Autumn Budget 2024

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, referred to a recent article in the Times. Yesterday, in the editorial of its sister paper, the Sunday Times, was this sentence:

“Whoever won in July was going to need billions of pounds more for public services”.

That is not from a newspaper which normally supports my party, but it went to the heart of it. Over the last 14 years, public services in the United Kingdom have declined to an intolerable degree; we are in an awful state. Public services in health, education, our railways and local government have all suffered in that period.

No one wants to spend money for the sake of spending, but many of the speeches I heard today talked about spending, spending, spending. I have been involved in Budgets in public life for nearly 51 years, and never on one occasion did I want to spend for the sake of spending. You spend because you improve the quality of life of the people you represent, and that is why spending is important. You spend wisely, of course—that is a different issue altogether—but the fact that we need it is so very important.

Of course, the money has to come from somewhere—from taxation or from borrowing. If you borrow then you should only borrow for investment; if you raise taxation then you should ensure that those who can afford it most will pay most. That is why, personally, I believe income tax is the best tax of all, and other taxes, important as they are, are not as fair or transparent. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, gave us a number of examples of taxes which could be looked at, and I hope that both the Minister and the opposition spokesperson will do so.

I turn the House’s attention to the situation in Wales. The Welsh Government have received this week the best financial settlement since devolution began in 1999—even better than the settlements that Gordon Brown and I gave them back in the 1990s and 2000s. It is a brilliant settlement, with £2 billion more of new money going into Wales. There is more money for our public services, £100 million for our steel communities, £25 million to ensure our coal tips are safe and much-needed money for local government, which has been underfunded for so many years.

I make a plea to the Welsh Government. When they receive, as they will, many millions to be spent on the Welsh health service, can they ensure that they spend it with reform in mind? The money on its own is not right or sufficient for improvements to take place; it must be matched by reform in the health service.

I will refer to something that is the responsibility of both the United Kingdom and the Welsh Governments: the position of the Welsh National Opera. It might not appear huge in the shape of things, but it was referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. The arts and opera have suffered dramatically over the last number of years. I see no immediate prospect that they will improve, and I see the Welsh National Opera possibly disappearing unless the financial situation it faces is addressed. Arts Council England is responsible for greater funding of the Welsh National Opera than the Arts Council of Wales. I ask the Financial Secretary whether he will have a chat with the Secretary of State for Wales, who in turn can speak to the First Minister of Wales, to ensure that both Governments have a very serious look at the prospect facing one of our great national institutions in Wales.

To conclude, the Budget is right in addressing the deficit in our public services. Education, health, the railways and all the other public services in Wales and the United Kingdom will benefit as a result of a Budget that is significant in its contribution and wide-ranging in its effect.

Crown Estate Bill [HL]

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 6 in my name and Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, for signing my amendment. We debated a similar amendment in Committee, where those of us who argued for the devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales made strong arguments in favour of it. Other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and the noble Baroness, also presented strong cases for their amendments on the transference of the management of the Crown Estate in Wales to the Welsh Government, on separate reporting within the annual accounts of the activities of the Crown Estate in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and on other issues. I thank both noble Lords for their commitment to this issue.

Public opinion in Wales is behind the devolution of the Crown Estate, with a YouGov poll last year showing that 58% of the people of Wales support such a move. Senedd Cymru has supported its devolution, as have the majority of political parties in Wales, including my party—the Welsh Liberal Democrats and our federal party. I was encouraged this week to find that, in their response to the final report of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, the Welsh Labour Government said:

“Our longstanding position is that the Crown Estate should be devolved to Wales in line with the position in Scotland”.


That being so, I am disappointed that the Welsh Government were not consulted when this Bill was being prepared.

There are frustrations in Wales, as Scotland is seen to be benefiting from the devolution of Crown Estate powers to the Scottish Parliament, not only through the receipts paid to it but in the control, power and influence that Scotland has over the use of its resources. Scotland appears to move on while Wales lags behind. For us, the process of devolution appears to have come to a stop. There are real concerns that, by the time Wales has control over the Crown Estate, much of the wealth will already have been extracted.

As we appear to have reached something of an impasse, the way forward might be to follow the process followed by the Scottish Affairs Committee in the other place in the lead-up to the devolution of the Crown Estate there. It published a number of reports, one of which in 2014 identified issues in the management of the Crown Estate’s responsibility, particularly in relation to the seabed and foreshore. It looked at issues including

“accountability and transparency … communication and consultation with local communities … cash leakage from local economies … arising from the way the CEC operates … The evidence did not identify such problems with the CEC’s management of its urban and rural estate”,

only those relating to the seabed and foreshore.

