Welsh Affairs

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Stephen Crabb

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

What a terrific privilege it is to follow the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who opened this annual debate on Welsh affairs in the very best traditions of the debate. She has never been afraid to work on a bipartisan, cross-party basis. She demonstrated again her values and her genuine desire to improve the communities she represents, and communities more generally across Wales. I add my voice to that of Mr Deputy Speaker a moment ago in commending her for the work she does, particularly at Christmas time with disadvantaged families in her constituency and throughout the Swansea area. It is really tremendous.

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for calling me so early in the debate. I wish you, belatedly, a happy St David’s day. I did not get to see you yesterday evening at the Guildhall. Maybe you were there, maybe you were not —who knows? There were so many people there. One distinctive thing about celebrating St David’s day, perhaps in contrast to St Patrick’s Day or Burns night celebrations, although this might just reflect my own narrow experience of those two events celebrated by our Celtic cousins, is that it is first and foremost about children.

In opening the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, you referred to the schoolchildren who sang yesterday at the entrance of Downing Street when people were going in for the Prime Minister’s St David’s day reception. In New Palace Yard yesterday, Mr Speaker hoisted y ddraig goch, the red dragon flag, at the start of the day. We also had a choir of schoolchildren. It was wonderful. For generations —you will remember it from your own boyhood, Mr Deputy Speaker—wearing a daffodil or a leek, or more recently a rugby shirt or Welsh national costume, has been a part of the Welsh childhood experience. That is one reason why, as much as I want to maximise St David’s day celebrations—I love the way they seem to grow every year, particularly in London—I am not persuaded that St David’s day should be a national holiday. Would the cultural richness of St David’s day be the same if it was a day for children to remain at home? Schools play a tremendous role in nurturing the St David’s day traditions, giving children a sense of Welsh identity. I put on record my thanks, gratitude and respect to teachers, particularly in Pembrokeshire, for the way, in schools across the county, they nurture St David’s day and help to ensure the traditions pass from one generation to another.

For us in Pembrokeshire, St David’s day has a special resonance. He was one of us, reputedly born on a clifftop on the Pembrokeshire coast. The wonderful holy city of St Davids, in the wild and beautiful north-west peninsular of my constituency, ensures that his memory and legacy will live on forever. For any Member who has not had the opportunity to visit St Davids, it is a wonderful city. It is the smallest city in Britain. It is a beautiful, holy, peaceful place to visit. I know, because I bump into them every so often, that various Members have a particular interest in the area around St Davids and they are very, very welcome. They are also welcome to bring more colleagues.

In Westminster, we are in the middle of Wales week, which seems to grow every year—it is almost a month now! One day is not enough to celebrate; we need more time. This year, Wales week in London is bigger, better and louder than ever. I pay tribute to Dan Langford and the team for the way they have grown this series of events. He told me on Monday that this year there are more than 100 events across London for people with Welsh heritage, Welsh people and people with an interest in Wales to come together and learn something new about Wales and to celebrate.

I referred to the amazing event at the Guildhall in the City of London. It was the first time that I had been and it was a joy to be there in that atmosphere. When the anthem was sung, it was a tremendous spiritual moment for us all. At the event, I heard probably the speech—no disrespect to any speech today—of St David’s day this year. Lowri Roberts is the head of women and girls’ football at the Football Association of Wales. I participated in an event with her on Monday for Wales week in London. I heard her speak then and was extremely impressed, but the speech she gave last night was remarkable. She talked about the role of football in our national life in Wales and the way it has changed, particularly in the last 12 months. Football has a special place for women and girls, and we are seeing a huge exponential growth in women and girls’ football in Wales. It was as much a speech for the men and the boys as it was for the women and the girls, because she spoke not just about sport, gender or Wales, but values, social justice and equality.

I often think that sport plays a bigger role in how we project our identity as a nation than perhaps it does for other countries. When I travel internationally, I say that I am from Wales. I meet people who are not necessarily familiar with the slightly complex structure of our United Kingdom family of nations. When I go to north America, I find that they understand Ireland and the Irish national story, and perhaps the Scottish national story, but sometimes the Welsh national story is less well understood. Sport is an incredibly powerful vehicle in helping to tell that story, especially with the values that our footballers, men and women, have shown over the last 12 months. I am talking not just about their success and achievements in qualifying for various tournaments, but how they, and the team of coaches and administrators around them, have conducted themselves on and off the pitch, representing the very best of who we are in Wales and helping us to tell a very positive and strong story about the Welsh nation.

At the start of this year, we in the Welsh Affairs Committee had the great opportunity, over five days, to visit the United States: New York, Washington DC and Atlanta in Georgia. We were pursuing three inquiries, including how Wales is promoted internationally, particularly in relation to attracting tourism, and the role that Wales plays in delivering net zero and energy security. I want to thank our consul general in New York for facilitating an excellent set of meetings, and our ambassador in Washington, Dame Karen Pierce, for welcoming us to Washington DC. It was a great privilege to present her with a fine bottle of Penderyn whisky.

