally, it is worth remembering that Government Members have voted to cut the £20 universal credit uplift, voted against free school meals for children during school holidays, voted for an increase in NI contributions and voted against a windfall tax. That is the record they stand on as we debate this estimate.
Welsh Affairs
Jessica Morden Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) and her wonderful tribute to Hywel Francis, who I know all hon. Members miss. We send our love to Mair. It is also a pleasure to take part in the annual St David’s day debate, which was so ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), whose wise words, contributions, sage advice and friendship we will all miss following his announcement that he will not contest the next election. There is a while to go yet, but we will miss him when the time comes.
Proceedings in Parliament this week have obviously been dominated by events in Ukraine, and all our thoughts are with the Ukrainian people in these dark times. That was demonstrated yesterday in the Chamber by the reception for the Ukrainian ambassador, which was one of the moving moments of my time in the House. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said, there are long-standing ties between the people of Wales and Ukraine, with city of Donetsk, which was originally known as Hughesovka, having been founded by the Welshman John Hughes, who made his reputation and fortune as a leading engineer at Uskside Engineering in Newport.
Coalmining and steel production have played just as important a role in the economic and cultural life of central and eastern Ukraine as they have in south Wales. We are all united in our solidarity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly said, the scale is enormous and horrific, and our contributions reflect that.
Like other hon. Members, I have constituents with friends and family in Ukraine and at least one constituent who is currently stuck in the country after travelling there to care for dependents before the invasion began. In her case, her family members were refused a visa application for entry to the UK last year by the Home Office. I hope that everything will now be done to ensure that visas for Ukrainians looking to flee the conflict can be processed swiftly and that a robust system to reunite Ukrainians with family members here in the UK is put in place promptly. I note the announcements this week, but I pray that action is swift. That family have been told by a Home Office adviser that they should be eligible, but they now tell me that there may be no safe passage out from Zaporizhzhia, which is surrounded by Russian forces.
With the failures of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, we have seen how not having comprehensive and compassionate structures in place can have real consequences. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West, I am grateful to the Welsh Government for voicing their strong support for providing Ukrainian refugees with sanctuary in Wales and for providing £4 million in financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. We are a nation of sanctuary and a nation of compassion, as is demonstrated by the groups and individuals across Wales that are already doing what they can to support Ukraine. Groups such as the Polish Community for Ukraine and the Women of Newport, including my constituent Kamila, have been overwhelmed with support for their emergency appeal just this week.
I know that Newportonians in Prague are raising donations in Newport for refugees on the ground. I am grateful also to the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) who have donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine humanitarian appeal. I know that we all hope the Government can ensure this money reaches those who have fled their homes to escape the conflict as quickly as possible. Of course, it will again fall to our councils on the frontline to welcome those fleeing Ukraine. I ask the Secretary of State to make sure that the UK Government, working with the Welsh Government, ensure that they have the financial means not just to welcome them, but to support them.
Today’s debate comes at a time when we are looking to the future after the pandemic. That was clearly not the case on St David’s Day in 2020, and two years on from the devastation of the first wave of covid in March 2020, it feels a good time to take stock. I thank all those in Newport East and beyond who have helped us get to where we are now, including the many community groups, charities and volunteers on the ground who helped keep people connected and very supported during the darkest hours of the pandemic.
I also thank our local councils, Newport City Council and Monmouthshire County Council, which kept key services in Newport East running as smoothly as possible in unprecedented times. We should not forget or underestimate how difficult that was. I remember the conversations at the start of the pandemic, the scenarios being anticipated and the very difficult decisions being considered. It was leadership at one of our hardest times, and I certainly will always be thankful for those who step up and are willing to hold those positions at such times. As the Tad y Tŷ, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West, said, our councils play a pivotal role, as we all know, right on the frontline of delivering our services—be they the schools our children attend, care for the elderly, keeping the roads safe, waste collection, recycling services, parks and sports facilities and more. It is our councils that are key to—and are—looking ahead with ambition for a much brighter future after the pandemic.
Labour-led Newport council, very ably led by Councillor Jane Mudd, spent the pandemic, among many other things, distributing more than 9,000 laptops and devices to pupils, and administering nearly £55 million of Welsh Government funding to Newport businesses to support them through the pandemic period, including grants that supported over 70 new start-up businesses and targeted support for sectors such as the arts and leisure. I think the council is a leader in many ways. We are the UK’s best city for recycling, employer of the year at the Welsh Veterans Awards, and a hub for sports with the National Velodrome of Wales, the Football Association of Wales’s Dragon Park and other major events venues in our city. They are all world-class facilities that are on our doorstep. Our future plans include a new leisure centre, the reopening soon of Newport market—the largest indoor market refurb in Europe—and a new 4-star hotel over the river in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West, as well as lots of new modern housing developments in the city centre. This is all in the plan for the regeneration of our city.
