Welfare Reform (Welsh Valleys)

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Alun Cairns

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Alun Cairns]

In a moment—with the greatest of respect, I would like to make an element of progress, certainly at the outset.

We have taken steps to deal with the legacy of a welfare system that encouraged dependency and penalised those who wanted to work. The benefits system was clearly broken. It did not work for claimants, for the economy or the people of those communities or for the nation’s finances. According to the Work and Pensions Committee, a parent who increased their hours from 16 to 30 hours of work a week would gain less than £1 for every extra hour they worked. It was hardly a system that incentivised people to do the right thing. That sort of example underlines absolutely the need for reform.

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept the thrust of the Beatty-Fothergill report? In Torfaen, which is a valleys constituency, £34 million is sucked out of the local economy every year, depriving it of expansion and entrepreneurship in my constituency, just like all the other Welsh constituencies. Do the Government accept that that is a really serious issue that we need to look at?

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that point, but that report does not take account of the incentives that are built into the welfare reforms, nor does it recognise the increased income that the poorest in the community will receive from the universal credit. I will come to that.

Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Alun Cairns

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

The changes to the capital budget are nowhere near the cuts that the last Labour Chancellor proposed to make leading up to the Budget. We need to compare like with like, and we need to consider the financial circumstances at the time. One of my early points was that limitless borrowing powers simply cannot be granted because of the changes in circumstances that take place. The point has already been made that if we are asking the Treasury to stand behind the debt that is being taken on by the Welsh Government, the Treasury obviously needs to be able to support that and a sensible limit needs to be provided. The capital sum of £500 million is sensible, certainly in the first instance, but we need to be pragmatic about that over time.

Finally, the Administration’s infrastructure commitments, particularly the electrification of the Great Western main line, demonstrate the priority placed by the Government on the east-west link along south Wales, which has not been forthcoming since the M4 was cancelled all that time ago.

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

If I was an independent observer listening to the previous two Conservative Members’ contributions to the debate, I would wonder whether they wanted borrowing at all. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) seemed to be very lukewarm on the issue, and questioned whether all this should really come out of the revenue budget. My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) made it perfectly clear: 33% of the capital budget has been cut. There is no question in my view, or in the view of probably all the parties represented in the Assembly, including the hon. Gentleman’s party, but that there is a need for capital spending on infrastructure in Wales, including hospitals, schools and all the rest of it. The hon. Gentleman seems to have a lukewarm attitude towards it.

[Alun Cairns]

rose—

[Paul Murphy]

I will give way in a second because I want to refer to what the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) said. He did not really like the idea of what he termed “popular” capital projects. He gave the impression that the Welsh Government would go round Wales seeking out the most popular issues with which to woo the electorate. That is a complete load of baloney. There is a consensus among Assembly Members about what they want: the M4 relief road is one and the A55 is another, but there are others too, including the Velindre and other hospitals. I absolutely welcome the clause. The Government have done well in introducing it. The Labour Government should have done it. I was Secretary of State for five years and we should have done it then, but things move on and the Government have done the right thing, although I question the mechanics of it.

[Alun Cairns]

I want to set the record straight. I am merely sounding a note of caution over limitless borrowing powers. The figure of £500 million is sensible and pragmatic, and it needs the Treasury’s support. After the recent financial crisis, we need to recognise the risks of unlimited borrowing.

[Paul Murphy]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that, but I still direct the independent observer, from wherever he or she may come, to the beginning of his speech where he spoke about the benefits of dealing with these things, which the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) dealt with before the 1997 general election, out of revenue. That is impossible given the strain on the revenue budget these days in Wales. The capital budget has to come out of a separate pot.

I want to emphasise the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and others about the calculation of the £500 million.

Food Banks

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Alun Cairns

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Murphy]

We know that in 2010, in Wales alone, 13% of those who went to food banks did so because of problems with the welfare and benefits system—and that has gone up to 20% today. That is the reality, but there are other reasons, too. It is, of course, also a matter of electricity, gas and water prices, and the price of food has gone up dramatically over recent years. What is to be done about it? The first thing we should do is properly tackle the issue of the cost of living.

[Alun Cairns]

When it comes to increases in the cost of living, what contribution does the right hon. Gentleman think is due to the increases in council tax in Wales? There has been a 9% increase over recent years in Wales, yet it has been broadly flat in England.

[Paul Murphy]

It is nothing like the effect of the cost of electricity and gas on people’s incomes, that is for sure. We have to abolish the bedroom tax, which is a huge issue affecting the need for food banks, and in the meantime I hope people will continue to donate and volunteer.