It was helpful to see the roles played by the UK Government teams and the Welsh Government teams in promoting Wales. I confess that over the years I was one of those people who was a bit sniffy and sceptical about the Welsh Government investing in offices overseas. I have probably been guilty of criticising the Welsh Government for trying to duplicate activities that I thought were rightly the responsibility of UK Government trade or diplomatic teams. What we saw—I hope other members of the Committee agree—was an incredibly strong sense of alignment between the UK Government teams and Welsh Government personnel in trying to further the strategic objectives of promoting the UK and capturing more trade and investment, but the points of difference were really interesting. The teams representing Wales out there, as well as working in very close harmony with their UK counterparts, have an eye on that particular mission to capture something extra for Wales. It was a fascinating visit.

[Stephen Doughty]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned sport, but another of the ways in which Wales is making waves in the world is in our creative industries. We have seen particular growth in my constituency. Obviously, we have “Doctor Who”, “His Dark Materials” and others, and fantastic music artists. We have the fantastic Aleighcia Scott—it was kind of the Secretary of State to invite her to be a lead singer at the Lancaster House event this week. Wales is punching above its weight in all the creative industries, particularly music, TV and film.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He is exactly right, and I encourage him to follow the output of the Welsh Affairs Committee as we continue our inquiry into broadcasting in Wales. He may have seen a few weeks ago that Netflix chose to use the incredibly important forum of the Committee to announce its investment in its first Welsh-language drama. It is great to see Welsh-language productions from Wales, made in Wales and projecting the Welsh language through new global streaming platforms. It is an opportunity to project Welsh culture and identity, and perhaps a challenge and even a threat to some of the traditional broadcasters. Overall, he alludes to a healthy picture.

I referenced our visit to north America, where there are huge opportunities. I often think that we perhaps make too much of the slightly odd colonial experiment in Patagonia and not enough of the Welsh diaspora that moved to the US, particularly in the late 18th and early 19th century. Welsh people were at the heart of the US industrial revolution experience. When the Welsh Affairs Committee was in Washington in January, we had the opportunity to visit Capitol Hill and were hosted by the Friends of Wales Caucus in Congress.

I thank Congressman Morgan Griffith from Virginia for welcoming us and for the fascinating discussion that we had in his office about the links between our nations. He has people in his district with strong Welsh heritage, and there are towns and villages in his district and throughout Pennsylvania that bear the names of Welsh towns and villages that we are familiar with. That means that there are opportunities for us. Sometimes, I think that the Irish and Scottish make far more of their diaspora and use it more intelligently to further strategic and economic objectives than we do. We were looking at that as a Committee. I pay tribute to Ty Francis for his work in creating New York Welsh, a diaspora community in New York City, and for his further work to create a network of people with Welsh heritage internationally who all want to feed back and support the growth of Wales back home.

I will conclude on an area where I feel upbeat and optimistic this St David’s day—energy. Wales has an important role to play in helping the UK to meet energy security objectives and to make strides towards achieving net zero. Wales already has an enormous heritage when it comes to energy. In my constituency, Milford Haven has a history of 50 years of oil and gas processing and import. The opportunity in front of us is the launch of a brand-new industry—floating offshore wind. We have made great strides with fixed-bottom offshore wind in this country, particularly on the eastern seaboard of the UK. But with floating offshore wind, we can have bigger turbines, go to deeper waters where it is windier, get a better load factor on the turbines and create more electricity.

With this new industry we cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. I am looking forward to the remarks by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who has been working hard on that. If we do this right, we can create new domestic economic opportunities and genuine supply chains here in the UK and in Wales, and centre this new industry around Port Talbot and Milford Haven. It is great that our ports are collaborating on the Celtic freeport bid. It would be wonderful to hear from the Secretary of State when we might hear the outcome of that bidding process. That is the prize in front of us that is worth capturing. Big industrial economic opportunities do not come along that often in Wales, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have one now and we should seize it.

Support for the Welsh Economy and Funding for the Devolved Institutions

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Stephen Crabb

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions levelling up. I note what the Government are doing in terms of the funds that are coming to Wales, but there is a shortfall of nearly £1 billion compared with what Wales would have received. In 2019 the Government committed as a minimum to match what had been provided to Wales under EU structural and investment funds. That commitment has not been met; we have seen a shortfall in both rural funding and other funding. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that is a major problem when we look at Wales’s future challenges and structural needs?

[Stephen Crabb]

We have discussed that very point at the Select Committee; indeed, just a fortnight ago, the Secretary of State was questioned on it by colleagues on the Committee. We know from previous arguments that it is not always easy to pinpoint the exact details of the totality of spending in Wales, but the general argument that Wales does not receive a “fair share” of funding is a constant theme in Welsh politics. I imagine that will continue long after we have all moved on from this place.