Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Hain and Guto Bebb

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hain]

I will not give way, because I want to make some progress. While all that was going on, someone in Wales said to me:

“If I want to defeat constituency candidates because I don’t like them and I succeed and they are defeated, why should they pop up on the list claiming to represent me?”

That is the point. There is an honourable, constitutional and necessary role to be played by list Assembly Members across the whole region that they represent. There is no justification for seeking to abuse the system by getting involved in local constituency matters to try to win back a seat at the following election using that position and that resource. That is the fundamental point.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hain]

Not for a moment, no. The Government of Wales Act 2006 put the voters back in charge. If they did not want to elect somebody, they did not have to do so. The Act stopped the prevailing situation before then in which Assembly candidates could decide to place a “both ways” bet, by standing in both categories in order to win, even if they were kicked out by the electorate. To his shame, the Secretary of State is seeking to reintroduce that both ways bet.

There was an unholy coalition of Conservatives, nationalists and Liberal Democrats opposed to abolishing that abuse. Now they have reincarnated that unholy coalition in defiance of the popular will. Why are they so afraid of taking their choice to the people? Why are they so afraid of losing constituency elections that they need the lifebelt of standing on the lists as well?

[Guto Bebb]

rose—

[Mr Hain]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can answer that question.

[Guto Bebb]

It is the case that the Welsh system of electing Members to the Assembly is replicated in many parts of the world, but the only country that has a similar ban is Ukraine. The Bevan Foundation, a Labour party think-tank, is of the view that the ban should be withdrawn.

[Mr Hain]

I have no idea whether the abuse that we have seen in Wales, which I am now documenting for the House, applied in Ukraine as well. Lord Richard chaired the commission—[Interruption.] I will now present a lot of detailed evidence on that abuse for the sake of the hon. Members who are seeking to intervene and the whole of the House. Lord Richard chaired the commission that reported in 2004. He recommended the extra powers for the Assembly, which my 2006 Act delivered. He told the Welsh Affairs Committee:

“There is something wrong in a situation in which five people can stand in Clwyd, none of them can be elected, and then they all get into the Assembly. On the face of it, that does not make sense. I think a lot of people in Wales find that it does not.”

That is not me, a former Secretary of State who banned the abuse, speaking, but Lord Richard who carried through an eminent report.

The eminent Welsh Academic, Dr Denis Balsom—again, not a politically partisan figure—said in his evidence to the Richard commission:

“Candidates use the list as an insurance against failing to win a constituency contest. This dual candidacy can also confuse the electorate, who may wish to consciously reject a particular candidate only to find them elected via the list. It should remain a basic democratic right not to elect a particular candidate or to be able to vote a Member out.”

That is a right that the Government, supported by Conservatives and members of other parties in Wales, are seeking to deny the electorate. That is not democratically defensible.

Commission on Devolution in Wales

Debate between Lord Hain and Guto Bebb

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hain]

Of course it had to be dealt with in this House, but the impact on Wales received virtually no debate. There is clearly a lot of sensitivity among Conservative Members on this matter, and I am not surprised. The Secretary of State rejected the request for a Welsh Grand Committee to discuss the fact that Wales is suffering a cut of 25%—a quarter—of our representation, which will affect a lot of parties and communities in Wales. That was never debated properly.

May I make one other point—

[Guto Bebb]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hain]

If I am allowed to finish my response to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing).

My other point is that such constitutional matters, particularly parliamentary boundaries, have traditionally always been dealt with on a consensual basis. This is the first time that a politically partisan rigging of the parliamentary boundaries has been introduced in this House and forced through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guto Bebb]

Is it not the case that, during the 13 years of Labour Government, the Labour party’s ambition for Wales was to create a dependency culture, in which we were given handouts by England, rather than to encourage the entrepreneurial activity that we saw in the 1980s?

[Mr Hain]

If that nonsense is true, why did we have record employment under our Labour Government, why were there more jobs in Wales than ever before in our history under our Labour Government and why were there higher levels of business activity under our Labour Government? We had a record of economic success before the global financial crisis that was second to none. I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to dispute that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hain]

I want to make some progress, if my hon. Friend does not mind. If there is time at the end, I will certainly give way to him.