The truth is that food banks show the best and the worst in our society. Local people in my valley have stepped up to help—Jen Taylor and her excellent team of volunteers have offered their time to help feed people and to give them hope. Churches, charities, offices, shops and individuals have donated huge amounts of food to supply the food bank.

Elections (National Assembly for Wales)

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Alun Cairns

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Paul Murphy]

It seriously damages it, and I will come on to that issue in a second.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the grandstanding from Opposition Members, and even some of the so-called logical arguments that he presents, are undermined by a former Secretary of State, and a former Labour Government, who went against guidance from the Electoral Commission when they changed the electoral system?

[Paul Murphy]

No, because I think those issues were different at the time. The other option that is not in the Green Paper is the question of whether top-up Members of the National Assembly should be elected on an all-Wales basis, as opposed to a regional basis. Personally, I think that would be more logical, and that there should be a list system for Members elected by proportional representation. My point, however, is that these debatable options should have been put to the people of Wales but were not, and that is why the Green Paper is flawed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) touched on the assurances that were given to the First Minister of Wales concerning electoral arrangements for the National Assembly. I understand that the Secretary of State said last week that no such assurances were given, but I want to provide the Chamber with two quotations from what was said when the National Assembly debated the issue some weeks ago. The first comes from the former Presiding Officer of the National Assembly, Lord Elis-Thomas:

“Would it surprise the First Minister to know that, when I was Presiding Officer…I received assurances from the Prime Minister…and the…Secretary of State that there would be no change in our boundaries to coincide with Westminster boundaries?”

The First Minister, Carwyn Jones, answered:

“I received an assurance on two occasions from the Prime Minister that there would be no change without the consent of the Assembly, and I am on record as saying that. I took that assurance in good faith and I expect it to be adhered to. However, the reality is that Scotland will continue to have different boundaries for Scottish Parliament and UK Parliament constituencies. If it works in Scotland, what evidence is there that it could not work in Wales? None is offered.”

The point is that there is obviously a huge difference of opinion between the First Minister and the former Presiding Officer on one hand, and the Secretary of State on the other. Whom are we to believe in this instance? The First Minister has made it absolutely clear to me and to others that such an assurance was given.

Commission on Devolution in Wales

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Alun Cairns

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point about consensus and it is a strong message that needs to go to the Silk commission, but is not the original root of all these inconsistencies that we now face the lack of consensus in 1997, when Labour let the genie out of the bottle and we started on the devolution road? I am mixing my metaphors, but I hope that I have made the point.

[Paul Murphy]

The hon. Gentleman knows that historically I was opposed to devolution—I changed my mind as the years went by—but we had to accept what the people of Wales decided. In 1997, they decided on devolution, albeit by a small majority—we must remember that the Conservative party did not get a majority of Members of Parliament, but we still have a Conservative-led Government—and in the referendum held earlier this year the overwhelming view of people in Wales was that there should be extra powers. It was the people who decided what they wanted in the end, and I agreed with them this time.

I repeat that we do not want to hear about consensus, given that that was abandoned by this Government when they introduced the Bill to reduce the number of our Members of Parliament. For the first time since 1832 we will have fewer than 40 Members of Parliament representing Wales in this House. I am not arguing about the nature of equal constituencies—that is for another debate—but I am saying that the reduction from 40 to 30 in the number of Welsh MPs reduces the influence of Wales within the United Kingdom. I will address that in a few moments’ time.

Part I of the commission’s remit is to deal with money: the financial responsibilities and the remit of the Welsh Assembly. We are told that this is all about accountability, but the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) just referred to the devolution settlement of 1997. Such a settlement also took place in Scotland and later in Northern Ireland, where I played a part. In all those settlements that issue of financial accountability was raised, and it was argued by some, “If a parish or community council can raise revenue, why cannot a Government in Edinburgh, Belfast or Cardiff do so?”

When I chaired the talks in Northern Ireland on whether there should be income tax powers in Northern Ireland, the meeting lasted less than an hour. People in Scotland decided that they would have the possibility of tax-varying powers, but those have never been used. We in Wales rejected this from the beginning, and there was a reason for that: the resource base of Wales is much lower than that of Scotland—the resource base of Northern Ireland is even lower than that of Wales—and therefore the amount of money that could be raised by income tax in Wales or Northern Ireland, and, to a certain extent, in Scotland, is infinitesimally smaller than the amount that could be raised in England. This proposal was therefore abandoned.

The idea of how we finance our devolved Administrations, therefore, came down to the idea of the block grant. That system is not unique. The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) referred to asymmetrical devolution, and that is what occurs in Spain, except that there they have devolution everywhere. They get their money through a system of distribution of block grants and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) said, they are able to ensure that there is proper distribution of money so that poorer areas are helped by richer areas such as Catalonia.