Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Hain and David T C Davies

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

I rarely agree with the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), but I always get great entertainment from his sincere and intelligent extremism. He made a very thoughtful speech, for which he deserves credit, but may I correct him on one point about the national health service? I think he will find that more people cross the border from England to be treated in Welsh hospitals than go the other way.

[David T. C. Davies]

That is true, but these people do not do that by choice; they have no choice, and many of them are actively campaigning to be treated back in England and do not want to be treated in Wales.

[Mr Hain]

The facts seem to speak for themselves. We can have an argument about the degree to which people can express a preference, but the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, led by the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, persistently rant against the Welsh national health service as part of their war on Wales and completely distort the facts on the ground.

Commission on Devolution in Wales

Debate between Lord Hain and David T C Davies

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hain]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point with great passion precisely because he was one of the people who entered Parliament to fight for the rights of young Welsh citizens who were denied by that callous Conservative Government.

I hope that the Silk commission will take account of the principles of fairness and justice in its deliberations. Some resources from the south-east of England are, and in future should still be, redistributed to Wales, the north-east of England and other areas of England with lower levels of economic activity and prosperity in order to help everywhere in Britain to become economically more sustainable. However, I remain suspicious that this right-wing Government do not share this vision for Britain and may exploit the Silk commission for their own ulterior motives.

Compared with Scotland, there is a much more significant amount of commuting across our border with England, as pointed out earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). Traffic flows across the Wales-England border are substantial. North-east Wales is highly integrated into the economy of Merseyside and north-west England, while in south Wales the bulk of traffic movement is focused along the M4 corridor. About 80,000 people live in Wales but work outside Wales in the UK, and about 50,000 people work in Wales but live in the UK outside Wales. This gives a total of about 130,000 people who travel across the border to work every day. A little over half of this cross-border traffic is accounted for by people commuting in and out of north Wales. Despite Scotland’s much larger population, the number of commuters crossing its border is roughly one third of the number commuting in and out of Wales.

More than 1.4 million people in Wales—nearly half its total population—live within 25 miles of the border with England, and nearly 5 million people in England live within 25 miles of the border with Wales. In aggregate, 30% of the population of Wales and England—nearly one third, or more than 16 million people—live within 50 miles of the border between the two countries. In contrast, the number of people living close to the Scotland-England border is much smaller. Only 5% of the combined population of Scotland and England—just one sixth of the equivalent for Wales, or about 3 million people—live within 50 miles of the border between those countries. Given that the Welsh economy is much more closely bound into the economy of England than is the Scottish economy, the potential for economic distortions and tax avoidance as a result of tax devolution is of greater concern in Wales than in Scotland, which is why the Calman agenda cannot simply be transposed wholesale on to Wales. We would like a clearer indication from the Government of how they intend to deal with these crucial cross-border issues, and I hope that the Silk commission will address them.

Something else is not within remit of the Silk commission, however, but the issue is much bigger than the Barnett formula or tinkering with the constitution—it has felt like the elephant in the room during today’s debate. There is a serious jobs crisis in Wales, and the Government need to wake up urgently to that. For example, Tata Steel employs 20,000 people in the UK, of whom 8,000 are in Wales, in overwhelmingly highly skilled, well-paid jobs, with three to four times that number of dependent jobs in the economy outside. In Wales, that means perhaps 25,000 or more jobs. Last week, MPs were briefed by Tata’s European chief executive. He did not mention corporation or any other tax, which the Silk commission is considering. Instead, his overriding criticisms of Government policy, which he worried was threatening the future of steel manufacturing in the UK—at Port Talbot, for example—were very different. He said that the Government had to act on raising demand for UK steel through infrastructure investment—in other words, through more growth and jobs. He also argued that energy costs were far too high—fully half as high again as in France. What are the Government going to do about that? Nothing.

[David T. C. Davies]

I had similar representations from Tata. The company is clearly worried about energy costs rising as a result of environmental taxes, which are being implemented because of a perception of increased temperatures, which do not seem to be increasing at the moment. Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is time to look at the issue again?

[Mr Hain]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has a reactionary view on the climate change agenda—perhaps that is reflected in his question—but the briefing that we had from the European chief of Tata Steel was clear. He said that it was overwhelmingly the lack of Government support and investment in the economy—and the demand for steel that comes from that—that was hitting his industry so badly, along with energy prices, thereby risking future investment. Incidentally, the hon. Gentleman’s question also gives me the opportunity to remind him that although he celebrated the county of Monmouthshire’s no vote, the fact is that 49.36% voted yes, while 50.64% voted no. That does not seem to be a massive rejection of devolution in Monmouth.

--- Later in debate ---

[David T. C. Davies]

I do indeed welcome that statement, and I look forward to participating, but I hope that we do not end up putting the cart before the horse. I hope that we do not all go off in different directions, rather than getting things done in an orderly fashion. The constitution is a very delicate thing, and it needs to be balanced.

[Mr Hain]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the constitution is delicate and needs to be balanced, but is not the answer to his question—the answer to the English question, if you like—that we should remedy the asymmetrical nature of devolution in the United Kingdom by devolving powers to the English regions, not just to the London region, which already has considerable powers? [Interruption.] The Secretary of State mutters from a sedentary position that that has been rejected, and I accept that it was rejected under our Government in the north-east referendum, but I felt at the time that that was a very low-grade form of devolution. One of the things that people told me on the doorsteps in such places as Middlesbrough and Tyneside was that they did not believe in another form of regional government if it did not involve any real powers. If it did involve real powers, however, that would be the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question.

[David T. C. Davies]

I suspect that there may be something in what the right hon. Gentleman says. The referendum on powers in the north-east took place quite early in the process, and there is now a much wider understanding of the implications of devolution throughout the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, there is still a problem.

We devolved powers to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on the basis of their historical roles as nations within the United Kingdom. I do not see how we can just come along and artificially create nations within England where nations have not previously existed. I also suspect that this is not a debate that any of us here should be having. It must ultimately be for English MPs to decide for themselves whether they are content to remain representatives in England or would prefer to be representatives in the regions thereof. Let us not forget that there are 6 million people in Scotland, 3 million in Wales and 1.5 million in Northern Ireland. We have not so far devolved powers on the basis of the numbers of people in the countries concerned, and we therefore have no real right to say that because there are 50 million or 55 million people in England, they do not have the right to have a Parliament based on their own historic nation.