Labour has set out a clear five-point plan to create jobs, to help struggling families and to support small businesses in Wales. Our jobs plan includes tax breaks for small businesses taking on extra workers, a temporary VAT cut that would give families a boost of around £450 a year, and a tax on bank bonuses to fund jobs and training for young people. I urge the right hon. Lady’s Government to implement it, alongside the work of the Silk commission. If the Chancellor were to come to the House with such a plan for growth, we would support him.

Thanks to devolution, Wales is showing that there is an alternative. The Welsh jobs fund will provide 4,000 job and training opportunities for 16 to 25-year-olds each year, along with an extra 500 police community support officers for safer communities, and support for Welsh students so that they do not have to pay higher tuition fees. Labour First Minister, Carwyn Jones, is proving that, although cuts are unavoidable, they do not have to be allied to the chaos of a privatisation plan for the NHS, or to a plan to close down opportunities in our universities, or, with the greatest hypocrisy of all, to the simultaneous devaluation of vocational education while making it even harder for young people leaving school to get a job.

[Guto Bebb]

Was it not rather unreasonable of the right hon. Gentleman to say what he did about the health service in Wales, given that the National Assembly is cutting health expenditure in Wales while those cuts are not happening in England? My constituents are very aware that the Betsi Cadwaladr health trust is facing serious financial difficulties, not as a result of changes in Westminster but as a direct consequence of choices made by the Labour Government in Cardiff.

[Mr Hain]

Labour’s Government in Wales are not adopting a back-door privatisation plan for the health service in Wales, thank goodness—unlike what is happening in England. In addition, did the hon. Gentleman not see the important report in the media recently that leading health officials and clinicians are now stating conclusively that the health service in England is being cut as a result of his Government’s policies? All services in Wales are having to be reduced—of course they are—but why does he think that is happening? It is a result of the programme of cuts by the Government whom he supports.

Of course our Labour Government in the Welsh Assembly cannot insulate Wales from this Government’s damaging policies. But they can show that, for schools, for hospitals, and for jobs and skills, even in the toughest of times, there is and always will be an alternative to this right-wing Westminster agenda. It was wrong to say that there was no alternative to Margaret Thatcher’s destructive policies in the 1980s. That was paid for by hundreds of thousands of people across Wales in lost jobs, futures and, yes, even lives as that Government systematically undermined the national health service.

In Wales, thanks to devolution, we can protect ourselves just a little from the consequences of Tory-Liberalism. It is not full protection—it never could be—but it makes a real difference, a Labour difference, because the people of Wales voted for the only party committed to standing up for Wales: the Labour party. Wales is an example to the rest of the United Kingdom of devolution working as it should do. We have in Wales a new devolution generation led by Carwyn Jones. That new generation are not devo-sceptics or nationalists, but devo-realists who are at ease with devolution and who recognise the benefits of empowering people.

The strength of Welsh devolution is a testament to Labour’s achievements in office. We should not forget that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State tried to prevent it from happening. They both stood on an anti-devolution platform as Tory party candidates in 1997. They both voted against the Government of Wales Act 2006, which I brought in as Secretary of State, and which delivered the full law-making powers now enjoyed by the Assembly. Now, in 2011, we will not allow them to use the Silk commission to diminish the devolution project, or to cut Wales adrift to appease the little Englanders on their own Benches. We will give the Silk commission a cautious welcome, but we are suspicious of the Government’s motives, as are the more than 130,000 people in Wales who are now out of work, and who are desperate for the Secretary of State to focus on jobs and growth, not on contriving devices to abandon her responsibilities in Wales.

For us, devolution has always been a means to an end. Labour has never fought elections solely on the issue of constitutional change. That would be a diversion from the real task, which at this moment requires above all taking a stand on the side of the people in the face of the most reactionary Government since the 1920s. Our vision for Wales does not involve a defence of the status quo. Our stance is one of modernisation and progress, even as we face the most difficult of policies inflicted on us by this Government. We urge the Silk commission to join us in standing up for Wales, and not to be seduced by this Government’s real agenda of hiving off their obligations to Wales.