St David’s Day

Debate between Jo Stevens and David T C Davies

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

I was not here until 2005 so I will take the hon. Gentleman’s word for that. I do not know what the reason for that was, but it was very clear at the time that the Welsh Conservative party accepted the Welsh Assembly, and rightly so. I would suggest judging us by our deeds, not by words; judge us by the many extra powers we have granted to the Welsh Assembly over the years. One of those could be what we are looking at at the moment: devolving air passenger duty. I will not make too many comments on that prior to finishing our report, but clearly if there is an economic case to devolve APD to the Welsh Government, we should not stand in the way of that. I certainly do not see any constitutional reason why that should not happen, since we have already devolved income tax, land tax and all sorts of other taxes. There is no constitutional reason not to do it; if the economic case can be made, and it is fairly strong, we should not be afraid to devolve APD as well.

[Jo Stevens]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that during the passage of the most recent Wales Act the Secretary of State refused to devolve APD to the National Assembly?

[David T. C. Davies]

I am sure the Secretary of State will, as he always has done, take great interest in the report we are producing; we have not finished it yet so I can only say that I have heard strong economic arguments in one direction. There may be strong economic arguments not to devolve APD; we will have to wait for the findings of the report. I pay great tribute to the Secretary of State for Wales, who has always read carefully through the recommendations of our reports and taken them very seriously.