We would therefore welcome any decision of the Welsh Affairs Committee to initiate an inquiry to determine if similar problems apply to Wales. It is not of course our place in this Chamber to call for that, but an evidence-taking committee of inquiry would provide the evidence to move this issue forward and address any lessons learned since the devolution of the Crown Estate to Scotland.

As I said in Committee, my amendment does not call for a timescale for the devolution of the Crown Estate to the Welsh Government, because I accept that this will not be completed overnight. However, I am also disappointed that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, which the Minister has signed, does not lay any foundation or route map for the transference of powers to Wales. Because of this, I am minded to seek the opinion of the House on my Amendment 6.

I want to make a couple of comments on Amendment 11, but as the noble Lord has not had the opportunity to speak to his amendment yet, my comments will be brief. I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling his amendment and recognise the time and the cross-party work he put into its preparation—I know it was no easy feat. I am also grateful to the Minister, who has signed Amendment 11. This represents a major change in his stance since Second Reading and Committee of the Bill, and I also acknowledge how difficult this process must have been for him as Treasury Minister.

However, this major change in the Minister’s stance will be seen as the smallest, most insignificant step for those advocating the devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales. Amendment 11 calls for three commissioners to be appointed, one each to represent England, Wales and Northern Ireland and to be

“responsible for giving advice about”

their respective nations.

I have two questions, which I hope the noble Lord or the Minister will be able to address. First, proposed sub-paragraph (3C) refers to

“the giving of advice to the Commissioners about conditions in that part so far as relating to their functions in relation to land there”.

I assume that the use of the word “land” excludes the giving of advice about the more lucrative foreshore and seabed. If it does exclude the foreshore and the seabed, why are they not included?

Secondly, in a nod to devolution, in sub-paragraph (4B) Welsh Ministers are to be “consulted” about the commissioner for Wales before the recommendation is made to His Majesty. Can the Minister confirm that “consulted” means that Welsh Ministers are to take no part in the actual appointment of the commissioner for Wales?

I am seeking more for Wales than Amendment 11 provides. With the devolution of the Crown Estate, we could see an economic boost built on the success of renewable projects around our coastline, reviving coastal communities and ensuring the benefits from these projects are actually felt by those living near them in Wales. I beg to move.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to move Amendment 11 on behalf of my noble friend Lord Hain, who cannot be with us this afternoon. I was present in Committee on the Bill and listened with great interest to noble Lords discussing the issue of devolving the Crown Estate to Wales. I had a great deal of sympathy with the points that were made. I believe it is incongruous that it has already been devolved to Scotland but is not devolved to Wales or Northern Ireland. I speak as someone who was Secretary of State for both Wales and Northern Ireland. Therefore, I welcome the amendment tabled by my noble friend, in so far that it means that there will be commissioners specifically responsible for giving advice to the Crown Estate itself on behalf of Wales and Northern Ireland—which is very good.

I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, about consultation, but it is pretty clear to me that it would be a very foolish Government to appoint commissioners who were not approved by the First Minister in Cardiff and the First and Deputy First Ministers in Belfast. It is a start, though it is not exactly everything that was wanted. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, that my noble friend the Financial Secretary has indeed moved his stance to one which would be agreed to by lots of people in Wales, and I guess in Northern Ireland.

We are living in different times; we now have a Labour Government in Cardiff and in Whitehall. I believe it is important that Governments can get together and talk about these issues in a very special way. That is why this amendment is before us this afternoon: exactly because there have been proper discussions, which I guess the Secretary of State for Wales has also been involved in. Personally, I do not think it goes far enough, but as I said, it is a start.

In the new regime—in this new Britain since the general election—there is a very serious case to be made for a much better relationship between the devolved Administrations and the United Kingdom Government. We have a new Council of the Nations and Regions, which will do a great deal of good for that relationship. We have a situation in Northern Ireland where we now have the Executive up and running, at last, and I congratulate the previous Government on the work they did on that. In this new era, where devolution means something very different from what it has meant over the last number of years, we have to believe that this new relationship will result in decisions such as this one.

I hope that this is not the end of the discussions between the Treasury, the Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive; I hope it is the beginning of discussions on these issues, not just on this one, but on other ones as well. In my personal view, I hope that, ultimately, the Crown Estate should be devolved. However, we are where we are: the Government have made a concession, the Financial Secretary has very kindly signed my noble friend’s amendment, and I very much look forward to what he has to say in the course of this important debate.

[Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)]

My Lords, I will speak to both amendments in this group. I thank the Minister for the comprehensive letters he wrote to Members who took part in Committee, addressing some of our unanswered questions.

I will set out the context of how I am approaching this group. At Second Reading, I outlined clearly how the draft legislation did not deliver fairness for Wales for four key reasons: first, the Crown Estate profits will not be retained in Wales; secondly, the proposed changes to the Crown Estate board do not include Welsh representation; thirdly, expanding investment and borrowing powers for the Crown Estate may undermine the Welsh Government; and, finally, the Bill does not make provisions to promote the economic or social well-being of Wales. In Committee, I tabled three amendments, and my noble friend Lord Wigley tabled an additional three, which sought to remedy these four key issues from a Welsh perspective—issues on which Plaid Cymru has long campaigned.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen]

11: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Commissioners with special responsibility(1) Paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Crown Estate Act 1961 (constitution etc), is amended as follows.(2) Before sub-paragraph (4) insert—“(3B) The commissioners appointed under this paragraph must include—(a) a commissioner responsible for giving advice about England,(b) a commissioner responsible for giving advice about Wales, and (c) a commissioner responsible for giving advice about Northern Ireland.(3C) References in sub-paragraph (3B) to “giving advice about” a part of the United Kingdom are to the giving of advice to the Commissioners about conditions in that part so far as relating to their functions in relation to land there.(3D) A commissioner’s responsibility for giving advice under sub-paragraph (3B) is additional to the other responsibilities of a commissioner.”(3) Before sub-paragraph (5) insert—“(4B) No recommendation may be made to His Majesty for the appointment of a person as a commissioner under sub-paragraph (3B)(b) or (c) unless—(a) the Welsh Ministers have been consulted about the appointment, in the case of an appointment under sub-paragraph (3B)(b), or(b) the Executive Office in Northern Ireland has been consulted about the appointment, in the case of an appointment under sub-paragraph (3B)(c).””Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause would require the persons appointed to be Crown Estate Commissioners to include three commissioners who are able to provide the Commissioners with advice about conditions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland respectively, so far as they relate to the functions of the Commissioners.

Budget Responsibility Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Monday 9th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much support the Bill. The debate has been extremely interesting, although noble Lords seem to want to rewrite recent history. The purpose of the Bill is to reflect on what happened when Liz Truss was Prime Minister. There is a revisionist view going around that she was not so bad after all. The idea that you can have £46 billion of unfunded tax cuts everybody knew was bonkers, which of course was why she did not involve the Office for Budget Responsibility and why she sacked an eminent civil servant, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, because he disagreed with her.

It is ironic that the Office for Budget Responsibility was brought in by the Government of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. It was not a Labour proposal. We have had all this business about how it is not democratic and how we have to go to the people and all the rest of it—but it was brought in by a Conservative Government, apparently in response to what they regarded as the profligacy of the Labour Government of which I happened to be a member. At the very end of that Government, in 2008, 2009 and 2010, when we were facing the international financial crisis, and I was a member of the National Economic Council, the problems that we faced were global. Over the past number of months, the Conservatives have argued, rightly, that many of the problems that they faced in government were global, with Covid and the war in Ukraine, as well as the problem with energy supply.

Of course, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but there is no doubt in my mind that if Gordon Brown had not tackled the financial crisis as he did, it would have been much worse not just for our country but for the whole of the western world. I recall having to meet the Prime Ministers of Canada and Japan because he had called together the leaders of all the major economies in the world to resolve this matter.

Having formed the OBR, the Conservatives, having used what they regarded as the profligacy argument, embarked on a terrible period of austerity which effectively eroded our public services to the extent that they are at rock bottom. It has been 14 years of austerity and now we are told that, in the last year of that, there was no comprehensive spending review, no effective management of revenue spending in the departments and no funding for policies announced during the last six or seven months, and the result of all that is that it is all the more important for there to be an Office for Budget Responsibility to give an independent and transparent account, analysis and assessment of where we are in our economy.

The noble Lord, Lord Frost, said we should not have these bodies; they should be elected and we should rely on the good sense of the British people to assess and make a judgment on the economic mess in which we now find ourselves. Well, they did. They gave the Labour Party a majority of nearly 170 and virtually destroyed the Conservative Party in the House of Commons. They did give a verdict on the Liz Truss mini-Budget and that is why we have a Labour Government and why the Conservative Party will be out of office for a very long time.