Monmouthshire council also deserves praise for its work supporting vulnerable residents and bringing people together during the pandemic. A great example of this are those on the Monmouthshire youth council whom I met when they came to Parliament last week. Throughout the pandemic, the council provided a regular virtual forum for young people to discuss the issues that matter most to them at a time when schools, colleges and social activities were restricted. As the mother of two teenagers myself, I very much appreciate the work of people such as Jade Atkins, its participation officer, who convenes the group that puts in that work, and I know the real difference it can make.
Hon. Members have mentioned levelling up, but last year I worked closely with Monmouthshire County Council on its cross-party bid for levelling-up funding for Caldicot. It is a real shame that this strong bid for improvements to the leisure centre and the town centre was rejected by the UK Government, as indeed were all bids from the Gwent area. I hope that future tranches of levelling-up funding will be more inclusive of all regions of Wales, or the accusations of pork barrel politics may ring true again.
May I note, on behalf of the wonderful and dedicated volunteers at the Magor Action Group on Rail, that it has a bid in for a new walkway station for Magor and Undy? I mention to the Secretary of State that its restoring your railway bid is in at the moment, and it would be much appreciated if he could nudge his Department for Transport colleagues for an update on the next steps, as would his taking the lead, following the Burns Commission, to provide the funding to reverse the historical under- investment in rail in Wales by investing in our lines and new stations. We are watching that very keenly.
I want to pay tribute to the work of the Labour group on Monmouthshire council, which has combined constructive opposition to the administration with its continued campaign for better services across the county and improved infrastructure in areas such as Severnside in my constituency to match the rapid growth in house building we have seen locally. It is important that, after the upcoming local elections in May, the council, which this year received the highest increase in its core funding settlement of any local authority in Wales from the Welsh Government, now prioritises this investment where it is needed most. We need to invest in infrastructure where we are building new house developments.
I will cheekily take this opportunity to wish all the candidates standing in Newport East the very best of luck for 5 May. I am very proud of the candidates whom Labour has chosen in the Newport and Monmouthshire wards in my constituency. They are a very enthusiastic and talented cross-section of our community. We have a firefighter, a brewery worker, a nurse, a journalist, a taxi driver, a lecturer and small business owners, and they are all hoping to be given the privilege of serving their communities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) spoke about the benefits of the strong collaboration between our councils and the Welsh Labour Government, and that should never be underestimated. Wales led the way on the vaccine roll-out across the UK and maintained the most generous comprehensive package of support for businesses of any UK nation. Now, as we look beyond the pandemic, the Welsh Government have come up with a £330 million package of extra help for the cost of living crisis—a funding package that, yet again, is significantly larger than the equivalent support provided by the UK Government in England.
Of course, there is only so much that a Welsh Government and local authorities can do with the powers afforded to them. This is true of the steel industry in Newport, where the UK Government must provide our steel industry with the support it needs on decarbonisation and electricity costs. We have talked about that in the House—other members of the all-party group on steel and metal-related industries are here—for over a decade. It is also true of funding for our police, which has been cut by this soft-on-crime Tory Government over the last decade.
On the cost of living, Conservative Members need to acknowledge the part they have played in enabling this crisis. It was the Government who failed to regulate the energy market, failed to invest in home-grown renewables and failed to end our dependence on imported energy. They cranked up national insurance contributions while cutting universal credit, and then responded to the lifting of the energy price cap by marching their MPs through the Lobby to vote down Labour’s motion to cut VAT on household energy bills with a windfall tax. As I highlighted in my Westminster Hall debate last week, the cost of living crisis in Wales and across the UK is now very real, and it is pronounced for businesses as well as for households.
That is especially true for industries such as hospitality which were already dealing with the shockwaves of the pandemic. Hospitality means about £3.6 billion to the Welsh economy each year—that is a major contribution—and, pre-pandemic, the industry trade body UKHospitality Cymru reported that the sector employed 180,000 people in Wales, about 140,000 directly and 40,000 in the supply chain. The challenges that the sector faces are multifaceted, from energy costs to recruitment, which is currently at an all-time low. Representatives from local hospitality businesses tell me that the sector now needs greater support from the Government in their efforts to recruit and retain staff as the recovery opens up the economy. The sector in Wales also wants to discuss the scheduled increase in VAT in April, which UKHospitality suggests could lead to price inflation of around 12.4%, compounding other supply chain cost pressures.
I hope that the Government can work with the hospitality sector in Wales now as it seeks to recover the confidence that has been lost over two challenging years.